Tuesday, May 19, 2009

More thoughts on the Wild Turkey carcasses

I'm in Wichita, KS at the moment and just finished up a series of two presentations over the past two days. My first, an Important Bird Areas program/discussion held in the beautiful town of Lawrence. It just seemed like a very tranquil place to live, lots of people walking, riding bikes, recycling centers, clothing/shoe deposit sites...... I wish I could have stayed a little longer. However that was not the case and I headed for Wichita today. This evening, a presentation on the marshbird distribution work that I am doing in Oklahoma. It was held at the Great Plains Nature Center which is a really great place. I may end up visiting the center again before I leave tomorrow morning. Both events went well and I think people enjoyed the presentations, I believe only one person fell asleep! No, just kidding.

So while I've been traveling apparently my post about the Wild Turkey carcasses sparked some feelings of concern with many people. First, it was my initial impression that this was in fact the work of a human. My comments about the predators were more of a hopeful nature, I've seen plenty of dead birds. Part of the field work I did for the Sutton Center required me to identify the causes of moralities with the Lesser Prairie Chicken we were tracking. Now that I really think about these carcasses must have only been a day or two old. Had they been there any longer I believe something would have consumed them. So maybe it was in fact a poacher.
Having said that I'd like to apologize for addressing my suspected culprit as a hunter. Having been a hunter myself, and been raised by family of hunters I should have known better than to address someone that would do something like this as a "hunter". Because in fact they are a "poacher". My apologies to any hunters out there. Well I've got a little work to do so until the near future....

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