{"id":112011,"date":"2026-11-09T17:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T17:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=112011"},"modified":"2026-11-09T19:42:49","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T19:42:49","slug":"gobble-update-uri-team-reports-on-wild-turkeys-in-southern-new-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2026\/11\/gobble-update-uri-team-reports-on-wild-turkeys-in-southern-new-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Gobble update: URI team reports on wild turkeys in southern New England"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Nov. 9, 2026 \u2013 After a year of studying New England\u2019s most iconic bird, a team of graduate students in the University of Rhode Island\u2019s McWilliams Research Group<\/a> have some interesting insight to share in advance of Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dekka Ducote, Chelsea Maione, and Richard Mercer \u201921 have been studying wild turkey flocks<\/a> in Rhode Island and Connecticut. While their study is ongoing, the group is seeing positive preliminary signs of turkey reproductive success compared to other turkey-host states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

URI\u2019s Department of Natural Resources Science<\/a> launched a five-year study of the Eastern wild turkey last fall to track the bird\u2019s health and population in Rhode Island, in partnership with the state\u2019s Department of Environmental Management (DEM). Additionally, a three-year study is occurring in collaboration with Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CTDEEP).<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"staff
URI\u2019s partnership with local agencies is furthering the research being conducted; here, staff from Rhode Island DEM and URI join for a photo at the final capture of the season in March; the turkeys who joined them were released just after the moment was captured. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

By the early 1800s, wild turkeys no longer existed in either state. Reintroduction began in the 1970s into the 1990s. Now, the species is established in Connecticut and Rhode Island, with wild turkeys found in all cities and towns across both states, except on Block Island and in Jamestown in Rhode Island. Ducote, Mercer, and Maione are leading the turkey projects under the guidance of postdoctoral fellow Dylan Bakner in Scott McWilliams\u2019 lab.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"turkey
Another way to help your local turkey population is to take care around nests (avoid walking nearby, leash dogs in woods) so hens can tend to their eggs when turkey nesting peaks in May and June.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

These partnerships are vital to URI research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mercer says that DEM staff were a huge help last winter running banding sites and helping URI\u2019s team tag more than 200 wild turkeys throughout the state. \u201cThe partnership and team effort have been great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

URI\u2019s turkey team fielded questions about the Eastern wild turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How are Rhode Island and Connecticut\u2019s wild turkey populations faring?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the moment, wild turkeys appear to be thriving here. Reintroduction efforts here in the 1980s and \u201990s were very successful and now there is an abundance of wild turkeys and reproductive success in all five Rhode Island counties. It\u2019s common now for people to see flocks in forests, fields, urban parks and suburban neighborhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translocation efforts and population expansion have also successfully restored wild turkeys within every town in Connecticut, too. Hunting in both states reopened in the 1980s and current reports suggest that harvest has remained relatively stable over the last decade. Chelsea and CTDEEP are now capturing and monitoring hens via UHF\/GPS transmitters to gain insight into variables affecting wild turkey demographics there. Her study aims to examine the trajectory of the wild turkey population in Connecticut and variables impacting its population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is public interest building in supporting local wild turkey populations?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been lots of opportunities to work and collaborate with diverse groups of people on these projects. In Rhode Island, acquiring permissions for property access was essential for the successful field season we had this year. We worked with several groups, including land trusts, non-governmental organizations and private landowners for acquiring property permission to complete field surveys. In the majority of cases, there has been an overwhelming interest and support for wild turkey research and for the conservation of wild turkeys in Rhode Island and Connecticut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have any fun facts to share about turkeys in terms of personality or behavior?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of the field season, we followed and monitored our tagged birds\u2019 multiple times a week for almost six months. In that time, we get a feel for who our favorites are and who likes to cause us trouble! We find that birds located in more rural landscapes seem to be much more timid and like to hide and evade detection. This makes for a lot of driving time to keep up with their location. In contrast, birds in an urban landscape are more habituated to the everyday activity of humans. There have been countless times in urban areas where we have been able to drive up and watch our tagged bird hang out only feet from the truck. This makes for great presentation photos highlighting turkeys in the cities and neighborhoods of Rhode Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the GPS transmitters on our wild turkeys telling you about their habits and movements?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We only have one season of data so far, and we cannot make any definite conclusions on bird habits, but we do have some preliminary observations that are supported by other studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of note, is the observation of post-nesting hens who were successful and have baby poults in tow. These hens tend to try and locate fields with tall grass so they can raise their young in the early days after hatching. This tall grass is very effective at obscuring the poults from predators and tends to increase their chance of making it to adulthood. We learned this by using GPS transmitters, which allowed us to follow and observe the different landscapes these birds utilize. Across Rhode Island, there are a wide variety of other landscape types which we have observed wild turkeys in, from golf courses and neighborhoods to state forest and management areas; we even had a bird raise her brood in a quarry. Turkeys are a generalist species with the ability to thrive in many situations and that is definitely reflected in the data we have collected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Connecticut, we used solar\/cellular-enabled GPS transmitters; the data was sent to our databank remotely, eliminating the need to manually locate and download each bird. Subsequently we were able to observe movements of birds we may have ultimately ended up losing track of. For instance, one bird in the Constitution State traveled 40 miles from its capture site into Massachusetts, while a second traveled across the Pawcatuck River and has been residing across state lines in Rhode Island for approximately six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there anything for community members to be aware of as far as turkey behavior in the coming winter months?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the winter, turkeys will reduce their daily activity in order to conserve energy and resources. This is basically a time of the year where the focus is to bide your time till the next breeding season. Male hormone levels will also be drastically reduced, lessening any aggressive behavior towards other turkeys, people, and especially their reflections on shiny cars. This reduction in hormones and higher tolerance is a signal for turkeys to begin congregating into large flocks during the winter and reduce the size of their home range. This will become more apparent as we get further into November and is most notable from December to March. Coming together into large flocks puts more eyes on the landscape and increases the chance of evading predators during the winter, helping ensure individuals will make it to the spring when the breeding season commences once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow URI\u2019s College of the Environment and Life Sciences (URI CELS) on social media for more turkey and wildlife updates all year long.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Nov. 9, 2026 \u2013 After a year of studying New England\u2019s most iconic bird, a team of graduate students in the University of Rhode Island\u2019s McWilliams Research Group have some interesting insight to share in advance of Thanksgiving. Dekka Ducote, Chelsea Maione, and Richard Mercer \u201921 have been studying wild turkey flocks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":112012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,1914,1905],"class_list":["post-112011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-the-environment-and-life-sciences","tag-graduate","tag-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112011"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112016,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112011\/revisions\/112016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}