Live turkeys fall off truck, snarl traffic

Newark - Maybe they knew what was coming. Two dozen live turkeys bound for Thanksgiving tables fell off a truck Friday on the New Jersey Turnpike, briefly snarling traffic near Newark Liberty International Airport. ``I think we should be investigating this as an escape attempt,’’ said Joseph Orlando, a spokesman for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. The two crates fell as a truck was leaving the highway, and a toll booth supervisor who spotted them contacted authorities. The birds, which survived the fall, will presumably be returned to the trucker if the driver notices they’re missing, Orlando said. The spill was only the latest bizarre animal incident on the highway in recent years. Last November, a tractor-trailer carrying 40,000 pounds of frozen chickens struck a truck carrying sheep in East Windsor, killing 22 of the animals. A month before that, a truck carrying live chickens was hit from behind by another tractor-trailer as it entered the turnpike in Barrington, dumping some onto the road; the others died in a fire.