Turkey Story

Yes, it has been a long time since I have blogged. But I felt compelled today as it is getting close to Thanksgiving and I, not surprisingly, keep thinking about turkeys. I see Wild Turkeys often in my neighborhood, my yard, and on my way to/from work. They haven't always been so easy to see as they haven't always been in New York. Surprised? Me too! My job is to help people appreciate wildlife through understanding and information and it turns out Turkeys have a story for me to tell....

This time of the year Wild Turkeys are avoiding hunters and reducing their ranges. Their activities slow down and they are often seen in large flocks on farms and fields feeding on manure and leftover grain- how glamorous! They also feed on food left from fall like nuts and berries. As winter approaches, turkeys may spend a week plus roosting when the weather is most severe and they can go up to two weeks without food if need be. Although they can scratch through up to 6 inches of snow to find food.

The wild turkeys we see in the Southern Tier of NY are Eastern Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo). The tom (male) has a dark blackish-brown body and are around 2.5 feet tall, weighing 18 to 20 pounds on average although they can weigh up to 25 lbs. The hens (females) are rusty-brown and smaller than the males and weigh 9 to 12 lbs.

As I alluded to before, Wild Turkeys have an interesting story/history in New York State, and it is especially interesting in our area. The Eastern Wild Turkey is native to North America and when the Europeans colonized New York State, Wild Turkeys occupied all of the state south of the Adirondacks. It is believed that they were inhabitants of N. America before humans were.

Turkey habitat was lost when forests disappeared as our ancestors cut them down to make space for farms and for timber to build and heat with. Turkeys were commonly killed unchecked for food back then too (there were no regulations on hunting at that time). In the 1840s the last of the original Wild Turkeys disappeared from New York. This was the case until the early 1900's when farms started to decline. 100 years after their disappearance, much of our area of New York was again able to support turkeys as their forest habitat came back.

So where did our current turkeys come from? Around 1948, Wild Turkeys from a small population in northern Pennsylvania crossed the border into our (S. Tier) area of New York. These turkeys did pretty well in the Southwestern part of the Southern Tier and so in 1959 a program was started by the DEC to trap wild turkeys in areas where they were becoming abundant to release them other places in New York. 1,400 turkeys were trapped in Allegany State Park and were spread into appropriate habitats across New York. These 1,400 birds have been the seeds to successfully reestablishing wild populations statewide to today's estimated number of 250,000 to 300,000 birds.

So this Thanksgiving and the rest of the year, keep an eye out for Wild Turkeys and appreciate them for their amazing comeback in New York State!