Solution to turkey problem may reside in Illinois

Farmers oppose turkey relocation program,” was the five-column headline on the lead page of the B Section of the Tuesday morning newspaper. The article reported on the problems central Maine dairy farmers are experiencing with nuisance wild turkeys, even as the state works to expand the birds’ range.

“Man with a secret helps rid Illinois city of nuisance birds,” proclaimed a four-column headline on Page One of the same edition. The story was about an 82-year old Decatur, Ill., man who has become a legend in the Midwest for his ability to rid cities of great gatherings of nuisance birds such as starlings and crows through a top-secret process known only to him.

Talk about a match arranged in heaven just waiting to be consummated here in Maine. If dairy farmers were to connect the dots on this one they’d seem to have the solution to yet another problem that appears designed to help drive them nuts and/or out of business, whichever comes first.

Not that soliciting the help of the Bird Man of Decatur to call off the turkeys would be all that popular with sportsmen or with the Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department, which seeks to expand – not constrict – the range of Maine’s rapidly growing wild turkey population.

The IFW policy of expanding the birds’ habitat northward near active dairy farms, though supported by turkey hunters, is not cheered by dairymen who claim that the turkeys plunder precious food meant for their livestock.

Smyrna dairy farmer Jim Lilley turned down IFW agents proposing to locate wild turkeys from central Maine to his farm. He says the birds are “quite destructive” and “will follow the food,” describing a nuisance turkey as one who has learned to rather enjoy a diet of cattle feed. “If they migrate to this area, I’ll deal with it. But don’t nudge them in,” he told BDN reporter Sharon Mack.

Galen Larrabee, who operates a dairy farm in Knox, said the turkeys are so bold as to strut into his dairy barn in search of food. He said central Maine is awash in wild turkeys, with flocks of 100 or more so common he has named a street on his property “Turkey Road” for them. The deeper the snow, the closer the birds move to the cows’ feed, ravaging the area and leaving behind calling cards of the most (fowl) sort imaginable. “As much comes out of a turkey as goes in,” Larrabee said, and no one seemed eager to step forward to debate the point.

The Maine Farm Bureau also opposes the state’s relocation plans, a spokesman alleging that the state is, in effect, unfairly asking farmers to subsidize the project. He said that aside from damaged crops there are issues concerning disease and loss of property rights.

Fast-forward to Illinois, where 82-year-old James Soules continues to employ his closely guarded secret to rid Midwestern cities of nuisance birds.

“He doesn’t get rid of half or a third. They’re all gone,” the duly-impressed mayor of Decatur told the Chicago Tribune reporter who wrote the story. “I don’t know what he does. He doesn’t poison them. He doesn’t use spray. You never see bird carcasses. They just fly away and don’t come back…” Nor does he use lights, sounds or smells. The situation borders on the occult, which only increases Soules’ mystique.

In contracting to call off the birds for an annual fee, Soules refuses to tell anyone how he does it, other than to hint that in order to get a bird to do one’s bidding one has to think like a bird. As well, he demands complete secrecy, warning officials that if they spy on him in an attempt to learn trade secrets, the deal is off.

The fascinating part of the story is that Soules has been able to keep his secret for 50 years, baffling wildlife biologists, ornithologists and anyone else claiming to know bird psychology. He laughs at people who proffer strange theories about how he does it. “You’re not even close,” he tells them, implying that their guesses are strictly for the birds. “You don’t even have one-tenth of the secret…”

After reading the story, Maine’s besieged dairy farmers may well have connected the dots. May have concluded that anyone fluent in crow, starling, grackle, pigeon and the like who can convince those messy suburban hell-raisers to catch the next flight out of town surely must know how to talk turkey equally as effectively and might solve their renegade bird problem.

The possibility seems easily worth the price of a telephone call to Decatur, Ill.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.