Hunting Activity Effects on Roost Selection by Male Wild Turkeys

Abstract

Roosting is an important component of wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo; turkey) ecology as roosts provide security from predators and inclement weather. Males call (gobble) from roosts during the reproductive season, and roost locations are important for maximizing access to females and transmission of calls across the landscape, while also minimizing predation risk. Spring hunting of male turkeys occurs during the reproductive season, and hunting activity influences male behaviors and calling. Because roost sites are important for wild turkey ecology, we evaluated roost site selection and fidelity of male turkeys relative to land cover types, vegetative characteristics, and the presence of hunting activity during 2017–2018 in Georgia, USA. Prior to onset of hunting, males selected roosts nearest to hardwood and pine (Pinus spp.) forests. Roost site fidelity was low and distances between roosts were large. After onset of hunting, males selected pine forests less and exhibited greater plasticity in roost selection while fidelity remained minimal, suggesting that males may have altered selection to mitigate risk from hunting while maintaining the strategy of moving about their ranges and roosting at different sites on consecutive nights. Future research should examine potential effects of hunting‐induced shifts in resource selection on other aspects of male turkey behavior and ecology. © 2019 The Wildlife Society.

Recursive movements of eastern wild turkey broods in the southeastern United States

“…We removed water and infrastructure from our analysis as both were not usable by broods. We used 30‐m resolution imagery from United States Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat–8 Operational Land Imager to compute a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in ArcMap 10.3 (ESRI, Redlands, CA, USA) as an index of vegetation density (Wakefield et al 2020). Measurements of NDVI allowed us to understand sparseness of vegetation, which has been shown to influence maneuverability, concealment, and foraging ability for poults (Williams et al 1970, Healy 1985).…”

“…Measurements of NDVI allowed us to understand sparseness of vegetation, which has been shown to influence maneuverability, concealment, and foraging ability for poults (Williams et al 1970, Healy 1985). Within each buffer, we estimated the proportion of each landcover type and calculated mean NDVI to evaluate habitat use by broods (Pettorelli et al 2005, Wakefield et al 2020). We binned each buffer based upon number of revisitations that occurred in it (low = 0–10, low/moderate = 11–20, moderate = 21–30, high = ≥31) and used a 1‐way analysis of variance to determine if differences existed in revisitation relative to landcover type and mean NDVI.…”

Gobbling across landscapes: Eastern wild turkey distribution and occupancy–habitat associations

“…Additional factors may confound turkey distribution and site abandonment, such as disturbance from managed logging (Fredericksen et al, 2000 ) or hunting pressure. Recent studies have demonstrated that hunting activities and hunter behavior may influence male turkey movements (Gerrits et al, 2020 ), roosting behaviors (Wakefield et al, 2020a ), and daily gobbling activity (Chamberlain et al, 2018 ; Wightman et al, 2019 ), but these conclusions have not been universal (Collier et al, 2017 ; Gross et al, 2015 ). Without a thorough understanding of the influence of hunting activities on individual turkey behaviors in our study system, we surmise that detection of a different individual during a subsequent survey would mask unavailability, whether via harvest or abandonment, of individuals from previous surveys.…”

Hunting and Nesting Phenology Influence Gobbling of Wild Turkeys

“…Conversely, daily gobbling activity was negatively related to hunting, and gobbling activity declined precipitously with onset of hunting and harvest of males. We offer that this finding is a consequence not only of the removal of vocal males from the landscape, but also elevated predation risk (hunting activity) prompting males to reduce vocalizations and adopt alternative strategies (e.g., roost at different sites each night to locate receptive females) to secure reproductive opportunities (Wakefield et al ). Collectively, our findings suggest that hunting is an important mediating effect on daily gobbling activity in the turkey population we studied.…”

“…Previous authors have noted similar fluctuations in daily gobbling activity in wild turkeys (Chamberlain et al , Wightman et al ); hence, we were not surprised to observe a negative relationship between predicted daily gobbling activity relative to gobbling activity the previous day. An alternative, and not mutually exclusive, explanation is that vocal males are moving and roosting away from stationary ARUs on consecutive nights because male wild turkeys exhibit low fidelity to roost sites on consecutive nights during the reproductive season (Byrne et al , Wakefield et al ). However, it is logical to assume that if some males moved away from ARUs to roost on consecutive nights, others would move towards them.…”