Taming Cal Poly’s turkeys
This is a cross-published piece with Mustang News, more information can be found here.
Turkeys have been a staple on the Cal Poly campus for years. Though beloved by many, Cal Poly turkeys have a reputation of attacking students, stopping traffic and blocking entrances around campus.
Microbiology sophomore Benjamin Broudy started to feed the turkeys on campus after a friend mentioned wanting to train them.
“You know, some people do call me king of the turkeys,” he said. “That is a name that I’ve kind of acquired.”
Broudy began to feed the turkeys birdseed and other grains before his morning classes, eventually gaining their trust and getting them to eat out of his hand.
“You have to be very gentle with them, at first they’re going to be scared of you,” he said. “So it takes a while.”
Broudy says that his flock of turkeys now recognizes him.
“I know them too,” Broudy said. “There’s Martin, Lewis, Geffrey with a G, Jeffrey with a J, Neil, they all have, like, very distinct features and personalities.”
Broudy said he plans to continue to feed the turkeys for as long as he’s at Cal Poly.
But some students are not as big fans of the campus birds. John Bychok is a recent Cal Poly graduate.
“As far as it comes to the living, alive turkeys on this campus, I mean, I’m not the biggest fan,” Bychok said. “They chase you, they hunt you down, frankly.”
As a freshman, Bychok said he was once chased into the woods by ten turkeys. Ever since then, he has kept his distance. Although Bychok finds the turkeys to be a nuisance, he said that they live on campus too.
“They’re just turkeys and you gotta let them live because they’re letting you live, most of the time,” he said. “Other than that one time, tried to kill me.”
Broudy, on the other hand, appreciates the unique bond that can be formed with the turkeys, even if their trainability has its limits.
“It would be great if I could just be walking around campus and then the flock comes up to me and just like, walks with me to class,” Broudy said. “That would be, like, ideal scenario.”
He also says that students shouldn’t judge the birds based on their worst interactions with them.
“I think that people misunderstand the turkeys a lot,” Broudy said. “You know, a lot of people just think of them as like these aggressive animals that just like, steal their food. But really they’re very kind. It’s like a dog really, if you think about it, it’s like it just is like a dog with feathers and like more diseases.”
