Wild turkeys rule the roost in Nanuet neighborhood
We've got plenty to contend with here in the Wild Kingdom, with bears lounging around in Monsey, coyotes roaming in South Nyack and deer stopping by to enjoy a salad in everybody's backyards.
It's not exactly a jungle out there, but coexisting with so-called "nuisance wildlife" can get mighty interesting.
In one Nanuet neighborhood, Carmelina Tartaglia says a band of rowdy, or possibly randy, wild turkeys have been terrorizing her and her children.
"You're simply walking to the bus stop to pick up a child off the bus and they run after you and chase you and it's almost an impression that they want to attack you," Tartaglia, who lives on Birchwood Terrace, told me recently. "Last week they chased a kindergartner off the bus right up to the steps of his house."
The birds — sometimes five or six at a time — were strutting around early last month and only recently have they begun to loosen their grip.
Tartaglia's taken to carrying an aluminum softball bat when she walks her 10-year-old twins Lianna and Carmelo to the bus stop.
She wondered if someone in the area was feeding them. "That's not a good idea. This is not a petting zoo," Tartaglia said.
The Town of Clarkstown doesn't handle turkey-related issues outside of possibly an annual holiday food drive.
The town's animal control officer Pat Coleman said she gets calls about someone having an "encounter" with a wild turkey from time to time, but that's not part of her job.
"The problem is the state regulates them … so people feel we're sending them off, but the state has the authority to order trapping and things like that," Coleman said.
"I don't know know enough about turkeys," Coleman added. "I'm getting enough calls about coyote sightings and bear sightings."
The state's turkey population is actually on the decline, contrary to what's been going on over by the Tartaglias, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation says the birds rarely are troublemakers.
Seems the root of the problem in Nanuet may be that age-old problem common among all species: mating season.
The search for love may cause the turkeys to become a tad wilder than usual and start gobbling and puffing up their feathers to make themselves look bigger. And seeing their reflection in the glare of a car or in its mirror, they may start pecking, the DEC says.
But who among us can say he or she hasn't done the same under similar circumstances?
Just don't tell Tartaglia the birds are harmless.
"Every time I step out of the house I have to look and see if one of them is around," Tartaglia said Thursday.
Brush with rabies
Wherever turkeys fall in the pecking order of wildlife nuisances, at least they don't carry rabies or any diseases that can be transmitted to humans, according to the DEC.
Coleman, who spends a chunk or her time protecting citizens from rabid animals, had a brush with the potentially fatal disease herself last month. She was bitten on the left leg by a raccoon near the police station's parking lot on Maple Avenue. The animal later tested positive for rabies, so Coleman had to go through a regimen of six shots — one in the wound, the others in the thigh.
The shots weren't painful, she said, and she is now fine.
"I was more annoyed than anything," Coleman said. "We have a church and a day care center right across the street. I'm not going to be a martyr but if it had to be anyone, I'm glad it wasn't a child.
"It can happen to anyone," added Coleman, who's been on the job for more than three decades. "You always have to be cautious."
Robert Brum is a columnist and editor of The Rockland Angle, a nightly email newsletter exclusively for Rockland County news, features and other essential information. To sign up for The Angle, visit lohud.com/newsletters, check the "Rockland Angle" box and submit your email address.
Twitter: @Bee_bob
Nuisance wildlife: who you gonna call?
•Clarkstown Animal Control officer: 845-639-5888
•State Department of Environmental Conservation: weekdays - 845-256-3098