[BCNnet] turkey introdution?
Stephen Packard
spackard@mindspring.com
Fri, 6 Feb 2004 11:36:01 -0600
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Here's a quick summary of what little I know and recommend.
Turkeys were certainly native here. Like beavers, fire, deer, etc., they certainly had a substantial impact on the natural ecosystem. Beavers make an awful mess, if you don't appreciate it, and yet they restore both wildness and a lot of biodiversity habitat when they come back. In some kinds of little preserves they may need to be controlled, but overall the "damage" they do is nature and good for biodiversity.
The same can be said for fire. It has huge impacts, and some of them seem negative in some ways, but the overall impact on our prairies, woodlands, and wetlands is overwhelmingly positive.
Deer do enormous damage in many preserves, because they are so far out of balance. They have no functioning predators. Conservation badly needs ongoing hunting by wolves, mountain lions, and or humans.
Unlike deer, turkeys are major prey animals for coyotes and (in the case of the chicks or polts, or whatever baby turkeys are called) foxes, raccoons, etc.
I am always happy to see them, when I travel north, south, or west to woods with turkeys. They are noble, wild, beautiful animals.
I think that the FPD would be very interested in any information (and or consensus) that we (we BCN or we conservationists generally) could assemble.
S.
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<DIV>Here's a quick summary of what little I know and recommend.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Turkeys were certainly native here. Like beavers, fire, deer, etc., they certainly had a substantial impact on the natural ecosystem. Beavers make an awful mess, if you don't appreciate it, and yet they restore both wildness and a lot of biodiversity habitat when they come back. In some kinds of little preserves they may need to be controlled, but overall the "damage" they do is nature and good for biodiversity. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The same can be said for fire. It has huge impacts, and some of them seem negative in some ways, but the overall impact on our prairies, woodlands, and wetlands is overwhelmingly positive. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Deer do enormous damage in many preserves, because they are so far out of balance. They have no functioning predators. Conservation badly needs ongoing hunting by wolves, mountain lions, and or humans.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Unlike deer, turkeys are major prey animals for coyotes and (in the case of the chicks or polts, or whatever baby turkeys are called) foxes, raccoons, etc. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I am always happy to see them, when I travel north, south, or west to woods with turkeys. They are noble, wild, beautiful animals. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I think that the FPD would be very interested in any information (and or consensus) that we (we BCN or we conservationists generally) could assemble.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>S.</DIV></BODY></HTML>
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