You’re driving to work. Already running late. Cruising down Lincoln hoping to get to your desk before your boss notices when suddenly traffic stops. A line of cars in both directions patiently wait for… turkeys?
If you’ve lived on the South Hill for any amount of time, you’ve probably encountered a turkey traffic jam. Flocks of turkeys slowly and methodically crossing the road. All taking their sweet time, oblivious to the fact that people have places to be.
And yet, we afford them the time and grace.
They’ve sort of become the unofficial mascot of the South Hill. However, for Jonathan Cornell and Bill Strunk, they’ve become the official mascot of their 45+ men’s baseball team.
“We just thought it was a distinctive feature of the South Hill,” Cornell said. “These are creatures who live in and among us.”
“I would say it’s more about the comedy of it than anything else,” Strunk added. “It’s fun to be part of a rafter or whatever a turkey group is called.”
Strunk nailed it. They’re called rafters.
“The first introduction (into our region) began in the early 1900s,” Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Assistant Wildlife Biologist Matt Brinkman noted while standing on a hill next to a bunch of turkeys in a tree in Manito Park.
Brinkman said the turkeys aren’t native to these parts, but there have been efforts to introduce them to the area for hunting purposes with the most successful campaign happening during a nearly 20 year window beginning in the early 1980s.
“Those birds once they made it here have really thrived,” Brinkman said.
They’ve thrived so much, Brinkman mentioned hunters from all across the country come to Eastern Washington for a crack at our turkeys.
“We’re known for our turkeys and we have very liberal seasons and limits,” Brinkman emphasized.
However, there’s no hunting them inside city limits and the turkeys you see in town seem to know this. They seem to flaunt it and with no predators really, with the exception of a Toyota Corolla or Ford F-150 driving down Grand Blvd, and easily accessible food, sometimes provided by residents (a practice Brinkman and Fish and Wildlife discourage), the City of Spokane is really a turkey paradise.
“Which is probably why they like it here,” Brinkman said. “They’re here because we’ve provided a great place to be.”
Not everyone is a fan, though.
“We get a lot of complaints about them,” Brinkman noted. “A lot of people like the first turkey that shows up or the second turkey that shows up, but when 50 of them show up, all of the sudden they don’t like them as much.”
“They do have a tendency to dig up your garden and eat all of the seeds you just planted,” South Hill resident Jan Treecraft said while a bunch of turkeys perched on the fence behind her near 16th and Lincoln.
“I think most people I know really enjoy them,” Treecraft’s walking partner David Brookbank added. “They do their thing and people pretty much accommodate them.”
Brinkman said if you find the turkeys to be a nuisance, whether in your yard or heading to work, the key is to not be intimidated by them.
“I’m not saying go chase down turkeys, just make sure you continue to drive and get them to move out of the way and they will learn to not stop traffic,” he said. “Shouting at them, making loud noises, spraying them with the water hose… Don’t let the turkeys intimidate you. If you need to wave a broom and chase them off your property you can do that.”
While not everyone has embraced the birds, over the two seasons Cornell and Strunk’s South Hill Turkeys team has played, their fans have embraced them and their mascot.
“We get a pretty good representation, we’ve got some people who bring their turkey calls,” Strunk said.
The South Hill Turkeys have yet to win a game, but both Strunk and Cornell believe by harnessing the power of their mascot with their carefree attitude, they’ll be able to post a couple of notches in the win column next season.
“The wins will come,” Cornell confidentially said. “We’re perfect so far. We haven’t won a game but bit by bit we’re improving.”
As for the actual South Hill turkeys? The traffic-stopping, couldn’t care less about cars, no fear of a dinner table, plump with pomposity, feathered friends of the South Hill? Brinkman said they’re here to stay.
“At this point it’s learn to live with them.”
