Don't Let the (Wild) Turkeys Get You Down

Story by K. Andarin Arvola

At daybreak every morning, out of the fir trees, comes the dawn patrol, drifting down to a small field. At dusk they gather on that same small field and with a whirring of wings take off into the trees for a night’s rest. These are some of my neighbors, a flock of wild turkeys.

Ten years ago, when I moved to the outskirts of Fort Bragg, there were no wild turkeys. I’d seen them on visits to Sonoma County and was told that they prefer land studded with oaks. For at least three to four years there were still no turkeys. When a couple showed up and reproduced I was elated. Then for several years two to three hens would produce twelve to twenty-four poults (young) a year. With a population of at least sixty wild turkeys, I am no longer elated.

Talkin’ turkey
Wild turkeys spend their days caring for their young, building nests, foraging for food, taking dust-baths, preening themselves, and roosting high in trees.

We’ve all heard that Benjamin Franklin had tremendous respect for their resourcefulness, agility, and beauty—he called the turkey “a bird of courage” and “a true original native of America.” Franklin even suggested naming the turkey, instead of the bald eagle, as our national bird.

In nature, the wild turkey’s athletic prowess is truly impressive. They can fly at speeds of up to fifty miles per hour and run fifteen miles per hour. The natural life-span of the turkey is between ten and twelve years.

Male turkeys, or “toms,” are bigger (11–24 lbs.) and have more colorful plumage than females (6.6–12 lbs.), or “hens.” The males attract females with their wattles—colorful flaps of skin around their necks, and tufts of bristles that hang from their chests called a “beard.” Males are also referred to as “gobblers.” If you gobble at them, they will gobble back.
They’ll even gobble when you shut a door.

Turkeys are born with full-color vision just like ours, and in nature the poults stay with the hen for the first five months of their lives. They’re very bonded to their young—in the wild, a hen turkey will courageously defend against predators.

Many respected researchers call the wild turkey an intelligent, social bird. Oregon State University poultry scientist Tom Savage says, “I’ve always viewed turkeys as smart animals with personality and character, and keen awareness of their surroundings. The ‘dumb’ tag simply doesn’t fit.”

Hal Miller, who lives near the College of the Redwoods in Fort Bragg, likes to take long walks in his neighborhood.
Several years ago, when he first began his walks there were two males and a female. “The most delightful thing about observing them is watching the poults.” He tells me that now there’re so many that they sometimes stop traffic near College of the Redwoods.

Warren Wade, a long-term past president of the Mendocino Coast Audubon Society comments about wild turkeys in his neighborhood of South Caspar. “I was thrilled to see the first wild turkeys, but the thrill is gone.”

He continues, “Apparently there are no natural predators. The foxes and coyotes seem to have caught on but they’re such opportunists.” Wade has noticed that the male and females are in separate flocks most of the year. There are not as many quail near his home now; there used to be twenty to thirty. The quail have retreated to the ocean lots, and the turkeys are in upland, open yards.

Wade remembers “a small, elderly woman neighbor had two male turkeys climb up her back, spurs and all. They didn’t hurt her but frightened her.”

He informs me that when the turkeys were first introduced into California it was the Eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) that was brought in for hunting in game preserves. “Their wings were not clipped and they flew away and mixed with domestic turkeys. If you look at the Eastern wild turkey and the ones here, they’re clearly a hybrid.”

A nephew of Wade’s, visiting from Minnesota, was shocked at the amount of wild turkeys, their size, and that they were out in the open. He went on the tell Wade that the turkeys he’s used to are smaller, fleeter and very elusive. He said he saw more in one day here than in a whole hunting season in Minnesota.

Are they native?
They’re wild but are they native? There’s still some controversy about whether the turkey we see in such abundance is a reintroduced native bird or a non-native bird that has been introduced.

In an online discussion, “Wild Turkey: A Native California Bird?,” author Don Roberson writes, “As an aside, I hope that readers can generally agree that the introduction of non-native birds to lands in which they did not evolve is a ‘bad’ practice, often with strong negative impacts to the environment and local avifauna [birds of a particular region or habitat], but that the reintroduction of native birds into former habitat is a ‘good’ practice. We thus praise efforts to re-establish populations of California Condor in the state, and are very pleased that efforts to re-introduce Peregrine Falcons throughout California, and Bald Eagles to the central coast, have been successful.”

