Well, as Voltaire said: “This animal is vicious– when attacked, it defends itself!” I’ve watched wild turkeys in the field, from about fifty feet away, and they just went about their business. They didn’t freeze up, the way deer do.

Incidentally, there is some doubt about whether wild turkeys are really wild or not. The suggestion is that they may be domestic animals which were imported from Europe, and went feral, circa 1500-1700, the same way that cattle, horses, and swine did. The argument is essentially untestable, for want of unambiguous evidence. At any rate, according to this untestable hypothesis, a turkey is supposed to be an African bird, which was imported to Turkey, and thus to Europe, and so to America.

Incidentally, here is a fifteenth-century French picture, from the Tres Riches Heures du duc de Berry (November), showing a swineherd and his hogs. You will notice that they aren’t appreciably different from Arkansas Razorbacks. What we thing of as a pig was specially bred, much later, to live in a pen and be fed food, instead of finding its own in the woods.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_novembre.jpg