Bold Turkeys Die First? Study Reveals How Personality Shapes Which Gobblers Survive Hunting Season

Certain male turkeys are willing to take big risks in pursuit of a mate.

Some male wild turkeys are risk-takers by nature, strutting near forest edges and venturing into open fields where hens can see their elaborate displays. Others play it safe, sticking to dense cover and moving cautiously through the woods. According to research, these personality differences play a key role in how soon the birds wind up on a predator’s dinner plate.

Scientists from the University of Georgia and Louisiana State University tracked 109 adult male turkeys across Georgia and South Carolina. They discovered that individual birds maintain consistent behavioral types throughout the breeding season, with some gobblers reliably bolder and more exploratory than others. The boldest birds often pay a steep price, especially in Georgia and during predator attacks across both states, where they were significantly more likely to end up dead compared to their warier counterparts.

Males that consistently ventured closer to forest edges and open areas faced elevated mortality risks. The November 2024 study, published in Royal Society Open Science, fitted GPS transmitters on male turkeys that recorded locations hourly from March through July, covering the spring breeding and hunting seasons.

Tracking Turkey Personalities Across Thousands of Decisions

Even as hunting pressure ramped up and males adjusted their overall behavior, individual personality types remained remarkably consistent. A bold turkey in March stayed bold in May, even if he moved his activities slightly farther from roads or changed how much he explored.

The researchers measured four key behavioral traits: average daily distance to open landcover, distance to forest edges, distance to hunter access points, and average hourly movement speed. Males showed moderate to high repeatability across all four measures, confirming that turkeys don’t just randomly wander the landscape; rather, they follow distinct behavioral strategies.

In Georgia, the boldest males paid the ultimate price during hunting season. Gobblers that occurred closer to hunter access points faced significantly higher harvest rates, as did those frequenting forest edges. Hunters also successfully targeted faster explorers, or males that tended to cover more ground each hour searching for receptive hens.

How Landscape Changes Which Birds Survive

The relationship between personality and survival shifted dramatically between study sites. In South Carolina, where hunting access was more uniform and food plots were limited to small clearings under 2 hectares, hunters paradoxically harvested the more cautious birds (those that stayed farther from access points and moved more slowly).

This reversal likely stems from landscape differences. Georgia’s study areas contained large agricultural fields exceeding 10 hectares alongside smaller wildlife food plots, creating diverse openings scattered across the landscape. South Carolina offered only 180 hectares of openings, primarily small food plots designed to attract wildlife. Males using these limited, predictable locations may have become easier targets regardless of their general boldness.

Natural predators showed more consistent preferences across both locations. Coyotes, bobcats, great horned owls, and red-tailed hawks consistently killed turkeys that took more risks by using open areas and forest edges. These predators also targeted slower-moving birds, while faster explorers had better survival rates against non-human threats.

Forest edges proved particularly dangerous for bold males at both sites. Previous research has shown that hunters primarily use secondary roads surrounded by extensive edge habitat to locate turkeys, making edge-loving males more conspicuous and vulnerable.

The Mating Game Forces Risky Choices

Male turkeys face intense evolutionary pressure to advertise their presence during the spring breeding season. Females are choosy, selecting only the most attractive males for mating. To catch a hen’s attention, gobblers must gobble loudly and display in open areas where their elaborate fanned tails and colorful plumage can be seen from greater distances.

Open landcover and forest edges facilitate these displays by reducing sound attenuation and providing clear sightlines. A gobbler displaying in a large field can potentially attract females from hundreds of meters away, whereas a male stuck in dense forest might go unnoticed even by nearby hens.

The boldest males likely secure more mating opportunities, but only when they survive. However, their willingness to take risks makes them vulnerable to both hunters and predators throughout the breeding season, when male mortality rates peak. Previous research has documented that hunting accounts for most male turkey deaths during spring, with natural predation causing most other mortalities.

Turkeys Adjust Behavior But Personalities Persist

While individual personality types remained stable, males from both populations did adjust their behavior in response to hunting pressure, though in markedly different ways.

South Carolina males became noticeably more exploratory when hunters entered the woods, increasing their average hourly movement speed compared to the pre-hunt period. This ramped-up activity might represent males searching more frantically for mates as the breeding window narrowed, or potentially attempting to avoid hunters by moving unpredictably.

Georgia birds showed minimal changes in exploration between the pre-hunt and hunt periods but dramatically increased their risk-taking by moving closer to open areas as the season progressed. Males from both sites also shifted closer to forest edges after the hunting season ended, likely tracking female movements toward nesting areas located near roads and edges.

These adjustments demonstrate that turkeys can perceive and respond to hunting pressure, but their underlying personalities constrain how much they can change. A naturally bold bird might reduce his risks slightly, but he remains bolder than his more cautious neighbors throughout the season.

Changes Ahead For Turkey Populations?

If risk-taking behaviors prove heritable, the cumulative effect of selectively harvesting certain behavioral types could reshape entire populations over time. Similar GPS-based movement traits have shown relatively high heritability in other species like roe deer, suggesting turkey personalities may also have a genetic component.

Decades of spring hunting could be driving rapid evolutionary change, gradually shifting populations toward different behavioral types depending on local hunting pressure and landscape characteristics. This process, called harvest-induced selection, has been documented in fisheries where decades of netting bold, fast-growing fish produced populations of smaller, shyer individuals.

The findings arrive as wild turkey populations face challenges across much of their range. Abundance, productivity, and harvest numbers have been declining in recent years, even as predator populations have increased. The researchers recommend that wildlife managers consider adopting harvest regimes that avoid strong bias toward specific personality types. Preserving behavioral diversity within populations helps maintain resilience to environmental changes and emerging diseases while potentially maintaining hunting quality.

The study tracked males from March through July for multiple years between 2014 and 2023, providing unprecedented insight into how personality traits influence survival across entire breeding seasons. Each bird’s fate (whether it survived, was harvested by a hunter, or was killed by a predator) was carefully documented and linked back to its behavioral profile.

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