Roberson begins his discussion, stating, “All California checklists and avifaunas to date have considered the Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) to be a non-native introduced species in the State, and a fairly recent one at that.”
The mating game

Why are there so many turkeys in such a short time? “For wild turkeys, at least, helping your brother find a willing and eager mate is a better way to pass on your genes than chancing the mating game alone,” says Alan Krakauer, a Ph.D. student in University of California Berkeley’s Department of Integrative Biology and Vertebrate Zoology in 2005. [The results of his cooperative courtship study were published in the March 3 issue of Nature, and referenced in the online ScienceDaily article, “In The Mating Game, Male Wild Turkeys Benefit Even When They Don’t Get The Girl.”]

“The American wild turkey is a textbook example of cooperative courtship, where subordinate male turkeys help dominant males attract a mate, even though they themselves do not get a chance to breed,” Krakauer notes.

“The cooperative courtship of brother turkeys is one case of the general evolutionary principle of kin selection, which posits that individuals may engage in altruism—behavior detrimental to their survival or reproduction—if the behavior increases the survival or reproductive output of their relatives. Such behavior can include caring for a relative’s young or sending out alarm calls to warn nearby relatives at the peril of drawing the attention of a predator.”

In order to establish which male actually copulated with the female, Krakauer obtained the DNA of adults and offspring. He found that only the dominant male of a team produced offspring. There were instances whereby single toms did mate but there were fewer offspring.

From observation at my home, when a hen has poults, often there are one to two other females who seem to act as “aunties,” helping to keep watch. Those other females may indeed be sisters, born of the same clutch.

There does seem to be an exploding population. For instance, from none approximately seven years ago, there now appears to be three flocks of about twenty-five to thirty individuals.

And yet, for several years the surviving poults were numerous, but this year only three out of eight survived. Why? Perhaps the result of low rainfall for several years and a dwindling food supply? Maybe they’ve increased to such large numbers that they’ve impacted the food supply. Possibly nature is being self-regulating with regard to numbers of offspring. Perhaps the predators now realize they have a new food source.

Becoming a nuisance
Many people enjoy watching wild turkeys as I do, but, these are not small birds at a backyard feeder. Resist feeding them. A few stray visitors soon becomes a flock of permanent residents that lose their natural fear of humans.
Adult wild turkeys can destroy flower and vegetable gardens, leave their droppings on patios and decks, and roost on cars, scratching the paint.

Turkeys can become aggressive during the breeding season, occasionally even charging, threatening, and acting aggressive toward people.

California Department of Fish and Game suggests to prevent problems by discouraging wild turkeys from becoming too comfortable on your property.

• If turkeys begin feeding under hanging bird feeders, remove the feeders until the turkeys leave the area.

• If turkeys are causing problems in your yard, install motion-detecting sprinklers.

• Wild turkeys typically will not enter yards with dogs.

• If confronted by a wild turkey that has lost its fear of humans, an open umbrella may help steer it out of your path.

• Depredation permits are required to kill wild turkeys that are causing property damage. To get a depredation permit, contact your local Department of Fish and Game office.

Factory farms
Wild turkeys have it better than the typical Thanksgiving turkey that’s factory-farmed. Many domestic turkeys have been genetically modified to gain weight rapidly and are slaughtered when they’re just five months old.
More than forty-five million turkeys are killed each year at Thanksgiving, and more than twenty-two million die at Christmas.

Before ending up as holiday centerpieces, these birds spend five to six months on factory farms where thousands are packed into dark sheds with no more than three-and-a-half square feet of space per bird. Turkeys on factory farms are denied everything that is natural to them, such as foraging for food, dust-bathing, and raising their young.

Bad behavior
Wild turkeys will peck at their reflections in windows and car bumpers. Mostly they just dirty your windows, but sometimes damage to cars can require repair or repainting. You have to wonder what the insurance adjuster thinks when they’re called about “a turkey attacking my car.”

There’s not much that can be done; they’re difficult to discourage. Sometimes a dog helps. If they’ve settled in and are roosting in nearby trees they’ll resist moving.

