Nuisance or novelty? Wild turkeys take over Boise North End

Residents of Boise’s North End have documented an unusual number of wild turkeys passing through the neighborhood this summer.

In a Reddit post, a user described seeing a flock of “at least 20” hens and poults on 26th Street. In one video posted on Facebook by Deb Rose, three turkeys were chasing and vocally harassing a mailman on foot.

“Someone needs to call the (turkey) parents to let them know their kids are ganging up on mail carriers and chasing after garbage trucks, wreaking havoc in the neighborhood and besmirching the good name of North End Turkeys,” Rose wrote.

Jeff Knetter, upland game and migratory game bird coordinator at Idaho Fish and Game, told the Idaho Statesman that wild turkeys have been present in Boise for at least 15 years, though he was unaware that the North End turkeys made a name for themselves on social media.

“To me, it seems like when you start getting in that 30 birds kind of range, that’s when we start hearing complaints about turkeys,” Knetter said. “That’s when they start leaving their droppings around and folks get pretty irritated with that. … They can scratch at the ground very effectively, and they could potentially cause damage in a garden or orchard type of area.”

While Knetter didn’t hear of a recent uptick in complaints to Fish and Game, he told the Statesman that wild turkeys’ mating season is late March through June. Hens will lay about a dozen eggs, which will incubate for around a month before hatching. It only takes a day for hatchlings to be able to eat on their own and follow their mothers on foot.

That timing seems to coincide with the appearance of the turkeys in the North End, Knetter said.

North End resident Darcy Elgin doesn’t mind the turkeys. She told the Statesman that she enjoys seeing them on her walks down 22nd Street and watching them strut outside her window “like they’re on a mission.”

“I’ve never seen them be aggressive or chase anyone,” Elgin said. “But I have seen them stand their ground and honk right back at dogs with the nerve to bark at them.”

Knetter said wild turkeys likely made their way into urban Boise over the years through the Greenbelt corridor along the Boise River. Since hunting is not permitted and predators are less widespread within the city, these urban wild turkey populations have maintained their presence, he explained.

Last summer, Idaho Fish and Game launched a project dubbed “Turkey Tracker” that mobilized Idahoans to report wild turkey brood sightings using a phone app. The data helped inform Fish and Game on when to set its hunting season by providing on-the-ground population location and reproduction information, Knetter said. The program was relaunched for 2025 after what Knetter called a “terrific” response last year.

Social media users have said that they have reported North End turkey sightings to the Turkey Tracker program. But since the program only counts birds at the county level, and the state wanted to be sensitive to sharing personal location information, the data doesn’t provide insight on turkey hotspots throughout Boise, Knetter told the Statesman.

Knetter encouraged the public to continue to report the turkey sightings, particularly in July and August.

“We are very interested in that brood information,” Knetter said.