Glimpsing the Future in Re-Wilded Chickens and Turkeys

Climbing in trees and flying from the roof of a barn is not what people have in mind when they think of domesticated turkeys. And, true enough, the genetics have been manipulated in most turkeys to make walking difficult and flying impossible. Some of the turkeys at Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary do suffer from the genetic manipulation, and in one case also from the crippling toe and beak amputation.

Three new arrivals in October were rescued from someone’s yard. Some people buy turkeys from catalogs and raise them by hand so they can have a DIY canned hunt, and that’s likely where these three came from. These new turkeys are a different breed than those rescued from commercial operations. They walk with ease; they also run, climb into the trees, hop onto fences, and somehow get on the roof of a small barn, from which they’ll fly down. The contrast to the limping heavy walk of the genetically manipulated turkeys is startling.

It also gives me much needed hope. Turkeys are native to this area, after all, and though their bodies in many cases have been manipulated into grotesque caricatures of themselves, they are not so far from their wild cousins after all. In the case of the domesticated turkeys who are nimble enough to fly from rooftops and climb trees, it is clear that they could have re-wilded themselves if they hadn’t been raised by humans.

The first time I heard someone talk about re-wilding was when I was visiting with pattrice Jones of Eastern Shore Sanctuary and Education Center. At the time, it seemed an odd concept; odd if only because our concepts of rescue don’t usually look in that direction.

As we fight against institutionalized exploitation, we fight against human control of these individual animals. However, when we rescue, we retain control in most cases, it is just kinder control, where the individuals in question will have a full life, and as much freedom as can be given them by people who explicitly can not profit from them.

In many, if not most, cases these individuals have been damaged enough that they need our care. However, when you look at rescued chickens and turkeys, there is a tantalizing glimpse in some of what the future could be. Eastern Shore has taken this further than most sanctuaries have. Every sanctuary is different; each has a relatively unique set of circumstances to contend with, and each are started by people making their own decisions and coming to their own conclusions about what, precisely, it means to provide a safe haven. In looking at the big picture, there is no difference. It is only in the small details that the distinctions appear.

And those differences are perhaps the most distinct when it comes to the care of the birds.

There are those, like UPC, who do everything possible to create predator-proof enclosures for the birds in their care. And then there are those, like Eastern Shore, who allow the birds in their care to choose for themselves. Poplar Spring’s philosophy is somewhere in the middle.

At Eastern Shore, they’ve had some of the chickens “re-wild” themselves. Here are pattrice’s words on this topic:

At the Eastern Shore Sanctuary, chickens who demonstrate the ability to do so safely are free to sleep in the trees and forage outside of the fenced yards. Typically, the birds who have been least scarred by past abuse prefer feral freedom while the birds who have been most hurt by factory farming, cockfighting, and in-breeding choose the relative safety of the coops and fenced foraging yards.

Observing the process by which some birds at the sanctuary have chosen to be self-reliant and free, it occurs to me that chickens who have the strength to do so probably would prefer, like their wild jungle fowl relatives who still live in forests in Asia, to live entirely apart from people. Over time, they would recover the genetic integrity that our denial of their reproductive freedom had stolen from their species.

And in the end, isn’t that our goal? To no longer need to rescue, and for them to no longer need us? For them to fulfill the potential that has been stolen from them by human control and exploitation?

This isn’t a goal that can be achieved in our lifetime, but I am enriched by having witnessed all the possibilities inherent in those re-wilded chickens first in Maryland, and recently at Eastern Shore’s new Vermont location. I do believe that someday chickens will again be wild and free, rather than the most exploited and abused animals in agriculture. These intelligent animals, known to have cognition at the level of primates, deserve so much better than they get from us.