Over the hill from us, in Hopland, Robert M. Timm who’s the U.C. Hopland Research & Extension Center superintendent and Extension wildlife specialist says that “like songbirds that seasonally attack their reflection in exterior rear-view mirrors of vehicles, the root cause is the bird seeing its reflection, which stimulates territorial defense/mating competition behaviors. I’ve seen some folks place small paper sacks over the mirrors of their vehicles when parked. Similarly, using a protective car cover for one’s vehicle would solve the problem.”

Gardeners have enough trouble with deer on the coast and usually a tall fence will almost always solve that problem. Not so with turkeys—they fly.

For a couple of years, although I had huge flocks of turkeys, they never bothered my fenced-in vegetable garden. One afternoon I went out to gather different kinds of lettuce only to find that there was no lettuce. All twenty-three plants had been eaten to the ground along with all my leeks, chard and even the one tomato plant.

They didn’t, and haven’t, bothered several kinds of squash, peas, beans, celery and eggplant. Next year there will be a fence over the garden.

Since turkeys are such huge birds they need large food sources to sustain themselves. They may eat some bugs; we want them to, too. But, they also eat many beneficial creatures. My two compost piles used to be full of earthworms. It’s true, the turkeys turn the compost pile, but they decimate the earthworm population.

Diseases
In three state parks in neighboring Sonoma County, during a 2003 and 2004 study by the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley, the wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo intermedia) were evaluated as potential hosts of ixodid ticks, lice, and Lyme disease spirochetes. This is not good news.

Hunting wild turkeys
According to the California Department of Fish and Game, “wild turkeys now occupy about 18 percent of our state, and are a highly valued upland game bird.”

They should be easy to hunt since they’re so “stupid” but even a popular turkey-hunting guide admits that “turkeys are far from feather-brained.” According to the Remington Guide to Turkey Hunting, “turkeys will test your wits as they are rarely tested in modern life.” And remember how fast they fly and how fast they run.

According to the Department of Fish and Game, California’s wild turkey populations are healthy and growing. “Hunting turkeys helps to control their populations and maintain their natural wariness of people. Where safe and legal, hunt wild turkeys on your property, or allow others to hunt them.”

• Spring season: season limit is three gobblers per hunter.

• Fall season: season limit is one turkey (gobbler or hen) per hunter.

• A hunting license and upland game bird stamp are required.

• Legal methods of take include shotgun, archery equipment, or air rifle.

• Hunting regulations are available from Department of Fish and Game offices and online at www.dfg.ca.gov/regulations.

If homeowners are experiencing property damage from wild turkeys they may obtain a depredation permit from the local Fish and Game office.

Eating wild turkey
Locally there doesn’t seem to be much enthusiasm for eating wild turkeys. Mostly they’re described as tough and gamey. The breast seems to be the only part that’s worth eating. The rest of the bird can be used to make stock for stews and soups.

However, there are folks who like them. Wild turkey is prepared similarly to the domestic turkey using whatever stuffing is preferred.

A friend of mine in Sonoma County, Kendra Tucker, uses only the breasts. She places them in an oven bag with onions, garlic, herbs, salt and pepper and cooks them in a moderate oven until tender.

I found this recipe on the internet by Travis Berger:

• 2 turkey breast
• 1 box frozen spinach (whole leaf or chopped). Be sure to strain juice!
• 2 garlic cloves diced
• 4 slices thick slice pepper bacon
• ½ cup shredded pepper jack cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

First, cut a pocket in your turkey breast. Stuff spinach, garlic, and cheese into pocket. Rub olive oil over exterior of breast and season with salt and pepper. Cut bacon strips in half and lay across the breast. Place in a clear baking dish and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately forty minutes or until turkey reaches 160 degrees internally.

I spoke with Steve Rasmussen at Roundman’s Smokehouse in Fort Bragg. They’ll smoke a whole bird with alder and apple wood after using a mild brine and maple sugar marinade.

He also suggests making your own wild turkey sausage using mushrooms, black olives, celery salt, rosemary, oregano, salt, garlic, pepper, nutmeg, fennel and white wine. Proportions of the ingredients vary depending on the amount of bird being used and individual taste.

Finally, while you’re cooking that wild turkey or if they’re really driving you crazy, for some there is a perfect drink—a shot of Wild Turkey Bourbon, a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. Originally produced as a private whiskey served to wealthy New York businessmen during the annual turkey hunt in North Carolina.

Ah, all better now.