How Wild Turkeys Took Over New England

Quicksearch

Blog Administration

RSS Readers

Saturday, November 23. 2024

How Wild Turkeys Took Over New England

You'd be hard-pressed to find a turkey in the Northeast 50 years ago. Now hundreds of thousands roam suburbs where they thrill and bully residents.

Posted by Bird Dog in Natural History and Conservation at 13:02 | Comments (21) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

How can anyone not like to see wild turkeys?

#1 OneGuy on 2020-06-28 11:19 (Reply)

When you're doing 50 MPH down your road and the stupid birds take off right in front of you. And yes, they are stupid, and they do that.

#1.1 Gospace on 2020-06-28 12:26 (Reply)

My very old Granny used to tell me turkeys were so stupid that in a rain storm they would drown by looking up in the rain with their mouths open. She knew a lot from experience!

#1.1.1 JC on 2022-11-19 17:22 (Reply)

I love it. I drive to Enfield, CT once a week and see them loitering in the fields by the prison. It's especially neat when the males are on display.

#1.2 Maniac on 2022-11-20 08:27 (Reply)

We have lots of wild turkeys here in WNC. It's rare to see a male, though. I guess they're in hiding.

#2 snopercod on 2020-06-28 11:26 (Reply)

If you think wild turkeys are stupid, try hunting them. They may not be smart enough to understand vector geometry, but they are wiley like hell and can see you blink at 100 yds. I love watching them in the wild, 'putting', gobbling, and rattling their feathers like a snare drum.

#3 Aggie on 2020-06-28 13:52 (Reply)

I can't figure out which is dumber: hunting a tasty bird to the edge of extinction, or getting its numbers back up to 6MM and not being able to figure out how to defend yourself against it. Eek, I'm feeding it, eek, it's attacking me.

#4 Texan99 on 2020-06-28 14:27 (Reply)

The birds are fine, I hope that their numbers grow to ten million. As for hitting them with cars if I remember correctly something like 400,000 deer are hit every year by cars and we still like having the deer around. Turkeys aren't dumb they just cannot account for the speed and intent of a motor vehicle.

#5 OneGuy on 2020-06-28 15:38 (Reply)

Speaking from the midwest, specifically Minnesota, I can tell you that a) no one's cutting down forest for farmland. It's just not happening. b) wild turkey populations are up, up up.

Within the Twin Cities metro area, it is not even surprising to see a flock. Quite a few around here came from folks who raised a couple of eggs in the backyard, and then discovered that fences do not keep them in.

Of course in the last 20 years we have seen foxes, raccoons, coyotes, deer, and especially eagles moving into the urban area. My wife has an office window that faces the Mississippi, and there is a breeding pair of bald eagles in her view. The DNR doesn't even bother to count them anymore.

#6 Gordon Scott on 2020-06-28 16:58 (Reply)

The first I heard of wild turkeys in suburbia was a mailman in town being attacked in his rounds about twenty years ago. Everyone made fun of the guy, not anymore. They are all over now, there were two in my backyard this morning, big ones. We live 15 minutes from the center of Boston.

They’re fine except during mating season. I once had to ward off a couple of toms and defend myself with garbage can lids while taking the barrels in on trash day. Don’t get between horny guys and their girl friends. The barrels, on the other hand, have to be defended from raccoons 24/7.

#7 Paul in Boston on 2020-06-28 17:56 (Reply)

They taste good. Try it, you'll like it. Even better if you shoot one yourself.

#8 rocdoctom on 2020-06-28 21:52 (Reply)

I think the turkey population is down here due to loss of habitat.

I only had wild turkey to eat one time and I thought they tasted much better than farm raised turkey.

#9 feeblemind on 2022-11-19 13:21 (Reply)

I had a neighbor who had a deer feeder set up to feed the wild turkeys, I counted 127 in her yard waiting for the feeder to serve out supper.

#10 Bobmark on 2022-11-19 14:13 (Reply)

Here in Southern NJ turkeys are a plague upon the land. A coven of them (the article refers to a "gaggle", that's for geese. These demonic creatures come in covens) came into my yard a couple of years ago and started rooting around in my rhododendron bed, driving away a little garter snake that lived there that I thought of as my friend. I may have to take up hunting to have any hope of settling scores. Fear turkeys; they mean us ill.

#11 Hairless Joe on 2022-11-19 17:05 (Reply)

Out for a walk at dawn, as I usually do, I happened upon a rafter of turkeys meandering down the road. As I approached they hurried their gait, then, when finally I got too close, they scampered and flew off into the woods. One settled into a pine tree close to 40 feet in the air.

#12 steve walsh on 2022-11-19 18:06 (Reply)

Pheasants, on the other hand, are now hard to find in southern NH. They were moderately common when i was a boy.

#13 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-11-19 20:01 (Reply)

There's a flock that occasionally peeks out of the woods at the north end of San Antonio International Airport. Not sure if they're pining for the woods of New England.

#14 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2024-11-23 13:49 (Reply)

My bet is that plenty of people from outside the 5h!+h013 hives know very well how to deal with aggressive turkeys!

#15 Mark Matis on 2024-11-23 14:30 (Reply)

I am reminded of the scene in the movie of COLD MOUNTAIN when the city woman Ada is harassed by a rooster and does not know what to do. Renee Zelwegger, as the country woman Ruby, just grabs it and rings its neck. I think with an aggressive turkey, a swift kick in the nose would be sufficient, but a dead turkey would make a delicious meal.

#16 Killer instinct on 2024-11-23 17:10 (Reply)

In WI it's not unusual to see 50 or more turkeys in a field. One time when driving on a country road I had to stop the car because a large swarm of gobblers suddenly decided to cross the road in front of me. A friend in rural Mississippi says turkeys were unheard of when she was growing up, but now she sees them all the time.

#17 Roger the artless dodger on 2024-11-23 23:10 (Reply)

When we first moved to rural north-central Ohio forty years ago, turkeys were common. Now they are rare.

#18 bob sykes on 2024-11-24 08:55 (Reply)

Add Comment

Name
Email	(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications. Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u], [url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here. Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (word), underscore are made via _word_. E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above: BBCode format allowed
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry

Maggie's Farm

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

RSS Readers

Saturday, November 23. 2024

How Wild Turkeys Took Over New England