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Targeted Turkeys
Unprecedented wild turkey shoot in Northern California state parks is part of scientific study
By Ed Zieralski, San Diego UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
December 6, 2003
At first, news that California State Parks and the Department of Fish and Game were permitting the killing of 288 wild turkeys in the name of science sounded suspicious.
The two questions that cry out like gobble from some toms in a roosting tree were these: Why is the state killing wild turkeys? And, how much is this scientific project costing us?
Hunters in this state have watched State Parks and Fish and Game fight like a couple of jakes over the wild turkey issue.
For the most part, California Fish and Game, which began re-introducing wild turkeys in the state in 1877, values the wild turkey as a popular game bird. The big toms have spurred interest and
could help save the state from losing more hunters, whose threatened and endangered ranks already have slipped to less than 1 percent of the Golden State's population.
State Parks officials, meantime, consider the wild turkey a non-native, exotic pest that threatens the park managers' "mission" of restoring lands and their fragile flora and fauna to pre-1800s conditions before the arrival of the Europeans.
State park biologists worry that turkeys are eating threatened or endangered species of plants, or spreading the fungus that causes sudden oak death syndrome. Fish and Game biologists view the wild turkey as a valuable, huntable species.
But now this: A report of a guy using a .22 rifle to plink wild turkeys from state parks in Sonoma County.
Had the DFG finally given in and decided to allow the extermination of turkeys from the parks' fragile ecosystems, taking them out like so much tamarisk or so many soulful-singing starlings?
Enter Professor Reginald Barrett at UC Berkeley, a turkey hunter, card-carrying member of the National Wild Turkey Federation, teacher of wildlife management and a man with a turkey management pedigree.
Professor Barrett studied under A. Starker Leopold, whose father, Aldo Leopold, is the man when it comes to modern wildlife ecology.
"Professor Starker Leopold was very interested in wild turkeys and studied them," Barrett said. "I've wanted to work on turkey management studies for years, but it's been very difficult to get money for a study."
Enter Dave Schaub, manager of the State Parks' natural heritage section, another avid hunter, but somewhat lukewarm friend of the wild turkey because, probably, of where he works.
Schaub said State Parks is paying Barrett $95,000 for a two-year study on wild turkeys from three Northern California state parks – Annadel, Sugarloaf and Jack London – all in Sonoma County. One of Barrett's assistants, also a turkey hunter, already has collected 24 turkeys in two months, and professor Barrett has been busy studying the birds. His plan and DFG permit calls for 12 wild turkeys to be killed each month over the next 22 months.
Barrett, who did a similar study on wild pigs at Annadel (the pigs were eventually exterminated) already has discovered some unusual things about California's biggest and most popular game bird.
"This is a pretty weird state, and we're finding that turkeys act differently here, different than they do in other areas of the country," Barrett said. "There have only been 19 papers published on California turkeys, and only three of them were peer-review papers. That's compared to the 4,000 to 5,000 papers published about turkeys. There just hasn't been much written about how wild turkeys fit into the California landscape."
Barrett's goal over the next 22 months of his collection process is to compile data from four segments of the turkey flocks in those parks. He'll look at young and old males and young and old females, with each group representing one-fourth of his collection sample.
"We plan to look at everything we can," Barrett said. "We'll do complete necropsies, look at food habits, reproductive rates, growth rates, physical condition and see how the turkeys change over the course of seasons. We've already found internal and external parasites in birds and the Lyme disease tick."
The State Parks' Schaub and Fish and Game managers say the data, no matter what it proves, won't be used against turkeys to develop a mass extermination of the species here. Realistically, that can't be done. Wild turkeys live in 45 of the state's 58 counties and 49 of its state parks.
"The cat's out of the bag," Schaub said. "What we have to do is establish a balance of management. It's like the wild pig issue. Both wild turkeys and wild pigs are here to stay. We're not going to propose eradicating wild turkeys in state parks, but there must be some way we can reduce their impact on what we consider our mission."
Barrett's goal is to bring both sides together by getting both to buy into a turkey management plan he will write for State Parks.
"From my perspective, I'm interested in wildlife management," Barrett said. "That means solving problems, but it's going to take compromises from both sides to solve this problem."
