Wild Turkeys were introduced to my area of Idaho in 1985.I had seen them on the grade down to Orofino for several years. But I had never seen them at the higher elevations. Today they triggered an alert on one of the webcams around my gun range:

According to Google Earth, this would be about 3,125 feet above sea level.
Welcome to my place guys! I now need to look at getting a license to hunt turkeys. Brother Doug says they are tasty, but do not have near as much meat as domestic turkeys.
After so much time as “domesticated” animals the turkeys found on the farms that produce the product we see in stores are only distantly related…at best…to the wild ones.
And selected for things that are, incidentally, counterproductive to survival in the wild.
No, they do not have the size that the genetically engineered, domesticated, mass produced turkeys do, BUT, that is more than made up by how much better the wild ones taste.
As I taught the oldest granddaughter of a former pastor about 25 years ago, when she was taken along for her first hunt. “Ich bin Trutehahn Jägerin!”
I have seen them at higher elevations than that although it was further south. Also spotted them in a Target parking lot and the median of I-90. Coast to coast and border to border, turkey reintroduction has got to be the most successful government program ever. Now if they would just get busy on my plan to reintroduce griz to San Francisco. That would solve problems from the homeless to gun control.
We’ve got wild turkeys here in Tiny Town™ in NW Wyoming. I’ve had to stop in the middle of one of the busier (well, busier by contrast to others) streets to let a flock go past. This was at an elevation of around 5,100 feet. They seem to prefer the urban areas and river/creek bottoms with deciduous trees to the pine forests of the mountains.
Back when we were living in the Soviet Socialist State of Minnesota there were lots of wild turkeys, but I never hunted them. That usually required sitting on a forest floor in camouflage while calling them, which all too often led to some idiot mistaking a hunter for another bird. At least in a deer stand nobody…well, nobody rational…has an excuse for trying to shoot a deer 15 feet up in a tree.
I’m a bit north of your Idaho place halfway between St Maries and Tensed, in the mountains at 3400 feet and they are everywhere and have been here for 30 plus years that I know of, maybe longer.
Wow!
The various programs to introduce non-native species to an area do not have the best record. It’s not as bad as wild pigs or lionfish or anacondas in the Florida Everglades, but I’m always concerned that this will turn from “interesting ecological program” into full-on “invasive species”.
Are the turkeys fitting neatly into an ecological niche, complete with predators that will keep the population in check, and not crowding out native species through competition for limited food supply?
Similar to how California banned hunting big cats, and whoops, now we have a big cat problem, does the wild population of turkeys require a human hunting season to keep it in check, and if that is disrupted we’re facing an ecological disaster from rapid over-population, food shortage, weakened turkeys susceptible to disease then those diseases moving into domesticated farm animals like chickens?
Good comments all!
And turkeys are herd birds that have general circuit they walk on. Throw out some food and they will be a regular nuisance.
But really good survival food.
Their introduction has been spectacular to say the least. But I think a big part of their survival has been the fact that until recently. You could buy a store-bought turkey, and a ham for the price of a tag. Currently $22.00 in Idaho.
Make it $5 and eat your fill, like it should be? Might not be seeing as many around.
No matter, there good to have around a survival bunker. Ah, ah, I mean, our new potato storage facility.
A license to harvest an invasive critter on land you own?
I continue to be baffled by most hunting laws.
They’re all over the place in Mullan, about 3500′.
Cool. The climate limit must be cooler than I assumed.