This Turkey Tuesday is about a topic many of us are thinking about during fall, and which I post about each fall – managing for deer versus turkeys. A common question many ask when planning land management activities to benefit deer is – do these activities also benefit wild turkeys? The short answer is usually yes. Both critters benefit from management activities such as prescribed fire, disking, mechanical brush management like mulching, and timber management to improve forest conditions. These management activities stimulate vegetation, which provides quality browse and cover for deer, and forage, nesting, and brooding habitat for turkeys. Likewise, turkeys benefit from cool season plantings we often hunt deer over, such as wheat, oats, clovers, etc. In fact, both critters also benefit from management of transition zones between forests and planted openings, such as with use of winter disking to stimulate native forbs and legumes. However, it’s important to understand a fundamental difference between how deer and turkeys survive. When threatened, deer run into dense cover and hide – but turkeys must see danger approaching, so they can run or fly away and to do that, they need more open vegetation. So, integrating management for deer and turkeys sometimes requires more frequent disturbances if the goal is to maximize benefits to wild turkeys – you may have to revisit your targeted management activities a bit more often to benefit turkeys. The take home is deer and turkey management can go hand in hand – as long as we recognize that turkeys view the benefits of our management actions through a different lens.
Pic © Tes Randle Jolly
