Excerpt from "Wild Turkeys"


“I don’t know if there is an ideal habitat,” said Mark Hatfield, wildlife biologist with the National Wild Turkey Federation. “In the past, people believed that turkeys needed large, mature, old-growth forests because that’s where turkeys were found, and people assumed there was a correlation. But those forests were just areas that had not been clearcut. Turkeys are very adaptable to hardwood ridges, bottoms, and upland sites. Overgrown fields are ideal for nesting. Turkeys need a variety of habitats--for example, early successional habitat, including warm season grasses. They also need mature forests and the transition areas between the two” . . .

If there’s one habitat that wild turkeys can’t live without, however, it’s an open understory. Although the birds can fly up to 35 miles per hour, their primary mode of escape is running. “Their avoidance of predators is based on sight and hearing,” said Mark. “When there’s a dense understory and they can’t see or hear well, they will avoid those areas.”

The most natural, cost-effective, and efficient tool for achieving an open understory is fire. Opening the understory not only gives turkeys clear lines of sight and escape, it encourages new plant and insect growth--bugs with sprouts--for browsing. “Remove the midstory of sweetgums, kill their root system with herbicides or fire, especially during the spring, and remove the leaf litter cover,” said Mark. “That will spawn new growth of native plants” . . .

“Fire is a disturbance that’s needed in nature. I get calls from people who say, ‘Hey, I just bought a hundred acres. I’m not gonna do anything to it but give it to wildlife.’ But Mother Nature’s dynamic. Change is never-ending. Fire brings new growth. You have a greater diversity of plants and, therefore, a greater diversity of insects, which the poults need for the high protein content” . . .