Density of Tennessee’s wild turkeys is on the decline
Twigs crack as a 24-pound bird wanders through a forest, coated in brown and chestnut feathers. A flock of similarly large birds accompanies it, stomping through fallen leaves. One of them pauses, then shouts its call.
Gobbling echoes through the woods.
About 300,000 eastern wild turkeys wander across Tennessee. They are the most abundant turkey species overall, with populations across 38 states and into Canada. The eastern wild turkey also has the loudest call of all turkey species.
But, that gobble is getting quieter across areas of Tennessee.
Joy Sweaney, a wildlife biologist with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, said the density of turkeys in Middle Tennessee might be declining. So his agency has partnered with the University of Tennessee Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries to research turkeys in Middle Tennessee. The counties being studied are Wayne, Giles, Bedford, Maury and Lawrence.
“They were once some of the most productive counties in the state,” said Vinnie Johnson, a UT researcher looking into the harvest declines.
He collected data on turkey populations for two years. He plans to continue collecting data for three more years before work can begin to specify a reason for the harvest decline.
The turkey harvest reached more than 39,000 in 2010. Yet harvests for the following years progressively fell. Around 28,000 turkeys have been harvested in Tennessee this year.
So far, Johnson has found the problem lies in the time between when turkeys are born and when they become adults. For some reason, turkeys simply aren’t growing up.
“Nesting success and then raising the poults to adulthood seem to be the key there,” Johnson said. “We don’t know for sure yet, but that seems to be a driving force in the numbers of these counties.”
Turkeys usually lay around 10 or 11 eggs in a single clutch. Female turkeys spend around 28 days incubating their eggs in large, oval-shaped nests. They even rotate the eggs periodically to ensure they are incubated evenly.
After the eggs hatch, it only takes two weeks for the poults to learn how to fly away from predators on their own and roost in trees.
Although they are generally passive birds and prefer to run away from predators instead of fighting them, turkeys can be aggressive with other turkeys. Males kick other male turkeys with the spurs on their legs when challenged over a mate, often resulting in a battle between two large birds, Johnson said.
LONGER THE SNOOD, THE LONGER THE LIFE
Turkeys are the only species that gobbles, and only the males can make that iconic sound. The call is supposed to resonate through different sounds and call attention to the bird making it. In fact, everything about the bird is supposed to stand out.
For example, the red, fleshy bit under a turkey’s beak, called a snood, is meant to attract the attention of both mates and challengers. The longer the snood, the more likely a turkey is to succeed in the wild, even if red stands out to predators.
Longer snoods indicate a turkey has better genes for survival, and will be more successful during mating season. The longer a turkey’s snood, the more likely it is to know how to avoid predators and find food, leading to a longer life.
“The idea is if you make yourself really big, really gaudy looking, very loud, and you are attracting hens, but you are also attracting predators,” Johnson said. “If you’ve been able to survive however long, looking as you do as a male turkey, you have good genes.”
The bird’s tail feathers are also designed to stand out. Some subspecies’ tail feathers can resemble peacocks. The eastern wild turkey, mostly found in the eastern U.S., also stands out, literally. They can often be seen wandering on the side of roads in Knox County, toward the Great Smoky Mountains.
GOBBLING THE GOBBLERS ON THANKSGIVING
Tennessee’s turkey harvest is tiny compared to the number of turkeys eaten each year during Thanksgiving — around 46 million nationwide. Most of them come from the 242 million domesticated turkeys raised in the U.S.
And the long relationship between turkeys and people has more than 1,000 years of history behind it. After pre-Aztec people domesticated turkeys in South-Central Mexico around 800 B.C., European explorers traded for and took them for themselves around 2,300 years later, in the early 1500s.
The domesticated turkey was a Christmas dinner delicacy for upper classes, since it provided more meat than the then-traditional goose dinner. Domesticated turkeys also were easier to catch than wild ones.
“You could compare it to how dogs and wolves share a common ancestor and can interbreed but are also very dissimilar,” said Matt Cameron, spokesman for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. “To the casual observer, many domesticated breeds look similar to wild turkeys, however, a lot of commercially grown domestic turkeys are bred to be white so that their pinfeathers are less visible in the skin.”
Domesticated turkeys are also flightless, since they are bred to have large breasts and shorter legs. Wild turkeys can fly at around 55 mph and run up to 25 mph, according to Cameron.
Tennessee hosts hunters in search of turkey game throughout the season, between March 31 and May 13 in 2018.