Tell Yellville to Quit Dropping Turkeys from Airplanes

As far back as December 1989, the National Enquirer called the Yellville, Arkansas “turkey drop” a “sick Festival of Death.” The Yellville turkey drop is an October event in which live turkeys are forced out of planes flying 500 to 1,000 feet above ground. The fun is to make the turkeys suffer by tossing them out of a plane. The fun is to watch them free-falling in midair until they hit the ground or get tangled up in wires and tree branches. The fun is to chase the birds who didn’t die and subsequently kill them.

The promoters like to joke that these turkeys “can fly”; however, wild turkeys would not normally fly that high above ground. Moreover, for a bird, the decision to take off from the ground or a branch or other platform is totally different from being pitched involuntarily from a MOVING machine high in the air in the midst of terrific wind pressure produced by the plane, to plunge to wherever the traumatized bird happens to land.

• Please contact:

  Mayor Shawn Lane and the Yellville Chamber of Commerce
  414 West 3rd Street
  PO Box 647
  Yellville, AR 72687
  Phone: 870-449-4676 & 870-449-6581
  Fax: 870-449-4142
  Email Yellville Mayor Shawn Lane: mayor@yellville.net
  Email the Yellville Chamber of Commerce: info@yellvillechamber.com
  Website Contact Us: www.yellville.com/members.html

• Learn more about turkeys and how you can help them here: www.upc-online.org/turkeys

Thank You for Speaking Out!