All Over Albany

Gobble, gobble, gobble

A wild turkey in Albany's Buckingham pond neighborhood in summer 2012.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation says wild turkey populations have declined in many parts of the state over the last decade. In an effort to figure out why, DEC is planning to capture some hens to fit them with ID bands -- and in some cases, satellite radio-transmitters. DEC is also asking the public to report wild turkey sightings via a survey.

It's estimated that the wild turkey population in New York State could be as large as 300,000. And it's not uncommon to see them around the Capital Region -- we've seen them a bunch of times in residential neighborhoods in the city of Albany. But turkey's weren't always so common here -- at least, at one time. From a DEC backgrounder on wild turkeys:

The wild turkey is native to North America. Turkeys were widespread when the Europeans arrived and may have predated the earliest human inhabitants. At the time of European colonization, wild turkeys occupied all of what is currently New York State south of the Adirondacks.

Turkey habitat was lost when forests were cut for timber and turned into small farms. The early settlers and farmers also killed wild turkeys for food all year round, since there were no regulated hunting seasons at that time. The last of the original wild turkeys disappeared from New York in the mid-1840's. By 1850, about 63 percent of the land in New York was being farmed. This trend continued until the late 1800s when about 75 percent of New York State was cleared land.

In the early 1900s farming began to decline. Old farm fields, beginning with those on the infertile hilltops, gradually reverted to brush land and then grew into woodland. By the late 1940s, much of the southern tier of New York was again capable of supporting turkeys. Around 1948, wild turkeys from a small remnant population in northern Pennsylvania crossed the border into western New York. These were the first birds in the state after an absence of 100 years.

The state's wild turkeys are descendants of those migrants from Pennsylvania.

In studying what's up with wild turkeys, the DEC shouldn't rule out that the birds have just decided to go back to school (you know, because of the economy). Back in September a turkey expressed interest in attending Mater Christi in Albany.

Earlier on AOA: Wild about turkeys