Buckhunter
New Member
Just found this article and thought it was pretty funny.
DENVER — It's one of the more bizarre rumors to hatch in the world of wildlife.
Wild turkeys, some people believe, are gobbling down bobwhite quail the way we munch peanuts at baseball games.
It stands to reason. You have more turkeys. You have fewer quail. Logic, of a sort, clinches an open-and-shut case against the big bully grouse.
At least that's the way some farmers and quail hunters see it in Kansas, where turkeys are plentiful and quail numbers have plummeted.
In November, rumors of atrocities allegedly perpetrated by wild turkeys against quail in the Sunflower State came to the attention of some upland bird hunters in eastern Colorado, who passed them on to me — with almost straight faces.
Their fear: Thuggish turkeys in Kansas might spread the word to brethren along river bottoms in eastern Colorado, where bobwhites and Rio Grande turkeys cohabit.
In a bird-eat-bird contest, quail, at about a 50th of a turkey's body weight, aren't likely to polish off many turkeys.
Fortunately, science has intervened in the mystery.
Roger Wells, who lives in eastern Kansas and is national habitat coordinator for Quail Unlimited, called Bill Palmer, a researcher who has been studying predation on quail.
Authorities blame numerous factors on Kansas' quail decline, including urbanization, agricultural changes, an increasing predator community and a deadly 2000-2001 winter.
Palmer, of Tall Timbers Research Station near Tallahassee, Fla., has traced the fates of more than 400 wild quail nests in recent years.
He placed micro-video cameras at nest sites and radio transmitters on adult quail tending the broods.
The study was conducted in an area inhabited by 30 to 60 turkeys per square mile.
The wiretaps revealed quail predators, all right.
Snakes were the most common nest raiders. Raccoons and armadillos followed closely behind. Also plaguing eggs and hatchlings were cotton rats, opossums, skunks, fire ants, foxes, bobcats and fox squirrels.
But no turkeys, not once.
Nevertheless, Wells said, the apocryphal carnivorous turkey keeps rearing its ugly head.
Seems a friend of a friend of someone he met last fall is said to have killed a gobbler "full of baby quail," Wells reported in a Kansas Wildlife and Parks Department newsletter.
But Wells isn't buying it.
He notes that the spring turkey season runs April to mid-May. Few quail hatch until after the legal turkey hunting dates, with the quail hatch peaking the third week in June.
If someone bagged a turkey stuffed with baby quail, he isn't likely to step forward.
Wells blamed numerous factors on Kansas' recent quail decline, including urbanization, agricultural changes, an increasing predator community and a deadly cold, snowy 2000-2001 winter.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, wild turkeys and bobwhites are peacefully coexisting, each in relative abundance, along the Arkansas, Republican and South Platte rivers.
Ed Dentry writes for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver.
DENVER — It's one of the more bizarre rumors to hatch in the world of wildlife.
Wild turkeys, some people believe, are gobbling down bobwhite quail the way we munch peanuts at baseball games.
It stands to reason. You have more turkeys. You have fewer quail. Logic, of a sort, clinches an open-and-shut case against the big bully grouse.
At least that's the way some farmers and quail hunters see it in Kansas, where turkeys are plentiful and quail numbers have plummeted.
In November, rumors of atrocities allegedly perpetrated by wild turkeys against quail in the Sunflower State came to the attention of some upland bird hunters in eastern Colorado, who passed them on to me — with almost straight faces.
Their fear: Thuggish turkeys in Kansas might spread the word to brethren along river bottoms in eastern Colorado, where bobwhites and Rio Grande turkeys cohabit.
In a bird-eat-bird contest, quail, at about a 50th of a turkey's body weight, aren't likely to polish off many turkeys.
Fortunately, science has intervened in the mystery.
Roger Wells, who lives in eastern Kansas and is national habitat coordinator for Quail Unlimited, called Bill Palmer, a researcher who has been studying predation on quail.
Authorities blame numerous factors on Kansas' quail decline, including urbanization, agricultural changes, an increasing predator community and a deadly 2000-2001 winter.
Palmer, of Tall Timbers Research Station near Tallahassee, Fla., has traced the fates of more than 400 wild quail nests in recent years.
He placed micro-video cameras at nest sites and radio transmitters on adult quail tending the broods.
The study was conducted in an area inhabited by 30 to 60 turkeys per square mile.
The wiretaps revealed quail predators, all right.
Snakes were the most common nest raiders. Raccoons and armadillos followed closely behind. Also plaguing eggs and hatchlings were cotton rats, opossums, skunks, fire ants, foxes, bobcats and fox squirrels.
But no turkeys, not once.
Nevertheless, Wells said, the apocryphal carnivorous turkey keeps rearing its ugly head.
Seems a friend of a friend of someone he met last fall is said to have killed a gobbler "full of baby quail," Wells reported in a Kansas Wildlife and Parks Department newsletter.
But Wells isn't buying it.
He notes that the spring turkey season runs April to mid-May. Few quail hatch until after the legal turkey hunting dates, with the quail hatch peaking the third week in June.
If someone bagged a turkey stuffed with baby quail, he isn't likely to step forward.
Wells blamed numerous factors on Kansas' recent quail decline, including urbanization, agricultural changes, an increasing predator community and a deadly cold, snowy 2000-2001 winter.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, wild turkeys and bobwhites are peacefully coexisting, each in relative abundance, along the Arkansas, Republican and South Platte rivers.
Ed Dentry writes for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver.
