Separating Fact from Fiction About Wild Turkeys and Thanksgiving

If you struggle to make sparkling conversation while enjoying your Thanksgiving turkey, read on to see how you can wow friends and family with little known facts about the wild turkey.

True or False:
Wild turkeys were on the menu at the harvest celebration that took place in the autumn of 1621.

False: Though it’s likely the Pilgrims and Native Americans supped on ducks and geese, there is no record that wild turkeys were on the menu. Because the Pilgrims lumped all wild fowl under the turkey label, nobody really knows for sure whether or not they dined on North America’s biggest game bird. However, it’s pretty certain their feast included surf and turf: lobster and venison.

After that first feast, similar celebrations took place only sporadically throughout the years. While President George Washington proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, it wasn’t until the 19th Century that Thanksgiving and turkeys gained a foothold as an American tradition. In 1863, President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as the National Day of Thanksgiving. The mid-1800s also marked the time when Americans began eating turkey for Thanksgiving.

True or False:
Ben Franklin campaigned to have the wild turkey as the centerpiece of the Great Seal instead of the bald eagle.

False: Ben Franklin did call the bald eagle a “rank coward” in a letter to his daughter while praising the wild turkey as “a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America.” However, several factors suggest Franklin didn’t really believe the Seal should bear the wild turkey’s image. The letter to his daughter was written a year-and-a-half after Congress approved the Great Seal’s bald eagle design, and some suspect Franklin’s suggestion was delivered tongue in cheek. Further evidence is the fact Franklin also championed the rattlesnake as an appropriate symbol of "the temper and conduct of America." And while serving on the committee Congress appointed to design the seal, he suggested an action scene depicting Moses and Pharaoh.

True or False:
Wild Turkeys Can Fly.

True: Though wild turkeys can’t fly like an eagle, they do get airborne. A wild turkey will take wing to escape danger, flying at speeds up to 55 mph. While most of their flights are short hops, they can go for nearly a mile. Plus, every night, wild turkeys fly into trees to roost.

On the other hand, domestic turkeys can’t fly. Chalk it up to selective breeding to create fatter birds that can’t fly or run like its wild cousins.

True or False:
Wild Turkeys are an endangered species.

False: Though wild turkeys are abundant today, we were in danger of losing them forever a hundred years ago. In the early 1930s, there were only 30,000 wild turkeys left in North America. Today their numbers top 7 million, according to the National Wild Turkey Federation.

How did that happen? After World War II, state wildlife agency biologists began trapping wild turkeys and releasing them to repopulate areas with good habitat but no birds. That effort was supported by hunter/conservationists, who funded restoration work through their license fees and excise taxes on firearms, ammunition and archery gear. When the NWTF entered the picture in 1973, they accelerated the restoration work and supported habitat improvement projects as well.

Armed with this information, you are sure to be the toast of the table this Thanksgiving!

Go one step further and cook a turkey that is sure to knock everyone’s socks off.