At the landscaping company where I worked during college break, we talked turkey. You knew it would be a good day if you were assigned to work with Kenny. Of all the foremen, he was the most coveted. He was a reluctant taskmaster and often stopped for ice cream on the way home!
The only thing with Kenny is that he liked to talk, whether we were driving, digging holes, or spreading mulch. Mostly, he held forth about his favorite pastime: hunting. And talk about hunting usually led to meanderings about turkeys, his preferred quarry. This is why recounting a day with Kenny usually included the phrase “talkin’ turkey,” as in “Kenny spent the whole drive home talkin’ turkey.”
Kenny loved all kinds of hunting, but for him, the pinnacle was bow hunting for turkey. There’s no greater challenge, he would say, than to get close enough to a turkey to hit it with an arrow (hunting stats back him up: success rates for bow hunters is less than 10%).
He would repeat the same stories over and over, changing them just enough to keep you listening. But his themes were consistent: turkeys are cautious and cunning, masters of camouflage and hearing, and able to disappear instantly. (It’s true; they can fly 50 mph and run 20 mph!)
He’d tell us how a gobbler calling in front of his blind could be completely invisible. Or how it would call from one side of his blind and then from the opposite side a moment later – without a hint of movement. And Kenny was convinced the smartest turkeys knew to stay teasingly just outside the range of his arrows. He may have stretched the truth occasionally, but there was no doubting his admiration and reverence for the big birds.
Wild turkeys, our largest ground-nesting bird, are native to most of North America and flourished in the eastern United States in pre-colonial days. However, the loss of forests to farming and the popularity of turkey as a food staple resulted in their rapid decline. By the time the country was founded, turkeys were hard to find in many places. They were officially gone from Connecticut by 1813.
“In the course of my ramble through Long Island, the State of New York, I did not meet with a single individual, although I was informed that some exist in those parts,” wrote John James Audubon in the late 1830s.
If they did still exist, they weren’t around much longer: turkeys were officially extirpated from New York in the mid-1840s.
While it’s not clear if turkey was served as part of the original Thanksgiving feast in 1621, they did come to be a centerpiece of the American holiday meal by 1800. A few decades later, their disappearance from the wild did little to disrupt this tradition. A domestic turkey breed imported from Europe had replaced its wild cousin at most holiday tables by then. It is, in fact, this domestic version – the White Broad-Breasted Turkey – that dominates Thanksgiving meals today.
But for some Long Islanders, there has been a return to wild turkeys in recent decades. In 1992, the New York Department of Conservation (DEC) trapped 75 upstate turkeys to introduce in Suffolk County to help reestablish the population. Since then, the number of turkeys has swelled to more than 3,000 (as many as 6,000 by some reports!).
Given the program’s success in 2009, DEC instituted a turkey hunting season in Suffolk County for the first time in over a century. One hundred and two birds were taken that year during a short season before Thanksgiving. Between 2016 and 2022, the fall turkey harvest averaged 83 birds. With the population continuing to thrive and expand (as many on the East End will attest), DEC added a spring season for turkey hunting in 2023.
The turkey’s success on Long Island is illustrative of a stunning comeback across their historic range. As farming declined and forest cover rebounded, remnant populations slowly began to expand. In the 1950’s, wildlife agencies and hunting organizations launched efforts to speed the recovery through reintroduction. While early efforts to release farm-raised turkeys were a failure, more recent programs (like Long Island’s) to catch and relocate wild turkeys have been a fantastic success. After being nearly wiped out, today’s turkey population is estimated at over six million nationwide.
Their return means more than just recreational opportunities. As resident forest omnivores, turkeys disperse seeds, control insects and other invertebrates, and help clear the understory’s space. Turkeys (especially their eggs and chicks) are also important prey for many predators, including foxes, owls, snakes, and coyotes. In this regard, the return of turkeys is helping to restore and maintain forest health. Now that’s some turkey worth talkin’ about!
Nature Matters is a regular column of the Seatuck Environmental Association, a nonprofit dedicated to conserving Long Island wildlife and the environment. Visit seatuk.org for more information about the organization’s conservation initiatives and educational programming.
