doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Turkeys in Grouse habitat?

To me that says a lot Larry. Maybe, only so many critters can fit into a patch of woods, and the ones that show increases are probably doing so at the expense of others, regardless of complexity.

The part I couldn't help but ask about, are these the same authorities doing the research and writing the expert reference publications? How could they have possibly been motivated by money and blind sided by unintended consequences? And yet, they hold the same conclusions, or at least will tell the same stories?

Oh well, I'm sure there's some way to tell that this is an isolated example, and they are ready to tackle more complex issues.

I know very little about grouse, but it's hard for me to believe that turkeys could be a significant nest predator. Turkey poults primarily eat insects, but after that their diet becomes mostly plant materials. I don't think they are ever gonna go out hunting for grouse nests.

However, they may very well compete with the grouse for some of the same foods, and could have a negative effect on them in that manner.

I've seen turkeys and quail thrive on the same land for many years, but the quail are now gone from the land that I can hunt. As much as I enjoy turkey hunting, I would rather have quail. I don't believe our quail decline is related to turkeys.

I don't know how it is in Canada, but where I live it doesn't matter what we think anyway. The state dcnr is gonna do whatever they wanna do, and what people think about it doesn't matter to them.

Turkeys are voracious omnivorous. They roam the forest floor in flocks digging up and overturning vegetation as they go. They will eat anything that they can fit in their mouths.

I highly doubt they are specifically looking for grouse eggs or young, but if they come across them they undoubtedly will be eaten. Just like any other organism they happen across.

To introduce turkey where they were not historically found, is to simply introduce yet another predator into the live cycles of the animals already inhabiting that environment.

It will be left to regional communities to determine if that is a good idea.

Flintfan, I think this to be the case too. Adaptable and opportunistic creatures out competing the less so.

We have both in the SW Va Mtns. When Turkey populations are up, the Grouse are not to be seen. Turkeys have been down the last two years and yep, seeing more grouse than ever.

Charlie

That's the way it is supposed to work. Bobwhite quail are the ultimate prey species. Should we kill'em all with poison, weather or predators and then give them two years of good weather and a relief from whatever's been killing them and they should be up to your ears. It hasn't been working that way the last 30 years around here...Geo

I am not following your post at all Geo. What species are you referring to with the "kill'em all with poison" statement?

The OP just stated an observation. He didn't advocate for taking any measures.

Being an actual land owner in SW VA I would agree with his statement about when Turkey numbers are up the grouse numbers are down.

1cdog, my point was simply that whatever is happening to the quail population, no matter what it is, they should be able to bounce back when the cause is reversed, be it predators, pesticides or bad weather...Geo

For the most part, turkeys weren't introduced where they'd never been historically. They were reintroduced where they had been historically, but in some cases have spread out into areas where they hadn't been before.

Biologists made some bad assumptions about turkeys. When they were reintroduced in Iowa and had become numerous enough to support a hunting season, the DNR biologist told me we'd probably never kill more than 1,000 of them in a season. That was based on the fact that Iowa doesn't have a whole lot of forest, and on how much mast turkeys need to eat in order to survive. While those assumptions likely worked historically, they fell apart when the birds were brought into a very agricultural state where they had no shortage of high quality food other than the nuts, berries etc they could eat in the woods: CORN. It wasn't long at all before Iowa turkey hunters left the 1,000 bird harvest in the rear view mirror. What Iowa has is unusually high densities of turkeys where there are woodlands, because of all the food provided to them by the farmers.

What the Iowa game biologist failed to do was to read the notes of the Buffalo hunters in the Western plains. They told of herds of turkeys that were nearly as numerous as herds of bison. The most they had for trees out there was something called the chinaberry tree.

I sure wish everyone here would become a game biologist. Obviously all the expertise lies behind the keyboards on this forum.