Turkeys Perform Funeral Ritual for Cat

These turkeys trying to give this cat its 10th life pic.twitter.com/VBM7t4MZYr

— J... (@TheReal_JDavis) March 2, 2017

A cat was killed by a vehicle. Soon, a group of a more than a dozen wild turkeys formed a circle around the cat and marched around. Were they paying their respects? Were they celebrating its demise? Trying to revive it? Did they even know the cat? This bizarre scene went viral on Twitter. Time to ask the experts.

They might be performing what’s called a “predator inspection,” says Alan Krakauer, a biologist at the University of California, Davis, who studies the behavioral ecology of birds, in an email to The Verge. Sometimes, animals lower down in the food chain approach predators — a behavior that can be seen as risky, but can actually help the prey. Making the predator aware that the prey know it’s there can sometimes scare the predator away. The “inspection” also allows the prey to check how determined the predator is to attack, and can alert other animals to the danger.
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What’s weird is that in the video the turkeys are circling a dead cat — definitely not a dangerous predator. And turkeys don’t usually eat dead animals, including dead cats, so it’s not like they’re doing some weird ritual dance before tasting their meal. What could be happening is that the turkeys are stuck in some kind of never-ending circle, with each bird following the tail in front of it. “It’s not unusual for them to get into those dances where they chase each other around,” Scott Gardner, a turkey expert with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, tells The Verge.

So it's possible that the turkeys themselves don't know why they are doing this. (via reddit)