More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality - Book Reviews

More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality By Karen Davis, Lantern Books, 2001, 192 pages

When it comes to the other species with whom we share this planet, humans are often ignorant and lacking in compassion. This characterization is also one that humans have tried to place on turkeys. Frequently, this remarkable animal is wrongly portrayed as stupid and clumsy. Part of the reason for these incorrect descriptions of the turkey has to do with our species' having cruelly bred this animal for fast growth and unnaturally large size. Turkeys' dependence on humans is often cited when people state that these birds are not intelligent. However, Karen Davis points out in her book More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality that these animals are dependent on humans for survival because we have made them so. By breeding fast growing, overweight turkeys, we have created birds who are unable to walk fast or fly into trees, and who commonly experience "lameness, respiratory congestion, mating infirmities, and heart disease, and most have white feathers that prevent them from camouflagin g themselves."

As for the intelligence of turkeys, author Davis says that "the ability of domesticated 'meat-type' chickens and turkeys to respond alertly and appropriately to sensory and social stimuli, and to negotiate the physical, social, and emotional milieus in which they find themselves, say, at a sanctuary or in an adoptive home, indicates considerable intelligence, awareness, and learning potentials in these birds. If Sarah, a former battery-caged hen, climbed the stairs in the morning to get me downstairs to fix her breakfast after yelling from the bottom of the steps failed to produce results, was she not displaying purposeful adaptive intelligence? And what about Katie the 'broiler' hen, who pecks at my pant legs to get me to bend down and hug her?"

Besides intelligence, Davis offers fine examples to illustrate that turkeys are good parents and are very protective of their young. Citing someone who witnessed a wild turkey protect her ten babies from a hawk, Davis offers the following example of bravery and physical attributes: "Without warning, the hen took off vertically as if she had stepped on a mine. About 20 feet off the ground, she intercepted and attacked a hawk that was coming in for a baby. The hen hit the hawk with her feet first and with [her] back almost parallel to the ground. The hawk flew toward the back of the field with the hen in pursuit; it turned back towards the babies, and the hen hit again. They both fell about 10 feet and were fighting with their feet, until the hawk headed for the tree line and kept going."

If human animals are going to begin respecting and living in harmony with non-human animals, we must learn about these animals and treat them with the compassion and respect all species deserve. We must also learn from our mistakes and cruel past and start righting these wrongs. In More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality, Karen Davis provides considerable knowledge on these fascinating animals and our deplorable relationships with them.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Vegetarian Baby and Child
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group