In complaints to local officials, farmers often blame wild turkeys. This frequently happens because in the morning daylight hours, turkeys tend to show up at the scene of crop crimes to eat waste grain and bugs. The researchers discovered this was only after raccoons had knocked down cornstalks and the deer had enjoyed their fill of food.
To solve the crimes, the team of Purdue researchers acted like undercover detectives.
Gene Rhodes, professor of wildlife ecology, and Brain MacGowan, Extension wildlife specialist, along with technicians and graduate students that included Lee Humberg and Jim Beasley, captured wild turkeys with rocket nets. They then attached VHF radio transmitters to the turkeys. During the crop-growing season, each radio-tagged turkey was located once an hour for nine consecutive hours twice weekly.
The study was conducted in fields throughout northcentral Indiana.
In locations where they or farmers observed crop damage, the researchers collected follow-up video, which involved nighttime filming, and observational data on the turkeys, deer, raccoons, and groundhogs.
The research team caught the deer and coons in the act.
MacGowan said, "I have sat in cornfields at night and recorded raccoons aggressively knocking down cornstalks all around me."
Both MacGowan and Rhodes told Discovery News that turkeys get the blame simply because they are more visible.
"It is more of a problem of being in the wrong place at the wrong time," they explained. "Turkeys are easily observed in fields because they have large body sizes and distinctive coloration, they are active during the day, and they often travel in large groups."
They added that turkeys typically feed regularly at dawn just after they get off their roosts. Like most birds, they are most active at dawn and just before dusk, especially in the warm weather months.
While turkeys did eat grain, it turned out to be deer and raccoon leftovers.
"In our study, the grain that turkeys were eating in the fields became available to the birds after other species, such as raccoons, had damaged the standing cornstalks," the scientists said.
While the study was limited to Indiana, Rhodes and MacGowan believe that the findings could apply to corn and soybean fields elsewhere in the United States, particularly in the Midwest. They suspect the research also is applicable to fields and crops located in most any area where high numbers of deer and raccoons exist. Even California grape growers have implicated turkeys in damage likely caused by these other night prowling animals.
Another reason for the turkey's visibility is that turkey numbers are on the rise in many parts of America.
"A major reason for this increase has been the success of extensive restoration efforts undertaken across the country by biologists, natural resources agencies, and the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF)," said Rhodes and MacGowan.
The NWTF agrees that turkeys often undeservedly get a bad rap.
"Wild turkeys are perceived to be damaging crops because they are so visible, but the evidence doesn't support the perception," commented James Earl Kenname, senior vice president for conservation programs at the NWTF.
If a farmer finds wild turkeys on his or her property, Rhodes and MacGowan advise that the individual should "enjoy the experience," since turkeys eat pest bugs and can provide aesthetic, recreational, and ecosystem-related benefits.
The Purdue team next hopes to determine what factors make a field, or other human-designed landscape, more susceptible to wildlife depredation events. Once they identify those qualities, they hope to find ways of limiting wildlife damage, with the goal of sustaining both agriculture and wildlife populations in the same area.
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