Massachusetts captured 37 Wild Turkeys from New Yorks Adirondacks in the 1970s and released them in the Berkshires. Olsen dates formal Spanish turkey farming to 1530, by which point turkeys had already made it to Rome and were about to debut in France as well. The density and tree species composition of their habitat varies geographically but they will make use of timber plantations as well as pasture and agricultural clearings. [45][46], Though domestic turkeys are considered flightless, wild turkeys can and do fly for short distances. They are even becoming more common near suburban areas, so you might not have to travel very far at all to see these magnificent American ground birds. [29], Turkeys have been known to be aggressive toward humans and pets in residential areas. . Thats what he tells local residents when hes called to mediate neighborly disputes: Dont feed the birds, and dont show fear. A Pilgrim passed I to and fro, William Bradford once wrote. Males of both turkey species have a distinctive fleshy wattle, called a snood, that hangs from the top of the beak. Thanksgiving looms, a much trussed holiday. Also, much of the food that he and his band of settlers ate they had taken, like their land, from the Wampanoag, and at the harvest celebration in question he may have eaten goose. Turkeys have a refined language of yelps and cackles. Now hundreds of thousands roam suburbs where they thrill and bully residents. In the. If you continue to use our site without changing your browser settings, we'll assume you are happy to receive cookies. Wild turkeys are omnivorous ground and shrub foragers, mainly eating seeds, nuts, berries, grasses, insects, small amphibians, and snakes. They have even been introduced to Hawaii but are absent from Alaska. [47], The species Meleagris gallopavo is eaten by humans. Turkeys travel primarily on foot, with occasional short flights to escape trouble. Or maybe hed encountered turkeys raised the Spanish way. Georgia. Like Turkey the country. [38], In anatomical terms, a snood is an erectile, fleshy protuberance on the forehead of turkeys. Melanistic Wild Turkeys overproduce the pigment melanin, making them jet black in colorthe gothest turkey out there. They can be found in 49 U.S. states, with the only exception being Alaska, Hughes said. Where do wild turkeys live in the summer? A wide range of noises are made by the male especially in spring time. Its gone from a conservation success story to a wildlife-management situation.. Wild turkeys are not widespread in Canada, being found only in the extreme south of the country. How many types of wild turkey are there in America? Wild turkeys can fly at a speed of 30 to 35 miles per hour. A mature male, or Tom turkey, will ruffle-out feathers in a beautiful strut display in order to entice a nearby hen. Shotguns work at much less. Marion Larson, chief of informationat MassWildlife, Encounters with the four-foot-tall turkeys can be dangerous, especially to ahousehold pet or a small child. : Fox, the Dominion Case, and the Perils of Pivoting from Trump. [citation needed], Chan Chich Lodge area, Belize: the ocellated turkey is named for the eye-shaped spots (ocelli) on its tail feathers, A male (tom) wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) strutting (spreading its feathers) in a field. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. Photo: Howard Arndt/Audubon Photography Awards, Great Egret. They were first domesticated by the indigenous people of Mexico from at least 800 BC onwards. (Dinde truffe, despite its exorbitant cost, or perhaps because of it, took off. Now wildlife agencies across the region are tasked with managing both the Wild Turkeys and their human neighbors to make sure encounters dont go awry. Turkeys are native to the US, but they had died out in Massachusetts by 1851 due to habitat loss, according to MassWildlife, the body responsible for conservation of wildlife in the state. Just 50 years ago, the Wild Turkey population in New England was essentially non-existent, and had been for over a century. They mourn the death of a flock member and so acutely anticipate pain that domestic breeds have had epidemical heart attacks after watching their feathered mates take that fatal step towards Thanksgiving dinner. [21][22], Turkeys were likely first domesticated in Pre-Columbian Mexico, where they held a cultural and symbolic importance. And no reader of the annals of early New England has ever forgotten Bradfords recounting of the public execution, in 1642, of a boy, aged sixteen or seventeen, hanged to death for having had sex with a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves, and a turkey. (A turkey?) Then, in the early nineteen-seventies, thirty-seven birds captured in the Adirondacks were released in the Berkshires, and their descendants are now everywhere, hundreds of thousands strong, brunching at Bostons Prudential Center, dining on Boston Common, and foraging alongside the Swan Boats that glide in the pond of Boston Public