Jessi Cole Walters
Dr. Marcus Lashley is leading a multi-year, multi-faceted wild turkey research project based Florida.
“This is the most comprehensive and extensive turkey project that’s ever been conducted to my knowledge,” says Dr. Lashley, Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Director of the University of Florida Game Lab.
Pictured: Dr. Marcus Lashley, Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Director of the University of Florida Game Lab.
The large-scale project includes areas of interest and importance to wild turkey research like the measurement of productivity and survival in male and female wild turkeys across the state, disease and genetic testing on harvested wild turkeys, measuring the relationship between gobbling activity and hunting pressure on more than 20 sites, indexing predator populations and hunting pressure and establishing whether “turkey specialists” exist in the predator community, and establishing a poult imprinting study that will give clarity on optimal poult habitat cover.
If you thought that sounds like a lot, imagine leading the efforts of all these projects, as well as becoming one of six wild turkey “mamas” that a nest of eggs will hatch and immediately imprint on. Dr. Lashley is a certainly busy man, and he’s even chronicling the projects for public transparency over on his lab’s Youtube page.
Definitely keep up with the research over at UFGameLabs, but in the meantime, here’s a high-level overview of what the project entails exactly. I’m no scientist, so hopefully I’ve written it into a way that us laymen can get excited about.
Poult Imprinting Study
An imprinting study with 6 different habitat treatments will take place in order to identify best conditions and habitat for poult cover.
The research team will be establishing a captive population of turkeys for several different research projects, which will begin with a poult imprinting study. The team will collect six different nests that have already failed for one of a number of reasons (abandonment, hen killed, etc.) and designating a scientist to become their hen mother and establish an imprint.
The primary objective of the poult imprinting study will be to discover, with a fine scale resolution, what are optimal conditions and habitat for poult cover. The study will be done in facilities where habitat quality can be manipulated. Each group of poults will find themselves in one particular brood field management strategy in order to compare and identify which habitat qualities are best suited for raising a population of young wild turkeys.
Wild Osceola poult photography by David McCleaf
Joe Hutto, infamous author in the wild turkey community of Illumination in the Flatwoods and star of the PBS documentary My Life as a Turkey, lives only a couple of hours away from the primary research labs and will be available to provide advice and feedback when needed. For those unfamiliar with Joe Hutto, he imprinted a couple of abandoned nests and became a hen mother to a number of poults. He learned how to communicate with them, how to understand their needs and behavior, and how to live in the wild as a wild turkey with them, going only a step short of roosting in the trees with them and eating the same food as they.
Dr. Lashley himself will be one of the six turkey “mamas,” which he, understandably, says he’s pretty excited for. I would think raising a group of poults would be a pretty incredible experience for any wild turkey lover, especially for someone who has dedicated their life to studying them.
Once the poults are grown, the captive population will be crucial for experiments that involve breeding behavior and breeding success that can’t easily be done or replicated in the wild, as well as a number of other concerns and studies that would be next to impossible to learn through a wild setting.
Disease and Genetic Research
Testing harvested wild turkeys for a number of pathogens, including LPDV, REV, and Coccidia. They'll also mapping genetic viability of gobblers across the state.
This study is relatively straightforward; it hugely depends on Floridian hunters willing to donate their turkey carcasses to research. The more donations and turkeys that are tested, the more conclusive the statewide data will be for research purposes.
Each wild turkey will be tested for pathogens such as LPDV, REV, mosquito-transferred viruses, Coccidia, and more. It’ll be a comprehensive testing to help understand what diseases are spreading among the Florida Osceola and if there is one, or many, that are cause for concern in the longevity and future of the population.
The LPDV virus has been one of significant interest to the wild turkey scientific community as of late; more data on this pathogen will help continue to fill in the context and color of a potentially alarming situation.
Pictured: Dr. Lashley setting a trap in order to capture wild turkeys to tag and test them.
In as much importance, the genetic sampling taken from both tagged turkeys and donated harvests will allow the researchers to begin mapping the genetic viability of gobblers across the state. This genetic map will determine whether Florida birds have adequate habitat connectivity and where genetic isolation may be occurring; if genetic isolation is occuring, habitat management can be honed in and focused in those locations to improve the Osceola gene pool.
Note: The best way for Floridian hunters to donate samples is to contact the UFGameLab or DrDisturbance through social media or email. They can also reach out to FWC or state chapters of NWTF members.
Read More: Mossy Oak Wild Turkey Stamp Funds LPDV Research
Gobbling Activity
Looking at the correlation between gobbling and hunting pressure, as well as gobbling chronology in the state.
Dr. Lashley’s team has distributed and placed autonomous recording units across more than 20 different sites, from the southernmost remnants of the Osceola range to the western-most panhandle with Easterns. These autonomous recording units have picked up millions of hours of recordings; researchers are, of course, still sifting through the recordings and picking out those beautiful gobbles.
