The Pilgrims in New England most likely encountered and ate the Eastern wild turkey, a subspecies of wild turkey native to the entire eastern half of what is now the United States, including coastal New England.

Evidence from early records

• Historical accounts note that colonists in the Plymouth area found “great store of wild turkeys” in the woods during the early 1600s, indicating that wild, not domestic, birds were present.

• The only near‑contemporary written description of the 1621 harvest feast mentions generic “fowl,” which would have included local wild species such as ducks, geese, and turkeys, rather than European domestic turkeys.

Why it was Eastern wild turkey

• The Eastern wild turkey (Meleagris\gallopavo\silvestris) is specifically identified by biologists as the subspecies first encountered in the wild by English colonists in New England and other early settlements.

• Domestic turkeys kept by later colonists descended from Mexican domesticated stock brought back to Europe and then reintroduced, but those lines arrived after the period of the first Plymouth harvest feast, making the native Eastern wild turkey the most likely bird the Pilgrims hunted and ate.