Unprecedented wild turkey shoot in Northern California state parks is part of scientific study
By Ed Zieralski, San Diego UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
December 6, 2003
At first, news that California State Parks and the Department of Fish and Game were permitting the killing of 288 wild turkeys in the name of science sounded suspicious.
The two questions that cry out like gobble from some toms in a roosting tree were these: Why is the state killing wild turkeys? And, how much is this scientific project costing us?
Hunters in this state have watched State Parks and Fish and Game fight like a couple of jakes over the wild turkey issue.
For the most part, California Fish and Game, which began re-introducing wild turkeys in the state in 1877, values the wild turkey as a popular game bird. The big toms have spurred interest and
could help save the state from losing more hunters, whose threatened and endangered ranks already have slipped to less than 1 percent of the Golden State's population.
State Parks officials, meantime, consider the wild turkey a non-native, exotic pest that threatens the park managers' "mission" of restoring lands and their fragile flora and fauna to pre-1800s conditions before the arrival of the Europeans.
State park biologists worry that turkeys are eating threatened or endangered species of plants, or spreading the fungus that causes sudden oak death syndrome. Fish and Game biologists view the wild turkey as a valuable, huntable species.
But now this: A report of a guy using a .22 rifle to plink wild turkeys from state parks in Sonoma County.
Had the DFG finally given in and decided to allow the extermination of turkeys from the parks' fragile ecosystems, taking them out like so much tamarisk or so many soulful-singing starlings?
Enter Professor Reginald Barrett at UC Berkeley, a turkey hunter, card-carrying member of the National Wild Turkey Federation, teacher of wildlife management and a man with a turkey management pedigree.
Professor Barrett studied under A. Starker Leopold, whose father, Aldo Leopold, is the man when it comes to modern wildlife ecology.
"Professor Starker Leopold was very interested in wild turkeys and studied them," Barrett said. "I've wanted to work on turkey management studies for years, but it's been very difficult to get money for a study."
Enter Dave Schaub, manager of the State Parks' natural heritage section, another avid hunter, but somewhat lukewarm friend of the wild turkey because, probably, of where he works.
Schaub said State Parks is paying Barrett $95,000 for a two-year study on wild turkeys from three Northern California state parks – Annadel, Sugarloaf and Jack London – all in Sonoma County. One of Barrett's assistants, also a turkey hunter, already has collected 24 turkeys in two months, and professor Barrett has been busy studying the birds. His plan and DFG permit calls for 12 wild turkeys to be killed each month over the next 22 months.
Barrett, who did a similar study on wild pigs at Annadel (the pigs were eventually exterminated) already has discovered some unusual things about California's biggest and most popular game bird.
"This is a pretty weird state, and we're finding that turkeys act differently here, different than they do in other areas of the country," Barrett said. "There have only been 19 papers published on California turkeys, and only three of them were peer-review papers. That's compared to the 4,000 to 5,000 papers published about turkeys. There just hasn't been much written about how wild turkeys fit into the California landscape."
Barrett's goal over the next 22 months of his collection process is to compile data from four segments of the turkey flocks in those parks. He'll look at young and old males and young and old females, with each group representing one-fourth of his collection sample.
"We plan to look at everything we can," Barrett said. "We'll do complete necropsies, look at food habits, reproductive rates, growth rates, physical condition and see how the turkeys change over the course of seasons. We've already found internal and external parasites in birds and the Lyme disease tick."
The State Parks' Schaub and Fish and Game managers say the data, no matter what it proves, won't be used against turkeys to develop a mass extermination of the species here. Realistically, that can't be done. Wild turkeys live in 45 of the state's 58 counties and 49 of its state parks.
"The cat's out of the bag," Schaub said. "What we have to do is establish a balance of management. It's like the wild pig issue. Both wild turkeys and wild pigs are here to stay. We're not going to propose eradicating wild turkeys in state parks, but there must be some way we can reduce their impact on what we consider our mission."
Barrett's goal is to bring both sides together by getting both to buy into a turkey management plan he will write for State Parks.
"From my perspective, I'm interested in wildlife management," Barrett said. "That means solving problems, but it's going to take compromises from both sides to solve this problem."
