One thing is most people can't wrap their minds around is cities being prime habitat for certain species.

Then why arent all cities overrun with turkeys??.....They arent that much different as far as composition….What kind of prime turkey habitat do these northern cities have that Auburn or Montgomery or Huntsville or Birmingham doesn’t have??

No not at all
You’re assuming too much with that

I struggle to believe in absolutes when dealing with a fluid population and so many factors will sway in differing directions

I believe things are cyclical. I’d heard ruffed grouse cycle on an 8-10 yr population swing. I’ve mentioned here and wondered if turkeys being somewhat similar have a similar cycle. There’s not much other influence other than that is what happens.

https://www.grandforksherald.com/sp...ctable-10-year-cycle-the-question-is-why

Some think killing off certain predators will help and be a huge difference in population. Does it help? I’d bet it does help some but what other predators come into take advantage of the opening. That’s the fluid part in my opinion. There are always limiting factors of some sort

You can kill all the yotes on your property and I do advocate for that. What are you gonna do about those 5-10-15-20 miles away that are looking for a new home range. You gonna get all those land owners to work congruently to eliminate the yote population?
There’s too many variables

It depends should be where most studies should start

Surely you understand the “butterfly effect” otherwise a part of chaos theory.

https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/economics/the-butterfly-effect

Why does a new transplanted population go thru a huge boom. Lack of predators etc…. Name them all

Is that the case as in always 100 percent of the time.

I’d guess habitat is the limiting factor or multiplier

If I have some time tomorrow when I get on my laptop I may write a real response. But, consider why northeast cities had urban deer problems before the rest of the country. Also, why do they have bear issues? Some of this is the structure of how cities are developed and some of it has to do with barriers of population establishment in certain cities. Auburn and some random city in Jersey are quite different due to urban development and greenspaces. Additionally, attitudes toward wildlife management vary greatly.

There are countless studies comparing urban ecosystems and just like rural human altered landscapes they can vary greatly due to both biological/habitat mosaics and human dimensions. If you compare deer populations in a row crop area in randolph county is it analogous to a row crop area in the rural Midwest?

So are you saying the northern cities have more “green spaces”?? I’ve tracked a bunch deer for hunters in and around every city in my area…..Montgomery, Auburn, Phenix City, Columbus, Alexander City and so on……There are plenty of “green spaces” that offer good hiding habitat in these cities mainly for bucks……but not as good for does to hide fawns from coyotes……Same goes for turkey hens trying to raise poults……What is considered “good” habitat for reproduction is only relative to the amount of predators present……The more predators you start adding in, the less habitat there is that can be considered “good”……Keep increasing the predator load and you get to a point where only the best of the best habitat is “good” as well as needing it to be in big blocks and not fragmented…..I still stand by what I said that the only reason fragmented green spaces inside of town could be considered “good” habitat for turkey reproduction is if the predator load was low enough for that to be possible.

Ok……I’ve given what you said some more thought… …There is the possibility that you could surround the northern cities with prime turkey habitat that had burgeoning flocks that were pushing into the urban spaces.....I guess that would be a possibility

Ooh, ooh, I know the answer to this one! The yankee cities don't have rednecks who would shoot a gobbler off a neighbor's lawn without thinking twice about it. You will not live long enough to see it get to the point that any of those AL cities don't have people willing to do that. Turkey hunting is ingrained into our culture and some will do anything to kill one.

My son-in-law lives in Mobile and a couple years ago a friend called him and said there was a gobbler on his lawn. It was in February and turkey season wasn't even in, but within an hour a guy had shot the turkey with a 22 rifle. The turkey got away and became coyote bait, but that was the end of his urban adventure.

This can't be happening in the cities with a turkey problem. If it did, they would quickly decide to move back to the country. Turkeys learn quickly where places are that they are safe and have plenty of food. If that's in a town, why wouldn't they live there? All it would take to end it is a few of them getting shot.

If you drive to Birmingham on 280 you can see geese on lawns that are ignoring thousands of people and cars. They do that because nobody has ever shot them there. If they were turkeys, there are people in this forum who would figure out how to kill one and get away with it.

I don't think this is all that complicated. Somewhere around these cities is good nesting habitat and poults are being produced. The adult turkeys go to where they have food and safety. If they are safer in town, that's where they will go.

That was a more fun way than saying attitudes toward wildlife management vary greatly. Truth is, I erased a sentence that said those cities didn't have a bubba on every block trying to figure out how to kill them. Haha

They wouldn’t last a day around here ur exactly right

The amount of people in this thread that don’t understand the importance of nest predator control blows my mind. And PCP is correct on his short grass theory for poults.

So cattle pastures are good habitat during egg laying to poult rearing season

I kinda thought this was funny
says with sarcasm

says with all seriousness

Sometimes folks purposely act like something we already know cant be understood in order to try and keep the truth cloudy…….Other times we legitimately haven’t gotten the reason for something figured out yet……There’s a big difference in the two…..I’m sure most folks don’t have a problem understanding that….