This Turkey Tuesday is about roosts, and some interesting things research is showing about the places that wild turkeys sleep. Obviously, roosts are important locations to wild turkeys – they’re where a relatively large bird feels comfortable enough to sleep – which means safety. Ongoing research throughout the species range continues to show that a small percentage of roosts are disproportionately used – termed hub roosts. Clearly these roosts are more important than others, and it appears they serve to allow individual birds to access parts of their range with critical resources – such as forage and display areas. Interestingly, emerging research shows that for toms, they’re more likely to be shot by hunters when they’re spending time away from their hub roosts. However, they’re more likely to be killed by predators when near these same roosts – this suggests a tradeoff – when toms are spending time near their hub roosts, they’re likely to be able to evade hunters, but perhaps at the cost of becoming more predictable to predators using these same areas. Regardless, it’s clear that for wild turkeys throughout their range, some roosts are just more important than others. The take home is, identifying and conserving these hub roosts may be important to ensuring persistence of wild turkeys as not all roosts that a bird use are created equal.
Pic by Monte Loomis
