Wild turkeys will be dropped over the crowd at the Yellville Turkey Trot festival today, Marion County Judge Terry C. Ott said.
The live turkeys could come from the roof of the Marion County courthouse or other downtown buildings, Ott said. Or they could be tossed from an 8-foot-tall stage in front of the courthouse.
It's a tradition at the annual Turkey Trot festival, which is celebrating its 70th year in Yellville, a north Arkansas mountain town of about 1,200 residents.
From the 1960s through 2010, the turkeys were dropped over the downtown Yellville square from small airplanes. But that practice stopped after pressure from the Federal Aviation Administration and animal-welfare groups.
"Last year, we threw them off the stage, and I think they dropped some off the courthouse and one or two other buildings," he said. "I personally think it's OK to drop them from an airplane. They can fly for miles. I've never seen a turkey killed from being dropped from an airplane."
Before that practice was stopped, anonymous airplane pilots would fly over the festival every couple of hours and drop 15 or 20 birds.
People on the ground would try to catch the turkeys. Ott said the competition to catch a turkey became intense.
"It was a little bit dangerous," he said. "You could get run over trying to catch a turkey."
Since turkeys have a shorter distance to fall from the courthouse roof, Ott said they're more likely to land in the crowd below, but it's not a given.
"They'll probably fly plumb out of the square area," he said.
Ott said the courthouse will be closed today because it won't be possible to park on the square, where vendors set up booths.
Ott said turkeys will probably be released over the crowd at the second day of the festival on Saturday, as well. The turkey drops aren't on the official schedule, which includes lip-sync contests and Mr. and Miss Drumsticks pageants.
Lesley Edmonds, executive director of the Yellville Area Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber sponsors the festival but not the turkey drops, which are still done by anonymous individuals.
Since the airplane drops stopped, attendance at the festival has also dropped -- by about half from its peak of 10,000 a few years ago, Edmonds said. But heavy rains put a damper on last year's festival, too, she added.
When airplanes were used, most of the turkeys glided to a soft landing, Edmonds said.
"Almost all of them opened up their wings and glided down," she said. "I'd say 75 percent or more roamed around and are still roaming around to this day. They never got caught."
Edmonds said early on, the turkey drop provided some families a bird to eat on Thanksgiving.
The television sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati parodied the turkey drop with a 1978 episode in which the station manager had live turkeys dropped from a helicopter for a publicity stunt. But they plunged to their deaths, prompting him to remark, "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!"
Ott said the courthouse roof was used for turkey drops before people started using airplanes in the 1960s.
He said one year, around 1990, they dropped frozen turkeys from airplanes, but that was a bad idea.
"It was ridiculous to most of us," he said. "One went through a roof."
Sam Pasthing, the attorney for both Yellville and Marion County, said he grew up attending Turkey Trot but never tried to catch a turkey.
"They would drop a turkey out of an airplane, and the whole crowd would just whoosh over to the turkey," Pasthing said. "I didn't want to get in the middle of that. And what would I do with a turkey? You'd see people walking around the festival with a live turkey under their arm."
Pasthing said the festival is probably better without turkeys being dropped from airplanes.
"It's moderately more humane than what it used to be," Pasthing said. "There were some strong feelings about what had happened in years past. But I don't know that we hear the strife that we used to when they dropped them from an airplane."
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals still opposes the dropping of turkeys, whether it's from an airplane or a building, according to an email late Thursday afternoon from Gemma Vaughan, a cruelty caseworker for the animal-welfare group.
"Anyone who throws turkeys from buildings or airplanes, causing them to plummet and often crash fatally into cars and streets, can expect to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law -- and PETA is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone participating," Vaughan wrote.
"Just like the dogs and cats with whom we share our homes, turkeys feel love and happiness, pain and fear. The use of live animals in this cruel event needs to stay relegated to the history books -- a sad chapter in an otherwise decent town."
NW News on 10/09/2015