Are Hunters Teaching Turkeys To Avoid Them?

Decades Of Harvest May Be Selecting For Harder-To-Hunt Gobblers

Every spring, hunters across the southeastern United States head into the woods hoping to call in a gobbling tom. But research suggests that decades of spring turkey hunting might be making that increasingly difficult, not just because populations are changing, but because hunters may be selecting for turkeys that are much harder to harvest.

Scientists tracking 109 adult male wild turkeys across Georgia and South Carolina have documented that hunters non-randomly kill birds based on specific behavioral traits, though which traits get targeted depends heavily on the landscape. In Georgia, hunters successfully harvested birds that ventured closer to roads and forest edges and moved faster through the landscape. The concern? If these risk-taking behaviors are heritable, hunters could be systematically removing the genes for “huntability” from populations, potentially breeding future generations of warier, more elusive birds.

“We demonstrated that significant harvest-induced selection acts on risk-taking behaviors in both populations, which could render wild turkeys more difficult to harvest if these traits are indeed heritable,” the researchers write in their November 2024 paper, published in Royal Society Open Science.

The research team from the University of Georgia and Louisiana State University fitted GPS transmitters on male turkeys that recorded locations hourly from March through July, spanning multiple breeding and hunting seasons between 2014 and 2023. Each bird’s behavioral profile — how close it ventured to dangerous areas, how quickly it explored, how much it used risky habitat — was linked to its ultimate fate: survival, harvest by a hunter, or death by predator.

Selection Pressure That Could Drive Turkey Evolution

Harvest-induced selection operates faster than most people realize. Humans can drive evolutionary change at rates that dramatically outpace natural selection, previous research has shown. When hunting consistently removes individuals with certain traits generation after generation, the population’s genetic makeup can shift toward whatever traits help birds avoid harvest—if those traits are passed from parents to offspring.

The turkey study revealed clear selection patterns. In Georgia, hunters successfully targeted males that occurred closer to hunter access points like parking areas and gated roads. They also harvested birds that frequented forest edges, exactly where hunters typically set up because these areas offer good visibility and are accessible from secondary roads. Faster-moving, more exploratory males also faced higher harvest rates.

These aren’t random preferences. Hunters are responding rationally to bird behavior: they harvest the turkeys they can find and call in. Bold, active males that gobble frequently and display in open areas near accessible locations are simply easier to hunt. The unintended consequence is that each spring season may function as a selection event favoring shyer, less accessible behavioral types.

Natural predators apply different pressures. Coyotes, bobcats, and birds of prey consistently killed turkeys that took more risks by using open areas and forest edges across both study populations. Predators also targeted slower-moving birds in South Carolina, while faster explorers had better survival rates against non-human threats in both locations.

In Georgia, this creates something like an evolutionary tug-of-war. Predators favor removing slower birds while hunters favor removing faster ones. When these forces pull in opposite directions, the outcome depends on which selective pressure is stronger—and hunting mortality typically exceeds predation for male turkeys during spring. But in South Carolina, both hunters and predators favored removing slower birds, meaning both forces could push evolution in the same direction.

Different Landscapes, Different Selection

The complexity deepens when accounting for landscape context. In South Carolina, where hunting access was more uniform and food plots were limited to small clearings under 2 hectares, hunters paradoxically harvested the more cautious birds, or those that stayed farther from access points and moved more slowly. However, hunters at both sites harvested males that occurred closer to open areas and forest edges.

This reversal in some traits likely stems from landscape differences. Georgia’s study areas contained large agricultural fields exceeding 10 hectares alongside smaller wildlife food plots, creating diverse openings scattered across the landscape. South Carolina offered only 180 hectares of openings, primarily small food plots designed to attract wildlife. Males using these limited, predictable locations may have become easier targets regardless of their general boldness.

The finding carries serious implications: harvest-induced selection doesn’t operate uniformly across landscapes. The same hunting regulations and seasons applied to different terrains may favor different behavioral types. Georgia hunters may be selecting for shyer turkeys, while South Carolina hunters select for bolder ones.

If behavioral traits prove heritable in wild turkeys, as similar GPS-based movement behaviors have in species like roe deer, these site-specific selection pressures could nudge populations in different evolutionary directions over time. Georgia might develop turkeys that avoid roads and edges, making them harder to locate and call. South Carolina could develop birds that move quickly and unpredictably, making them difficult to pattern.

Could Turkey Behaviors Be Inherited?

While the current study didn’t directly measure whether turkey personalities pass from parents to offspring, research from other species suggests it’s plausible they could be. Studies on roe deer have demonstrated relatively high heritability for GPS-based movement metrics nearly identical to those measured in the turkey study: average speed, distance to roads, and use of open landcover.

