The Wild Turkey Is a Comeback Bird We Can’t Take for Granted

Caroline Barnes, an illustrator in  Massachusetts, had never seen Wild Turkeys until about 20 years ago. In the dead of winter, she was surprised to spot two of the fowl—among North America’s bulkiest native birds—roosting in a tree outside her home in Brookline, near Boston. “I fell in love,” she says. 

She was witnessing one of the 20th century’s great conservation wins. Before colonial settlement, millions of turkeys roamed North America from the Atlantic coast to the southern Rockies. But by 1930, logging, agriculture, and overhunting had nearly driven the bird to extinction. In much of the East, the species had already disappeared. A Massachusetts official even grouped turkeys with now-extinct Passenger Pigeons and Great Auks: all “gone forever” from the state, all cautionary tales.

But these quintessentially American birds were more resilient than anyone realized; they just needed a chance. Harvest regulations and land management warded off extinction, and biologists began restoring populations in the 1960s by moving some remaining birds  into healthy woodlands where they’d vanished. By the early 2000s, these programs and other conservation initiatives had succeeded beyond expectation, with an estimated 7 million birds roaming 49 states. “Populations exploded,” says Michael Chamberlain, who runs the Wild Turkey Lab at the University of Georgia.

Wildlife conservation, however, is rarely static, and soon after, the Wild Turkey’s success story took a complicated turn.

In many suburbs and cities, turkeys began making themselves at home, and the arrivals weren’t always welcome neighbors. They pooped—a lot. They ripped up gardens. During breeding season, males attempting to establish dominance over other birds chased people and attacked vehicles instead. In Brookline, for example, while many shared Barnes’s affection, complaints about the birds’ disruptive behavior spurred police to hold a community meeting in 2012. Nationwide, clips of gobblers’ antics have become a local news staple. “It’s almost like a social science experiment,” says David Scarpitti, a Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife biologist who regularly fields turkey concerns from residents across the state. “How many animals can people tolerate?”   

Yet even as the birds took over towns, a few researchers realized something was amiss in rural areas in the South and Midwest, where turkeys seemed to be struggling once again. “Right under our noses, they had started to decline,” Chamberlain says. As a species, Wild Turkeys remain healthy, with roughly 5 million to 6 million in the United States today. But the downturn was of particular concern to hunters—as well as wildlife agencies and businesses that the popular hobby helps support. And if turkeys weren’t doing well, it could indicate that their habitat—and other wildlife that relies on it—may be suffering, too. 
 

North America is home to five subspecies of Wild Turkey, and the eastern variety is the most abundant. Found primarily east of the Mississippi River, eastern turkeys are experiencing declines in some states, including Georgia and Iowa, while populations in other states, such as New York, appear stable. In urban areas, meanwhile, they’re on the rise.  To make sense of it all, wildlife managers and researchers have ramped up collaborative research over the past decade, says Jared McJunkin, the central region conservation operations director for the National Wild Turkey Federation, a hunting and conservation nonprofit.

In many regions, the first steps have been to get a better handle on how many turkeys there are and to track nesting success, mortality, and movements. Studying the agile species isn’t easy or cheap, so many states hadn’t done extensive turkey research since the 1990s. Instead, officials typically estimate turkey abundance based, in part, on hunters’ success at bagging the bird each season—formulas that, in turn, inform future hunting limits to maintain a stable population. 

This time around, researchers have access to better technologies: GPS transmitters to follow toms and hens, automated trail cameras to keep watch on nests, and audio recorders equipped with artificial intelligence to identify gobbles. Genetic studies, meanwhile, are helping tease apart relationships within and among flocks. “We are finding that the ways turkeys function is much more complex than we thought,” Chamberlain says. Recent research, for example, shows that a relatively small percentage of “super hens” produce and raise most of a flock’s young, but why these individuals are so successful isn’t yet clear.

When a multiyear, $1.3 million field research effort kicked off in Oklahoma in 2022, scientists were already concerned about turkeys based on hunter data and anecdotal reports. “We weren’t seeing as many turkeys. We weren’t hearing as many turkeys,” says Oklahoma State University professor and researcher Colter Chitwood. As the project wraps up, he says that the results point to two concerns: high hen mortality and fewer poults per hen. The next step will be to understand the underlying causes.

