{"id":2203,"date":"2013-08-12T14:38:58","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T18:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/umaine.edu\/sustainabilitysolutions\/?page_id=677"},"modified":"2018-08-14T13:58:32","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T17:58:32","slug":"interactions-of-wild-turkeys-and-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/interactions-of-wild-turkeys-and-agriculture\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluating Interactions Between Wild Turkeys and Maine Agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-843 size-full\" style=\"border: 2px solid white\" title=\"Turkeyicon\" src=\"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/293\/2013\/08\/Turkeyicon1.jpg\" alt=\"wild turkey\" width=\"120\" height=\"121\" \/>Institution:<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uma.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">University of Maine Augusta<\/a><br \/>\n<em>Sponsor:<\/em> National Science Foundation through the Sustainability Solutions Initiative<\/p>\n<p>Historically, wild turkeys (<em>Meleagris gallopavo<\/em>) existed in significant numbers in Maine.\u00a0 By the early 1800\u2019s wild turkeys in Maine were extirpated due to unrestricted hunting and intensive agricultural practices resulting in the reduction of forested land.\u00a0 Since 1880, many farms have been abandoned and much of Maine\u2019s land has reverted back to forest greatly enhancing wild turkey reestablishment.\u00a0 Successful reintroduction efforts began in the 1970\u2019s.\u00a0 Currently a population of over 40,000 birds can be found across all 16 counties in Maine.\u00a0 Due to the overwhelming success of wild Maine turkey repopulation efforts, wild turkeys were added to the MDIFW nuisance wildlife policy in 2002.\u00a0 Indeed, some members of Maine\u2019s agricultural community are experiencing economic losses and other effects of an existing and expanding turkey population. In addition to crop damage, turkeys are susceptible to a number of infectious diseases and may be in close contact with hunters, agricultural workers, and other animals.\u00a0 The extent of agricultural habitat use, agricultural impact, population genetic structure, and pathogen and microbial diversity of Maine\u2019s wild turkeys is unclear.<\/p>\n<p>Our research plan involves four separate components for evaluating the interactions between wild turkeys and Maine agriculture:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>An agricultural survey,<\/li>\n<li>Population genetic analysis of Maine turkeys across the state,<\/li>\n<li>Pathogen and microbiological screening of Maine turkeys across the state, &amp;<\/li>\n<li>Tagging and GIS analysis of select turkeys.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Team Members:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Christopher Lage<\/li>\n<li>Peter Milligan (team leader)<\/li>\n<li>Joseph Szakas<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Supported by National Science Foundation award EPS-0904155 to Maine EPSCoR at the University of Maine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Institution: University of Maine Augusta Sponsor: National Science Foundation through the Sustainability Solutions Initiative Historically, wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) existed in significant numbers in Maine.\u00a0 By the early 1800\u2019s wild turkeys in Maine were extirpated due to unrestricted hunting and intensive agricultural practices resulting in the reduction of forested land.\u00a0 Since 1880, many farms have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":957,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":23,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/page-withsidebar.php","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2203","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"taxonomy_info":[],"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"mitchellcenter","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/author\/mitchellcenter\/"},"comment_info":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2203"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16144,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2203\/revisions\/16144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}