billbrynteson's Identifications

1. Scientific and Common Name
   The scientific name of this animal is Meleagris gallopavo (National Geographic, n.d.). The common name is the wild turkey.

2. Habitat and geographic range
   The wild turkey is native to North America, particularly the United States (except the state of Alaska) and Southeastern Canada (Wildlife Habitat Council, 1999). The highest number of wild turkeys are found in the state of Texas, at 600000 birds (Wildlife Habitat Council, 1999). Turkeys are non-migratory, year-round residents. They prefer living in mature hardwood and mixed forests with open fields (Wildlife Habitat Council, 1999). Their home range extends from 350 to 60000 acres (Wildlife Habitat Council, 1999). Wild turkeys commonly use oak, hickory, beech, and pine trees for habitat (Wildlife Habitat Council, 1999).

3. Size/Weight and Lifespan
   The body size of the wild turkey ranges from 3.6 to 3.8 feet (National Geographic, n.d). Young turkeys (poults) weigh about 57 grams at birth (Clancy, 1996). Adult turkeys weigh on average 22 pounds (Clancy 1996). The average life span of the wild turkey is 3-4 years in the wild (National Geographic, n.d.). Birds hatched in the spring all nearly full grown by the fall, thus wild turkeys are precocial birds, meaning they mature at a young age and must learn to fend for themselves at a relatively early comparison to other new born animals, whose parents do a lot of the foraging until sexual maturity (Clancy, 1996).

4. Diet
   The wild turkey feeds on nuts, fruits, seeds, insects and salamanders (National Geographic, n.d.). It forages all day long, but most activity occurs at dawn and 2-3 hours before sunset (Wildlife Habitat Council, 1999). Insects are an important component to the diet of young wild turkeys, thus habitats in which there is a lack of insects have high mortality rates for the young (Wildlife Habitat Council, 1999). Wild turkeys also consume high amounts of acorns and seeds of trees like the red oak, white ash, and evergreen. Wild turkeys drink water form springs, streams, rivers and lakes. It is important that turkeys create habitation sites near sources of water (Wildlife Habitat Council, 1999).

5. Reproduction and Communication
   Wild turkeys have a relatively high reproductive rate (Badyaev, 1995). The mean clutch size is 10 eggs/nest (Badyaev, 1995). According to the studies of Alexander V. Badyaev (1995), hens preferred larger habitat patches for nesting (about 80 meters in diameter). Wild turkeys also preferred clear-cut forests for nesting. The study also looked at which kinds of nests are more successful in baring offspring, and Badyaev (1995) found that successful nests were located further from roads. The success of wild turkey hen nests varies from 31-62%, depending on their location and distance from predators (Nguyen, Hamr, & Parker, 2003). Wild turkeys are considered the most social among all game birds (Clancy, 1996). Wild turkeys utilize a vocabulary of about 30 sounds, many of which are very important to hunters. The “gobble” is a sound made by male hens to attract females during breeding season (Clancy, 1996). The “yelp” is the most useful to hunters, who mimic this call to hunt down wild turkeys. Yelps are also used to call a dispersed flock back together. The high-pitched “purr” sound shows contentment. If the intensity of the “purr” heightens, it could indicate a sound of alarm when in danger (Clancy 1996). The “cutt” is used by adult turkeys to locate missing young (Clancy, 1996).

6. Predation
   Predators of the wild turkey include the American crow, raccoon, woodpeckers, the nine-banded armadillo and snakes (Melville, Conway, Morrison, Comer, Hardin, 2015). Predation by these animals is the primary cause of mortality in wild turkeys (Melville et al., 2015). Wild turkeys are more vulnerable to predators if they live in sparse vegetation areas, where they can be easily spotted and preyed on (Kennamer, n.d.).

7. Conservation Status
   Wild turkeys are of least concern on the IUCN Red List of threatened species (BirdLife International, 2016). Wild turkeys were extirpated from Ontario in 1909 due to unregulated hunting and clear cutting of forests for agriculture, but efforts to restore the species in 1984 were deemed extremely successful (Wild Turkey Management Plan for Ontario, 2007).

8. Fun fact
   Did you know? The gender of the wild turkey can be determined from its droppings; male adult gobblers have longer, straighter droppings whereas hens have smaller, spiral shaped droppings (Bailey, 1956).

References
Badyaev, A. (1995). Nesting habitat and nesting success of eastern wild turkey in the Arkansas Ozark highlands. The Condor, 12, 221-232. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1368998.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A65cf305af16502c092cda9967d51abed
Bailey, R. (1956). Sex determination of adult wild turkeys by means of dropping configuration. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 20. 220. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/stable/pdf/3797445.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A8d10e00f98fcc9448e75d585a2aba287
BirdLife International. (2016). Meleagris gallopavo. The IUCN red list of threatened species. Retrieved from http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/22679525/0.
Clancy, G. (1996). Wild turkey: Expert advice for locating and calling big gobblers. Chanhassen, Minnesota: Creative publishing.
Kennamer, J. (n.d.). Wild turkeys and predators: what’s the real problem? National wild turkey federation. Retrieved from https://www.nwtf.org/conservation/article/wild-turkeys-predators-problem
Melville, H., Conway, W., Morrison, M., Comer, C., & Hardin, J. (2015). Prey selection by three mesopredators that are thought to prey on eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavosilvestris) in the pineywoods of east Texas. Southeastern Naturalist. 14(3), 447-472. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pd fviewer?vid=1&sid=9770af1e-7e29-44b6-9ea3-8d5c62aad761%40sessionmgr102
Nguyen, L., Hamr, J., Parker G. (2003). Survival and reproduction of wild turkey hens in central Ontario. The Wilson Bulletin, 115 ,131-139. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4164539.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A42459e6b7231baf1a972e238d71bc259
Wildlife Habitat Council (1999). Wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Fish and Wildlife Habitat Management Leaflet, 12. Retrieved from https://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps18531/www.ms.nrcs.usda.gov/whmi/pdf/turkey.pdf
Wild Turkey Management Plan for Ontario. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.ontla.on.ca/library/repository/mon/20000/278988.pdf
Wild Turkey. National Geographic (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/w/wild-turkey/