![]() The scale of “game” introductions in New Zealand is mind boggling. New Zealand is also home to a wide range of other non-native species, many of them brought by British colonials for sport hunting and fishing. Predator Free 2050 is a national campaign to remove the country’s non-native rats, stoats and weasels. New Zealand’s predator-eradication efforts have received a lot of conservation news lately. New Zealand Wild turkeys in a New Zealand paddock.© Jon Sullivan / Flickr.Today, turkeys remain on Maui, Lana’I, Moloka’I and Hawai’i. But as is the case for turkeys in many places, there was no real attention paid to turkey genetics during introductions. Most of these turkeys were the Rio Grande subspecies native to the southern Great Plains. Later introductions were for hunting purposes. In the early 1900s, they were common on many of the islands, but an epidemic wiped out populations on Oahu and elsewhere. Turkeys were then introduced periodically to various Hawaiian islands from the 1800s through 1963. Some of these turkeys apparently escaped – as happened with other domestic creatures including sheep, goats, pigs and chickens – and established wild populations. Interestingly, the wild turkey may have been the first non-native bird to become established following European contact.Īccording to a paper published by the Bishop Museum, the first turkeys were brought to Hawai’i Island in 1788 from China (by that point domestic turkeys were raised widely around the globe). This includes a long list of non-native birds that have, in some places, almost completely replaced native species. © Deb Nostrum / FlickrĪs is the case with many islands around the globe, the Hawaiian islands are particularly impacted by invasive species. Hawai’i Wild turkeys strut around a condo complex on the Big Island.Let’s take a look at the world of wild turkeys, a tour that also includes some interesting turkey lore and natural history. Today, you can find wild turkeys living in some really unexpected places. ![]() Their adaptability and their popularity as both livestock and gamebirds means they have been moved around. states.īut the turkey story doesn’t stop there. As state game agencies found success in turkey reintroduction, they also began stocking them beyond their original range. Six subspecies historically occupied a broad swath of North America from Mexico to Canada. They thrive in agricultural areas and even in suburbs. Remove that threat, and turkeys are quite adaptable. Turkey populations were decimated by poaching. Wild turkey restoration has been a spectacular success, with 7 million or so of the birds now found on the continent. To put that in perspective, that’s a smaller number than today exists for polar bears, orangutans or African elephants. It can be difficult to conceive, but in the early 1900s, the continent’s wild turkey population had been reduced to an estimated 30,000 birds. But you can also find them in much weirder locations. With the success of wild turkey restoration, you might now see these birds in your backyard.
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