I am a recovering vegetarian. I dabbled in it during graduate school when the plight of the factory-farmed animals seemed too much to bear. Now, I readily eat animals, no matter how they lived out of pure cheapness. I'm not really cheap, just poor. I would love to be able to afford organic, free-range, hand-fed, massaged animal products, but I can't. So I feed my family whatever meat shows up in the grocery store, except turkey. I never, ever eat turkey. I would consider eating a wild turkey, but that's as far as I can go. I wonder what that makes me. Lacto-ovo vegetarians eat milk and eggs. Pesco-vegetarians will eat fish and many people have cut out red meat from their diet. But what about those of us that will eat anything, I mean anything, except turkey? A pesco-pollo-carno-lacto-ovo vegetarian? Surely, I can't be the only one.
In the fall of the year, I was driving to work on the two-lane highway I always took to work. It's not uncommon to find a dead animal in the road but it is quite uncommon to find an injured turkey. Not one of those impressive wild turkeys, a white turkey from an industrial turkey farm. Clearly, it had fallen off the "turkey truck" where it had been crammed with 500 of it's closest friends on a ride to its death. A few weeks later, it easily could have been the turkey my mother-in-law fed my family.
As I swerved to avoid it, I noticed it was still alive. Generally, I don't kill animals, but I just couldn't let it suffer in the middle of the road. So I did what I think most people would do in this situation. I turned around, ran into the road, picked it up and put it in my backseat.
Now, I really hadn't thought this plan through. All I could think to do was call my friend, Kathy, who is a hard-core vegetarian and animal lover. She'll know what to do.
"Oh, my gosh, Tonya! You are amazing! Take it to the animal clinic at the university. They will know what to do!"
Of course! The university's vet school has a huge clinic with a wildlife section. I'd taken lawn mower-mauled baby bunnies there before, so I completely agreed they would be perfect to take care of the turkey. I wouldn't have to pay for it and they would stitch him right up. I even knew of a friend who had a hobby farm with peacocks, donkeys and such. It would be a perfect place for him to live out the rest of his long life.
Driving to the clinic, I kept checking him in the rear view mirror. He was looking around and making a turkey-ish glug, glug noise in his throat. I knew he must be thirsty, but I only had yesterday's Diet Coke to offer him. I had sense enough to tell him to just hang on and the clinic would get him some water. I noticed his beak was broken off and bloody, his feet were gnarled and his chest (i.e. breast meat) was showing. My poor little turkey was suffering. I assured him I would be right back with the doctors.
As I was walking into the clinic, I saw an acquaintance of mine who was in charge of lab animals in my department. She's a tough woman with curly red hair who happens to live in the same small town. I wasn't in the mood for her to talk to me in extreme detail about some shit I didn't care about, so I tried to just wave and keep moving. Nope.
"Tonya, what are you doing here?" "Oh, really? In your car?" "You know, it didn't get the beak and feet injuries from falling off the truck. Actually, industrially-raised turkeys have their beaks cut off so they don't peck each other. They can't stand up on their feet because they are genetically designed for larger breasts. Did you also know that, for many years....."
I didn't hear the rest of her lecture. I was heartbroken and even more determined to save this bird. I ran in and told the woman and the front desk that a turkey had been injured on the highway. She gave me a condescending look and said, "Yeah, those wild turkeys are huge and get hit all the time. The road department will come pick it up."
"Ma'am, it's not a wild turkey, it's one of those white ones. Like we eat? It must have fallen off the truck going to be butchered, " I explained.
Again with the look she said, "Well, the road department will pick it up. They don't care if they are wild or not. They pick up anything dead in the road, deer, dogs, cats, raccoons. Anything."
"It's in my car. I brought it here to be helped."
Well, that definitely changed her tune. Instead of looking at me with amused understanding, she now looked at me like I might be dangerous or, at least, mentally unstable. She got on the phone and two vet students in their blue scrubs promptly came out. I'm hoping the fact that campus security showed up shortly after was purely a coincidence.
The students looked at the turkey and told me that the wild animal clinic doesn't handle pets.
"A pet?! This turkey fell off a truck going to be butchered! He wasn't going to the fucking petting zoo!"
They proceeded to check with the supervisor and agreed to admit my turkey to the wildlife clinic. They promised to take good care of him and call me with updates. As you probably predicted, he didn't make it. The vet that called me said he was dehydrated so they hooked him up to a turkey-IV and pushed lactate ringers (stat!). I just made the last part up, but they did give him fluids but he didn't survive.
I was obviously devastated. I had planned such a happy post-torture life for him. And, yes, I planned to name him Tom. But, that wasn't in the cards for this turkey. Did the wildlife clinic have a scrumptious, free turkey dinner that Thanksgiving? Maybe. But one thing is for sure, I have never eaten turkey again.
