Why Are Turkeys Running Wild in These Neighborhoods? | National Geographic
[Music] Don't get close to them. Wild turkeys are not considered native to California, most of the state. Really, turkeys are not a problem, but they are certainly a local problem, particularly in some residential areas that have high-quality turkey habitat. Turkeys were brought in primarily for hunting, and I think as you understand the whole turkey issue, you've got to think that in that time, that was probably, you know, not considered a particularly controversial thing, probably considered a good thing.
The first known release of turkeys in California was in 1877 on Santa Cruz Island by cattle ranchers. Beginning in 1908, the department started releasing birds that were raised on game farms. In 1949 and 1950, the department first experimented with releasing wild turkeys that were trapped in the wild and translocated and released in the wild. About 1959, the department brought in turkeys from Texas Rio Grande subspecies and released them in San Luis Obispo County.
The department, from 1959 all the way through 2000, had a consistent program really throughout the state, and those are the birds that we primarily have in California today. Really, only in about the mid-1990s did it start becoming something that was controversial. You know, the downside of it are some of the nuisance concerns that have developed particularly in residential areas in the state, and there are some concerns about their potential impacts being a non-native species to the environment, native flora and fauna in some of the residential areas.
It tends to be followed up with enjoying the turkeys; let's feed them! Once you start feeding them, you almost can't get rid of them. They become like stray cats, so we very strongly advise people not to feed turkeys, as we would with really any [Music] wildlife. Turkey hunting is the obvious solution that comes to anybody's mind in areas that you have turkey problems. The problem is some of these areas that folks want to get rid of turkeys, hunting is just not feasible because you can't discharge weapons for very good reasons in those areas.
I started hunting turkeys in the early 80s. Turkeys weren't around back when I was a youth and grew up; they weren't around until my early 20s when I first started. There actually were very few turkeys in California; they were very, very hard to find. We now have somewhere around almost 30,000 turkey hunters in the state of California, $1.69 million just buying the upland game stamp and just buying their license.
It takes fuel to get there; it takes groceries, it takes water in the field. If each hunter spends $100 a day, that is an estimated $20 million put back into the economy in California in the [Music] springtime. So how big do you think that beard is? Five and three? Five and three? Probably about, I would say, nine in on that beard. Nice, nice long beard for your first gobbler.
I actually think the people complaining about wild turkeys is somewhat silly because if you want to live in the world, you're going to have to put up with the grass growing, um, with bees, with mosquitoes, um, with all types of wildlife. The benefits—what it has brought to California, the one-on-one that you're able to spend with your children in the field, the economic benefits that it has brought to California, way outweigh a few little nuisance [Music] turkeys.
On Thanksgiving Day, the United States of America will consume an estimated 46 million turkeys. A recent study concludes that a typical turkey feast for eight people produces approximately 44 lbs of carbon dioxide emissions.