Or whoever knows the answer. In all of the mounds of podcasts, videos, social media posts, and forum discussions, somewhere I read about a known and understood phenomenon where wild turkeys reached an artificially high peak at about 20 years after reintroduction and then populations begin to naturally wane and settle/average/trend at a number much less than the peak. What is this called? What information can you point me to on it? Is this phenomenon being neglected as a valid explanation for some of the population decline in certain locales? Please provide anything I could read to study and better understand.

Never understood the theory myself.

Carrying capacity

Or whoever knows the answer. In all of the mounds of podcasts, videos, social media posts, and forum discussions, somewhere I read about a known and understood phenomenon where wild turkeys reached an artificially high peak at about 20 years after reintroduction and then populations begin to naturally wane and settle/average/trend at a number much less than the peak. What is this called? What information can you point me to on it? Is this phenomenon being neglected as a valid explanation for some of the population decline in certain locales? Please provide anything I could read to study and better understand.

Here's something that I bet happened in a lot of areas that probably throws a monkey wrench in trying to understand what’s occurring…….

When turkey restocking occurred there were very few, if any, coyotes east of the Mississippi……A lot more people trapped coons and avian predators were fewer…….Turkey populations probably grew without predation being a major limiting factor to growth……Populations probably grew until other things began to become limiting factors……I could see “insect availability during the poult rearing stage” as something that would eventually be effected as numbers grow. If populations keep growing and growing then at some point you’re going to reach a threshold where poults no longer have “all you can eat”…..The availability for each poult starts decreasing.

That’s ^^^^ probably the population threshold that many areas grew to in the past......something of that nature…..These days though we have coyotes heavily added into the mix as well as higher numbers of coons and avian predators……There’s probably not many turkey populations that are going to reach those past threshold again with predation now being the major limiting factor

I don’t buy the predator theory that it takes them 20 years to learn to hunt turkeys……Racoons scavenge for food…..They already know how to do that.

The idea with food mostly revolves around the poults. If you take predators out of the equation as limiting growth then something else will eventually have to kick in. There’s only “X” amount of insect abundance to feed the poults during their critical period in the spring…..In the beginning of a population growth scenario, each individual poult would get their fill of all they wanted…..If you keep increasing the population more and more and more though…..eventually you will reach a point where the turkey population is thinning down the insects to the point that suddenly that individual poult doesn’t have the same insect abundance available to them.

Also, even with adult hens……the amount of prime food available to them would start having to be divided up more and more…..especially in the winter…..They may find “food” but it may not be the same quality of food that carried them through the winter in such a healthy state that they produced 10-12 eggs……Now they may only be producing 6-8 or something of that nature……That’s how density dependance is going to kick in with population growth where predators are not limiting things……Its going to be something of this nature anyways……It could be spatially limited somehow but that doesn’t seem as likely.

I don’t buy the predator theory that it takes them 20 years to learn to hunt turkeys……Racoons scavenge for food…..They already know how to do that.

The idea with food mostly revolves around the poults. If you take predators out of the equation as limiting growth then something else will eventually have to kick in. There’s only “X” amount of insect abundance to feed the poults during their critical period in the spring…..In the beginning of a population growth scenario, each individual poult would get their fill of all they wanted…..If you keep increasing the population more and more and more though…..eventually you will reach a point where the turkey population is thinning down the insects to the point that suddenly that individual poult doesn’t have the same insect abundance available to them.
iology class at AU
Also, even with adult hens……the amount of prime food available to them would start having to be divided up more and more…..especially in the winter…..They may find “food” but it may not be the same quality of food that carried them through the winter in such a healthy state that they produced 10-12 eggs……Now they may only be producing 6-8 or something of that nature……That’s how density dependance is going to kick in with population growth where predators are not limiting things……Its going to be something of this nature anyways……It could be spatially limited somehow but that doesn’t seem as likely.

I don’t buy the predator theory that it takes them 20 years to learn to hunt turkeys……Racoons scavenge for food…..They already know how to do that.

The idea with food mostly revolves around the poults. If you take predators out of the equation as limiting growth then something else will eventually have to kick in. There’s only “X” amount of insect abundance to feed the poults during their critical period in the spring…..In the beginning of a population growth scenario, each individual poult would get their fill of all they wanted…..If you keep increasing the population more and more and more though…..eventually you will reach a point where the turkey population is thinning down the insects to the point that suddenly that individual poult doesn’t have the same insect abundance available to them.

Also, even with adult hens……the amount of prime food available to them would start having to be divided up more and more…..especially in the winter…..They may find “food” but it may not be the same quality of food that carried them through the winter in such a healthy state that they produced 10-12 eggs……Now they may only be producing 6-8 or something of that nature……That’s how density dependance is going to kick in with population growth where predators are not limiting things……Its going to be something of this nature anyways……It could be spatially limited somehow but that doesn’t seem as likely.