Turkey Week #3: Ben Franklin vs. the National Bird

Will you roast the Founding Father's preferred national symbol next week? WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY PETER MOORE

WHEN OUR KIDS WERE LITTLE we took a nature cruise out of Port Clyde Harbor in Maine. Out on Casco Bay we heard a seagull commotion on Shag Ledges, so the captain swung by for a closer look. He soon regretted it. A gull mom and dad were dive-bombing their nest, and it became evident why: A bald eagle was sitting in the middle of a pile of squalling seagull chicks, and it wasn’t going to leave until it had eaten them all.

I’m not sure our kids have recovered, even yet. Me, neither.

Which brings me to today’s topic: Did the Founding Fathers make a mistake by choosing the bald eagle as our national symbol? Related question: Should we just have gone ahead with DDT as a pesticide, and wipe them out entirely?

Ben Franklin cast his vote for an eagle alternative: The Noble Turkey, who is welcome at the dinner table and in the affairs of state.

Let’s look at the evidence.

“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the Representative of our Country,” Franklin wrote in a January 2…