Illinois 
                                                      Wild Turkey 
 
 
 
 
Extract from *The Farmer's Attitude Towards Bird Protection" by 
Elmer R. Waters (Indiana Audubon Year Book, 1937) 
 
 
 
 
     "One of my earliest and most vivid recollections was of the 
day when everybody combined to slaughter the last immense flock of 
Wild Turkeys. They enticed so many tame Turkeys away and were so 
destructive to crops, that their extermination was decreed by the grange,

churches and general public. I am glad to remember that my father 
opposed it, however, he loaned his gun and went along and carried me. 
I cannot remember he was at all backward in eating the turkeys afterwards.

 
     "All that day the scattered flocks of Turkeys were gradually 
pushed into a large tract of woodland, nearly Willow Branch Church, 
in the Sangamon river bottom. A circle of men, women and children more 
than a mile in diameter, gradually closed in. Flint lock, and civil 
war musket, Kentucky rifles and other miscellaneous Junk, roared in 
competition with the fine guns of the town sportsmen and the professional

market hunters. The Turkeys milled around in that deadly contracting 
circle, without sense enough to fly out and were practically exterminated.

I remember one grand old gobbler, flying so high as to be out of range 
of shot that sailed a mile away to safety. 
 
     "I vividly remember my Joy and exultation on the roar of that wild

fusilade, and my sympathy for the slaughtered birds. I had no sympathy 
for the cowardly wolves, foxes and wild dogs, nor for the savage boare 
and sows who fought fiercely to the last and made things exceedingly 
lively for the hunters. Wagon loads of all sorts of game were hauled 
away and distributed. My parents commentated on the savage lust for 
slaughter in apparently kindly folks."