The DEC and Humane Society of the United States worked in conjunction to remove and transport 28 wild turkeys from the South Beach Psychiatric Center campus to the more bucolic Catskill Animal Sanctuary in Saugerties, where they can really flex their gizzards and no dudes in hazmat suits will ever try to kill them again. Last month, the USDA began culling the birds for slaughter, explaining that “excessive feces” and miscellaneous tail feathers left around by the 80-odd birds constituted a public health hazard. Now that the Staten Island 28 have been freed, the next step is to get them better snacks than the ones the turkeys were eating in NYC. “They didn’t seem to understand what sunflower seeds and corn were,” says Kathy Stevens, the sanctuary’s founder. “They’d been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for so long.” [DNAinfo, Earlier]
