AUDIO: YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A TURKEY DROP
There actually is a place in the United States that drops turkeys from an airplane. It’s Yellville, Arkansas, and they’ll be dropping live turkeys again today (Friday) and Saturday at Yellville’s annual Turkey Trot Festival. There are those that see this event as abusing dumb animals. The Yellville pilot, pharmacist Dana Woods, says that turkeys can, in fact, fly. This is true if you are talking about wild turkeys, although they naturally only fly from the ground up into the trees, not drop from 500 feet at 80 miles an hour. The FAA said it doesn’t get into animal cruelty issues, and regulators say as long as they don’t drop turkeys over a crowd, there’s nothing they can do. YouTube videos show live turkeys being dropped from a plane, and winging their way – it’s actually more of a glide – to the ground (only to be caught by locals and, presumably, prepared for dinner), although there is also YouTube video of a turkey not flying and plummeting to its presumed death.
(video of Turkey drop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ-Fu19xpvE)
(video of Turkey plop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-FqvGC9UCs)
* There are probably a couple of turkeys who are real hot dogs and love it.
* And I suppose you could argue that it gives the turkeys a fighting chance to glide far away from the crowd back into the woods.
* So do the people on the ground try to catch the turkeys in roasting pans?
* Turkeys dropping out of the sky? Reminds me of a flight I was on one time with Southwest. Come to think of it that was around Thanksgiving too.
* You know Yellville, Arkansas, right? It’s right down the road from Shut the Hell Up, Arkansas.
* During the Turkey Drop, it’s the turkeys that are yelling.
* The hard part is getting the turkeys to form a nice line at the airplane door.
* The Turkey Trot Festival is also a great chance to count the predators in the area.
* The FAA doesn’t get into animal cruelty issues? Well, if it’s from a plane, why the hell not?
* Coming soon: A comedy spoof starring Samuel L Jackson: “Turkeys on a Plane.”
CLIP: You can’t do this story without the requisite audio: Les Nessman reports the turkey drop on “WKRP in CIncinnati”.
