Wild turkeys are capable of either fight or flight.

They roost in trees, and are capable of upward flights of ~20'. The muscles required for such movement are formidable.

At first glance, you'd think fighting a turkey would be easy. However, since they are so much shorter than people, humans are actually at a disadvantage.

The average person thinks they can fight, but anyone who has been online long enough has seen plenty of videos where even guys who lift end up swinging punches at thin air. The survival rate of turkeys to adulthood is around 8 - 10%. Any adult turkey you see lived that long by ducking, dodging, and being faster than those who didn't make the cut.

Back to the height disparity: turkeys are operating at a different level--probably no higher than your waist. Your torso--crotch--is directly at attack height for them. Whereas anyone unfortunate enough to try to fight a turkey, has to look down, putting them immediately out of their comfort zone.

Instinctively, people think they're going to punch a turkey, but figure out right away that isn't going to work--your arms aren't going to reach, so they go for the soccer ball kick, but their legs make it so their bodies are actually knee-high, not ankle high.

Now, if the average person can't punch, they are even worse at kicking. Humans can't kick for shit. We're not talking about the French football team.

Turkeys might have small brains, but their eyes allow them to see "faster" than we do, so they excel at dodging--they can also pick up a single kernel of corn off the ground, so their coordination is better than a human's. They can hop backwards, to the side, or do a flying leap at you. And a flying leap means their wings are outstretched (they seem twice as big), and their beak is coming right at you, often with lots of gobbling noises, with a double kick attack (for any TTRPG fans out there this is three attacks in a round. Five if you count wing attacks. And if you think being slapped in the face with a turkey wing is not a big deal, you'd be wrong again because it can bruise your face).

This combination tends to startle most people into stumbling backwards, which is a retreat to the turkey, which only encourages them to press their advantage.

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It's easy to trap turkeys--although this is illegal in most states. And of course it is easy to shoot them, but again, only legal during hunting season, with the proper paperwork, and most certainly not in a residential neighborhood, which is where most conflicts occur.