Hi Minda, It's an interesting phenomenon you've observed, about your local urban turkey invasion.
There is a species tracker already online, and you can get records of observations of specific species, like turkeys by going to iNaturalist.com. Records include date, location and numbers, plus species information. This is a great website which all ecologists should be aware of; it's a great place to share observations and participate in biomonitoring and recording of species occurrence. To view observations of turkeys in your area, go to: http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/906-Meleagris-gallopavo Below the main photo (next to the description), click on the tab called MAP. There you can zoom in on your area. Good luck, Elin Pierce, Ph.D. On Mar 09, 2014, at 23:07 , ECOLOG-L automatic digest system wrote: > Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 11:24:00 -0700 > From: Minda Rose Berbeco <[email protected]> > Subject: Resurgence of urban turkeys? > > Hi Folks, > > > > I'm wondering if there are any citizen science projects going on right now > with urban turkeys? I live/work in Berkeley and Oakland, and these birds > have been moving into rather industrial/urban areas (not the park areas), > contending with pretty fast moving traffic and getting a lot of attention. > I've seen people running out of mini-marts and liquor stores, slamming on > their brakes in the middle of a busy street and following the turkeys down > alleyways snapping pictures. The turkeys seem actually like an incredibly > good outreach tool in areas where there isn't a whole lot of natural > landscape. I should say that these don't seem to be someone's escaped pets > - today I saw just two, but last time it was a flock of 6 or 7 gorging on > an abandoned trash pile in an industrial area. > > > > Is there any sort of "urban turkey tracker" going on? I'd be keen to find > out and if not, maybe someone would be interested in launching one. > > > > Cheers, > > > Minda > -- > > Minda Berbeco, PhD > > Programs and Policy Director > National Center for Science Education > 420 40th Street, Suite 2 > Oakland, CA 94609-2509 > Phone: 510.601.7203 or 800-290-6006 > Fax: 510-601-7204 > http://ncse.com/climate > > > > Visiting Scholar > University of California Museum of Paleontology > 1101 Valley Life Sciences Building > Berkeley, CA 94720-4780 > http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/ <http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/index.php>
