Wild Turkeys
Life Cycle
Turkey poults (young turkeys) stay with the hen turkey feeding on insects (protein
source) during late spring and summer. (Connecticut Wildlife, Summer 2003).
This is no joke. Turkeys do cause damage. It isn't a lot of damage. My first
turkey damage call happened on 11/11/99 or there abouts. I couldn't believe
my ears. The caller said that the turkeys were pecking on cars in the parking
lot. The pecking caused paint to chip. The caller's boss wanted to find a way
to get the wild turkeys to stop.
Reducing Turkey Grazing:
- One possible way to reduce the attractiveness of your property to grazing
turkeys is to remove the insects on your property. Hopefully by reducing food
source, you will reduce the turkey grazing.
- Having a large dog run in the fenced in area. (Be Careful though, you need
to make sure the birds don't get caught by the dog). Turkeys are protected
by state laws.
Stopping Turkeys from pecking cars
- Get a dog that chases animals to roam in the parking lot. This will go a
long way in spooking the turkeys. This technique won't work as well if there
are trees for the turkeys to roost in.
I put out a call to find out solutions to this turkey car damage and here are
what others suggested.
A couple years ago, my secretary had her black Mazda Miata
sports car attacked in the parking lot of our office (here
in rural north coastal California) by a tom turkey that saw its reflection in
the shiny surface of the rear of the car. It engaged in quite an attack with
wings and legs before she could get out the door and chase it away.
The car sustained scratches in the paint requiring the bumper to be completely
stripped and repainted, and the trunk to be buffed out, to a tune of approximately
$1,100. The insurance adjuster probably had an interesting time writing this
one up.
Like songbirds that seasonally attack their reflection in exterior rear-view
mirrors of vehicles, the root cause is the bird seeing its reflection, which
stimulates territorial defense / mating competition behaviors. I've seen some
folks place small paper sacks over the mirrors of their vehicles when parked.
Similarly, using a protective car cover for one's vehicle would solve the problem.
Robert M. Timm, Superintendent & Extension Wildlife Specialist UC Hopland
Research & Extension Center, 4070 University Road, Hopland CA 95449
Up here in far northern California, we have a similar problem with ravens.
They will attack shiny stove pipes. We are rural and many homes are heated with
wood stoves. Having the ravens up on the roof banging around the stove pipe
for hours on end can get old real fast. Some folks paint the stovepipes black
so there is no reflection. That, of course, is not an option with the cars and
turkeys. If they don't want to do lethal control, how about not washing their
cars? Perhaps less shiny cars would solve their problem.
Around here, cars get so covered with mud, it's hard to tell what color the
paint is! Kim.
Dispersing Turkey Roosts
Turkeys reside in trees at night. Sometimes these roosts become an annoyance
to local property owners. One way to disperse the roost is to shoot at the tree
they are roosting in. Be careful, one animal professional correctly noted that
your shooting may be misconstrued as hunting out of season (a violation of the
law). Of course, you wouldn't want to harm any of the birds unless you could
legally do so.
Disclaimer: WDC seeks to provide accurate, effective and responsible information
on resolving human/wildlife conflicts. We welcome suggestions, criticisms to
help us achieve this goal. The information provided is for informational purposes
only and users of the information use it at their own risk. The reader must
consult state/federal officials to determine the legality of any technique in
the reader's locale. Some techniques are dangerous to the user and to others.
WDC encourages readers to obtain appropriate training (see our informational
literature at our Store ), and understand that proper animal damage
control involves patience, understanding that not every technique/method works
for every situation or even 100% of the time. Your use of this information is
governed by this understanding.
We welcome potential users of the information
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8/23/03
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