Groundbreaking research on how various timings of controlled burns impact wild turkeys.
For years, most land managers have burned land in March and April. While that’s a good practice, are there better options? Can landowners burn at other times of year and still achieve desirable results? That’s what a team of researchers in Oklahoma is setting out to determine.
Mark Turner, PhD, the assistant professor and wildlife extension specialist within the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Oklahoma State University is setting out to answer these questions. At OSU, Turner and Dr. Colter Chitwood are heavily involved in the project. The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC) is a big player in this research, too.
“Several of their staff are heavily involved in this project to help us out with site selection,” Turner said. “Also they’re going to help us implement the treatments. They are the primary partner in helping with this research project.”
Analyzing How the Timing of Prescribed Fire Impacts Wild Turkeys
According to Turner, this project is focused on looking at the effects of fire seasonality on turkey habitat. “When I first spoke with Dr Turner about this project, I knew this would help us with providing quality guidance to private landowners using prescribed fire, so we wanted to help fund this project”, said TFT CEO Jason Lupardus. Prescribed fire is a common habitat management practice, and it’s recommended by habitat and wildlife professionals to improve land for nesting cover, brooding cover, and maintaining food and cover availability for turkeys.
“Over the last several decades, most fire has been focused during the dormant season (generally between January and March),” Turner said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of benefits that comes from that. But usually, fire in that time of year doesn’t kill woody vegetation as well. Also, it doesn’t shift plant composition to promote more forbs, which oftentimes, is limited, especially for brooding cover for turkeys.
Therefore, with this project, Turner and company is developing fire research and demonstration plots on wildlife management areas in Oklahoma. This will take place on multiple WMAs across the state. The entire focus area is within the Rio Grande subspecies range.
“At these sites, we’re going to have four different units — each about 5 to 10 acres,” Turner said. “One will be burned during the dormant season, which again, is the January to March timeframe. One will be burned during the early growing season, which is April to May. One will be burned in the mid-growing season, which is June to July. Then, one will be burned in the late season, which is September to October.”
This process allows Turner and his team to study the types of plants growing there. Also, Turner says they can assess the structure and compare the vegetation to — based on other research projects — what turkeys would select for brooding or nesting.
Running Trail Cameras to Assess Wild Turkey Response
An additional element of this research effort includes the use of trail cameras. They will use cams to observe how turkeys and other species (like deer) use each unit.
“We’re interested in seeing how turkey predators use those units,” Turner said. “It might be that certain times of the year are better at decreasing predator use (compared to fire at other times of the year).”
In the past, Turner has collaborated with other professors on fire seasonality. He and others are hoping they can demonstrate that prescribed fire used at different times can be implemented to promote different vegetation structures. This results in optimized habitat composition for turkeys.
“We tend to think that fire during that early portion of the growing season promotes structure that’s best for turkey broods,” Turner said. “It’s going to reset everything, maintain relatively short vegetation right before eggs hatch, and then be good structure for brooding that’s relatively open at the ground level.
Additionally, this method tends to provide enough height to serve as protective cover. Also, it’s commonly believed that a late growing season fire treatment is going to do the best job at promoting forbs, which turkeys need. According to Turner, other projects have led to this conclusion, too.
Regarding actual wild turkey and predator community responses, there’s less data available. That’s especially true in more western habitat systems. Turner says that, in these areas, turkeys tend to select the areas that are most recently burned.
“During any given time of the year, they’re probably going to be in the unit that was most recently burned,” Turner said. “Based on work from elsewhere, we actually expect the opposite with predators. So, we would expect the most predators, especially nest predators, are going to be congregated more in the units that are the furthest from fire.”
Important Work for the Future of Wild Turkeys
Without question, this project is important work in the world of wild turkey research. According to Turner, a likely key takeaway is that folks can use fire during different times of the year. Some land managers have different goals. Others are busy. Whatever the case, not everyone can burn in early spring.
“Being able to burn at different times (outside of a couple months window), is really helpful for folks that are busy and want to use fire on their property,” Turner said. “But they might not necessarily time it right every single year to catch that good weather window inside the middle of March. By showing that they can actually accomplish the objectives by burning in almost any month of the year, that really opens up the burn window to where folks can use fire at different times.
“The other thing that we are excited about is that these sites are going to be used for research and for demonstration,” Turner said. “So, we plan to have some field days with landowners, and things of that nature, down the road when the treatments have been implemented. This will demonstrate the differential effects that fire during different times of the year can have on turkeys.”
Within the next few weeks, the research will be completely underway. Turner assures that, as time goes on, we’ll have some interesting results to share. “TFT was more than happy to help fund this research, as this information will help us when working within TFT’s private landowner cooperatives”, said Lupardus. “ We want the best recommendations to provide quality guidance for anyone managing wild turkeys.”
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Photos courtesy of Dr. Mark Turner