FARGO — If you find yourself fighting to find the perfect turkey in the frozen section of your local grocery store for your holiday meal, be thankful: This struggle used to be an all-out war.

For decades, farm families across the region faced financial losses around Thanksgiving. Every year, like clockwork, the warning went out: Guard your poultry.

“Turkey thieves are abroad in the land,” The People’s Press in Geneva, Minnesota, reported in 1911.

Farmers routinely awoke to missing birds after nighttime raids. Sometimes showdowns turned into shootouts.

“Rifles cracked, lights flashed, and the hunt was on when turkey robbers were heard at the Charlie Darknell farm in Ripley,” the Claremont (Minnesota) News reported in November 1924. “But the night was too dark for accurate shooting a

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