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LOGAN - This is a story about a jerky turkey, a stirred bird, a foul fowl.
Whenever people or their cars inch too close to his flock of hens in Logan Canyon, this fearless tom lowers his head and charges.
"I wouldn't call it normal, but it's not that unusual," said Ron Hodson, northern region supervisor for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
Hodson remembers a wild turkey that refused to let diners into a Hanksville restaurant in southern Utah.
"It was pretty humorous," he said. "When people would try to go in, he'd go right over. He had people pretty scared."
Logan Canyon's bold bird is a Rio Grande turkey. As part of an effort to bolster the wild flock in northern Utah, crews transferred nearly 30 of the birds there in 2003.
"They're propagating and doing really well," DWR biologist Darren Debloois said. "It's one of the good success stories of introducing a species and having them hold on."
This particular tom was released in a remote area, Hodson said, and humans are not authorized to capture or move the birds. Hunting is permitted only with a tag.
Richard Beard, Utah State University Extension specialist and Cache Valley chapter chairman of the nonprofit National Wild Turkey Federation, blamed the belligerent behavior on humans who feed the birds.
"They can get fairly aggressive, especially if they've had an opportunity to chase a few people away," Beard said. "If someone doesn't get a Ding Dong unwrapped fast enough, they could get scratched or pecked."
But the greatest danger, Beard warned, could come from cars. A child scampering away from the surly turkeys could get hit or a motorist trying to dodge a bird or get a closer look could cause a collision.
"They're not afraid of people right now," Beard said. "We hope that hunting pressure and predator pressure will make it so the turkeys will not congregate and become a nuisance."
Jackie Johnson, of Moab, has been a turkey enthusiast for several years, but she's never been chased by one.
Johnson, a turkey hunter who assists her husband, Brett Johnson, regional director of the National Wild Turkey Federation, describes the birds as skittish and wary of humans.
"They can see the whites of your eyes from 50 yards away," she said. "If you blink, they sense it and they are gone."