The researchers measured four key behavioral traits, all of which showed moderate to high repeatability within individuals across the breeding season. This consistency is a prerequisite for heritability—if a trait varies randomly within an individual, it can’t be passed to offspring. But traits that remain stable across contexts often have genetic components.

Individual male turkeys maintained distinct personalities throughout the study period. A bold turkey in March stayed bold in May, even as overall population behavior shifted in response to hunting pressure. A fast explorer kept moving quickly even when slower birds might have survived better. This stable among-individual variation provides the raw material for evolution.

Wild turkey hunting has been popular in the southeastern United States since populations recovered in the mid-20th century, meaning decades of consistent spring harvest. If the behavioral traits under selection are heritable, this represents enough time for trait frequencies to shift within populations.

Hunters Notice Changes in Turkey Behavior

The research arrives as wild turkey populations face challenges across much of their range. Abundance, productivity, and harvest numbers have been declining in recent years. While multiple factors likely contribute, including habitat loss, changing land use, and increased predation, behavioral shifts driven by harvest-induced selection could be compounding these problems.

Anecdotal reports from hunters suggest turkeys are becoming harder to hunt in some areas. Birds may be gobbling less frequently, responding less reliably to calls, or using areas that are harder for hunters to access. If these observations reflect real evolutionary change rather than just yearly variation or learned behavior, hunters could be witnessing the consequences of decades of selective pressure.

The process mirrors well-documented changes in fisheries. Decades of commercial netting consistently removed the boldest, fastest-growing fish, leaving behind populations of smaller, shyer individuals that are harder to catch. Some heavily fished populations evolved to mature earlier at smaller sizes, reproducing before they reached catchable size. The parallel with turkey hunting is striking: intensive harvest over many generations selecting against the most harvestable phenotypes.

What Wildlife Management Could Consider

The researchers recommend that wildlife managers consider adopting harvest regimes that avoid strong bias toward specific behavioral types. But implementing this recommendation presents challenges. How can managers design seasons that don’t select for particular personalities when hunters naturally target the easiest birds to find and call?

One approach might involve diversifying hunting pressure across landscapes. If Georgia hunters primarily access turkeys from roads and edges, encouraging or facilitating hunting in more remote areas might balance selection pressures. Season timing could also matter in theory—if early-season hunters tend to take the boldest birds, then changing season timing or length might let more bold males breed before they’re harvested, though the study didn’t test this directly.

Preserving behavioral diversity within populations serves multiple goals. Diverse personalities help populations respond to environmental changes and emerging diseases. Different behavioral types may thrive under different conditions, providing insurance against unpredictable futures. From a hunting perspective, maintaining some proportion of easily harvestable birds helps ensure that future generations can enjoy successful hunts.

The study also revealed that males from both populations adjusted their behavior in response to hunting pressure, though in markedly different ways. South Carolina males became noticeably more exploratory when hunters entered the woods, increasing their average hourly movement speed compared to the pre-hunt period. Georgia birds showed minimal changes in exploration but dramatically increased their risk-taking by moving closer to open areas as the season progressed.

These behavioral adjustments demonstrate phenotypic plasticity, or the ability to modify behavior in response to immediate conditions without genetic change. Plasticity can buffer populations against selection pressure, allowing individuals to avoid harvest through learned behavior rather than genetic adaptation. But plasticity has limits, and underlying personality types constrain how much individuals can change.

The Path Forward for Turkey Hunting

The research highlights a fundamental tension in wildlife management. Hunting provides critical funding for conservation through license sales and excise taxes. It also offers cultural and recreational value to millions of participants. But intensive harvest, even when sustainable from a population perspective, can drive evolutionary changes that ultimately affect the hunting experience.

Understanding harvest-induced selection on behavioral traits remains relatively new in terrestrial systems. Most research has focused on fisheries, where the phenomenon is well-established. The turkey study represents one of few investigations simultaneously examining how hunters and natural predators shape behavioral selection in a game bird.

Moving forward, researchers encourage more studies that properly partition phenotypic variance into among-individual and within-individual components. Only by tracking individual animals across time can scientists determine which traits remain stable enough to be heritable and therefore susceptible to selection. The GPS tracking approach used in this study provides a template for similar work in other game species.

The findings also highlight the need for long-term studies examining whether trait distributions actually change following manipulation of harvest regimes. Computer models suggest that harvest regimes designed to mimic natural selection could enhance behavioral diversity. But empirical validation is lacking. Do populations recover their behavioral diversity when hunting pressure is reduced or restructured? How many generations does recovery require?

For wild turkey hunters, the message is sobering but not hopeless. The very characteristics that make a gobbler exciting to hunt — his boldness, his frequent gobbling, his willingness to come to a call — may be slowly disappearing from some populations if hunting consistently favors certain behavioral types and those types are heritable. But with careful management that considers evolutionary consequences alongside population dynamics, it may be possible to sustain both healthy turkey populations and quality hunting opportunities for future generations.