Turkeys invade Alameda — and they’re beloved
Eric Case was bicycling through Alameda on a recent afternoon when he saw a cluster of wild turkeys, walking at their usual subglacial speed across one of the city’s busiest intersections.
They were holding up an Alameda Police Department officer in a marked car. And they did not care, or seem to notice.
“Eventually the cop car starts honking, laying on the horn repeatedly,” Case said, pointing as he re-enacted the scene near the same intersection on a recent Tuesday. “And the turkey’s like, ‘Nope, I’m doing my thing.’ Alameda turkeys obey their own laws.”
As I listened, I gave a series of understanding nods. That’s so like an Alameda turkey. Some cities use goats to clear overgrown brush. BART hired a falcon to chase pigeons away. In Alameda, we have traffic-calming turkeys. And the city isn’t trying to get rid of them.
How they arrived is a mystery. Alameda is a literal island, and while turkeys can fly short
distances (or, theoretically, pass through one of the city’s tunnels or bridges), no one is quite sure how they got here.
Bay Area residents also know that cute stories involving wildlife can end very badly, whether it’s a San Francisco coyote that gets too comfortable around people, or Oakland’s problems with Gerald, the divisive turkey that attacked elderly people and children near a rose garden and was removed from the city.
But for the past decade or so since the first widespread Alameda turkey sightings, the turkeys and citizens have coexisted, and even thrived together. In a quiet city where two kids popping wheelies on their dirt bikes might spark a furor on Nextdoor, the turkeys generate little controversy.
“I get complaints about so many things, but not about the turkeys,” said Alameda Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft. “People have sent me photographs, saying, ‘Maybe we should get animal control out here.’ But I think it’s one of those things that people are just kind of bemused by them, and also a little protective — making sure they don’t get hit by a car or anything.”
Things Alameda officials don’t know about the turkeys: how they got here, where they spend nights and how many fowl there are in the city limits. It could be five or could be 500. (I’ve never seen more than six in one place.)
But one thing is crystal clear: They are extremely comfortable living in Alameda. While I’ve never seen a turkey act in a menacing way, I’ve seen many acts of passive aggression. They seem to pick the busiest streets, perch on the most expensive automobiles and cross roads at such a slow speed (One … Tiny … Turkey … Step … At … A … Time …) that each encounter feels like being on the losing end of a staring contest. If the turkeys had hands instead of wings, one could imagine their little feathered middle fingers high in the air. Turkeys 11,479, Alameda residents 0.
I once saw the biggest and most intimidating turkey on the island, we’ll call him Draymond, cross busy Buena Vista Avenue and turn his back to me with his tail feathers fanned out like a crossing guard. We both stayed there, motionless, while two smaller turkeys crossed the street. After all were safe, the alpha turkey waited a long beat — with no courtesy wave — then headed to the sidewalk.
But while the turkeys’ demeanor is far from kind, they seem to bring out the best in Alamedans.
Alameda communications officer Sarah Henry said the turkeys seemed more visible early in the pandemic. An adult turkey had baby chicks (official turkey terminology is poults) near her home, which she watched grow, until one of the “teen” turkeys was hit by a car.
“By the time my friend and I ran up, another woman was there crying,” Henry remembered. “The mom turkey would not leave the dead bird’s side and was picking at it — it seemed like she was trying to bring it back to life. The brother and sister turkeys were making awful noises … ”
By the time Henry called the Alameda Police Department, the animal control officer had already received more than 10 calls from concerned residents.
That incident aside, the island is in many ways the perfect environment for a blasé turkey with little sense of selfpreservation to thrive. Case, who grew up near the Appalachians in Ohio, where horrible car-versus-deer accidents on country roads were frequent, points out that the speed limit throughout Alameda is 25 mph. The expanding network of bike lanes and large number of children has many drivers already on the lookout.
Ashcraft, who campaigned for her 2022 re-election in part on bicycle and pedestrian safety, agrees, calling the turkeys “a good reminder to all of us to just slow down a little.”
I’ve lived in Alameda for seven years, after 17 in Oakland and San Francisco, and still have trouble describing my quaint new home.
Alameda’s a time warp to my childhood, with a throwback ice cream parlor and a 1980s arcade. It’s a series of contradictions, often feeling judgmental and inclusive at the same time. You can still sense the military town it used to be (the nation’s longest Fourth of July parade!), while raising your kids surrounded by diversity and progressive values.
But there’s something intangible about the island that I have a hard time describing, except to point to the wild turkeys of Alameda.
“I like to say that our unofficial motto in Alameda is, ‘Everyone belongs here,’ ” Ashcraft said. “So surely that would apply to all of God’s creatures, right? Turkeys included.”