Looks like we need a new thread. Fortunately, I have a fascinating link.
How Wild Turkeys Took Over New England
The turkeys’ subjugation of New England residents is a relatively recent phenomenon. Just 50 years ago, the Wild Turkey population in New England was essentially non-existent, and had been for over a century. Then, an extensive, coordinated effort to trap and transfer turkeys across state lines rejuvenated the population—a comeback lauded by wildlife biologists and agencies as a conservation triumph. “It was an all-hands-on-deck restoration effort,” says Chris Bernier, a wildlife biologist at the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. “It’s a fabulous success story.” But now, with turkeys practically running the show, agencies must find a balance between celebrating the Wild Turkey revival and ensuring that human and bird get along. “We’re at opposite ends of the spectrum from where we were 50 years ago,” says wildlife biologist David Scarpitti, who leads the Turkey & Upland Game Project at MassWildlife. “It’s gone from a conservation success story to a wildlife-management situation.”
The turkeys were moved into the Berkshires from New York’s Adirondaks. And nature took over from there.
Seems like turkeys are doing well everywhere, though. My sister in Oregon thinks they are increasing there too.
Open thread!
On The Road – Dagaetch – Election Respite, New Zealand Edition
Gin & Tonic
I had a family in, or at least daily passing through my yard for a couple of months earlier this year. I was surprised at how well they fly.
Major Major Major Major
When I lived in NorCal we had a lot of turkeys. Damn things loved my car when it was clean. I suspect I just don’t like large birds.
JanieM
Wait, I thought it was the Canada geese that were once endangered and are now taking over.
Sounds like quite a similar story, anyhow.
Mike in NC
It appears that Fat Bastard has gone down into the bunker and will not be surfacing until after the holidays. Then he will emerge to read a message from Vladimir Putin congratulating him on his landslide reelection!
dr. luba
They are rampant in the suburbs of Detroit. This is quite a recent thing; I don’t think I’d even seen a wild turkey in Michigan until maybe the last decade or so.
And there’s a bunch of them in the Keweenaw peninsula now, where I do not believe they historically lived. They were introduced a few years back, and have managed to survive several Copper Country winters
dmsilev
Could be worse, you could have feral peacocks. Just about as big and aggressive, and the males have a cry that sounds disturbingly similar to a small child shouting ‘help help!’. The local population here traces its roots to a very rich guy who took a long trip to India back in the late 19th century and returned with a small flock of them.
jonas
Here in upstate NY, wild turkey populations have been struggling the past couple of years. Just this year, I’ve noticed flocks in fields and on the roadsides again after a long period of hardly spotting any. The DEC isn’t sure what the issue is. Fewer poults are surviving for some reason, whether because of disease, predators, lower reproductive rates, or what. Climate change is of course the cause which dare not speak its name…
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: My house in NorCal came with a warning on the official disclosures: “Sometimes a herd of wild turkeys will descend on the house or the neighborhood. Do not mess with them.” :)
Mustang Bobby
If they want a shitload of peacocks, have them come down to my neighborhood here in a suburb of Miami and get them. They’re mean, loud, stupid beyond repair — they attack their reflections in the side of a car — and leave turds the size of golf balls. They’re invasive but protected. I was hoping for the coyotes to take care of them — they are moving in from the Everglades — but apparently Acme doesn’t deliver.
SFBayAreaGal
I will admit when I saw the title, I thought it was going to be about the turkey that just got roasted by the Supremes
Dan B
@dmsilev: I agree about peafowl. As long as Geese, wild Turkeys, and Peafowl don’t get together and create the worst hybrid.
NotMax
@dmsilev
Ooh, an opportunity to trot out a word that is luscious rolling off the tongue: pavonine.
scav
There was once a semi-feral peacock that wandered in the backyard — once into the house itself, so heavy on the semi. Pheasants and quail are the more usual yearly guests of that ilk. One of the pheasants did come repeatedly to the glass back door in hope of a little something, so again, heavy on the semi.
Kristine
They were pretty much extinct in Illinois at one point. Now they’re seen in every county.
JanieM
Harvard Square turkey. It was quite at home, and apparently unafraid of the bustle going on around it. I used to see it a lot — or maybe there were several, there were rumors to that effect, but I never saw more than one at a time.
And then there’s this strangeness, which I originally saw on the news without the Animal Planet sensationalism. It’s nice to have an explanation, though.
Martin
The NH libertarians are vindicated! Their bears will protect them. Should have planned better, libtards!
Amir Khalid
@Mustang Bobby:
I wouldn’t count on coyotes being able to control peafowl. Coyotes, for some reason, tend to favour an over-engineered tech solution that invariably backfires on them.
//
TomatoQueen
Mofos climbed into my mother’s rhododendrons and ate all the buds. She was NOT amused.
