Birds
Wild Turkey
Meleagris gallopavo · also called wild turkey, eastern wild turkey
The wild turkey is nothing like the bird on the Thanksgiving table. It is fast, sharp-eyed, and famously hard to sneak up on — a big woodland game bird that runs at 40 km/h, flies into the trees to sleep, and was nearly wiped out before becoming one of North America’s greatest conservation comebacks.
Overview
Wild turkeys live in woodland with clearings, forest edge, and wooded farmland across the eastern and central US, parts of the West and Mexico, and various introduced areas. They forage on the ground by day — scratching the leaf litter for acorns, nuts, seeds, berries, greens, and insects — and fly up into a tree to roost every night. Males are toms, females hens, and the birds are strongly social, moving in flocks outside the breeding season.
Built to be hard to catch
- Speed: ~40 km/h running; short flights to ~90 km/h
- Vision: full colour (with some UV), and near-360-degree coverage with a slight head turn
- A strong flight response at long range
Experienced hunters rate a mature gobbler among the wariest animals to approach — the opposite of the domestic bird’s reputation.
The head
A tom’s bare head and neck carry a fleshy snood over the bill and dangling wattles, all richly vascularised, that change size and colour — pale to flushed red, white, and blue — with mood and display. Hens prefer long-snooded toms, and snood length is an honest signal of condition.
Domestic origins
The turkey was domesticated in Mexico over 2,000 years ago. Spanish colonists carried the domestic bird to Europe, and its descendants were later reintroduced to North America — which is why “turkey” the bird is named after the country, via a trade-route mix-up.
Status
The wild turkey is Least Concern and increasing — down to perhaps 30,000 by 1900, it was rebuilt to 6–7 million by forest regrowth, hunting regulation, and wild-bird trap-and-transfer, and now occupies its whole former range and more.
Wild Turkey: common questions
Can wild turkeys fly?
Yes — quite well over short distances, which surprises people used to domestic turkeys, which are too heavy to fly. A wild turkey can burst into the air and cover 100 metres or more at speeds up to about 90 km/h, and every night it flies up into a tree to roost, out of reach of coyotes, foxes, and bobcats, coming down again at dawn. What it cannot do is sustained flight; it is a bird of short, powerful escape flights and daily roost commutes, and on the ground it prefers to run, reaching around 40 km/h.
Why did wild turkeys almost disappear, and how did they come back?
By the early 1900s, unregulated market hunting and the clearing of the eastern forests for farming had reduced the wild turkey to perhaps 30,000 birds in isolated remnants, and it was gone from many states entirely. Recovery came from three things — forests regrowing on abandoned farmland, hunting regulation and licensing that funded wildlife agencies, and, most importantly, the trap-and-transfer of wild birds (rather than pen-raised ones, which do not survive) from the surviving populations into empty habitat from the 1950s onward. The wild turkey rebounded to 6 to 7 million and reoccupied its entire former range and then some, making it one of the signature successes of North American conservation.
Are turkeys really as stupid as their reputation?
The reputation comes from domestic turkeys, which have been bred for centuries for size and docility and are indeed not bright. Wild turkeys are a completely different proposition. They are among the wariest game birds in North America — with near-panoramic colour vision, sharp hearing, and a strong flight response, they detect and flee from danger at long range, and experienced hunters consider a mature "gobbler" one of the hardest animals to approach. They also have a complex social structure, a large vocabulary of calls (yelps, purrs, clucks, and the famous gobble), and good spatial memory for food and roost sites.
What is the snood, and does it matter?
The snood is the fleshy, finger-like projection that hangs over a turkey's bill. Along with the bare skin of the head and the dangling wattles on the throat, it is richly supplied with blood vessels and can rapidly change size and colour — from pale and short to long, engorged, and flushed bright red, white, and blue — reflecting the bird's arousal and health. In courtship, research has shown that hens prefer toms with longer snoods, and that snood length signals a male's condition and resistance to parasites, so it functions as an honest advertisement in mate choice, much like a peacock's train.