Once the gobbles are identified and correlated to a time and place, the scientists can begin correlating data to understand if hunting pressure is affecting the quantity and quality of gobbling on these sites.
Pictured: Researchers GPS tag a wild turkey and take DNA sampling before releasing the wild turkey safely back to the wild.
Pictured: A close-up visual of the GPS tracking device placed on the wild turkeys that are captured for study and released.
No doubt most of us hunters have pretty well drawn our own scientific conclusions as to there being a correlation between hunting pressure and the number of gobbles we hear, but the official research and data to back up our theories is necessary when it comes to state agencies making the best and most informed decisions for our public lands. And for private land owners who may want to leave some birds alone for a little while if they feel like they’ve hunted them too hard and want to be sure there’s a fair amount of nesting success for two years down the road.
Among other objectives with the gobbling activity study is to pair gobbling chronology with nesting chronology across the state of Florida, allowing researchers to better understand the likely timelines to expect hens to begin nesting and, thus, poults to begin hatching.
One more sub-objective is to develop density estimators for wild turkeys through the number of unique gobbles heard in an area.
Predation Study
Linking individual coyotes to individual wild turkey deaths in order to prove whether “turkey specialists” exist and occur.
The large-scale project has a number of focuses on predators. One ongoing study involves radio tagged coyotes in order to link individual coyotes to individual turkey mortalities to try to understand how they’re interacting on the landscape and if there are so called “turkey specialists” among the coyote community. A turkey specialist coyote would be one that concentrates and excels in killing the wild turkey.
In order to accurately link an individual coyote with an individual turkey mortality, the researchers will cross reference tracking data between the tagged coyote and tagged wild turkey and see whether their paths crossed. Researchers also will be able to take genetic sampling from the remains of the killed wild turkey and compare it with the samples they obtained from the tagged coyotes to 100% confirm which coyote committed the act.
The study can also provide insight into what sort of behaviors or markers can influence hen’s success to avoiding predation, as well as indexing predator abundance in the sites. Even more sub-objectives are to monitor turkey movement and calling as it correlates to predator behavior; allowing researchers to continue to better understand their predator/prey dynamics.
Habitat Relationship
Two 10,000-acre sites will serve research on direct causation from habitat manipulation like prescribed fire and timber harvest.
Next is a nine-year, large-scale look into habitat manipulation and how it directly affects wild turkey populations. Dr. Lashley and the research team will be connecting wild turkey responses to prescribed fire, timber harvesting, and other habitat manipulations in order to understand how positive the correlation is. Dr. Lashley says he wants to be able to tell people, “If you go do these things to your property, it’ll influence the population in this way and you should expect this much growth.”
Florida will have at least two 10,000-acre research tracts to use for this specific study; more sites may arise, as well.
Half of each 10,000-acre tract will represent the control (no habitat manipulation conducted) and the other half will represent the variable component (habitat manipulation conducted.) The two halves will, of course, be compared to one another in order to draw appropriate conclusions.
Results
Dr. Lashley intends to make transparency and communication of the results of his research a priority. He has communication staff in place to do "storylines" on Youtube where people can follow along as research is being done. And as soon as research results are published, of which is says there will be many each year, his team will be sharing the results on various social media platforms and media outlets.
Pulling off this kind of large-scale research project takes a serious amount of funding and help. The cost of overhead, equipment, workers, and more can put an end to a project fast if it isn’t properly supported and funded. There are currently 28 people on the project under Dr. Lashley's supervision; this includes field researchers, undergraduates, PhD holders and candidates, and communications staff. Mossy Oak’s Gamekeeper Grants, which is largely funded through the sales of the Mossy Oak Wild Turkey Stamp, donated to Dr. Lashley’s important and, we believe critical, research.
"This project is so massive that it needs multiple lines of funding. The Gamekeeper Grants has been one of those for us that's been really crucial," says Dr. Lashley.
He continues, "For us to be able to do this kind of work, it's going to take engagement from the turkey community, especially those so passionate about turkeys. First off, none of this would be worth doing without their passion and engagement, and we wouldn't be able to do this without their help on multiple levels, like donating birds for research, participating with their local NWTF and TFT chapters, or even donating directly to our work. One easy way they can support wild turkey research is to buy a Mossy Oak Wild Turkey Stamp."
"The Gamekeeper term is a perfect encapsulation of what conservation means. It's the sustainable use of resources, deliberately taking action to benefit the game that we're interested in taking. We're giving back when we're also taking. Improving things for the species that you're also interested in putting on the table for your family."
Buy a 2025 Mossy Oak Wild Turkey Stamp here; ALL PROCEEDS GO DIRECTLY TO CONSERVATION.
