WILD TURKEYS THRIVE FOLLOWING SUCCESSFUL REVIVAL EFFORT - The San Diego Union Tribune
By Ernie Cowan They are big, elusive and exciting to see, and what is more appropriate as the subject of the November column than the wild turkey? Longtime San Diego birders will tell you that there were no turkeys here until the 1990s when a group of sportsmen teamed up with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to introduce 293 birds into the county. Birds were imported from other areas and released near Julian, Ramona and south of Interstate 8. It was love at first sight for the birds, and today the population is estimated at upwards of 30,000 extending from the Mexican border to Riverside County and from the avocado groves of Fallbrook to the desert fringe of East County. I even had a reader recently tell me he had one on his feeder in eastern Oceanside, and I get the credit for the only verified sighting of a wild turkey in Imperial County, after taking a photograph of one in Carrizo Creek north of Plaster City. Like quail and dove, the turkey is a game bird and a ...