Winchester Woman Held Captive By Wild Turkey

While turkeys seem pleasant enough, and rarely cause any harm on Thanksgiving, an angry, wild turkey can be a dangerous animal to deal with.

On Tuesday evening, around 6 p.m., a Swan Road resident was pulling into her car when a wild turkey jumped at her and started to attack her vehicle as she was trying to drive it into the garage.

The woman said that this turkey did the same thing last week, and she didn’t call the police because she thought the animal had left.

“It kept attacking the woman at her house,” said Winchester Animal Control Officer, Jerry Smith of the 17-pound turkey. “It’s been doing it for a couple of days. We can’t have animals attacking people around town.”

According to the police report, she was able to close the garage door, but ended up being trapped, unable to get to her house, because the turkey refused to leave her property.

After 15 minutes “of being held captive” the woman called the to help her get into the house.

The responding officer saw that the turkey was still on the property. He got out of his cruiser and took a shotgun with him. As soon as the turkey noticed him, it charged and the officer shot and killed it.

The animal was then disposed of it in a trash bag.

According to Smith, there are a number of turkeys that roam around Winchester. Thornberry Road has a flock of at least 20 turkeys, as does Sunset Road. And the cemetery, Smith said, tends to have a number of flocks that walk the grounds.

But residents don’t need to worry about wild turkeys, Smith said, unless they become angry. And it’s male turkeys that normally become aggressive as they are protecting the females.

“It’s not a problem until they get aggressive,” Smith said. “And we can’t shoot them unless they become aggressive. Typically it’s not a problem, this case it was a little unusual for it to be so aggressive, but it was probably just protecting the flock. Normally they don’t become aggressive.”