Tom turkeys turn tail

Wild turkeys put on a show at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, part of one of the many flocks in Sonoma Valley. Marla Hastings, senior environmental scientist for the California State Parks Diablo Vista District, said 121 of the birds were trapped and “relocated” from Annadel State Park and 15 were trapped and removed from Sugarloaf this fall in an effort to reduce their numbers. The turkeys, of the subspecies Rio Grande, native to Texas, were introduced to northern California by the Department of Fish and Game as a game bird in the late 1960s.
Dan Gluesenkamp, a resource management specialist for the Bouverie Nature Preserve in Glen Ellen, has been studying the impact of wild turkeys on natural areas for the past four years and is now compiling results. He said his work shows that where wild turkeys roam, acorns disappear four times as fast, there is a 10-fold increase in soil disturbance (“an important ecosystem effect,” he said) and there are big changes in the “critter community.” He estimated the flock at Bouverie to be about 150 birds, and plans to also trap and remove a significant number. Gluesenkamp then hopes to study the effect a reduced number of birds will have on the valley ecosystem.