November 29, 2012

As the remnants of last week's turkey are being picked off the carcass and turned in to cold turkey sandwiches, and as my Labrador retriever has now recovered from eating an entire turkey carcass that a family member placed down low and then went out without thinking, it is a good opportunity to consider the wild turkeys which inhabit the Adirondacks. After all, some families are gearing up for another round of turkey feasting in late December – we love it so much that we have one defrosting in our refrigerator right now (my dog can't wait!). This is the time of year when turkeys rule the roost.

Their enormous size (males weigh in on average around sixteen pounds), dark plumage, well-known breeding display, and the familiarity of their farm cousins make wild turkeys recognizable, and turkeys are commonly seen across the region. And if you see them, stop a while and observe them – they are really quite remarkable animals. After all, turkeys are extremely fast when pressed to boogie, and watching a turkey giddy-up and go is a lot of fun. They are much less graceful in flight, and anyone who has stood beneath one crashing through the trees would swear a B-52 was coming in for a landing.

Ramsey Canyon turkey
A male turkey displays in Ramsey Canyon, Arizona. Note the amount of white in the tail feathers of southwestern birds. Eastern birds have rufous or buffy colored feather tips instead.

I often see wild turkeys in fields in the Champlain Valley, fields along River Road in Lake Placid, while conducting summer research in Keene Valley, and in the fields near Donnelly's ice cream stand (the intersection of Routes 86 and 186) between Saranac Lake and Paul Smiths. After all, turkeys are found across much of the U.S. and all of New York State, where they generally prefer mature – often open – woods and fields and field edges.

But their abundance on the landscape was not always the case. In fact, wild turkey numbers declined precipitously across their range after European settlement due to issues like overhunting, habitat loss, and diseases from domestic turkeys. According to early records, by the early 20th century, turkeys were completely gone from New York State and New England, but a small population persisted in central Pennsylvania. This population slowly spread back into New York along the Allegany Hills in southwestern New York, and in the late 1950s a state program began to relocate turkeys from this population to reestablish wild turkeys in other regions of the state. Turkeys were also relocated to other states, such as Vermont, whose turkey populations had been greatly diminished or eliminated.

turkeys star lake
A group of wild turkeys feed on a small, cut field in Star Lake in the western Adirondacks.

The results have been quite striking. Turkeys have spread across New York State and were found in most areas of the state during New York State's first Breeding Bird Atlas conducted in 1980-1985. Their remarkable recovery didn't stop there and their numbers have continued to swell. In fact, the second Breeding Bird Atlas project conducted from 2000-2005, found a 175% increase (based on the number of atlas blocks) in confirmed wild turkey breeding when compared to the first Breeding Bird Atlas. And one of the regions with the largest increases in wild turkeys in that time was the Adirondacks. Likewise, Breeding Bird Survey data show a steady increase in turkey numbers across much of the state and country. Wild turkeys are clearly a bird on the upswing.

It is an exciting story – a bird that was virtually gone a century ago has rebounded so strongly that we now see them almost everywhere. And those of us who live here in the Adirondacks – where turkeys were not at all common only a couple decades ago – can now enjoy watching the roving bands of these large game birds. And at this time of year when so many of us have turkey on our mind and on our plates, conservation success stories like this are definitely something for which to be thankful.

Ramsey Canyon turkey
A male turkey displays in Ramsey Canyon, Arizona. Note the amount of white in the tail feathers of southwestern birds. Eastern birds have rufous or buffy colored feather tips instead.
turkeys star lake
A group of wild turkeys feed on a small, cut field in Star Lake in the western Adirondacks.

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