Dickinson Ch9: Wild Turkey

The wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is a traditional and important game species in southern forests, highly admired by hunters.

History and Restoration

Wild turkeys were highly abundant throughout the precolonial South. However, the growing human population, expansion of roads and railroads, wholesale cutting of forests, and intense, indiscriminate, year-round hunting led to a drastic decline in populations during the latter half of the 1800s and early 1900s. By the early 1900s, the species was severely reduced.

Restoration efforts began around the 1930s and 1940s, supported financially by the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937. The initial method of raising turkeys in captivity and releasing them was a costly failure because the pen-raised birds were ill-suited for survival in the wild. The immensely successful technique was the trap and transfer of wild turkeys. This method utilized devices like the cannon net and the later improved rocket net, adapted for capturing wild turkeys around 1950. Other factors contributing to the recovery included the maturation of forests devastated earlier in the century and a post-World War II decline in the rural human population.

The restoration was a remarkable success: the wild turkey population Southwide increased from an estimated 227,760 in 1959 to almost half a million (455,430) by 1970. By 1999, the regional population surpassed 2 million wild turkeys. Today, wild turkeys flourish across the South, mainly at medium to high densities. States reporting the highest harvests (over 30,000) include Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi.

Biology, Habitat, and Management

Optimal wild turkey habitat traditionally consists of mature forest stands, often with abundant oaks and open understories, interspersed with openings, well-watered, and remote from human disturbance.

Diet: Turkeys are opportunistic, omnivorous feeders. Adult diets consist mainly of plant material, including hard mast (like acorns) in fall/winter, and grass, seeds, fruits, and cultivated crops year-round. Young poults, however, require a diet composed mostly of animal matter (insects and arthropods) early in life (about 90% the first week).
Breeding and Brood Rearing: Hens usually initiate nesting attempts on the ground from late March through April. Nest sites typically have abundant herbaceous and woody shrub vegetation, sparse overstory, and are often near an opening. Poults have very high mortality rates before they can fly (under 2 weeks old), and their survival is directly linked to the quality of the brood habitat chosen by the hen. This habitat should have lush herbaceous vegetation (about 2 feet tall) that offers protection from predators but is not too dense for movement.
Habitat Management: Effective management involves understanding the turkey’s annual needs and manipulating habitat to minimize limiting factors. A widespread and important limitation in the South is often the extent of appropriate grass-forb vegetation for brood range. Management tools include silvicultural manipulations, creating openings (such as small fallow fields or rights-of-way) for nesting and brooding, and utilizing prescribed burning to control dense understories and promote beneficial, fire-adapted food plants. The direct provision of supplemental foods is generally of limited value and may cause issues like predator concentration or disease transmission (e.g., Histomoniasis or Aflatoxin from infected corn).
Predation and Disease: Turkey nests and young poults are heavily preyed upon by animals like raccoons and skunks. Although hunting is the main mortality factor for adult gobblers, hens face high mortality during nesting/brooding. Two notable diseases in the South are Avian Pox (a contagious virus causing wart-like growths) and Histomoniasis (blackhead disease, carried by a nematode worm).

The main hunting season in the South is during the spring. Hunting wild turkeys over bait is illegal in all southern states. The future of the wild turkey looks positive, though challenges related to management, hunting regulation, and habitat loss remain obstacles.