A Little Bit More
In general, the blame for the Wild Turkey’s overall decline has been attributed to habitat destruction. The colonists are reported to have been able to see hundreds during a day’s walk. As town’s began to grow in the early 1800”s, Wild Turkey populations began to decline. By the early 1900’s few areas had populations of turkeys at all. Recent restoration successes indicate that the Wild Turkey is quite capable of thriving on varied habitat so earlier belief that it was habitat destruction that caused the turkey’s decline may be too simple.
Initially, restoration programs concentrated on releasing game farm birds (a mixture of wild and domestic turkeys) to stock suitable habitat. Many years and much money was spent attempting to restore the turkey population with an “inferior” game farm bird. These birds proved incredibly incompetent and ill-suited to the rigors of surviving in the wild. By the late 1950’s, biologists from several states managed to convince their wildlife departments to use 100% wild stock (captured from areas where populations were holding their own) to create new populations. Success was soon obvious and led to the expansion of the program bringing turkeys back to many of the areas from which they had been eliminated. In fact, today, the birds are found in every state on the continent except Alaska, including 9 states for which there never was a record of them existing before!
Key Concepts
Behavior and Regulation, Environmental Issues, Identification, Populations and Ecosystems
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