Minnesota State Mankato graduate student Jennifer Snyders has found an innovative use for GPS/GIS technology: Mapping the ancestral territory of the wild turkey in Minnesota.
And she has confirmed that wild turkeys are native to the state: The big birds once roamed much of the southern third of Minnesota, as evidenced by journal and book entries by early settlers dating as far back as 1680.
Though Snyders’ discipline is geography, her research about wild turkeys blends geography, natural and Minnesota history, and high technology.
Her undergraduate Geography coursework taught Snyders how to produce, analyze and map data using Geographic Information Systems devices. During her senior year, her advisor, Geography faculty member Martin Mitchell, suggested that she investigate the history of wild turkey research as a graduate research assistant for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
She is doing that – with DNR wildlife populations and research group leader Richard Kimmel – and will use her DNR findings as part of her Minnesota State Mankato graduate thesis.
Her research maps and re-creates the ancestral range of wild turkeys in Minnesota based on historical sightings from pre-settlement times through 2008. Her final paper will explain the history of wild turkey restoration in Minnesota, and the outlook for the future of wild turkeys.
The turkeys’ ancestral range included the counties of Blue Earth, Cottonwood, Dodge, Faribault, Fillmore, Freeborn, Houston, Jackson, Martin, Mower, Murray, Nobles, Olmsted, Pipestone, Rock, Steele, Waseca, Watonwan and Winona.
By the late 1800s wild turkeys disappeared from Minnesota. Starting in the 1920s, hundreds of game-farm turkeys were released as a quick way to restore the population, but the effort was unsuccessful because the game-farm birds lacked survival skills.
The first successful Minnesota wild turkey releases were in 1971 and 1973, when 29 eastern wild turkeys from Missouri were planted in the Crooked Creek Watershed of Houston County. The DNR then successfully transplanted these turkeys elsewhere. The turkeys have become well-established in two-thirds of the state, from southeast to north-central Minnesota, and are being introduced into northwestern Minnesota.
Snyders hopes her research will add to the knowledge of and respect for Minnesota’s outdoor heritage.
“My dad is a big hunter, and I grew up with him talking about wild turkeys and other wildlife, so this has helped me with background knowledge about wild turkeys and hunting,” Snyders said. “One of my interests is history, so I enjoyed reading about the early exploration and history of Minnesota.”
She plans to graduate in May 2009 with a master’s degree in Geography, and intends to work in the GIS field, making and analyzing maps.
Snyders’ research – “Evidence of wild turkeys in Minnesota prior to European settlement” – is published on a DNR Web site at http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/publications/wildlife/research2007.html.
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