OTOH, my copies of the B-J calendars(a and b) arrived in absolutely pristine condition, and are beautiful and elegant. Well done to all, including the Postal Service.
mrmoshpotato
Leave the turkeys alone! Wait for it.
mrmoshpotato
@TomatoQueen:
Was it something that could be tasty?
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
True to form, the teenagers of the flock smoked the buds.
laura
They are frequent visitors to our neighborhood- and everywhere else of late. If you’ve not heard this – it will scare the pee wadding out of you:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/452/poultry-slam-2011/act-two-0
Luciamia
I love the facial expression on wild turkeys . Talk about planning A violent coup!
mrmoshpotato
@laura: ? Turkey for me, turkey for you ?
Punchy
I’m very familiar with Wild Turkey. Or….at least….my liver is.
ETA: really? First one in on this?
Aleta
During the last 15 years flocks of wild turkeys have disappeared from an island we go to that had stretches of wild land, as more houses were built. (No one knew where they came from. They weren’t introduced by the state to draw hunters, as in other places, because hunting wasn’t allowed.) Now flocks are showing up on the streets of little mainland towns instead. (Perhaps patches of land trust, town trails and wetlands protected in tradeoff deals with developers are drawing them as other spots get developed.) Especially strips of land along waterways are more protected now than they were 50 years ago. (We often see eagles flying along the river that goes through town. The DDT ban and reduced pesticide pollution and removing dams helped bring them back.) I wonder if fewer pesticides and more targeted herbicides have also helped the turkeys.
different-church-lady
@dmsilev: Peacocks you say?
CaseyL
@dmsilev: @Mustang Bobby:
I have a friend who lives in the Coconut Grove area of Miami, and the neighborhood is full of feral peacocks.
She says they get up on her roof and roost there.
I said that sounded beautiful, peacocks along the roofline.
She said there are downsides. Not just the baby-sounding cries, but the birdshit. It lands on her back deck and eats away at the decking.
(She hasn’t mentioned the males attacking their own reflections in sliding glass doors and cars – I should ask her about that.)
John Revolta
Plus ça change…………….back in the ’30s Benchley wrote an article about how the bison, which had very nearly gone extinct, had been brought back so effectively that they were now having to be killed off every year. “It is rather a tough fate for a member of a proud breed, who thought he was being saved from extinction, to find himself being slaughtered to make room for others coming in. He might even ask, with perfect justice: ‘What is this- a gag?'”
CaseyL
@mrmoshpotato: Death salons? Death nerds? Howinhell did you stumble over that group? (The speakers did look really interesting, and I have enough appreciation for the goth aesthetic to want to check out the vendors.)
Jim Appleton
In northwest Wasco County, Oregon, turkeys have done well for many years, but not noticeably better recently.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: Probably 20 years ago I went on a camping trip with some friends to Dolly Sods, WV. We were hiking around in the snow in a pine forest and suddenly heard a commotion up ahead of us – flapping wings and broken branches. It was half a dozen turkeys taking off through the woods when they thought we were getting too close.
They were haulin’!!
I’ve got a photo somewhere of an imprint one of them made in the snow with its wings.
Cheers,
Scott.
Juju
@Major Major Major Major: I live in eastern NC and we have turkeys around where I live, usually paired. I agree with you about how they must hate a clean car. The first time a turkey crapped on my freshly washed car, my first thought was that a small dog had to be the culprit, judging by the size of its business. It then occurred to me that it was probably one of those turkeys I see walking across the back yard. It got to a point where I was going to have to get rid of the turkeys or stop washing my car. I stopped washing my car. After that, I either never noticed turkey business on my car, or the turkeys stopped doing their business on my car. I’m not sure which.
Jim Appleton
@Jim Appleton:
My own local scourge is a flock of peacocks.
Lige
When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s in eastern Oregon wild turkeys were something I read about but never expected to see – now they are everywhere.
Jim Appleton
@Lige:
Be glad they’re not peacocks.
Plus, turkeys do a good job suppressing ticks.
Citizen Alan
I can’t believe no one has said this yet:
Emma from FL
@Mustang Bobby: I live very near you, I think. They haven’t yet reached us but we encounter them when we drive on Old Cutler Road. It’s the sound that gets me. When there’s more than one sounding off it sounds like Beelzebub’s own a capella choir.
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
I lived in Monrovia and the Arcadia Arboretum let’s their peacocks run loose or they got loose but they used to show up in our big front yard and hang/strut around for hours till they decided to walk back the 3 1/2 miles.
DocH
I remember seeing wildlife biologist Ted Walski driving around seacoast NH with a directional antenna on the roof of his VW, tracking birds from the second (late ’70s) reintroduction attempt – the successful one. Now they’re everywhere and that’s imho a good thing.
Lige
@Jim Appleton: Ha! Way to look at the bright side. I’ve run across peacocks in NE Oregon but as far as I can tell no feral flocks.
