“I’m a mother, it seems, and these are my children”

This night before Thanksgiving, I saw a stunning and quite surprising film on PBS – part of its Nature series. Entitled My Life as a Turkey, it chronicles the hatching, growing, learning, exploring and socialization of two groups of sibling wild turkeys and their adopted man-mom, naturalist Joe Hutto (played by Jeff Palmer). Remarkably,
Joe was “born into a hardcore turkey hunting family and culture.” Fascinating
and utterly moving, this film illustrates a somewhat enviable experience of living with young turkeys (‘poults’):

These animals were telling me how to live my life; also, we [humans] do not have a privileged access to reality.

Stories of human-turkey relationships only provide greater credence to the families any of us may form with other creatures – dogs, cats, rabbits, rats – all of whom deserve our affection and rescue from otherwise terrible ends by human hands.

The scene that prompted this post: two of the birds had died, and we see Joe digging their graves. Continue reading →