Firebirds: Why Wild Turkeys Need Fire on the Landscape

Speak to your buddies or the turkey specialists at your native fuel station, and also you may consider that different hunters, extreme bag limits, or pure predators are accountable. Whereas pure predation performs a big function in turkey copy and success charges, habitat loss poses an much more sinister menace to the wild turkey. Urbanization and present timber harvest practices (business pine operations) have decimated prime turkey habitat, however so have the absence of correct wildlife and habitat administration.

In response to Dr. Mike Chamberlain, the Nationwide Turkey Federation Distinguished Professor on the College of Georgia, the absence of fireplace (managed burns) on the panorama is without doubt one of the best contributing components to this widespread habitat loss. Dr. Chamberlain has dedicated his life to researching the wild turkey, and he’s produced maybe essentially the most distinguished physique of scholarship associated to fireplace and wild turkey habitat. He additionally runs the Wild Turkey Lab, a free and unimaginable useful resource for turkey hunters who’re eager about preserving this wild chicken.

I just lately spoke with Dr. Chamberlain on how turkey hunters and personal landowners can implement hearth on their properties to create higher turkey habitat—and in flip, higher turkey looking. Right here are some things to find out about utilizing hearth to advertise higher turkey habitat.

First, it’s vital to grasp what turkey habitat seems to be like and why hearth performs an integral function in preserving it. For those who’ve hunted turkeys in any respect, they don’t like thick, nasty vegetation. Additionally they don’t thrive in old-growth monocultures with closed canopies, to not say that you just wouldn’t often discover them there.

Turkeys require a various habitat for roosting websites, nesting, feeding, and avoiding predators. Fireplace fosters good turkey habitat by creating disturbances on the panorama and early successional vegetation that turkeys want for consuming and breeding.

“One of many largest points I see is the dearth of habitat disturbance,” Dr. Chamberlain mentioned. “The shortage of fireplace on the panorama results in a lower in early successional vegetation, which turkeys thrive in.”

These early successional habitats include areas with native grasses, flowering crops, and a range of habitats that present turkeys with roosting and nesting websites, cowl, and meals. It’s no surprise that overgrown fields or pine stands with a thick understory aren’t conducive to turkeys. With out hearth, these habitats provide little to advertise turkey copy or success charges. Fireplace, nonetheless, gives a “reset for the plant and bug group” that turkeys want, he mentioned. Burning small parts of a property reduces an space’s gas load by eradicating the useless vegetation and producing new development. Not solely will turkeys feed on a few of these pure forbs that spring up after a burn, however they’ll additionally eat the bugs they entice.

Managed burns generally is a sizzling matter. As somebody who grew up with a forester for a dad, I turned acquainted with the drip torch properly earlier than I earned a driver’s license. Nonetheless, I understand that not everybody burned pastures with their previous man on any given evening, and it may appear intimidating. No matter your expertise degree, you’ll be happy to know that beginning small is the most effective strategy to managed burns, in line with Dr. Chamberlain.

“Quite a lot of landowners are nervous with fires, which is comprehensible,” he mentioned. “I’d encourage landowners to only be prepared to begin with small fires. By way of time, you’ll be extra assured to make use of hearth to learn your property. In case you have any curiosity in burning, contact your state forestry fee, they usually might help you develop a forestry administration plan, which is able to embody a few of these managed burns.”

Dr. Chamberlain additionally identified that a number of hunters are hesitant to burn for concern of destroying nesting websites. He mentioned that hunters shouldn’t fear about burning nests so long as they burn earlier than April 1. He insisted that even when you occur to lose one nest, creating extra turkey habitat by means of the usage of hearth will present extra profit to turkeys in the long term.

Whereas it would take a couple of years to see a increase within the native turkey flock, there are instant variations hunters and landowners can observe from a single burn. Inside a couple of weeks, you’ll discover the results when inexperienced sprouts pop up in all places. By the point the leaf-out hits, you must see a ton of early successional vegetation that turkeys and deer ought to frequent.

Actually, Dr. Chamberlain mentioned that landowners ought to “count on an instantaneous profit to turkeys and different species. We’ve seen by means of our analysis that turkeys will probably be drawn to these stands a number of years after, too.” So, even after the preliminary burn, you must count on to see turkeys for a number of seasons. Let’s be trustworthy: extra turkeys is an effective factor.

Whereas a number of landowners is perhaps intimidated to make use of hearth, others are skeptical of its advantages. For example, a standard false impression a number of hunters consider is that burning thick understory removes habitat that’s conducive to deer. Nevertheless, Dr. Chamberlain careworn that fireplace really “stimulates high-value browse that deer want,” which he mentioned is backed by analysis. He encourages landowners who’re additionally deer hunters to burn sections of their property as a result of it advantages the deer as properly.

For those who’re a landowner who usually mows your property with a tractor, hearth can try this job in much less time and with much less cash, relying on the acreage. You too can assist scale back the gas load on a panorama, which reduces the danger of wildfires, he mentioned.

For landowners who dwell in pine-dominated forests, “you’ll find yourself with plant communities that aren’t useful to turkeys within the absence of fireplace, and ultimately, you gained’t see turkeys on that property,” Dr. Chamberlain careworn.

Eradicating hearth from the panorama may not decimate the turkeys out of your property in a single day, but it surely’s an inevitable end result given the proper circumstances. In some methods, that’s a small pattern of what’s occurred all through a number of turkey habitat, which could clarify a number of these inhabitants declines. It’s tempting to separate predation, habitat loss, alternative loss, and looking stress as particular person issues plaguing the wild turkey. Nevertheless, you may argue that predation, alternative loss, and looking stress all stem from habitat loss.

The early successional development that turkeys depend upon for meals, breeding, and nesting additionally offers them a sight benefit over predators. Locations that don’t foster turkey habitat aren’t going to carry turkeys, which reduces alternatives for hunters and funnels looking stress to wealthy turkey habitats. It’s believable to see how habitat loss presents a cascade impact for wild turkeys. Because of this it’s crucial for landowners to think about using managed burns on their properties.

The identical goes for privately leased floor. Some timber corporations have began implementing hearth, although the vast majority of them both don’t or they use herbicides to create pine deserts. For those who lease floor, attain out to the timber corporations to see in the event that they’ll take into account managed burns. Or, when you hunt personal property that belongs to another person, ask the landowner in the event that they’ve thought of having somebody burn their property.

Certain, there are many public lands throughout the states, however even these have fallen beneath assault just lately. The vast majority of land falls beneath personal possession, so it’s as much as landowners to create the habitat essential to assist wild turkeys.

Quite a lot of state and federally owned lands adhere to strict laws in the case of managed burns. So long as you abide by native laws, personal landowners face fewer hurdles to utilizing hearth as a wildlife and habitat administration device. Certain, it’ll take work, however I can’t consider higher work price doing.