Garden. Still, if they are being kept for exhibition, conservation, breeding or as pets, then a turkey breeder pellet is given. Rarely do they cause serious damage, although they often will chase and harass children. Im sure it would have created quite a spectacle as they passed the villages and hamlets along the way! [28] In the 1960s and 1970s, biologists started trapping wild turkeys from the few places they remained (including the Ozarks[28] and New York[29]), and re-introducing them into other states, including Minnesota[28] and Vermont. In the annals of packing blunders, surely theres a special place for the time English settler ships brought European-raised turkeys to New England in 1629. Eastern wild turkey mate in early spring, usually between March and May. When a tom is strutting, its head turns bright red, pale . There are now 10 varieties of turkey standardised in the UK and 8 in the US (called heritage varieties). A turkey seemed, then, an imaginary, mythical animala dragon, a unicorn. And its story continues to be linked to geopolitics, just as it was in the 1500s. It has been estimated that as many as 16,000 turkeys are now on the islands from those . The wild turkey is the only type of poultry native to North America and is the ancestor of the domesticated turkey. Postwar innovations in poultry production accelerated the spread of turkey around the world. Turkeys have been genetically modified to gain weight rapidly because fatter turkeys mean fatter wallets for farmers. The Wild Turkey Nest. A bicycle cop veers into a hen, on purpose, a near-miss, urging her away from a playground: Scram, bird, scram! And still the turkeys gain ground: the people of New England appear indifferent to the advice of the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, recalling childhood afternoons spent in schoolrooms, placing a hand on construction paper and tracing the outline of splayed and stubby fingers to draw a tom, its tail feathers spread wide. Thats because the birds, usually male, are tryingand succeedingto establish themselves at the top of the towns pecking order. Juvenile females are called jennies. Wild Turkeys in a Massachusetts driveway. Learn Their Meat Names. The birds can act aggressively towardshumans by charging at them,pecking at them, or otherwise intimidating them. Sometimes folks make the mistake of feeding them. A male wild turkey displaying to females in the winter. Download Peter Thompson'sessential 26-page book, featuring beautiful photography and detailed profiles of Britain's wildlife, 2023 Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Charity registered in England and Wales, 1112023, in Scotland SC038868. The following wildlife refuges are known to support populations of wild turkeys. Wild Turkeys, each weighing in at 10 or 20 pounds, loiter in driveways, trapping residents inside their homes. I think there's a clip on youtube somewhere of . The National Audubon Society protects birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow, throughout the Americas using science, advocacy, education, and on-the-ground conservation. These are the wild turkey (M. gallopavo) of North America, and the ocellated turkey (M. ocellata) of southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. [31], In 2017, the town of Brookline, Massachusetts, recommended a controversial approach when confronted with wild turkeys. And now,. And here it is! Larson says when there's a problem, it's usually because a turkey has gotten too comfortable with people. The best known is the common turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), a native game bird of North America that has been widely domesticated for the table. Hunting without a rifle is like, Like humans, polar bears have a plantigrade stance: they walk on the soles of, Once downed by a hunter, well-trained tollers will retrieve the bird as well. Wild turkeys, unlike their domesticated cousins, fly well, from 40 to 55 miles per hour. Wild turkeys were once rare, but have become increasingly common. Wild turkeys typically forage on forest floors, but can also be found in grasslands and swamps. They even fly (granted, not very well) across highways; one left a turkey-size dent in an ornithologists windshield. Another great sea-faring nation, Portugal, called the bird Peru, as they knew that they came from across the Atlantic, but their geography of the Americas was a little hazy at this time. But it was also a member of the poultry groupone of the few land meats non-nobles ever got to eat, since fowl could be relatively easily kept for their eggs and didnt qualify as game. Turkeys will roost out of the snow whenever possible. Adult female turkeys are called hens. I remember reading somewhere that wild turkeys can get very aggressive. Can you hunt deer with a pistol in lower Michigan? Turkeys destined for the table are put on turkey finisher pellets between 12-16 weeks. Or take action immediately with one of our current campaigns below: The Audubon Bird Guide is a