While you enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner this weekend, make sure you savor the turkey you’re about to overindulge in – these strange, gobbling creatures might be harder to come by in the years ahead.
That’s according to research by a team of forestry experts from the University of Georgia (UGA). In their new study, the researchers claim that hunting by humans is a “major evolutionary force” that’s forcing turkeys to adapt their behavior, making them trickier to hunt.
They studied the behavior of over 100 wild male eastern turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) across two populations in South Carolina and Georgia, focusing on their risk-taking and exploratory behavior in response to hunters and predators.
They documented how many of the male turkeys frequently displayed daring behavior, like wandering around areas where hunters parked their cars, popular trails, and roads, as well as wide open spaces.
This is a high-risk, high-reward situation for the turkeys. While it might result in finding more food, it could also lead them into the sights of a hunter.
“If turkeys are closer to these open areas, it’s going to be easier for both a hunter and a predator to detect them. Across both study sites in general, turkeys that took more risks were more likely to be harvested,” Nickolas Gulotta, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, said in a statement.
This appears to be acting as a selection pressure, a factor that affects the organism’s ability to survive and reproduce, driving evolution through natural selection. The daring turkeys are being more readily hunted and cut from the gene pool while the cautious, savvier birds are more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass on their traits to the next generation.
“Turkeys are obviously adapting and learning that if you’re closer to risky areas, then there’s potential to be harvested. That’s why some of them are adopting less risky behaviors that essentially make them less detectable. If hunters harvest birds that are riskier and more detectable, it could become more difficult to harvest turkeys because we could be left with a bunch of individuals that are harder to detect,” said Gulotta.
However, it’s a complex situation. The shrewd turkeys that avoid humans are less likely to move around, instead opting to hide out in a well-covered area. It’s a survival strategy that works well during hunting season, but it also leaves them vulnerable to natural predators, like coyotes and foxes.
“There are certain traits associated with outlasting the hunting season, like hiding in areas with good cover and reducing the distance traveled within a day. But in turn, if turkeys stay in the same area and don’t travel a lot, then they’re going to be more likely to be detected by a predator,” said Gulotta.
“It’s kind of a catch-22 where if they can survive that hunting season, they’re most likely going to be fine. But at the same time, too, if they don’t travel that fast and are predictable, then they have the potential to be killed by a predator,” he points out.
The overall trend is that wild turkeys seem to be learning methods of avoiding hunters. Hunting selectively targets certain behaviors, which could drive evolutionary changes in behavioral traits. Of course, this has been the case for centuries upon centuries, ever since humans started to actively hunt turkeys. However, the researchers claim their study is the first to highlight this pattern.
“The turkeys closer to areas that hunters use are the ones that are harvested. So if we continue to harvest them like that across the Southeast, then there’s the potential that we could shift the behavioral strategies of wild turkeys making them more difficult to harvest,” Gulotta summarized.
The new study is published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
