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eppur_se_muova

(40,660 posts)
8. Wild, native North American turkeys can fly, actually pretty well. The Southern Mexican subspecies of wild turkey ...
Thu Nov 27, 2025, 07:09 PM
Nov 27

.... once commonly misbelieved to have been imported from Turkey and hence known as "Turkey bustards", were imported to replace the nearly extinct wild American Bustard as a food source, but were domesticated from the beginning, though some have escaped and interbred. Domestication has produced a flightless bird now described as a separate subspecies from the wild bird.

Interestingly, the bird was domesticated in Pre-Columbian times by natives of Central America, and possibly by a more northern native population as well.

The return of the wild North American turkey from the brink of extinction has been an unheralded success story, preceding the similar recovery efforts made on the part of the California condor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_turkey

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