Wild turkeys are in trouble

[NickB79]

https://www.popsci.com/wild-turkey-decline

The wild turkey population peaked around 2001 at around 6.7 million birds in North America. But in the years since, it has dropped by about 15 percent. The eastern wild turkey—the most abundant subspecies, which reigns east of the Mississippi River—appears to be declining across parts of the Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest.

In New York, hunters in the western part of the state were the first to notice the difference. “They were saying, there’s just not as many turkeys around as there used to be,” Schiavone says.

Under the right circumstances, turkeys can lay plenty of eggs and see many of their progeny survive to adulthood. But wildlife biologists in Pennsylvania are often counting only two young turkeys per hen making it to the fall, Casalena says. “They’re barely replacing themselves.”

[Bayard]

1. Plenty of them

This time of year, I see them pretty frequently around my farm in KY.

When I lived in CA, I was driving down the mountain one day, and had one fly straight into my windshield. Both windshield and turkey shattered. The guy that had been driving behind me pulled over and asked--do you want that? He threw it in the back of his rusty old truck that was full of kids, and went on down the road.

[Comatose Sphagetti]

2. Tons of them

here in SE Indiana.