Belligerent Turkey Terrorizes Westchester Mother And Daughter
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A bird gone berzerk was caught on camera terrorizing a Westchester woman and her 10-year-old daughter last week.
Joy Malone of New Rochelle says the creature even trapped them in their car after they came face to face with the angry fowl when she was trying to take her daughter to school.
"I see something darting across the yard towards her and I screamed 'Alaya get in the car!'," she told CBS2's Brian Conybeare.
Alaya darted into her mother's car and calls the whole encounter "scary."
The Malone's backyard on Fifth Avenue backs up to a treeline and open space, but they were baffled by the turkey's bad behavior -- trapping them in their vehicle for five minutes.
"Totally weird," Joy said. "It never happens. We see all sorts of wildlife back here but we've never seen a turkey."
"I didn't even know they could be aggressive," she added.
Wildlife experts say if a turkey comes after you, the last thing you should do is run or act scared.
"They will chase you if you show fear," Alex Pecchioni of Wildlife Remedies says.
Pecchioni says turkeys are social animals and use a real life "pecking order" to assert dominance in their flock. They sometimes manage to confuse humans for other birds.
"What you really want to do is get a little bigger, stomp your feet, show some aggressiveness," he adds.
Joy is now warning neighbors on Facebook. She's hearing she's not the only one targeted by the belligerent bird, which has apparently been terrorizing the neighborhood for months.