Sep 22, 2026 · 55 min · 13 segments
Research Continues to Expand What We Know About Wild Turkey Nest Predators When the National Wild Turkey Federation invested in research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln three years ago…
Stephen ScrockyHostCarly GazelleGuest
Hannah McKinneyHost
Um, so with these objectives, if you were sitting down with say an NWTF member, what would you say that achieving these objectives is important for wild turkey conservation and science?
Um, well, well, I think that since this is, this is predator habitat focused, right.
But, um, The stipulation is that predators are utilizing the same habitat as turkeys.
So first off, if we can manage predator habitat and then therefore kind of improve predator distribution across the landscape.
So right now, let's say predators are more densely, right, in community, densely communities.
And then if we can evenly distribute them, then that will reduce predation pressure on prey species like wild turkeys.
And then also just habitat improvements for predators will also improve wild turkey habitat as well.
So they kind of go hand in hand there.
And essentially, and for people that are not from Nebraska, I think it's important to realize, you know, these are, you know, what people term them as kind of the flyover states, you know, very ag-dominated.
So if you're, you know, kind of a comparison, we think about, like, say, in the southeast, we have you know, pine plantations.
And so it's kind of just kind of, you know, different crops, but kind of similar, you know, we're managing them for, in this case, agriculture.
And so what happened and has happened over the past several decades is habitat loss has been occurring.
And so the question, and what Jade alluded to, is as we're monitoring both the prey and in this case turkeys and then predators you know in theory you know what's happening is you know basically it uh you know habitats decreasing so now a lot of those predator prey species are occupying a lot of similar habitats kind of theory and you kind of think of it i always use the analogy like say you used to have like 10 restaurants in a town and now you're down to one you know, it's, you know, kind of logical, you know, that, hey, if I'm a predator in the landscape, I kind of know where to go because there's not a lot of options out there for me to go because everything else is in, in this case, intensive, you know, row crop production.
And then that's where opportunities for landowners, agencies can begin to build out those collaborations to put more habitat in strategically on the landscape with the goal of actually improving the conditions for nesting, brood rearing, fall winter cover for turkeys, and then also having the additional benefits that can take and spread out that pressure across the landscape.
I always like to think about it in terms of habitat management is predator management, right? And so, The habitat management understanding predator communities has definitely been a priority of the Turkey Technical Committee, which is the state agency biologists across the country that help us determine which projects we're going to fund.
So this project was a natural fit to that, you know, really helping answer one of those questions, A, not only what can we do from a habitat management perspective, but understanding the predator communities that are associated with those.
Um, so with these objectives, if you were sitting down with say an NWTF member, what would you say that achieving these objectives is important for wild turkey conservation and science?
Um, well, well, I think that since this is, this is predator habitat focused, right.
But, um, The stipulation is that predators are utilizing the same habitat as turkeys.
So first off, if we can manage predator habitat and then therefore kind of improve predator distribution across the landscape.
So right now, let's say predators are more densely, right, in community, densely communities.
And then if we can evenly distribute them, then that will reduce predation pressure on prey species like wild turkeys.
And then also just habitat improvements for predators will also improve wild turkey habitat as well.
So they kind of go hand in hand there.
And essentially, and for people that are not from Nebraska, I think it's important to realize, you know, these are, you know, what people term them as kind of the flyover states, you know, very ag-dominated.
So if you're, you know, kind of a comparison, we think about, like, say, in the southeast, we have you know, pine plantations.
And so it's kind of just kind of, you know, different crops, but kind of similar, you know, we're managing them for, in this case, agriculture.
And so what happened and has happened over the past several decades is habitat loss has been occurring.
And so the question, and what Jade alluded to, is as we're monitoring both the prey and in this case turkeys and then predators you know in theory you know what's happening is you know basically it uh you know habitats decreasing so now a lot of those predator prey species are occupying a lot of similar habitats kind of theory and you kind of think of it i always use the analogy like say you used to have like 10 restaurants in a town and now you're down to one you know, it's, you know, kind of logical, you know, that, hey, if I'm a predator in the landscape, I kind of know where to go because there's not a lot of options out there for me to go because everything else is in, in this case, intensive, you know, row crop production.
And then that's where opportunities for landowners, agencies can begin to build out those collaborations to put more habitat in strategically on the landscape with the goal of actually improving the conditions for nesting, brood rearing, fall winter cover for turkeys, and then also having the additional benefits that can take and spread out that pressure across the landscape.
I always like to think about it in terms of habitat management is predator management, right? And so, The habitat management understanding predator communities has definitely been a priority of the Turkey Technical Committee, which is the state agency biologists across the country that help us determine which projects we're going to fund.
So this project was a natural fit to that, you know, really helping answer one of those questions, A, not only what can we do from a habitat management perspective, but understanding the predator communities that are associated with those.
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