free and complete field guide to more than 800 species of North American birds, right in your pocket. But turkeys abounded. They have also been introduced to various parts of the world including New Zealand and Hawaii. [12] In the modern genus Meleagris, a considerable number of species have been described, as turkey fossils are robust and fairly often found, and turkeys show great variation among individuals. Oryctos, 7, 249-269. [24][25] The Classical Nahuatl word for the turkey, huehxl-tl (guajolote in Spanish), is still used in modern Mexico, in addition to the general term pavo. South-facing slopes generally have thinner snow covering because they are exposed to more direct sunlight and can provide easier foraging grounds. In the weeks before John Wayne Gacys scheduled execution, he was far from reconciled to his fate. How an unemployed blogger confirmed that Syria had used chemical weapons. "Toms" or male wild turkeys weigh about 16-25 pounds. A non-migratory native of much of North America from s. Canada to c. Mexico. Domestic turkeys have no fear of humans. Kearsarge Regional High School biology teacher Emily Anderson recently shared an unusual photo (and video) of three white turkey poults in a flock with 8 black hens. No one had any idea that these birds would be showing up in suburbs, says Marion Larson, the chief of information and education at MassWildlife. The trigger may have been King Ferdinand of Spains order, in 1511, for every ship sailing from the Indies to Spain to bring 10 turkeysfive male and five female. [14] One theory suggests that when Europeans first encountered turkeys in the Americas, they incorrectly identified the birds as a type of guineafowl, which were already being imported into Europe by English merchants to the Levant via Constantinople. Once hatched, the chicks usually leave the nest within 12 hours, to follow along behind the hen. These are the Wild Turkeys of New England, and they've taken over. The well-known rapid gobble noise can carry for up to a mile, to which hen birds will reply with a yelp, thereby letting the males know where they are located. They are among the largest birds in their ranges. Dicionrio Priberam da Lingua Portuguesa, "peru". There was a great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, the Mayflower arrival William Bradford wrote in his journal, during his first autumn in Plymouth, in 1621. The wild turkey population has recovered because of focused conservation efforts and reintroduction programs. Type in your search and hit Enter on desktop or hit Go on mobile device, October Greenfield/Audubon Photography Awards. Germanys economic advantage over France within the European Union is arguably also evident in turkey stats: In 2008, roughly when the financial crisis accentuated German economic might on the continent, Germany surpassed France as the leading European producer of turkeys, according to FAO numbers. They roam according to weather conditions and gather in large flocks in winter. Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times. Their numbers in the US increased to approximately 1.25 million individuals by 1970 and their recovery accelerated after that, resulting in a dramatic increase to an estimated 6.5 - 6.7 million in 2009. But the urban birds continue to flourishin New England. Wild Turkey (band), a 1970s rock band formed by former Jethro Tull bassist Glenn Cornick and Gentle Giant drummer John Weathers. In Massachusetts, you can hunt wild turkeys (since 1991, the states official game bird), but only with a permit, only during turkey-hunting season, and only so long as you dont use bait, dogs, or electronic turkey callers. The easiest distinction between a wild turkey or a domestic turkey is simply what color its feathers are. According to the zooarchaeologist Stanley J. Olsen in the Cambridge World History of Food, it was the ocellated turkey further south, not the turkey "that is regarded as the Thanksgiving bird. Ad Choices. Thats exotic and far away., The success of Central American, European-cultivated turkeys in England from the reign of Henry VIII onwards is what made it possible to send them on ships to Virginia in 1584 and Massachusetts in 1629, a distinct case of carrying coals to Newcastle, admitted Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald in their culinary history entitled Americas Founding Food. There are two main theories, one having to do with familiarity and the other with class. In the 1500s, Spanish traders brought some that had been domesticated by indigenous Americans to Europe and Asia. The expansion of Western colonialism onlycomplicated matters further, as Malaysians call the turkeyAyamBlander(Dutch chicken), whilst the Cambodians have named it Moan Barang (French chicken). [35] It has been suggested that its demise was due to the combined pressures of human hunting and climate change at the end of the last glacial period.