Even if you've never watched the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, there's one line you're probably familiar with.
“As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
That’s Dayton native Gordon Jump as Mr. Carlson, owner of the fictional radio station, after a promotion that’s not gone as envisioned.
Without giving away any spoilers, insinuating turkeys can't fly is the punchline for the sitcom's Thanksgiving episode. But, the thing is…
“Yes. They can fly.”
Rickey Kinley is head birder at the Cincinnati Zoo. He admits they're not great flyers.
“If a predator or a threat comes along, they can have a very strong burst of flight where they get off the ground and they can fly up into trees, or fly a short distance away,” he says.
Kinley says their wings are among the shortest of most bird species in proportion to their body weight.
“Because they’re heavy-bodied they don’t like to spend so much energy flying all the time,” he says. “It’s easier to walk around. Plus, when they’re walking around, that’s where they’re getting all their food from. People don’t see them fly often because they don’t want to [fly] or oftentimes need to.”
This applies to both wild turkeys and farm-raised turkeys. He says if necessary, a domesticated turkey could fly, but again, not very far, or very well.
“Because they’re bred to … have a lot more muscle. So they’re even heavier than wild turkeys.”
Kinley says wild turkeys generally only fly to escape predators. Domesticated turkeys don't usually have to worry about that.
“Whenever birds are in an environment where they don’t have to fly — meaning they have access to mate choices, they have plenty of food and they have an absence of predators — they tend to lose the ability to fly.”
Kinley says other good examples of that are ostriches, cassowaries and the now-extinct dodo.
While we're busting myths about turkeys, the Franklin Institute confirms Benjamin Franklin never said he wanted the turkey to be the national bird. Kinley says there's a slight Cincinnati connection to the story, though.
“Apparently there is a letter he wrote to one of his daughters saying that one of the symbols for Cincinnati, which was an eagle, it looked more like a turkey than an eagle,” he says. “And so some people think that’s what he was referencing when he said he liked turkeys more than eagles.”
Franklin was referring to the insignia of the Society of the Cincinnati, a post-Revolutionary War organization of Continental Army officers, and part of the inspiration for they city's name. In the letter he refers to the turkey, perhaps cheekily, as a much more respectable Bird,... a little vain & silly, [but] a Bird of Courage.”
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