There is likely no single driver in Oklahoma or anywhere else. Changes in vegetation cover may be making it easier for coyotes, foxes, and eagles to pick off turkeys, especially youngsters, or predators themselves could be more prolific—or both. “A poult is basically a little chicken nugget running around in the woods,” Chitwood says. “Everything with fangs or claws or teeth can go for it.” The burst of recent science could also point to a need to adjust formulas for setting bag limits and seasons in some areas: Hunting gear has improved since the 1990s, too, so it’s possible old math may be out of whack. Other recent studies have examined potential impacts of a host of emerging threats, such as climate change and West Nile virus.

Ultimately, making heads or tails of how Wild Turkeys are doing and how to best help them is also a problem of scale. The widespread birds don’t travel far, so they may experience a different mix of challenges—even from one corner of a state to another—that call for different interventions to halt the decline of a population. 

What’s more, not everyone is all that worried about declines. After turkeys boomed in the late 20th century, numbers were bound to fall back to a sustainable level, says Tim Evans, Audubon South Carolina’s land conservation director. Evans aims to boost more at-risk species that share the same landscapes, including Northern Bobwhites and Red-cockaded Woodpeckers. 

Even if the science is complex and priorities may differ, experts all emphasize that the most important ways to help Wild Turkeys and many other species are the same: actively managing habitat and fighting its loss. “It’s never about the bird,” Evans says. “It’s always about: If you want to save it, you’ve got to save where it lives.”

While turkeys use varied habitats depending on sex and season, nesting hens and their poults like early successional landscapes—including recently burned woodlands, fallow fields and fencerows, and thinned-out timber plots—where they can see predators without being seen and find nutritious insects. Despite the  benefits of healthy habitat, it takes investment and education to conduct prescribed burns, sustainably harvest trees, and deploy other conservation strategies. Such activities are even more challenging as human populations grow and development fragments habitat.

Many suburbs, meanwhile, provide prime turkey real estate without much effort at all. 

The average American town is a Wild Turkey  paradise: a matrix of fields for foraging, shrubs for nest protection, and wooded parcels that supply acorns and roosting sites. Predators may be relatively scarce, while birdseed and other human-provided food sources are abundant. As a result, rather than wander miles a day in search of sustenance, a flock of turkeys might stick around—and cause trouble.

Dave Allmann, a longtime letter carrier in the Minneapolis area, has had his share of run-ins with gangs of gobblers. (He theorizes that his blue uniform, similar in color to a male turkey’s head, may mark postal workers as competition.) As safety liaison for the local union, he has begun incorporating turkey awareness in safety talks for colleagues and tries to advise homeowners to stop feeding problem birds so that they’ll leave.

In New England, Scarpitti has the same message: To protect urban wildlife, whether turkeys, bears, or coyotes, people must remove food access, which tames animals and can lead to their demise. He hopes that instead, people can enjoy charismatic wildlife while interfering as little as possible in their lives. “It’s all about coexisting,” he says.

As for Brookline, a poster city for burgeoning suburban flocks, the town has now embraced the bird as an unofficial mascot—in part with the help of Barnes, who began creating amusing vintage-style travel posters with slogans that turned turkeys into a reason to visit the area, not run way. Last year a turkey designed by Barnes adorned Election Day “I Voted” stickers, and officials even installed gobbler sculptures about town. On birding trips in the Boston area, former Brookline Bird Club president Leslie Kramer likes to encourage appreciation by educating people about the turkey’s fascinating history as a reintroduced native species. “It’s always a good idea to give folks a little bit of background so they don’t just dismiss them,” she says.

After all, many who get to know turkeys up close—whether birders, hunters, or homeowners—come to cherish these adaptable icons. Turkeys are dedicated mothers, are fast on their feet and the wing, and emit an awe-inspiring multiplicity of sounds. “They’re just the closest thing to a velociraptor that we have,” Evans says. “They are amazing birds, and they have survived so much.” And they’re determined to carry on. 

This story originally ran in the Fall 2025 issue as part of the package “Let’s Talk Turkey." Explore the rest of the package at these links: Get to know a Wild Turkey's weird anatomy, learn how to handle Wild Turkey encounters, and see how Native American artists are using turkey feathers.

To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.