Wyoming’s fall turkey season is in full force, but many Cowboy State residents and visitors unintentionally fill their quotas during regular commutes, obliterating birds with their vehicles.
That’s what happened to a Nevada rancher who bagged and grilled a turkey with his Toyota during a recent visit to Wyoming.
Dave Baker traveled to Hulett for a board meeting of the Producers Livestock Marketing Association. State Sen. Ogden Driskill, a board member and local resident, said Baker was driving when a wild turkey decided to take flight as he passed by.
“When he went by my place, a turkey came up out of the ditch and he hit it,” Driskill said. “It didn't even bounce off. It just got stuck in his grill.”
In a bird vs. vehicle showdown, the turkey didn’t stand a chance. Fortunately, there was only paltry poultry damage to Baker's Toyota, and nobody in the vehicle was hurt. Just irritated.
“It only damaged the plastic on the grill, which probably isn't cheap to fix in this day and age,” Driskill said. “Everything's expensive anymore, but it didn't hurt the radiator or anything.”
A Rise In Fall
There’s no set season for animal-vehicle collisions in Wyoming, as it remains a potent risk throughout the year. However, Driskill said there’s a definite increase in turkey-vehicle incidents in the fall.
“The turkeys spent their summer up in the mountains, and they winter on me,” he said, referring to his ranch near Devils Tower. “They’ll stay all the way to spring. As it greens up in the spring, they start heading back up the mountains.”
Driskill has never hit a turkey, but he knows it’s an omnipresent risk. Turkeys seem especially fond of his property.
“We have a few turkeys through the summer, but not a lot,” he said. “Then we'll get up to several thousand in the fall. Several are hit every week by vehicles going back and forth across the highway by my house.”
Increasing turkey traffic isn’t regulated to northeast Wyoming. Biologists and auto shops also see a rise in turkey-related incidents during the fall.
“We deal with a fair number of vehicle-turkey impacts, mostly in urban settings such as Casper, near creeks or rivers during the winter, or on highways that snake through the Black Hills,” Brandon Werner, a wildlife biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in Casper, told Cowboy State Daily. “Turkeys are more prone to be hit in the fall and spring when migrating and breeding, and most likely to be hit in early summer after they hatch poults as they have difficulty quickly getting out of the way of traffic and are hard to see.”
An average adult female hen weighs up to 12 pounds, while an average adult male tom or gobbler can weigh up to 20 pounds. That can cause severe damage to a vehicle, depending on its speed and where the turkey hits.
A family driving between Cody and Powell in September had a 20-pound gobbler hit their windshield. The vehicle was still drivable, but shattered glass covered the interior and cut up the occupants, though nobody was seriously hurt.
Werner said that windshield impacts are comparatively rare but can be serious.
“In some collisions I have seen, the turkeys try to fly at the last second but only get a few feet off the ground before the car hits,” he said. “When this happens, the car and the turkey are at the same height, and it can come through the windshield, which can cause bodily injury.
Can’t Ditch Them
Like most of Wyoming’s wildlife, turkeys have migratory seasons. Werner said turkey migrations correlate well with the rise in vehicle impacts in the fall and spring.
“Turkeys do migrate quite often in Wyoming,” he said. “Typically, wild turkeys winter in lower country, such as river or creek bottoms and agricultural fields. In the spring, some wild turkeys migrate from lower country into timbered hills and mountains to mate and nest. Some birds spend the summer at higher elevations and then migrate down in the fall.”
Werner said most turkeys are hit as they are standing or running and usually end up under a vehicle rather than partially embedded into it. It doesn’t help that they tend to be blissfully unaware of the dangers of highway traffic, illegal pedestrian crossings and no-fly zones.
“All wildlife are a hazard, and turkeys not quite so much, but they are totally unaware of vehicles,” Driskill said.
Driskill said the risk of animal-vehicle incidents is especially high now because of the abundance of ungrazed grass in roadside ditches. That’s where turkeys, deer, and other animals feed and suddenly merge into the traffic above.
“The ditches are all green because they haven’t been grazed, so the deer and turkey are running in and out of the ditches,” he said.
No Thanksgiving Report
A Wyoming wild turkey can make a good meal for Thanksgiving, which might be the silver lining for anyone unlucky enough to hit one. The same turkey that Bell grilled on the highway could be grilled, deep fried or cooked in any other way without reporting it to Wyoming Game and Fish.
“People do not need to report if they hit a turkey unless it is still alive, Werner said. “Wyoming's roadkill law applies to wild turkeys but does not apply to other species such as grouse or pheasants.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