[36]. Wild Turkeys can fly for short distances up to 55 miles per hour. [30] Wild turkeys have a social structure and pecking order and habituated turkeys may respond to humans and animals as they do other turkeys. The U.S. population is back up to roughly 6.2 million birds, he says. Turkeys are recognized as the state game bird for Alabama, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. They eat everything: worms, hot dogs, sushi, your breakfast, grubs. It was these New England turkeys (the Meleagris gallopavo silvestris, according to a 2009 DNA study) that achieved new heights of culinary fame, while simultaneously offering a lesson in the complexities of colonialism. There are six different sub-species of wild turkey, and five of them occur in the United States. The land is upon a limestone-bed; and will grow . Are there wild turkeys in Europe? Wild turkeys can fly. The poults (baby turkeys) are well developed when they hatch and are ready to leave the nest in just one to three days. Adult females average half the size of male turkeys. Birds, over all, are not faring well. It was an all-hands-on-deck restoration effort, says Chris Bernier, a wildlife biologist at the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. Meat consumption was a prominent social marker in early modern Europe, and turkey, when it entered the continent, occupied a unique position. Theres forgetting a toothbrush, for example, and then theres living in a dropping-filled boat for three months in order to deposit anemic, sea-ruffled birds in forests positively lousy with their larger, fatter cousins. Through conservation efforts over the past century, with funds derived from the Pittman-Robertson Act, and thanks to sportsmen and women, there are approximately 6.5 million wild birds in the United States today, according to the National Wild Turkey Federation. According to. (In the Romance languages and German, the bird was called Indian chicken, because the Americas were referred to as the Indies.) The origin of the word turkey, according to many contemporary scholars, unfortunately boils down to the English being rubes: the word Turkey meant, You know, exotic things from far away. Let us send you the latest in bird and conservation news. Despite their huge size and weight, wild turkeys are not bad at flying and gliding, not only to get away from danger but also to go up to roost in trees. It was King Edward VII who first made eating turkey fashionable at Christmas, replacing the peacock on the royal table. The natural lifespan of the turkey is up to 10 years, but on . It is said that Strickland acquired six turkeys by trading. If lambs grazed on the outfield at Fenway Park, would the sight of them leave you licking your lips at the thought of lamb chops, roasted with rosemary and lemon? . Membership benefits include one year of Audubon magazineand the latest on birds and their habitats. Photo: October Greenfield/Audubon Photography Awards. One, the well-documented California turkey Meleagris californica,[34] became extinct recently enough to have been hunted by early human settlers. Home to more than 317,000 Eastern turkeys, hunters harvested 47.603 of them. Theyre strutting on city sidewalks, nesting under park benches, roosting in back yardswhole flocks flapping, waggling their drooping, bubblegum-pink snoods at passing traffic, as if they owned the place. Wild Turkeys are generally found in woodland habitats. Visit your local Audubon center, join a chapter, or help save birds with your state program. These versions are caused by albinism and melanism, conditions which occur in many animals. Wild turkeys spend the night in trees. Fish & Wildlife Service, wild turkey populations may have fallen to as low as 200,000 around the beginning of the 1900s. They may attack small children. Domestic turkeys come from the Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), a species that is native only to the Americas. [32] This advice was quickly rescinded and replaced with a caution that "being aggressive toward wild turkeys is not recommended by State wildlife officials.[33], A number of turkeys have been described from fossils. The wild turkey (Meleaagris gallopavo) is a species of bird native to North America.There are six subspecies of M. gallopavo, two of which have populations in Canada: the Eastern wild turkey, M. gallopavo silvestris and Merriam's wild turkey, M. gallopavo merriami.The Eastern wild turkey is native to southern Ontario and Quebec, while Merriam's wild turkey was introduced to Manitoba in . They lounge on decks, damage gardens, and jump on thecar hoods. [citation needed], Turkeys were first exported to Europe via Spain around 1519, where they gained immediate popularity among the aristocratic classes. [14][17], In 1550, the English navigator William Strickland, who had introduced the turkey into England, was granted a coat of arms including a "turkey-cock in his pride proper". Not Every Animal Is Beef! Yes. In suburban New England, gobbling gangs roam the streets. That's when something unexpected happened. They look like Pilgrims, grave and