To cultivate particular administration guidelines, details will become necessary towards habitat choices and you may home variety size of turkeys within the north diversity periphery. The initial purpose of your data was to estimate the brand new suggest seasonal and yearly home variety sized lady turkeys in the species’ north variety boundary. We hypothesized one to house diversity dimensions would-be ideal on the spring season while you are females need a nesting web site, additionally the minuscule in the cold temperatures and you can june. I as well as hypothesized one to family diversity dimensions within species’ north diversity might be larger than the individuals stated regarding the south due so you’re able to faster eating supply and you may habitat high quality. The second purpose of our study was to check seasonal environment choices from the women nuts turkeys. We assessed habitat options from inside the a great hierarchical styles, using Johnson’s (1980) second and you can third sales out of choices during the each one of the five yearly year. We hypothesized one environment choice perform change between the season, that have turkeys generally trying to find deciduous and you can mixed forest, however, seeking discover habitat if you find yourself brood-rearing during the summer. Our very own finally objective were to evaluate whether or not extra eating swayed insane chicken habitat alternatives. I hypothesized one to north crazy turkeys need supplemental dining throughout the winter; for this reason, we forecast one ladies could well be located next to extra eating sources regarding bird feeders and you can livestock procedures in the fall and you can winter.

Research urban area

I analyzed crazy turkey ecology regarding on Northern Bruce Peninsula, located in Ontario, Canada (Fig. 1). This new Bruce Peninsula includes a variety of homes security brands, into the prominent defense becoming coniferous tree, mixed tree, sphere, and you may deciduous tree (Table step 1). Contained in this outlying neighborhood the new dominant industries was farming and you will tourist. Area of the particular agriculture was small-scale animal meat agriculture, and several tourists visit during summer because of a couple of national areas in the area.

Capturing and you can addressing insane turkeys

From inside the https://www.datingmentor.org/cs/christian-cupid-recenze winter, turkeys congregate in high flocks, where you can pitfall several birds at the same time. We caught up turkeys regarding at five towns and cities over the research town. Turkeys was baited with corn and captured using a skyrocket net (Grubb 1988). Lure piles have been established in industries alongside where turkeys were roosting. Immediately after turkeys was basically swept up, these were taken out of the online and you will put into transfer packages having carrying. Most of the turkeys had been processed on location after trapping. When retrieving a chicken from the package, the ft was in fact secured and good sock is placed on the head. Animal proper care approval try provided because of the Trent University’s Creature Care Panel (process no. 22238).

We captured 53 turkeys, also 47 girls and you may six people. I failed to set transmitters towards a couple of lady because of feather losses on the backs. I match 45 people turkeys that have both a great 73-g very high frequency (VHF) transmitter (model A1540 State-of-the-art Telemetry Assistance, Isanti, Minnesota) otherwise a keen 85-grams micro gps system (GPS) transmitter (model G1H 261A Sirtrack, Havelock North, The brand new Zealand). Thirty seven of your females turkeys were adults and you may 7 was indeed juveniles.

Transmitters was basically connected playing with good backpack design harness produced from shock cord (Norman ainsi que al. 1997). New micro GPS transmitters was indeed changed before implementation by attaching neoprene into bottom level of each device to get rid of chaffing (Guthrie ainsi que al. 2011). To stop water damage and mold we shielded new vent with a water resistant silicone sealant and you may a tiny strip out of plastic recording (Guthrie mais aussi al. 2011). Both types of transmitters weighed lower than advised restrict regarding 3% out of adult lady lbs (Millsp). Having identification aim for each and every turkey was suitable that have a designated aluminium butt-avoid foot ring. I as well as grabbed bloodstream trials away from per bird making multiple morphological measurements (amount of tarsus, wing, beard and you may tail).