| THE WILD TURKEY IN PENNSYLVANIA The wild turkey is a shy, permanent resident of Pennsylvania's woods and mountains. Infiltrating a flock of these big birds is no easy feat, and when the hunter or naturalist is finally discovered, he's treated to a spectacle as the flock breaks up. Turkeys flap upward on loud wings. Some run full tilt, heads extended on serpentine necks. Others sneak along through the understory. Eventually, quiet returns to the woods. And, with time the first tentative calls of regrouping birds break the silence .... Turkeys have long been important to man in North America. Indians hunted them for food, and some natives even domesticated the big birds. Later, the wild turkey became a steady food source for white settlers. It earned a symbolic role as the main course of the Thanksgiving meal, which epitomized the successful harvest. Benjamin Franklin so admired the big bronze bird that he wanted it for our national emblem. Comparing it to the bald eagle, he said: "The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original Native of America." Several theories explain how the bird got its name. Early naturalists may have confused it with a species of Old World guinea fowl found in Turkey. Or the word may describe one of the bird's calls, which sounds a bit like "turk, turk, turk." Still a third explanation is that the word sprang from an American Indian name for the bird. "firkee." By whatever name, the fact remains that this big bird was nearly exterminated by the ax, the plow and the gun. As our nation grew, settlers cleared wooded habitat for farms. And they shot turkeys for food. By 1800, market hunters were selling the birds for as little as six cents each. By the early 1900s -- when eastern forests had been lumbered and periodic fires hampered their regeneration the turkey was in trouble. Fortunately, here in Pennsylvania, the newly-formed Game Commission stepped in. Through seasons and bag limits, the agency succeeded in safeguarding what remained of the state's once-thriving population. It was found in the mountains of the state's southcentral counties. Over time, the agency experimented with ways to return turkeys to the rest of Penn's Woods. A turkey farm was tried. So was placing hen turkeys in holding pens for wild gobblers to breed with. But neither enterprise faired well. What turkeys needed was habitat improvements. In the '50s, as the state's forests began to mature, turkeys began to expand their range. Expansion was furthered through a Game Commission wild turkey trap-and-transfer program that would become a model for every state interested in turkey restoration. Today, turkeys are found in every county, and this wily bird has developed quite a following among hunters. In 1900, few turkeys were left in the eastern United States, largely because widespread logging had destroyed their woodland habitat. An estimated 5,000 birds remained in Pennsylvania, a far cry from the large, healthy population that had existed here (mainly in southcentral Pennsylvania's oak and American chestnut forests) a century earlier. Restoration of the species involved several steps. First, refuges were established and new game laws strictly enforced to protect remaining local populations. Half-wild turkeys were bred on the Game Commission's wild turkey farm, beginning in 1930. These birds proved to be nearly useless. As cut-over forests began to regrow, existing wild flocks began to move into new areas on their own. In addition, wild birds were trapped in areas where they were abundant and transferred to suitable, but unoccupied, habitat to speed up the dispersal that was naturally occurring. The superiority of this approach over game farm turkey releases has been obvious. Today turkeys are found throughout the state and are abundant in areas where, in the past, continual releases of game farm turkeys failed to establish even limited self-sustaining populations. The Game Commission also works to improve turkey habitat, especially brood and winter range, which are critically important prerequisites for population expansion to occur. Penn's Woods is currently home to about 250,000 wild turkeys. They can be found in every county. What are a turkey's chances of survival, from egg to adult? The following statistics are from The Wild Turkey - Biology and Management, edite |  | d by James G. Dickson and published in l992 by Stackpole Books: (a) nesting success of the turkey is 31-45 percent, about normal for a ground-nesting species; (b) 53 to 76 percent of poults perish, mostly within two weeks of hatching; (c) life expectancy of a turkey surviving its first two weeks of life is still less than 1 1/2 years, although a few have been known to survive more than 10 years in the wild; (d) annual turkey survival generally ranges from 54 to 62 percent; (e) predation is generally the most common cause of wild turkey mortality; and (f) hunting-related turkey mortality is highly variable, depending largely on varying hunting season regulations, but can range from less than five percent to more than 50 percent of all losses. Turkeys have shown more tolerance for fragmented habitat (woodlots) and human disturbance than previously believed, but they still depend on forested habitats and do best with limited human activity. Habitat diversity -- varying habitat types and differing ages -- is the key to good turkey habitat. Turkeys seem to do best with a mix of forested, actively farmed and reverting farmland habitat types. A turkey flock uses an extensive area -- several thousand acres -- during a year to meet its needs, so a small landowner shouldn't expect to have a resident flock. However, anyone with forested land can do something to benefit turkeys, especially if neighboring landowners will cooperate. Trees such as oaks, beech, cherries, etc., are most beneficial to turkeys when producing the maximum mast; this occurs when trees are 50-100 years old. Landowners can manage their woodlands for saw-timber by conventional even- or uneven-age silvicultural approaches and "pushing" young hardwood stands to maturity by culling out less-vigorous and non-mast-producing trees. Some woodland cuttings -- which aren't economical in terms of timber management -- can be made to allow more sunlight to reach grape, dogwood, greenbrier, hawthorn, viburnum and other food-producing understory species. Planting shrubs such as Japanese barberry, autumn olive, Asiatic crabapple and Washington hawthorne will provide abundant and persistent winter foods. Forest clearings are especially used by hens and poults. Here, sunlight penetrates the tree canopy and allows grasses and forbs to spring up; increased plant life gives rise to increased insect life, and insects form a key part of a young turkey's diet. Thus, forest openings resulting from cleared timberlands, old logging roads and logging camp sites, power line rights-of-way and old beaver meadows should be preserved, or planted with a grass-legume mixture if needed. Spring seeps are also important, as they provide insect and vegetable food over winter. Free water (streams, lakes, ponds, springs, seeps, rainwater in shallow depressions) has never been demonstrated to be lacking for wild turkeys in the eastern United States. Artificial feeding? Turkeys don't generally need it, especially if they live in good habitat. Such feeding may actually pose a hazard by unnaturally concentrating a local population, thus increasing the danger of poaching and disease spread, and giving predators an unnatural advantage. |  » thank you...
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