Pete Mack
It’s a surprise if they mob you, sure, but you got no excuse if you lose a fight with a flock of turkeys. Even a flock of 20+ (as I saw today, on a walk around sunset. Mt Ascutney looks spectacular, silhouetted and drawn in pastel shades)
TMC
Oh, please. we here on Staten Island, NY, the smallest borough of NYC, have been dealing with a wild turkey population for years. Since they’re protected, there is nothing residents can do when they invade their property and, at times, flocks of them block traffic. Staten Island University Hospital North is inundated. Now they are everywhere on the island. So are deer and now foxes. Yes, NEW YORK CITY. I’ve lived here of on since 1949 when we had farms with cows, chickens and horses in our back yards.
So my heart bleeds for New England. Deal with it. Time for a Wild Turkey hunt to feed the poor.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev:
@Ruckus: Y’all can thank Lucky Baldwin for the San Gabriel Valley Peafowl, the flock in PV seems to have had a different sponsor.
Pete Mack
@TMC:
Turkeys are NOT a protected species in NY. There are spring and fall hunting season. If there is no cull on staten Island, it is a local ban. Also: foxes definitely catch turkeys (as do coyotes), so there is predation, too. Elsewhere in the state, coyotes do to.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Here in Mendocino County, CA, the wild turkeys were rare until about 15 -20 years ago. When they first started showing up at our old house in the hills, we would hide in the house to avoid scaring them. Ha! Now they are very common and my husband just lives with the way they can fly over fences and scuffle through his compost beds, looking for goodies. Of course, they are not native to CA. I’m not sure where they came from, or who imported them. Maybe someone looking to establish a game bird. When I lived on the Peninsula, there were some ring-necked pheasants down by the bay, and of course they are not native either.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@dmsilev: Where we used to live in the country, a neighbor had peacocks, and I thought they sounded like cats crying in distress. Very disturbing until I found out what was making that cry.
Mustang Bobby
@Emma from FL: I’m in Palmetto Bay near the Deering Estate. A couple of years ago two peacocks got on my roof, walked onto the screened patio enclosure, fell through the screens, and when I came home I found them staring at me through the patio door as if it was my fault. They wrecked two more panels just getting out.
I hear they’re good on a bed of wild rice with a side of red cabbage.
opiejeanne
@dmsilev: Are you in Arcadia?
opiejeanne
@MisterForkbeard: When we lived in Castro Valley, there were turkey buzzards that roosted in trees at the end of our street, and they sounded like women were screaming in terror. Maybe they were mating or just squabbling, but the first time I heard it I nearly called the police.
When I was taking one of the kids somewhere, one of the buzzards bombed my car as it flew over. It was like an ostrich egg had been dropped from a height, and I nearly drove over the curb.
A neighbor helped me hose it off.
opiejeanne
@Citizen Alan: Classic.
Palindrome
Same thing in Colorado. We went from knowing there were a few here but never seeing them to “watch out – turkeys on the road”.
Booger
Wild turkeys lay their eggs in shallow scrapes on the ground, with minimal nestbuilding–maybe some grasses for insulation. A wet spring will flood these little bowls and drown the eggs, so the climate-change driven combination of unpredictable temperatures and increasingly heavy rains wreaks havoc with their reproduction. Some years they raise a large bunch of poults, some years none.
And while they seem to prefer running, they fly like B-17s. Seeing a flock take off is amazing, and while they roost in trees, I’ve only seen a wild turkey in a tree once or twice. I’ve learned to recognize them in fields at a distance by the distinctive “eye brow” shape they have when they graze.
Kristine
@Citizen Alan: I’ve been posting that clip on my FB page every Thanksgiving for years. It’s the best thing ever. ???
namekarB
I grew up in Northern California (North of Sacramento) in the 50’s and 60’s. We never saw wild turkeys until around the mid 80’s when they started a come back. Now they are everywhere here. Urban, suburban and rural.
J R in WV
@Another Scott:
Back in the late 1970s Wife and a friend and i were hiking off Scenic Route 150 some miles south of Dolly Sod, above a big bench when we saw hundreds of wild turkeys in giant flocks running/flying north fast as they could. Was amazing mass of movement… more turkey than you could imagine ^2 ~!!~
Bill Arnold
@Booger:
Thanks, was about to make this comment but less articulately.
A few years ago (southern NYS Hudson Valley) I saw a flock rising far enough away that I mistook it for maybe a second for Canada geese, maybe a kilometer away. Then it was clear it was turkeys, then they flew towards my house, over it, and the flock of well over 50 (counted) landed on a rise on the other side.
They are not quiet flyers; the wing beats are loud.
Coyotes (and perhaps raccoons?) in my area are an additional random factor (on top of weather) in their population levels.
Mart
I was minding my business riding my bike when a turkey came hollering at me – wings out – from the bush. I was so startled I swerved into an incoming car. Thankfully the car swerved so I can tell my story. Dab gon deer and Turkey around here anyway.
les
We have a large flock across the road here, in a relatively empty chunk of Kansas City burb. They get bolder every year. Seriously cool birds.