Giving thanks for New Jersey's wild turkeys

RELEASE: Nov. 16, 2007 – Volume XXXIX, No. 46

Just before Thanksgiving last year, police in the quiet north Jersey community of Ramsey, Bergen County, responded to a call about a roving pack of trouble-makers who had snarled up traffic during the morning rush hour. A N.J. Transit station security camera captured a grainy image of the hoodlums gathered at the edge of the train platform, looking like they were waiting for the next train.

The incident would have been relatively unremarkable, except that the hoodlums in question were turkeys – large, gallinaceous birds of the Meleagrididae family, with brown plumage of a metallic luster… not “people of little appeal, duds or losers,” as alternatively defined by the dictionary. Were the birds were making a break for it? It was the day before Thanksgiving, after all…

In years past, many New Jerseyans never saw wild turkeys, especially not in populated suburban areas. But today, they are a relatively common sight in many parts of this state we’re in.

The return of the wild turkey to New Jersey is a great success story. By the mid-1800s, habitat changes and hunting wiped out the Garden State’s once abundant wild turkey population. The birds were reintroduced in 1977, through a partnership between the N.J. Division of Fish & Wildlife and the New Jersey chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation. Only four years later, the turkey population had grown large enough to support a spring hunt, netting 71 turkeys. By 2006, the population had grown to an estimated 22,000 turkeys, supporting spring and fall hunts that bagged over 3,500 birds!

The success of the restoration program lies in part with the nature of the turkey.
Male turkeys, or toms, are territorial and often mate with several hens in the course of one season. The toms’ signature gobbling is a way to stake turf and attract females, who respond with their own yelps, whines and whistles.

Turkeys follow the same schedule as the birds and the bees, so spring is really prime gobbling season. The polygamous toms generally don’t help rear their young, so they have plenty of time to go out chasing other females. This produces more broods of chicks, known as poults.

So when you settle down to Thanksgiving dinner, give thanks for wild turkeys, and for the restoration effort that brought them back to New Jersey!

You can learn more about wild turkeys in New Jersey, and turkey hunting seasons, at www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/turkey_info.htm. The state chapter of the NWTF website at njnwtf.org also has interesting information on turkeys, turkey hunts and legislation impacting the future of turkey hunting in New Jersey.

And I hope you’ll contact me at info@njconservation.org, or visit NJCF’s website at www.njconservation.org, if you want more information about conserving New Jersey’s precious land and natural resources.

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