Turkeys at Dawn, Moose in the Air and Candles at Dusk

I woke up this morning to the sound of wild turkeys gobbling on the hill to the north of Bondi Village.  The wild turkeys have made quite a come-back in this area in the past decade.  (They make a myriad of sounds.  On the linked video, listen for the Gobble, which is what we're hearing a lot of now.)

Although 'come-back' is an arguable statement, because my father and grandfather never saw wild turkeys this far north.  I feel like Alice, fallen into Wonderland, who replies to the question "Would you like some more?" by saying, "how can I have more? I have not had ANY yet?"  

But that is to quibble.  Since the Ontario Government worked a great trade exchange with our neighbours in Michigan, the wild turkeys were reintroduced into the province.  What, you may ask, did we give Michigan in exchange for some breeding pairs of wild turkeys?  I am glad you asked. 60 Moose, airlifted out of Algonquin Park. That was in 1985.  A good friend of mine was the acting veterinarian for the project.  My dad's friend was flying the helicopter.  And don't talk to him about moose -- twice he had his helicopter brought down by working with the MNR tagging moose; a job that requires not only a steady hand, but the ability to fly very close to the ground through a blinding swirl of propeller-induced snow and tall trees as well as in other seasons -- well, let me tell you the tale of his summer encounter.

 Dave was flying a Bell Ranger, a small two person chopper, on floats.  With a conservation officer in the back seat, they ranged the Park until they located a moose near water.  With some acrobatics to encourage the moose to get into the lake and swim, the pair were in business.  Dave would hover the chopper down on the lake, straddling the swimming moose while the CO hopped out, balanced on the float, snapped the tag onto the moose and hopped back in.   Chopper flew away, moose swam on - and later told extraordinary tales over the lily pads to his friends about how he had been almost abducted by aliens.  The advantage of the ploy was that it did not require shooting the moose with a tranquilizer. The water prevented the moose from striking, kicking, or turning quickly.  It all seemed like a wonderful plan.

Until the day they hovered down over a large bull, carefully straddling his rack of antlers.  Out hopped the CO, tagging gear in hand.  But this moose was having none of this alien abduction stuff. Nobody was 'beaming HIM up'...   He ducked his head under the water and shoved one antler under the float of the helicopter. When he came back up, the movement on the float was just enough to tip the chopper... just enough to cause the far edge of the blade to touch the lake, just enough to cause the blade to shudder, just enough to cause the chopper to flip.   Dave and the CO were unharmed and swam grumpily to the nearby shore. The chopper languished in the lake waiting for its own alien abduction team to show up.  Dave did not have kind words to say about moose.  It is one of my favourite stories, and would always cause my father to go off in howls of laughter.  He himself was a bush pilot, with a prized Piper Cub J3 on floats. He understood. 

Algonquin Moose being released in Michigan, 1985

Meanwhile, back to the turkey-moose exchange. We gave them 60 adult moose. They gave us 150 wild turkeys. It was not, as one official noted, a pound for pound exchange. It also pretty much described NAFTA in a nutshell, but let us not go there.

Michigan wanted to repopulate the upper panhandle of the State, where moose had been pretty much poached into non-existence.  A strong deer population south of the panhandle meant that moose were not successful in working their way north again. Moose and deer don't co-habit well. Deer carry a parasite that is really just another pesky worm to the deer but in a moose migrates into the brain and causes death.  If you are in Algonquin Park, go to the Visitor Centre - they have an excellent hands-on display on this very topic.  Wild turkeys? Well, those Michigan had. A Plenty.

I am going to try to dig out some of our old photos of this moose-lift.  There are some pictures and a great desciption in this copy of the Algonquin Park Raven newsletter.

Once located, by Dave and his small helicopter, the moose was shot with a tranquillizer. It was important that the moose 'go down' from this on a lake, or in a large field because the bigger helicopter that came to airlift the moose out had to be able to land.  This caused the second helicopter/moose/blowing snow/waving pine tree incident that cemented Dave's lingering dislike of moose.  But I digress.  The moose would be prepared for lift-off and transported in a big sling under the helicopter back to the staging site to be readied for the road trip to Michigan. It is amazing to me that it was so successful, really.  It did produce some hilarious moments when the moose would come in, just above the tree tops, over Highway 60, legs dangling beneath a Huey helicopter.  More than one car took a tour into the nearest ditch.

But I digress again. Back to the wild turkeys. All 150 of them. Who arrived, and flourished, and spread. Now they are here and seem to be very well settled in.   We see them on our lawns, in the back fields, while hiking our nature trails.  And we hear them. They are currently rather amorous, and the cocks are putting on impressive displays for the hens.  Who would not be smitten???

Spring babies in Algonquin Park . Jerry
Schmanda Photo.

So, in this very circular fashion, I come back to the title of this post -- we have Turkeys gobbling their love-sick hearts out on the hills. Moose who are now merrily munching the brackish water and plants at the roadside not only right here in Algonquin Park, but well to the south of us in the Michigan panhandle, where their exported amigos have made good and successfully re-populated the area.   And tonight, it being EarthHour , the lights should all be going out.  Curl up with a good book (or, ok, watch tv if you must), light a candle, give some thought to this incredible planet, and the astounding animals that share it with us.