Contact: Bob Ratliff
A 10-year study by Mississippi State University is yielding some surprises about the state's wildlife populations.
Conducted by the university's Forest and Wildlife Research Center, the research grew out of concern that predators were taking a heavy toll on the state's wild turkey population, according to MSU wildlife ecologist Bruce Leopold.
"Large numbers of coyotes began moving into Mississippi and other areas of the Southeast around 1970," he said. "By the late 1980s there was concern that they might significantly reduce the population of wild turkeys in the state."
To find out, Leopold, along with professor of wildlife and fisheries George Hurst and graduate students under their direction, began capturing and fitting coyotes and other wild turkey predators with radio tracking collars.
The research was sponsored by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks through the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Program. The National Wild Turkey Federation and its Mississippi chapter, Georgia-Pacific Corp., the USDA Forest Service, and the Mississippi Raccoon Hunters Association provided additional support.
Between 1988 and 1998, the research team kept tabs on more than 400 animals, including coyotes, bobcats, gray fox, raccoons, and opossums. Leopold said the study's length, as well as the number and variety of animals involved, was unprecedented.
"No one had ever studied the entire range of predators in an environment for as long as we did," he said. "After three years, we were able to recapture some animals and fit them with new radio transmitter collars and track them for another three years."
The wildlife specialists collected data on the animals' home ranges, habitat use, diet, mortality factors, reproduction, and interaction with other animals. Surprisingly, they found that neither the coyote nor the bobcat, Mississippi's two largest predators, dine regularly on wild turkeys.
"The research confirmed that the greatest threat to the wild turkey population is raccoons," Leopold said. "They feed on eggs and disrupt nests."
The study also helped identify a solution to the raccoon threat to birds.
"We found that controlled burning of woodlands populated by wild turkeys every three to five years helps improve sites as nesting areas for the birds," Leopold said. "The burning also makes the habitat less appealing to raccoons for hunting, reducing their threat to the turkey population."
Another surprise was that bobcats and coyotes successfully coexist in an area.
"While the two animals are aggressive toward each other, we found they don't tend to come into contact and can occupy the same home range," Leopold explained.
The MSU scientists are continuing to analyze the data collected during the study and recently posted a summary of their findings at http://www.cfr.msstate.edu/predator/projecthome.html.