Brush Turkey revival ruffles feathers in backyards

[depakid]

Gobbling ... a brush turkey at Pearl Beach.

SYDNEYSIDERS either love them or hate them. When it comes to brush turkeys, said Geoff Ross, of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, "Our studies show that the population is divided 50-50." But the birds, it seems, are falling in love with Sydney. After being almost wiped out of the city by its urban sprawl, and eaten by hungry battlers who struggled to survive the Great Depression, brush turkeys are coming back.

Thirty years ago, said the wildlife officer, "they were very rarely seen on the southern side of Hawkesbury River. Now you can see there is a front line of the birds that is moving south. "We are getting a lot more calls about them, from the northern beaches, Lane Cove, Epping and Parramatta. I got a call from someone in Mt Druitt wanting me to identify a bird. It turned out to be a brush turkey. "You can't walk down the main street of Pearl Beach without falling over them."

There are even anecdotal reports of a brush turkey nest, or mound, being seen in Mosman.

Settlers arriving with the First Fleet in 1788 noted that the birds were common in the new colony. However their Sydney numbers plunged last century, "mostly through habitat clearing", said Mr Ross. During the Depression, "any bird by the name of turkey, and with eggs available in mounds, might have sustained quite a few families", he said. "A grandmother who remembers eating them as a child said they were very tough and stringy."

Mr Ross suspected the trend towards native gardens had drawn the birds back to Sydney over the past 15 years. "They are a species, like the Australian white ibis, that are highly adaptable. They prefer open, dry forest of the type that is quite often supported these days by native back gardens." And they eat almost anything. 'They eat dog food off the back step. If a compost bin has a loose fitting lid they can kick it off. They are very powerful birds."

However the brush turkey is one protected native species not everyone is happy to meet. "Avid gardeners would say they are bad because they rake around leaf litter, while looking for insects," said Mr Ross. "I have seen them clear a whole front garden of leaves, like a leaf blower."

Although the birds may uproot shrubs, they also provide gardeners a service. "They are removing a lot of the bugs and snails," said Mr Ross.

More: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/turkey-revival-ruffles-feathers-in-backyards-20090717-do94.html

[AlecBGreen]

1. I thought turkeys were only native to North America

Are they re-introducing a non-native species?

[happyslug]

2. No, similar bird filling a similar habitat, but a different bird

Wikipedia has the details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Brush-turkey

[AlecBGreen]

3. "not closely related..." !?!?

per wikipedia. they look VERY similar to the turkeys running through our field. Then again, how closely am I related to this turkey?

[happyslug]

4. That, unfortunately is your 48th Cousin

basically if you go back 48 generations and work your way back to today, you quickly run across a road block, some time in the past various ancestors who are related closer then 48 degrees from each other have to marry, they is no one else to marry. Assuming each generation only had two children and no one ever marries someone who is descent from that one ancestor (Avoiding the issue of the fact most people have MULTIPLE ancestors, i.e 48 possible different 48 degree of ancestor, making the calculation even complex). 1 Parent (and people need TWO parents another issue we have to avoid to keep this calculation simple), leads to 2 in the Second generation, then 4 in the Third Generation, then 8 in the fourth Generation, then 16 in the Fifth Generations, then 32 in the Sixth Generation, 64 in the Seventh Generation, 128 in the Eighth Generation, 256 in the Ninth Generation, 512 in the tenth Generation, 1024 in the Eleventh Generation (Let me go to a table format for the rest:
Generation - Descendent's
12 - 2048
13 - 4096
14 - 8192
15 - 16,834
16 - 32,768
17 - 65,536
18 - 131,072
19 - 262,144
20 - 524,288
21 - 1,048,576
22 - 2,097,152
23 - 4,194,304
24 - 8,388,608
25 - 16,777,216
26 - 33,554,432
27 - 67,108,864
28 - 134,217,728
29 - 268,435,436
30 - 536,870,912
31 - 1,073,741,824
32 - 2,174,483,648
33 - 4,294,967,296
34 - 8,589,934,592

I can go on, but as you can see by the 34th generation the numbers are already exceeding the number of people on the earth today. Now, remember I am excluding people who do marry within 34 degree of each other (as most people do) so whatever statistician came up with the 48th cousin concept was taking into consideration that in most of the World (Outside the West) most people marry their cousin (Medieval Christianity saw that as tying people to closely with their blood relatives and came up with rules to forbid such marriages except with special exemptions, thus marrying your cousin is the exception in the Western World, while it is the norm in the rest of the world). Some web site try to dispute this but by the 48th Generation a person could have over 70 TRILLION ancestors (Exact number of 2 to the 48 power is 70,368,744,177,664) and that would exclude almost anyone from NOT being descendant from everyone who lived 48 generation ago, and whose family did NOT die out.

Now, the 48 degree may be from a statistician who instead of wanting to show it was impossible NOT to be descendant from everyone who was alive so many years ago, For example 48 generations times 40 years (Biblical definition of a "Generation") leads to 1920 years, and since I first read this report of 48 generation from papers published in the 1930s, someone may having been using 1920 as the start date and looked back-wards (i.e. we are ALL descendent's of the people who were alive when Christ was alive). I point this out as an alternative reason 48 degree of relationships exists, since I can NOT find the original site for the 48 degree of separations.

I.e. you may be only 30 degree away from him as a relative instead of 48 degrees.

As to the Bush Turkey and the American Turkey, those creatures, while they look alike, are believe to be from two different family trees.

The American Turkey is of the Order: Galliformes and of the following family:
Family: Meleagrididae
and genus:
Genus: Meleagris
Species: M. gallopavo and M. ocellata
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_(bird)

Galliformes include, Chickens and quails
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galliformes

The Brush Turkey is also a Galliforme but a completely different family within that order:
Genus: Alectura
Species: A. lathami
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Brush-turkey.

The similarity between these two "Turkeys" is more a product of convergent evolution then anything else. For more on convergent evolution see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution

[depakid]

5. Not surprisingly, their behaiors in some respects are similar as well

Like North American Wild Turkeys, Brush Turkeys are very clever birds and can be a but aggressive when there's food around.

They make certain certain trail heads and parks their territory- and it's true, they'll eat anything. Saw one kill and eat a water dragon once- and those aren't small lizards.