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The Missouri Conservation Department and the National Wild Turkey Federation are working on a joint study on turkeys. KSMU's Michele Skalicky recently headed into the woods and has this report...
It's a little after 6 am, and Missouri Conservation Department wildlife biologist Kevin Hedgepeth and I are at Coleman Conservation Area in Lebanon hopeing to hear turkeys gobbling.
As we near the woods, there's a commotion in the trees and then the sound we hope to hear.
Turkey gobbling
But seconds later we've been spotted and the turkeys fly off. We creep to the backside of the woods, position ourselves in the damp leaves and try to call in some male turkeys with the help of Kevin Hedgepeth and his turkey caller.
But, no luck. After all, it's a little late in the season for turkeys to still be gobbling, and we did scare them off earlier.
Hedgepeth has been going into the woods each week counting the number of turkey gobbles that he hears. It's part of a study being conducted by the MO Conservation Dept. and the National Turkey Federation.
Jeff Beringer, a Conservation Dept. wildlife resource scientist, is overseeing the study. He says the study has two objectives.
"The first objective is just to chart gobbling activity as it goes starting in March, and we want to see where the peaks are. Traditionally, the thinking is that there are 2 peaks in gobbling, and our season opens sometime around that 2nd peak in gobbling. I'd like to verify that or see where we are at least in the range of gobbling with our season, and then the 2nd objective is just to look at the factors that may affect gobbling. We're collecting some weather information. When this is over we'll go back and collect some historic things like barometric pressure and some of these other variables to see if they'll influence gobbling, and that should give us a better understanding of what may affect it. Another thing that we're doing is we're looking at gobbling on private land and on public land, and we'll see if perhaps hunting has an impact on the tendency of birds to gobble or not."
In case you're wondering, male turkeys gobble to attract a mate. They're basically saying, "I'm here. Come on over."
"They typically will gobble on roost until they can see a hen or hear a hen. They may at that time fly down and start their display and gobble and then the hens will come to them for their breeding."
According to Beringer, 730 people signed up this year to count turkeys gobbling, but he'd like to have even more volunteers for next year. Volunteers are asked to spend 20 minutes, two times a week counting gobbles. Beringer says it's a chance to spend quality time with your family.
"It's really interesting the number of father/son, father/daughter, mother/daughter combinations that they're going out and they're listening, and they're doing it almost as a school project."
Even though it's too late in the spring to get involved in this year's counting, the study will run thru 2011, so there's still plenty of opportunities to get involved.
To sign up for next year, go to missouriconservation.org.
For KSMU News, I'm Michele Skalicky.
