It was just a turkey shoot.
Canadian vigilantes used slingshots to kill a wild turkey that had been attacking elderly people and children in a small Quebec town in recent weeks. The Montreal Gazette reported.
With the local mayor’s blessing, the anonymous hunter killed the turkey with a bullseye on Thursday and took it home to eat. Although this freed the town from the bird’s fear, the bird’s assassination sparked criticism from those who argued that the mayor did not have the authority to order it.
“At 9 a.m. this morning, a man with a sling – who was very good at using a sling, like in the days of David and Goliath – smashed two metal stones into the head of a wild turkey, causing it to fall. ” said Mayor Yvon Deshaise. He ordered the hit. he told the outlet.
“He wasn’t in any distress,” he said, adding that he was not satisfied with the call to action to blow up the turkey stuffing on Wednesday.
“I wish the Department of Wildlife would have dealt with it,” the mayor said Thursday.
But when all the wildlife officials said turkeys were not dangerous, he felt he had no other choice.
“If you attack civilians, children, people in wheelchairs, that’s not a problem. That’s not normal. I will protect my people.” Deshaies told CBC.. “I’m not going to wait. [the turkey] To scratch the child. ”
Although it is illegal to hunt wild turkeys in Quebec before the hunting season begins at the end of April, Deshayes said provincial police were also present at the time of the killing to ensure the safety of residents.
But some people wept over the killing, threatened to sue him and called for his resignation.
“They say I’m Putin. They say I’m inferior to Putin,” Deshayes told the Gazette, referring to the bloodthirsty Russian dictator.
The mayor also faces possible sanctions from Quebec’s Ministry of Wildlife.
The problem reportedly began about three weeks ago when wild turkeys descended on the town of about 5,000 people, about 90 miles northeast of Montreal.
According to the Gazette, a crazed bird attacked a woman in a wheelchair and pulled her shirt.
Earlier this week, a Facebook video showed elderly gentleman Michelle Turcotte being blocked by a large wild turkey as she tried to enter the mansion.
He clapped his hands and threw snow at the bird, which chased Turcotte around the SUV and then into the street.
“He tried to jump on my back,” Turcotte told TVA News. “He couldn’t understand me, but he almost did. It was pretty scary.”
Asked if it was a good idea to throw snow at birds to ruffle their feathers, Turcotte admitted: “No, it wasn’t.”
But the 34-year mayor said he had seen enough.
“Birds have claws that look like razor blades,” Desha told the Gazette. “And they’re big. Their wingspan can be 5 to 6 feet wide.”
During a television interview, he told residents to grab baseball bats and attack.
“We don’t wait until the child is disfigured,” Deshaise said, adding that she had tried to hire a trapper but was told it was illegal.
“People were saying that the bird kept coming after them even though they tried to run away,” he says. “He didn’t give up. Wildlife officials told me he wasn’t dangerous. There are claws on my desk, sir. They’re big.”
He speculated that the turkey had gone missing or was “a little mentally unstable.”
Police were on hand to provide security on Thursday, but did not intervene as the bird was killed by the slingshot gunman, who gave the claw to the mayor and took the bird away to be cooked, the paper said.
“In our town, if an aggressive dog or cat bites someone, they are euthanized,” the mayor said. “My number one priority has always been the safety of the public.
“The animal didn’t bite, but it was chasing people. That’s not normal, so I said that’s enough. I played a good captain. I didn’t abandon ship,” he said. told the Gazette.
