Developing habitat suitability models can be useful to help in estimating population abundance of Rio Grande (Meleagris gallopavo intermedia) and Eastern (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) wild turkeys as well as identifying habitat for their wintering sites. Our study sites are located on Fort Wolters (Mineral Wells, TX; Rio Grande wild turkeys) and Camp Maxey (Paris, TX; Eastern wild turkeys). We focused on three main factors develop these models: food, water, and cover. �For the food factor, we identified areas with hard mast (e.g. acorns, nuts) during winter, available corn (wildlife feeders), and favorable seed types (grasses). For the water factor will identify water sources and created 800 m buffers around them. Finally, we quantified areas dominated by woody cover for predator avoidance and roosting habitat. Previous studies show wild turkeys use woody vegetation habitat during winter to escape predators as well as the possibly of inclement weather. With these three factors we will be able to develop models that can help us quantify the spatial distribution of habitat for wild turkeys. These models will also be useful to integrate with abundance data to optimize surveying methods for wild turkey abundance in these two study sites.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.