Subject: Benton County "Giant Starlings" (Wild Turkeys)
Date: Mar 9 10:18:51 2004
From: Stewart Wechsler - ecostewart at quidnunc.net


Looks like the Turkey population is continuing to grow and spread.

Score one for the "Giant Starlings" and minus one for the species that will
be replaced or negatively impacted, as the Bluebirds and Purple Martins were
by the regular Starlings. (for those of you who don't know or don't
remember, Turkeys are an introduced and "invasive" species in Washington,
they're only native east of the Rockies.) Maybe it's time to for us to
lobby the department of game to stop all introductions of non-native species
and make it open season on the Turkeys and other introduced game species
with no licensing or fee requirements.

It would certainly be appropriate to do a study on their impact. Someone
needs to examine their crop, gizzard and stomach contents year-round in
their different habitats and see just what they're eating. The scientists
could also be eating or they could make donations to the food bank. This
could help determine what species are likely to be harmed (or helped - in
the case of prey and competitors of Turkey food species). Baseline studies
of abundance of fauna and flora need to be done, or old studies found to
compare how they change over time as the Turkeys impact what they will. As
I mentioned the last time the subject of Turkeys came up, I know they eat
acorns and have read they Violets. They also eat many insects, at least
occasionally, lizards. You can speculate just which species will be the
primary, secondary and tertiary losers and winners due to the introduction
of the Turkeys. The native Wild Turkeys in the east were almost hunted out
of existence in the past. It should be possible to hunt them out of
Washington, or maybe we should just train the Cougars, Bobcats and Coyotes
to be better Turkey hunters.

Stewart Wechsler
West Seattle
mailto:ecostewart at quidnunc.net



-----Original Message-----
From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu
[mailto:TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of Dennis Rockwell
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 8:41 AM
To: Tweeters; Inlanders
Subject: Benton County Wild Turkeys


Six Wild Turkey - an adult male, adult female & four immature (last year's
hatch) - were observed and well photographed this past weekend by Adam Fyall
in Horn Rapids County Park along the Yakima River below Horn Rapids.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is only the second
record for Benton County.

Dennis Rockwell Kennewick, WA denrockwell at surfbest.net


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