Turkeys have come to town, but they aren’t always great neighbors

By Carol Thompson, MediaNews Group

Emboldened wild turkeys have become such a nuisance in some Metro Detroit communities that a high-tech solution is underway to help.

It looks like a dog and barks like a dog, but isn’t a dog. It’s a robot designed to stop turkeys from terrorizing University of Michigan students.

Rather, it will be. The robot is still under development by UM mechanical engineering students working with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to build an artificial intelligence-driven robot designed to move turkeys away from people on campus.

Turkeys are well known as a conservation success story in Michigan . Although historically common in lower Michigan, they vanished at the turn of the 20th century in the wake of European settlement, farming and development.