gray-black, drab-daubed, their tail feathers edged in white, Puritan divines in ruffled cuffs. Wild turkeys can fly at speeds of up to 55 miles per hour and run at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour. Or would making their closer acquaintance convert you to vegetarianism? Theyre treating people as if theyre turkeys.. These are thought to arise from the supposed belief of Christopher Columbus that he had reached India rather than the Americas on his voyage. The wild turkey can fly more than a mile at a time and at speeds up to 55 miles per hour. The act of rolling six consecutive strikes (bowling) These heavily pressured Easterns have seen it all, and theyve been pursued for decades by the best hunters in the world. Although wild and domesticated turkeys are related, there are some differences between the two. Wild turkeys are principally birds of forest and woodland habitats, although they occur in more open habitats in the semi-arid southwest. Data on the parasite burdens of free-living wild turkeys revealed a negative correlation between snood length and infection with intestinal coccidia, deleterious protozoan parasites. It is first recorded in Middle English (as Turkye, Torke, later Turkie, Turky), attested in Chaucer, ca. I parted the thorny canes to reveal a nest on the ground lined with dried grass and containing nine large, creamy eggs, speckled with brown. Captive female wild turkeys prefer to mate with long-snooded males, and during dyadic interactions, male turkeys defer to males with relatively longer snoods. Mayan aristocrats and priests appear to have had a special connection to ocellated turkeys, with ideograms of those birds appearing in Mayan manuscripts. The answer, biologists say, is simple: We just need to stop feeding them, Scarpitti says. [citation needed], Other European names for turkeys incorporate an assumed Indian origin, such as dinde ('from India') in French, (indyushka, 'bird of India') in Russian, indyk in Polish and Ukrainian, and hindi ('Indian') in Turkish. Can you shoot black bears in British Columbia? Contacts | About us | Privacy Policy & Cookies. Its the least you can do. 1369. Wild turkeys have been a part of human lives for thousands of years, and today they are farmed commercially and even kept as pets all over the world! Today, turkeys are everywhere. That advice might seem ironic to modern readers not just due to the appalling state most turkeys are raised in today, according to Staveley and Fitzgerald, but also because wild turkeys were at the time of Brillat-Savarins hunt already close to extinction in New Englanda stark reminder of the environmental aspects of European imperialism and their effect on Native American ways of life. [20], Several other birds that are sometimes called turkeys are not particularly closely related: the brushturkeys are megapodes, and the bird sometimes known as the Australian turkey is the Australian bustard (Ardeotis australis). Home to an estimated 335,000 Eastern turkeys, hunters took 44,106 of them in 2014. What is the only state that does not have wild turkeys? All rights reserved. By the mid-1850s, New Englands turkeys had all but disappeared. Some eager residents even go out of their way to attract the birds by scattering nuts, seeds, and berries on background platforms or intentionally growing nut-producing trees. The Associated Press. Again the importers lent the name to the bird; hence turkey-cocks and turkey-hens, and soon thereafter, turkeys. The birds make use of more open habitats like clearings and pasture at this time of the year to take advantage of the insects and grasses that they feed on. Bernard John Marsden, 7 May 1951, Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, England). So we advise people that every few times you've got turkeys going through your yard, go out and scare them.". There was no precedent for it.. Audubon protects birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow. Females are less territorial than males and will group together and move greater distances. [44], The snood functions in both intersexual and intrasexual selection. Joe Sandrini, a wildlife biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, says winter and spring weather remains the biggest challenges facing turkeys there. To understand how that happened, one could do worse than start with the odd cargo of 17th-century settler ships. Many could easily be lost, and compared to other poultry, there are very few people keeping turkeys. For its meat, see, Destruction and re-introduction in the United States. From there, English settlers brought turkeys to North America during the 17th century. The turkey (Meleagris gallapavo) was inarguably domesticated in the North American continent, but its specific origins are somewhat problematic.Archaeological specimens of wild turkey have been found in North America that date to the Pleistocene, and turkeys was emblematic of many indigenous groups in North America as seen at sites such as the Mississippian capital of