Turkey Trouble.JPG

Trouble with wild turkeys in Norton Shores goes back several years. The Muskegon Chronicle's Cory Morse took this picture of a turkey that infiltrated the Muskegon Country Club in April 2008.

(Cory Morse/MLive file photo)

NORTON SHORES, MI – Norton Shores’ turkey trouble is far from over, according to one resident.

In recent years, a flock of wild turkeys in Roosevelt Park and Norton Shores have:

caused multiple car accidents

attracted

flown through the bay window

The big brown birds are also well-known to joggers who frequent Sherman Boulevard in that area.

And they haven’t left – yet.

“They’ve really plagued me,” said Donna Martin, age 86. “They’ve become really brazen … They’re really aggressive.”

Martin said the turkeys two weeks ago hung around her neighborhood, a circle drive a few blocks south of the intersection of Lake Harbor Road and Seminole Road. It’s not the first time they’ve done so, she said.

The turkeys peck on her windows and chase her visitors as they enter and exit their cars.

“I was almost like a prisoner in my own home,” Martin said.

Martin, who has lived in her current home for 25 years, said there is a wooded dune area behind the neighborhood, and wildlife sightings of raccoons and deer are common.

But the turkeys have gotten worse.

“This is the first year they’ve been aggressive,” she said.

Michigan Wild Turkey Hunter Association’s Jim Maturen said he was aware of the turkey problem in Norton Shores – and said the Department of Natural Resources had recently tried to re-locate a flock of them to the Upper Peninsula.

“Occasionally you’ll get some birds that move into town,” Maturen said. “Do we have nuisance birds? Absolutely, yes.”

DNR officials weren’t immediately available to comment.

Maturen said that the wild turkey population actually seems to be decreasing – he thinks because of coyotes disturbing turkeys' nests on the ground.

Wild turkeys, known to be opportunistic feeders, are drawn into urban environments during late winter when they can’t scratch beneath the snow to look for food, he said.

“We’re not overpopulated by any means,” Maturen said.

Like wild cormorants annoying area residents, wild turkeys are a wildlife success story, coming back from virtual extinction in lower Michigan in the early 1900s.

“It’s one of the most successful wildlife stories you’re ever going to find,” Maturen said.

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