Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)
This website was completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Biology 323, Animal Behavior, at Davidson College in the Spring Semester 2007.
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This photo is courtesy of James Mahaffy.
Introduction
Wild Turkeys are in the class: Aves, order: Galliformes, suborder: Phasiani, family: Meleagrididae, and their species name is Meleagris gallopavo (Handbook 1994). There are actually two species of Meleagris, the wild turkey and the ocellated turkey. The wild turkey is found throughout the continental United States and some parts of northern Mexico and southern Canada. The ocellated turkey is found in parts of Central America (Handbook 1994). This website focuses specifically on the wild turkey. Throughout its North American history, the wild turkey has been most valued as a food source. Numerous Indian tribes used the wild turkey as a food source, clothing, ceremonial object, and a variety of tools (Kennamer 1992). The wild turkey has five subspecies capable of interbreeding, the Merriam’s, Mexican, Rio Grande, Eastern, and Florida turkey (Williams 1981). The wild turkey is an opportunistic omnivore known to eat over 100 different types of food (Handbook 1994). Turkeys are one of the largest birds in North America with males averaging 7.7-9.5 kilograms and females averaging 3.6-5.0 kilograms (Pelham 1992). The wild turkey is capable of reaching speeds up to 55 mph in flight and up to 12 mph while running (Lewis 1967). The adult males are called gobblers, adult females are called hens, and the young are called poults.
Turkey Management
Management of the wild turkey began in the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s when the population was obviously dwindling. During the 1950’s, the wild turkey population was on the decline with as few as 500,000 birds, however, in recent years the population has steadily increased with a population of 3,500,000 in 1990 (Kennamer 1992). Current management practices are based on the fact that populations have strict age classes, and have a polygamous reproductive strategy. The management goal is to remove primary gobblers from the population after the majority of hens have already bred (Healy 1999). Wild turkeys exhibit sexual dimorphism resulting from their dominance hierarchy evolutionary strategy. Gobblers can be distinguished from hens because of their size, plumage, but most accurately their metatarsal spurs (Pelham 1992). A common misconception made by hunters is sexing turkeys by their beard. This is a bad practice because hens can have beards as well: upwards of 10 % of hens are bearded (Beasom 1970). A study in South Texas reported the bearded hens reproductive success is not lower than non-bearded hens and therefore the reason this trait has existed throughout evolutionary time (Beasom 1970). Currently the wild turkey population is stable with the potential for growth (Healy 1999). The wild turkey catches the interest of those wanting to learn about their fascinating and distinct life strategies, and others wanting to pursue them in the art of “game hunting”.
Please send any comments, questions or suggestions regarding this website to Justin Goldberg or Verna Case.