Category: Newman Aline

The Town Turkey

4/28/2021

Aline Alexander
Newman
Wildlife Truth Teller

One warm, August day in 2020, Mark Eddy, of Old Forge, New York, spotted two wild turkeys in his backyard. Hmm, thought Eddy. Whitetail deer wander all around this Adirondack village. But turkeys? They're rare. Still, this pair of gobblers began showing up almost every day, twice a day.

In September, one turkey disappeared. Then the snow came. Aware that many turkeys perish in the harsh, Adirondack winters, Eddy decided to feed his remaining feathered friend. First, he learned to make two turkey sounds with his mouth--a rolling "brrrp" sound called a purr that he uses to calm the turkey and a "chip, chip" noise to call him to supper. It worked. "If I see him roosting in a tree in the morning and call him, he'll come down," Eddy says. "If he's across the street, he'll run over."

Commercial bird seed mix. Sunflower seeds. Cracked corn. Even live mealworms. The turkey loves them all. But talk about picky. "I put dried mealworms in his food once," says Eddy. "He focused one eye on them, looked sideways suspicious like, and walked away!"

The big bird trotted all over town, peering into movie theater doors, storefronts, and the school. He often turned up in the school's bus circle at dismissal time, amusing the kids. As his celebrity grew, one woman purchased a turkey costume that she parades around in for laughs.

Many people enjoy having a town turkey, but some don't. Perhaps they fear he'll scratch the paint on their cars when he perches on them. Or maybe they dislike him wandering into the road and stopping traffic, sometimes in both directions.

Now that spring is here, the turkey doesn't come around as much. When he does appear, he's likely to be strutting about fanning his tail. Female turkeys (hens) occasionally do that, but it's usually done by male birds (Toms) hoping to attract a female.

Which begs another question. Is the town turkey male or female? Some fans nicknamed it Henrietta Thomasina, in an attempt to cover both bases. However, Eddy now believes the turkey is a young male (jake). Why? "When he's excited or acting aggressive, his head turns bright blue," Eddy says. Only males do that. Not yet old enough to grow a beard from his chest, this young jake is old enough to find a mate. Once he does, the town turkey won't be alone anymore.

The town turkey surveying its domain. Photo courtesy of Mark Eddy.

Mistaking his own reflection for a female turkey, the excited male fans his tail to a truck bumper. Notice how his head has turned blue. Photo courtesy of Matt Newman

The town turkey's three-toed tracks are easy to spot in the snow. Photo courtesy of Mark Eddy

As darkness falls, the town turkey takes to his roosting spot high in a tree. Photo courtesy of Matt Newman.

The snood, blue face, and chest beard mark this turkey as a male.

Aline Alexander Newman is a lifelong animal lover who has written more than 50 magazine stories about animals from cats and dogs to tortoises and whales. Her love of orangutans is reflected in her popular book, Ape Escapes! and More True Stories of Animals Behaving Badly (National Geographic Kids Chapters).

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Snowball: The Cat That Convicted a Killer

4/22/2021

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Aline Alexander
Newman
Wildlife Truth Teller

With its red dirt roads, cobalt sky, and deep green forests, Canada’s Prince Edward Island looks idyllic. Yet on October 3, 1994, a horrible crime took place there. Shirley Duguay, 32, disappeared and was believed murdered. But searchers looked for weeks, and all they found was her blood-spattered car.
            Then a man’s blood-stained jacket turned up in the woods. Stuck to the lining were several stiff, white hairs. Constable Savoie, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, remembered seeing an all-white tomcat named Snowball at the home of his chief suspect, Douglas Beamish. Beamish was Shirley’s sometime boyfriend and an ex-con. Could those hairs be from Snowball? If so, they would tie Beamish to Shirley’s car—the scene of the crime.
            Savoie sent the jacket to the police lab for a DNA examination. Found in body cells, DNA is like a chemical fingerprint. It’s unique to every individual. And the blood on the jacket matched the blood in the car.
            But the lab wouldn’t test the animal hairs. “We only do humans,” the scientists said.     Frustrated, Savoie called lab after lab. They all refused. Finally, he contacted Dr. Stephen J. O’Brien. Dr. O’Brien ran a laboratory at the National Cancer Institute, in Frederick, Maryland. He was studying house cats in hopes of finding treatments for human diseases. “You’re my last hope,” Savoie pleaded.
            Dr. O’Brien asked Savoie for a blood sample from Snowball. That would give him two kinds of fur-ensic, er, forensic evidence—blood and hairs. Then he told Savoie to follow FBI guidelines and pack the evidence in separate canisters, hop a plane, and hand-deliver them.
            Dr. O’Brien’s team compared the DNA in Snowball’s hair to the DNA in his blood. Bingo! It was an almost purr-fect match! But Prince Edward Island is small and isolated. What if many island cats were related, with similar DNA?
            Savoie went cat-catching again and collected blood samples from a bunch of neighborhood fur balls. To Dr. O’Brien’s relief, their DNA profiles were all different. Statistically, the chance of another cat having DNA similar to Snowball’s was one in forty-five million!
            Meanwhile, a fisherman stumbled upon Shirley’s body.
            Roger Beamish was arrested. Thanks to Dr. O’Brien’s testimony, he was found guilty at trial and sentenced to 18 years in prison. This marked the first time animal DNA was used to convict a criminal. Score one for Dr. O’Brien, Constable Savoie, and Deputy Snowball!

Snowball, Douglas Beamish’s cat, was none the worse for having donated a vial of blood. When Beamish was sent to prison, Snowball stayed behind with Beamish’s parents. Photo courtesy of Dr. Stephen J. O’Brien

With veterinarian expert Dr. Gary Weitzman as guide, Aline Alexander Newman helps kids understand what cats are trying to communicate by their body language and behavior. So if you've ever wondered what Fluffy means when she's purring or moving her tail emphatically from left to right--How to Speak Cat: A Guide to Decoding Cat Language is for you! It's full of insights, expert advice, and real-life cat scenarios, and showcases more than 30 poses, so you'll soon learn what each meow and flick of the tail means!

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The Town Turkey

Snowball: The Cat That Convicted a Killer

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