on the land, on the table: the wild turkey

by Nicole Na

Happy Thanksgiving from this lively turkey family!

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​Thanksgiving is a time of plenty, a time where we join our families and friends around the dinner table replete with a traditional feast — mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, and, of course, the turkey. Despite its venerated place as the centerpiece of many Thanksgiving feasts, the life-story of this noble bird isn’t exactly common knowledge — which is why, this week, we celebrate this fowl by giving a brief history of its species.

The turkey we find on our table and the turkeys we see out on the land are the same species, Meleagris gallopavo. Their historic range stretches from Arizona to Florida, south through Texas and parts of Mexico, and north all the way to Maine and Idaho. In California, all checklists currently list the wild turkey to be a non-native introduced species and the product of some rather aggressive introduction programs in the ’60s and ’70s. However, some argue that the turkey isn’t an introduced species, but a reintroduced species. Some 10,000 years ago, in the Pleistocene epoch, a native turkey ranged freely in California, which circumstantial evidence suggests is the exact same bird as M. gallopavo. So, the recently immigrated turkeys now living here could be considered a reintroduced population, living life blissfully ignorant of the fact that they died out in the area several millennia ago. (source)

Other wild turkey facts:

• You may have noticed during encounters with wild turkey flocks that the males and females look very similar. However, the males tend to be much larger, with more vibrant plumage. Try to distinguish between the two sexes the next time you see a flock.
• You can estimate a turkey's age by the length of its beard! Beards can grow 4 to 5 inches a year, and never stop growing. When the turkey reaches the age of 2 years, though, the beard starts to wear down at the tip by dint of being stepped on and dragging on the ground. (source) 
• The fleshy part on a male turkey’s beak is called a snood. I think that’s hilarious.
• The turkey has the second heaviest maximum weight of any North American bird (first place going to the trumpeter swan). Its average mass, however, is surpassed by other birds like the American white pelican and the California condor.
• Yes, Ben Franklin was an admirer of the turkey. In a letter to his daughter, Ben described the bird as “a little vain & silly, [but] a Bird of Courage.”

​Thanks for tuning into Mountains + Molehills this week. I hope you end your Thanksgiving with a full belly and a head full of turkey facts! Catch us again next week for a philosophical post by Corby Hines.