Apparent turkey-napping caught on camera in Kitchener

It may sound like the next chapter in a Vinyl Cafe story — ‘Dave Steals the Turkey’ — but that is exactly what a video currently making the rounds online seems to suggest.

The video, posted Aug. 7, appears to show a wild turkey affectionately nicknamed ‘Frankie’ that seems to like to hang out in the Weber and Franklin streets area of Kitchener being tossed into the back of a minivan.

“It looks like he’s getting down to pick it up. He’s trapping it. Are they going to eat it?” a woman can be heard saying in the video as two people, a man and woman, appear to use two vehicles to corral the feathered Frankie.

“Oh my god he’s got it. He’s got the turkey! What the —- are they doing!?” the woman is then heard exclaiming as the big bird is thrown through the side door of a minivan. “They turkey-napped it!”

The incident appears to have taken place in the parking lot of a Beer Store on Weber which, in a quick phone call, confirmed its staff were not involved in the alleged ‘turkey-napping’.

The Humane Society of Kitchener Waterloo & Stratford Perth has also confirmed the two people shown in the video, “are NOT affiliated with the Humane Society.”

“I was unaware that people are kidnapping turkeys nowadays,” said Bill Dowd, president and CEO at Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control, who echoed the humane societies seeming… disbelief.

“They are wild animals and they can become aggressive,” Dowd told CityNews Kitchener. “Just like we teach our children, don’t go up and pet a stray cat or stray dog, you don’t want to be doing that with turkeys or racoons or skunks that are living in our cities with us — just leave them be.”

The video does not make clear the intentions behind the turkey being taken, but Dowd went on to note, for the most part, wild animals do not need human intervention — even in a Beer Store parking lot.

“Let animals be,” he said. “They know where den sites are, they know where food sources are, and this is just part of living in the urban jungle nowadays in our cities.”

As for whether Frankie’s apparent capture may run afoul of the law, regional police said in a statement they are not currently investigating the incident.