A Staten Island turkey and her 18 unborn birds will be relocated to a sanctuary in upstate New York on Wednesday, advocates said.
The turkey, who settled in the yard of a Dongan Hills home earlier this month, will be re-homed at the And-Hof Animals, Sanctuary for Farm Animals, in Catskill, New York.
She and all her babies will join more than 100 other turkeys who have been moved to the sanctuary from Staten Island since 2014, according to And-Hof.
“Relocating all remaining turkeys is the only solution for Staten Islanders, who have been inconvenienced by the birds for nearly a decade,” And-Hof’s founder and executive director Kurt Andernach said in a statement.
The Staten Island homeowner, Richard Gambardella, told SILive.com that the turkey’s nest was proving to be a problem.
“It’s aggressive, like a rooster would be,” he said. “It’s their kids. It’s defending its young.”
Since 2014, it has cost more than $110,000 of private money to relocate turkeys, according to the sanctuary.
The sanctuary also is home to goats, pigs, chickens and other animals.
Wild turkeys have been a problem on Staten Island for years, according to reports. And just last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he didn’t “have a complete answer” on the issue of trying to get the wild birds off people’s property.
Speaking at an unrelated news conference on Friday, de Blasio said he would “like to see if there is something we can do, I just don’t have it handy.”