Etowah (Itaba) in Georgia. Toms sport beard are bristle-like feathers that protrude from the chest and can grow to a length of more than 12 inches on older toms. (The Eurasian germs that laid waste to American civilizations developed in part through concentrations of humans and livestock. [citation needed], An infant turkey is called a chick or poult. In fact, Wyoming has moved to. The Indians call it Piru because they believed it came from Peru (so do the Portuguese and Brazilians Peru but in Brazil its also a slang for cock, and not the male chicken one). They eat everything: worms, hot dogs, sushi, your breakfast, grubs. Wild turkeys can fly for short distances up to 55 mph and can run 20 mph. They did better than anybody thought that they would, says Matthew DiBona, wildlife biologist with the National Wild Turkey Federation. Overall, locals dont mind the company. The name of the North American bird may have then become turkey fowl or Indian turkeys, which was eventually shortened to turkeys. The wild turkey species is the ancestor of the domestic turkey, which was domesticated approximately 2,000 years ago. The anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) is sometimes called the water turkey, from the shape of its tail when the feathers are fully spread for drying. Even before they were carefully selected to breed extra-large birds for the table, wild maletom or gobbler turkeys, as they are known in America, can reach an impressive size. In the 1960s, biologists began to explore the idea of trapping Wild Turkeys, primarily from New York, and transporting them for release in New England. Male wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) eating in a Wisconsin field in autumn. Wild turkeys might spend their days foraging on the ground, but they spend their nights high up in the safety of trees. Can you hunt in Missouri without a hunter safety course? Georgia: Best State for Longest Turkey Hunting Season. They forage on the ground, but at night, they will fly to the top of trees to roost. How the Biggest Fraud in German History Unravelled. Wild Turkeys nest on the ground in dead leaves at the bases of trees, under brush piles or thick shrubbery, or occasionally in open hayfields. No part of this site may be reproduced without our written permission. Six subspecies of wild turkeys occur from southern Canada, throughout the United States, and through much of Mexico. "Wild turkeys were at one point extirpated from Massachusetts, so by . Roosting in the dogwood tree outside your window, pecking at the subway grate, twisting its ruddy red neck and looking straight at you, like a long-lost dodo. Wild turkeys are one of the most charismatic and iconic bird species in North America. They started the slow procession in August, with birds feeding on stubble fields and stopping at specific feeding stations along the way. Wild turkeys are also less selective about the types of trees they sleep in during the summer. Turkeys roost safely in trees or dense vegetation at night, preferring woodlands, grasslands, savannas and even swamps. A wild, four-foot-high, 20 - 30 pound, adult tom turkey, North America's largest ground nesting bird, is not at all like his domestic, slow-moving, artificially-fattened, meek and mild . The popular story is that we owe the introduction of the turkey into England to William Strickland, who lived in East Yorkshire. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. The bird reportedly got its common name because it reached European tables through shipping routes that passed . The fact that the bird on the national seal looked more like a turkey than an eagle, he wrote, was probably a good thing: The turkey is a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.. Without hunting restrictions,hunters picked off any Wild Turkeys that survived the deforestation. Wild turkeys are so widespread in the United States that they can now be found in every state of the lower 48. David is the main protagonist of the Duck Season game. Wild turkeys were almost wiped out in the early 1900's. Today there are wild turkeys in every state except Alaska. Elderly individuals are also at risk from falls associated with aggressive turkeys. When turkeys were reintroduced about 50 years ago, no one dreamed the birds would thrive in the suburbs. Later this month, many of us will settle down to eat a Christmas Day feast based on a large oven-roasted turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), plus all the trimmings of course! The wild turkey is a strikingly handsome bird; black to blackish-bronze with white wing bars, blackish-brown tail feathers and a blueish-gray to red head. But that warm welcome sometimes fades as the turkey-human scuffles continue to mount, and residents claim that the birds are a nuisance. Domestic turkeys from small farm flocks are occasionally reported to join wild flocks in the United States. Stop the Destruction of Globally Important Wetland.
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