ATHENS, Ga. — While the turkey is the classic core of every Thanksgiving tradition for U.S. families, a new study by the University of Georgia says that could be changing.
UGA’s research said that if hunters follow their current strategies for bagging the big bird, turkeys might be much harder to find in the future, especially for the Thanksgiving feast.
“Hunters should be willing to adapt because the turkeys are also adapting as well. If we continue to harvest individuals that are close to risky areas associated with hunters, turkeys will adjust their behavior and could become harder to detect and harder to harvest,” Nickolas Gulotta, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, said.
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Gulotta’s study showed that part of the issue for bringing home a turkey is that the animals are adapting their behavior to how people are hunting them down.
The research showed that having a local-focused strategy for hunting down the holiday showstopper will help maintain a sustainable turkey harvest.
To do that, Gulotta said hunters might have to get more creative to find the birds, and will need more patience, as turkeys move to more populated, open areas which could make them harder to find.
“Turkeys are obviously adapting and learning that if you’re closer to risky areas, then there’s potential to be harvested. That’s why some of them are adopting less risky behaviors that essentially make them less detectable,” Gulotta said. “If hunters harvest birds that are riskier and more detectable, it could become more difficult to harvest turkeys because we could be left with a bunch of individuals that are harder to detect.”
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