Colorful Thanksgiving staple naming began with just as colorful a bird

Many archaeologists, historians and scientists believe the name "turkey" can be indirectly traced to this colorful bird, an ocellated (eyes on feathers) turkey native to the Yucatan Peninsula.(George Harrison/US Fish and Wildlife Service)

The golden skin of that juicy bird you're about to carve is also bursting with history.

You probably already know the turkey didn't originate in Turkey, despite its name, and that North America is the root of the Butterball family tree.

Hanging its moniker on a far-away land, however, is a trans-continental story that seems to have begun a couple thousand years ago in Mexico.

Mayans are believed to have first domesticated both the native Gould's turkey and ocellated turkey. Gould's is one of five subspecies of wild turkey, but the ocellated (eyed) turkey is its own species, as colorful as a Mexican dinner plate with azure blue, green and bronze feathers and peacock-like "eyes" across its fanned tail.

Fashion-conscious Mayans and, later, the Aztecs, valued turkey feathers as much as flesh, but when Spanish conquistadors arrived, they took a few bites, tasted gold and sent live turkeys home. King Ferdinand was so pleased he reportedly ordered every treasure-seeking galleon to also return with at least 10 males and 10 females. Other North American wild turkey species were shanghaied and added to the mix.

Succulent turkeys were an immediate hit on the Iberian Peninsula, where British traders traveling to and from the Ottoman Empire apparently imported them on their way home through Spain.

They were known as "Turkey merchants," already associated with "turk fowl," a noisy east African guinea hen domesticated by the Ottomans. The name apparently stuck with the new birds and within a century, huge flocks of turkeys and geese were marched up to 100 miles to markets in London and shipped to Europe and beyond.

Pilgrims completed the circle, arriving from England with live domesticated turkeys as a hedge against starvation. They reportedly bred them back to native birds on their farms.

(Venison, not turkey, was the main course at the first Thanksgiving.)

Five separate subspecies of wild turkey thrive across North America - Eastern, Merriam's

Nearly all of Oregon's introduced turkeys are Rio Grandes, one of five subspecies of wild turkeys found across North America.Diana Ranslam/ODFW

(great plains, Rocky Mountains), Rio Grande (Texas to west coast), Gould's (north and central Mexico) and Osceola (Florida).

The original ocellated turkey, considered a wild turkey cousin rather than subspecies, remains an endangered species on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, including parts of Belize and northern Guatemala.

America's wild turkeys took a huge hit as the nation hungrily expanded. Numbers dropped from an estimated 11 million birds to just 30,000 by the early 1900s.

Conservation, hunting restrictions and efforts by the National Wild Turkey Federation and National Wildlife Federation, among others, have brought their wild brethren back.

Wild turkeys - introduced and native - are now found in every state except Alaska and across central Mexico.

Oregon's growing population of introduced birds (between 40,000 and 45,000) are Rio Grandes, highly adaptable to a wide variety of climates and agriculture.

E Pluribus Yummy: It's not true Ben Franklin wanted the wild turkey for a national symbol.

But he did admire turkeys and castigated the bald eagle after seeing it adorn the nation's first presidential seal.

It looked more like a turkey, he said, accusing the eagle of being a scavenging thief (stealing fish from ospreys) and coward (easily hazed by smaller birds).

The turkey, he wrote, "though a little vain and silly, (is) a bird of courage...would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British Guards ... with a red coat on."

Free-fishing: No license will be needed to fish in Oregon on black Friday and/or Saturday, Nov. 24 and 25.

The license rule is suspended for all legal fishing in open waters, including crabbing and clamming. No additional tags will be necessary either day for steelhead or salmon. (Note: Some hatcheries have already reported winter steelhead in their traps.)

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife also is stocking trout in numerous lakes and ponds from Portland to Eugene before the Thanksgiving holiday.

Most weigh about half a pound, larger than the usual pan-sized stockers put out in the summer. Some will weigh a pound and a few will be leftover brood trout, weighing up to 12 pounds.

The waters are: Progress Lake (Tigard) - pound and half-pound; Faraday Lake (Estacada) - pound and half-pound; Mt. Hood College Pond (Gresham) - pound; Blue Lake (Fairview) - pound and half-pound; St. Louis Pond no. 6 (near Woodburn; hike required) - pound and half-pound; Walter Wirth Lake and Walling Pond (Salem) - pound and half-pound; Waverly Lake (Albany) - pound-plus; Junction City Pond (Junction City) - pound and half-pound; Alton Baker Canal (Eugene) - pound and half-pound.

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