Wildlife translocation programs are widely employed as a strategy to reintroduce extirpated species into regions they once inhabited but no longer do. Reintroduction programs can be successful at re-establishing extirpated populations and also provide unique opportunities to study post-reintroduction population dynamics and behavioural ecology. The wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is a forest generalist species that, prior to European colonization, inhabited much of the Carolinian zone in Ontario. This species was hunted to extirpation in the early 1900's and reintroduced in the mid-1980's through a series of wildlife trade agreements and coordinated trap and transfer efforts. Ontario's contemporary populations are seemingly thriving, with wild turkey harvest permitted in many regions of the province. However, given this species history of extirpation, understanding the size, distribution, and behavioural ecology of Ontario's reintroduced population of wild turkeys is essential to their long-term persistence in the province. We captured and radio-tagged 77 wild turkeys over four years in Peterborough, Ontario and studied their movement, sociality, and habitat preferences. My findings indicate that Ontario may contain relatively high densities of this species when compared with other parts of their range. My analyses also elucidated interesting aspects of this species habitat selection patterns within an anthropogenic landscape, in addition to novel findings surrounding wild turkey sociality and genetic structure.
Author Keywords: behaviour, genetics, Ontario, reintroduction, wild turkey, wildlife management