Turkeys on a Tear in South Jersey - DC Breaking Local News Weather Sports FOX 5 WTTG

Turkeys on a tear.  They're terrifying a south Jersey neighborhood, where they're roaming the streets and lawns of Hainesport, Burlington County.

They weren't easy to find.  They mostly stay in the brush, where a flock of about 30 live.  State officials say only one or two are actually aggressive. But that's enough to become a menace.

Turkeys don't exactly have it easy, especially around Thanksgiving. So call it payback.  "I think he was trying to eat me!" victim Karen Harris told Fox 29.  Harris never thought twice about grabbing a broom and shooing away the turkeys that gather outside the Hainesport school where she works.  Then one day, "In my peripheral vision I seen the turkey coming towards me," Harris explained.  "And I looked at the turkey and he kind of picked up speed.  So I was like, wait a minute, he's chasing me!"  So she ran, and as the turkey chased after her, Harris tripped and fell.  "I got up and I ran down there and I tripped again," Harris said.  "The turkey came at me again, and I picked up one of those rubber cones."  So she threw the orange traffic cone at him, but he kept attacking.  "I think he was getting me back for all the times when I chased him with sticks and brooms," Harris said.  She finally escaped by running inside.

Harris isn't alone.  In recent weeks, Hainesport Township officials say they've gotten too many calls to count from residents complaining about aggressive turkeys. Many of the attacks happened on along Deacon Road, on a path across the street from the school where Harris works.  So the township wants to fine anyone who feeds the turkeys a whopping $2,000.  The proposed ordinance will be up for a vote on July 10.  State wildlife officials are also hoping to trap the turkeys and move them out of the area, to northern New Jersey.

"They kind of own this area," Harris told Fox 29. She agreed they stand their ground.  "Oh yeah they do, yeah."  Harris says the bird that attacked her was not intimidated.  "I have a lot of respect for wild turkeys now," Harris said.

State wildlife officials plan to trap the turkeys with food.  But right now isn't the ideal time to do it, because the turkeys have so many other sources for food.  So it looks like the residents of Hainesport will have to wait until late fall before the turkeys are relocated.