Turkey Trappin'

This morning I (Ryan) got up at the crack of dawn to go out turkey trappin! Our roommate, John is conducting a study on wild turkeys for SIU.



We were sooooo lucky to catch turkeys today! It is the first morning John has actually went out to trap. He considers himself the "luckiest turkey trapper ever." We caught 6 turkeys with a rocket net. You can kind of see the net on the ground in the picture above. It is probably a 50ft by 50ft net.

For the past week or so, John has been baiting the turkeys with corn. You can see the corn on the ground in the background (upper left). Basically, the rocket net is a big huge net that you hide on the ground in the leaves. After your bait pile has been out long enough that you think the turkeys have found it, you sneak out to a blind about 50 yds away from it in the very early morning and wait to see if the turkeys come to your bait pile. When they show up, you fire off the net and it shoots over the turkeys and traps them.

The flock of turkeys that came into the site today was originally about 10-12 birds. John fired the net, and some of them escaped before we could get from the blind to the net, so only 6 were actually trapped when we got there. The biggest challenge is getting the turkeys untangled from the net without hurting them or letting them go. To help, we had black bags to put over their heads and Velcro straps to wrap up their feet. Once the bag is on their head, they are pretty calm and let you handle them.

We took several measurements on each bird, including: weight, age, and sex. Then each bird was fitted with a radio transmitter to allow John to track their movement. This study is mostly concerned with nesting habitat, so we only put transmitters on the hens. The picture below shows the "backpack" transmitters we put on the turkeys.

It was really neat to be able to handle these birds and see them up close. I was really nervous the whole time! It was quite a rush! I've never seen a turkey this close before, let alone handled one! Only got pecked a couple of times.

In this picture, they are trying to determine the age of the turkey. From feathers on the wings and tail, you can estimate the age of the bird. John has just checked the wing and is now using the tail to confirm his age estimate. The tail is fanned out and John's left hand in on the bird's wing.

Pretty cool for a Monday morning! Hope the rest of the week is this good!!!!