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Tracking Turkeys

Wild turkeys are particularly conspicuous in winter, when they congregate in lowland flocks. Biologists say turkeys have been introduced to virtually every habitat niche in the state. (File/ / The Spokesman-Review)
Rich Landers Outdoors editor
Wild turkeys are particularly conspicuous in winter, when they congregate in lowland flocks. Biologists say turkeys have been introduced to virtually every habitat niche in the state. (File/ / The Spokesman-Review)

The boom is on for wild turkeys introduced to this region in the past few decades, but nobody knows how big it is.

Washington is officially and unofficially trying to get a handle on the number of wild turkeys spreading across the state.

The 30,000 figure for the statewide population of wild turkeys has been bandied about for so long, Mick Cope, state game bird manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, doesn’t know how or when it was calculated.

“It’s an old and fairly arbitrary figure,” he said. “I suspect the number is much higher today.”

Washington chapters of the National Wild Turkey Federation are trying to organize a census by asking landowners and individuals to report winter concentrations of turkeys.

“The chapters hope to get counts while the turkeys are on their winter range,” said Jerry Harms, federation member and Spokane school teacher. “These counts can be made on private as well as public property. Anyone near wintering turkeys can participate. This is count information and will be used as such and not as opportunities for hunters to contact landowners for permission to hunt.

“The data will be used as an overall state count, averaged over the next three years, to get a handle on the state population.”

While this sort of volunteer census could be helpful for future turkey enhancement projects, the Department of Fish and Wildlife is establishing a more scientifically based survey, although it will be limited to Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties.

For the second year, department personnel are counting turkeys as they drive designated routes on three different days within a designated two-week period.

“We’re not trying to count every bird; we’re getting an index of the turkey population,” Cope said, noting that similar surveys are done to estimate trends in waterfowl populations.

Game managers can get accurate information on wild turkey population trends by combining the numbers in the winter driving route surveys with the harvest numbers provided by the state’s mandatory reports hunters must file on their hunting activity.

The method is not designed to indicate the number of birds in the field, but rather the percent of increase or decrease, he said.

“We’re trying to do something that’s reliable and repeatable each year to get a trend line,” Cope said.

The Fish and Wildlife Department surveys are concentrating on northeastern Washington, where 75 percent of the state’s wild turkey harvest occurs, Cope said.