U.S. Postal Service slowdowns are so bad, baby birds are dying

Nebraska Public Media | News

For days, Amy Gholson tracked a shipment of baby turkeys she ordered from an Ohio hatchery. She kept tabs online as the birds began the more than 500-mile trip to the Gholson home near St. Charles, Missouri, via the U.S. Postal Service. The ten birds needed to arrive in two days to ensure they’d survive the trip. It was late March and temperatures were still low, making the speed of the delivery more crucial than usual. But the baby turkeys, or poults, hadn’t even left Ohio when progress halted. “I was going to be able to watch these babies digitally, basically, and they went to the Cleveland distribution warehouse and they stayed there and stayed there,” Gholson said. Postal Service delays have become more persistent in the years following the pandemic and a new ten-year plan put in place by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy aimed at ending billions of dollars a year in losses. Slowdowns in delivery are integral to the plan.