Grandma Hen

This is one of the most frequently asked questions we hear from turkey hunters and others who are curious about North America’s greatest game bird. The answer is that, in general, wild turkeys are shortlived with an average life expectancy of 3-4 years, provided they make it through their first year. Wild turkey survival is threatened almost daily by predation, legal hunting, poaching, accident and disease. These factors combine to keep the average lifespan of wild turkeys relatively short. There are, however, individual wild turkeys that somehow escape the odds and live far beyond most of their cohorts.

Ever since researchers, curious about wild turkey behavior and ecology, started marking turkeys with leg bands, patagial tags, wing bands and telemetry gear, our knowledge of the birds has grown. In the last few decades, large-scale studies in Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Georgia, Florida and other states have resulted in thousands of wild turkeys being live-captured and marked. Banding produces data on hunter harvest rates, individual turkey survival, mortality factors, overall movement, dispersal and longevity. Band returns from hunters, recaptures of banded birds and other sources enable researchers to estimate wild turkey populations via complex population modeling. Data on populations, harvest rates and survival arising from banding are used to adjust hunting regulations depending on trends in wild turkey numbers.

Occasionally wildlife biologists are surprised by a rare exception to the “longevity rule.” In February of this year, a trapping team headed by Pennsylvania game warden Chris Ivicic rocket-netted a flock of hen turkeys that included a previously banded hen. This capture was part of a larger study under the direction of Pennsylvania Game Commission wild turkey biologist Mary Jo Casalena. The objective of the work is to collect data on hen survival, nest success, nesting rates, nest predation rates and poult survival. Ivicic and wild turkey technician Tony Musselman placed a telemetry transmitter on the hen and released her on site. Later, Casalena looked through the banding records and discovered that this hen was captured as part of an earlier hen study. On March 8, 2012, Ivicic and his banding crew captured five adult hens in Morris Township, Clearfield County about a mile from where they trapped in 2022. Among that group was this hen. Amazingly, Ivicic had handled the same bird 10 years earlier!

When originally banded, the elderly hen was estimated to be at least 1½ years old, making her at least 12½ years old at the February 2022 capture. Her recent recapture makes this Keystone State hen rank among the longest-lived wild turkeys ever documented. Imagine what a wild turkey of this age has been through and managed to survive! If she nested successfully every year she may have contributed 20 or 30 young to the wild turkey population. Now that she sports a transmitter, Game Commission personnel will keep track of her movements and may learn whether a hen of that age is still capable of nesting.

“Grandma,” as this old hen has been nicknamed, is one of only a few documented “old-timers” in the wild turkey world. Massachusetts wildlife biologist Jim Cardoza reported a 15-year-old Eastern gobbler banded as an adult in March 1979 and found dead in summer 1992. Florida wildlife biologists Lovett Williams Jr. and Dave Austin reported an Osceola hen recaptured at age 13. Retired Virginia Wildlife Resources biologist Gary Norman documented a banded Eastern gobbler harvested in the spring at age 12½. An adult Eastern wild turkey hen banded by retired New Jersey biologist Bob Eriksen and Joe Garris in August 1981 and illegally harvested in the spring season of 1992 was at least 13 years old. Rio Grande turkey longevity records are 13½ for a banded gobbler in Texas and 12½ for a hen from California. Merriam’s subspecies records are 9 and 9½ years.

Someone has said that records are made to be broken. Biologists are still learning about wild turkeys, and we may find a few more wild turkeys that defy the odds. Current studies will help us better understand these phenomenal game birds.