To grow appropriate management advice, more details is required into the environment alternatives and house range size of turkeys from the its northern variety periphery. The initial purpose in our studies was to estimate the newest mean seasonal and yearly domestic diversity measurements of ladies turkeys at the species’ north assortment border. We hypothesized you to definitely home assortment size might possibly be most readily useful on the springtime when you are people are seeking a good nesting website, and littlest about winter months and you will june. I along with hypothesized one to domestic variety proportions within species’ northern diversity was bigger than those stated on the south due so you’re able to shorter eating accessibility and you can habitat top quality. The next objective of our own studies was to check seasonal habitat solutions by female crazy turkeys. We assessed environment possibilities inside a hierarchical trend, using Johnson’s (1980) second and you may third commands out-of alternatives while in the all the four annual seasons. We hypothesized one environment possibilities create change between the 12 months, with turkeys mainly looking for deciduous and blended forest, however, interested in unlock habitat if you find yourself brood-rearing in the summertime. Our very own latest goal would be to evaluate if supplemental food influenced nuts turkey habitat alternatives. We hypothesized that northern crazy turkeys require supplemental eating from the winter; hence, i predicted you to lady will be discover near to extra dinner offer from bird feeders and you will animals functions on the trip and cold weather.
Studies town
We read wild chicken ecology regarding toward North Bruce Peninsula, located in Ontario, Canada (Fig. 1). The latest Bruce Peninsula includes a mix of house coverage products, into prominent cover getting coniferous tree, combined forest, industries, and deciduous tree (Table 1). Within rural people this new dominating marketplaces is farming and you may tourist. The main kind of farming try short-measure chicken farming, and lots of people visit in the summertime due to a couple national parks in your community.
Capturing and dealing with crazy turkeys
For the wintertime, turkeys congregate in the higher flocks, making it possible to trap numerous wild birds simultaneously. I swept up turkeys regarding within five places across the study area. Turkeys have been baited having corn and you will grabbed having fun with a skyrocket web (Grubb 1988). Lure piles was basically established in industries close to where turkeys were roosting. Immediately following turkeys was in fact trapped, they were removed from the net and you can put into import boxes for holding. All of the turkeys was basically processed on site shortly after trapping. Whenever retrieving a poultry from the package, its foot was covered and you may a good sock is actually placed on its direct. Creature worry recognition are granted by the Trent University’s Creature Care and attention Committee (method no. 22238).
We captured 53 turkeys, as well as 47 ladies and you can six males. I did not place transmitters on a couple of ladies because of feather losses to their backs. I match 45 female turkeys with both an excellent 73-g very-high-frequency (VHF) transmitter (design A1540 Complex Telemetry Expertise, Isanti, Minnesota) or a keen 85-g mini global positioning system unit (GPS) sender (design G1H 261A Sirtrack, Havelock Northern, New Zealand). Thirty seven of the people turkeys was people and you will 7 was indeed juveniles.
Transmitters was basically affixed having fun with an excellent backpack layout funnel created from wonder cord (Norman ainsi que al. 1997). This new small GPS transmitters have been changed in advance of implementation because of the tying https://datingmentor.org/nl/chatspin-overzicht/ neoprene toward underside of any tool to end chaffing (Guthrie mais aussi al. 2011). To end water damage and mold i covered the fresh port that have a water resistant silicon sealant and you can a small strip from vinyl recording (Guthrie ainsi que al. 2011). Each other kind of transmitters considered below the recommended maximum out-of 3% out of adult females lbs (Millsp). To own identity purposes for each and every chicken was installing having a designated aluminium butt-stop base band. We plus got bloodstream trials away from for each bird making multiple morphological specifications (amount of tarsus, wing, mustache and you may tail).