Blog / 2024 / Bird of Courage

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

In a letter to his daughter in 1784, Benjamin Franklin compared the turkey to the bald eagle. The full text is fascinating, but I’ll quote just a bit of it here. He says:

“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

“... Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. ...

“[T]he Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, ... He is ... , though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”

Franklin’s criticisms of the bald eagle are not fair. Any animal can be described in a way that’s distasteful to humans, since humans are inclined to think themselves better than other animals. That said, I find myself rather charmed by the Founding Father’s defense of the turkey.

I’d add that turkeys will sometimes forage with deer and squirrels. They help each other to detect predators—the deer with its sense of smell, the turkey with its sight, and squirrels providing an additional set of eyes from above. The idea of turkeys, deer, and squirrels working together to make their way through the forest delights me!

Like all nonhuman animals, turkeys are intelligent. Just because we don’t always understand their intelligence doesn’t mean that these animals are stupid. If anything, it means that we are—or that our impressive imaginations have been so thoroughly tied up by traditional ideas about who’s better than whom that we can’t see what’s right in front of us.

Though Franklin admired turkeys, he wasn’t a proponent of animal rights—he famously thought that electrocuting turkeys was the best way to kill them. So Franklin is no friend to PETA. Clearly, I am, but I’m not here to tell you not to eat turkey for Thanksgiving. I’m only asking you to consider that every plant-based meal you eat on any given day is good for the environment. I’m asking you to make an effort to eat more plants on a daily basis and fewer Birds of Courage.