I think a lot of this is also going to hinge on soil management and moisture retention. Turkeys seem to be searching for a certain arrangement of plant structure to nest in…….If the topsoil is poor in the “upland” areas then soil conditions might not support the plant growth needed to create this structure. When that happens then the turkeys are going to be more concentrated toward the bottoms/SMZ’s where there’s increased moisture to produce and support the plant growth that they’re looking for. This lack of being able to spread out across the landscape like they want to likely increases nest predation. Studies like the one talked about on Ft. Bragg where over 2/3’s of the turkeys nested in the bottoms show this playing out.


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I think Dr. Collier may also be downplaying the impact of racoons. He tells a story about how this turkey hen in one of their studies defended her nest several nights in a row from a possum but a possum is different than a big boar coon and its definitely different than 2 or 3 racoons in a group…….. I’ve seen them running in groups of 4 on several occasions. If they ran around grouped up like that it would pose a real problem for a nesting hen….especially if the hens were mostly grouped up along the riparian buffers.

"For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?" .....Mark 8:36