In contrast with the little horse who won’t let me near her, the wild deer and turkeys are happy to have me around. When I took this picture, I was standing ten feet away in plain sight with a 95 pound dog next to me. These animals are willing to coexist with us.
When a flock of wild turkeys moved onto our land, I learned that (wait for it) turkey hunting is not a sport. Radical statement, I know, but this is why: turkeys don’t migrate, they flock together, they don’t fly much and they have a home territory. This means that groups of big birds are out walking on their rounds every day, and roosting in the same place each night. If I wanted to kill five male turkeys, I can do this any day in the backyard at 10AM, or in the neighbor’s backyard at 11AM/ camo is optional. A turkey is too big to hide, can’t fly away, and walks around. You can harvest an animal that behaves like that, but the only reason it is remotely sporting is that nearly all turkeys are already killed so hunters have to travel to remote spots to find the last ones…which doesn’t seem sporting.
Biologists say that wild turkeys are generalists that exploit many different food sources, and their populations can become large if they’re tolerated. Their range includes most of the US.
If wild turkey hunters took a break for a bit, there could be more turkeys next year and less empty habitat the year after that. Wild turkeys are living in New York’s Central Park, I hear, and they could be living throughout suburbia. Then there would be enough to harvest. Until that time, I wish those turkey hunters would just simmer down.
And so does he.
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