A man was left gobble-smacked after he was followed by a wild turkey on the way to his car in a Brampton neighbourhood.

In a video circulating on social media, a man is seen walking on Mountainash Rd. while a turkey follows closely behind him. The man tries to shoo the turkey away, but the large fowl doesn’t budge. The man then grabs a stick off of someone’s lawn and swings it at the turkey. The turkey stops, but then continues to follow the man.

The video was filmed on Wednesday afternoon by Aaron Aldaz who was in his home looking out his window when he spotted the turkey across the street.

“It was attacking my neighbours just before it started following this guy, so I started filming,” Aldaz told the Star.

Aldaz said he’s seen at least one turkey wandering around his neighbourhood for almost two weeks and that it has followed a few people who are walking on the street. He said he’s only witnessed the turkey attack once, which was that afternoon around 1:30 p.m.

He said his neighbour was on her way to her car when the turkey approached and that it looked like the turkey was trying to bite her as she got into her vehicle. When she was trying to reverse out of her driveway, the turkey went behind her car and wouldn’t move for about five minutes.

There are more than 70,000 wild turkeys in Ontario, according to estimates from Ontario Wildlife Management. In the early 1900s there were no wild turkeys in Ontario as a result of unregulated hunting and diminishing forests. It wasn’t until 1984 that the province began restoring Ontario’s turkey population by bringing the species in from the U.S.

Since then the turkey population has rapidly increased, especially in southern Ontario. However, climate change has caused the turkeys to travel north, often into more urban cities and neighbourhoods.

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