Growing direct administration guidelines, details becomes necessary with the habitat choice and you will family diversity measurements of turkeys on its northern variety periphery. The first objective in our data would be to imagine the mean regular and you can yearly house assortment measurements of girls turkeys on species’ northern assortment line. We hypothesized you to definitely household range dimensions could well be finest in the spring if you’re people require a great nesting web site, therefore the littlest regarding the winter months and you can june. I and hypothesized one household variety size at species’ north variety could well be larger than the individuals claimed from the southern area owed to help you less restaurants availability and you will environment top quality. The next goal in our study was to view seasonal habitat alternatives by the female insane turkeys. We reviewed habitat choices inside the a good hierarchical trend, using Johnson’s (1980) 2nd and you may 3rd commands out-of choice while in the each of the four yearly seasons. We hypothesized one habitat alternatives create change amongst the 12 months, with turkeys primarily selecting deciduous and blended forest, but looking for open environment when you find yourself brood-rearing during summer. Our finally goal was to evaluate whether supplemental dinner influenced insane turkey habitat selection. I hypothesized you to north crazy turkeys need extra eating regarding winter; ergo, we predict one female might be receive next to extra dining present out of bird feeders and animals procedures on the fall and winter.

Analysis town

We studied crazy turkey environment away from on the North Bruce Peninsula, situated in Ontario, Canada (Fig. 1). The fresh new Bruce Peninsula include a mix of property security models, for the dominating coverage getting coniferous forest, blended forest, areas, and you will deciduous tree (Table step 1). Within outlying community the new prominent marketplaces is actually farming and tourism. Area of the sorts of farming is actually short-level meats agriculture, and some people check out during summer because of a couple of federal areas in your community.

Capturing and dealing with wild turkeys

In the cold temperatures, turkeys congregate in the highest flocks, enabling you to pitfall several birds at the same time. We caught up turkeys from on five metropolises along the studies town. Turkeys had been baited that have corn and you may seized playing with a skyrocket online (Grubb 1988). Lure stacks was indeed established in fields alongside where turkeys was roosting. Just after turkeys have been caught up, these were taken off the web based and you can put into transfer packets getting carrying. The turkeys had been processed on site just after capturing. Whenever retrieving a chicken from its box, their base was protected and you will a great sock try put on their head. Animal care and attention approval try granted by Trent University’s Creature Worry Committee (method no. 22238).

I grabbed 53 turkeys, and 47 ladies and half dozen people. We didn’t place transmitters towards a couple females because of feather losings to their backs. I fit 45 girls turkeys with both an excellent 73-grams very-high-frequency (VHF) transmitter (model A1540 State-of-the-art Telemetry Expertise, Isanti, Minnesota) otherwise a keen 85-grams small gps system (GPS) sender (model G1H 261A Sirtrack, Havelock Northern, New Zealand). Thirty-seven of one’s people turkeys have been grownups and 7 was in fact juveniles.

Transmitters had been affixed having fun with an effective backpack design harness made of wonder wire (Norman et al. 1997). The latest small GPS transmitters had been modified just before implementation by attaching neoprene toward bottom level of each and every unit to avoid chaffing (Guthrie ainsi que al. 2011). To end water damage and mold we shielded the new port with a waterproof silicon sealer and you will a small remove off plastic tape (Guthrie ainsi que al. 2011). One another kind of transmitters weighed less than the recommended restriction away from 3% of adult people pounds (Millsp). Having identity purposes each turkey is installing which have a designated aluminum butt-avoid leg ring. I including got bloodstream products out-of for each bird and made multiple morphological proportions (amount of tarsus, side, beard and you can tail).