This city can eat you up – especially if you’re a turkey.
A wild turkey spotted all over the Big Apple the bustle of Midtown Manhattan for the relative quiet of Roosevelt Island – only to face stone-throwing hooligans and kids armed with water pistols.
The turkey was previously known as “Astoria” but recently dubbed “Rosie” after her move some time in mid-May to Roosevelt Island, where the local celebrity has gobbled up mostly positive attention.
“I think it’s beautiful. For the turkey to come here, that means it found some sort of tranquility in the community,” 50-year-old Roosevelt islander Romano Reid told The Post. “For it to come here, it means it has something it likes. It’s not in Astoria. It’s not in the Upper East Side.”
But Rosie soon found out the hard way that life in the city ain’t always easy.
Kids have reportedly been witnessed tossing stones at the bird, according to the Roosevelt Islander blog, while others have allegedly been seen spraying her with water pistols.
“Relax man, it’s just a turkey,” the father of one of the young attackers told a witness who stepped in to defend the animal, the Roosevelt Islander reported.
“They couldn’t understand why I would stand up for a living creature,” the witness said.
Friends of the feathered phenom, however, have resoundingly agreed that they wouldn’t stand for any turkey abuse.
“They’re throwing rocks. Unbelievably terrible. We love the turkey. We look for the turkey every single day,” said longtime resident self proclaimed “animal-lover” Ellen Levy. “Whenever we take a walk, that’s our destination — to look for the turkey.
“If we saw anybody harassing the turkey, we would really speak to them and make them stop. We probably would embarrass them terribly,” she said.
Some think the police should be on the lookout for the turkey abuse and hold people accountable for it.
“I personally believe that there should be a repercussion. There should be consequences. When you live in a community and you don’t abide by the local laws, you should be held accountable,” Reid said.
“Some don’t know how to treat animals with courtesy and respect. They have no compassion,” he said.
A local NYPD officer told The Post he’d hadn’t witnessed anyone harming Rosie.
Rosie was found pecking merrily at a patch of grass near the Roosevelt Island subway station with a sprawling view of Manhattan behind her. Delighted witnesses described her as being very friendly and happily walking up to strangers.
The bird is believed to have started her journey in Long Island City, according to the bird tracking database ebird.org, before making the trek into Manhattan where she was spotted working her way through midtown traffic.
Some fear that bird’s friendly demeanor will get her into trouble, and that she should be relocated to a safe environment before something bad happens.
“I saw it almost get hit by a moped, like a delivery person on a moped almost hit the turkey not on purpose but the turkey’s kind of slow and you don’t know what’s coming and you’re turning a corner,” Levy’s daughter Dana told The Post.
“I do worry for the turkey,” she said.
