Oregon Hikers

I've seen more turkeys in the last month that in the previous 50 years.
Why?
It's like ticks in the summer of 2016.

It's been like that towards the East end of the Gorge for several years now. My wife and I have a running joke that it isn't a drive/hike unless we see turkeys going to or coming from wherever we are. There was one time we were driving out Ketchum Rd, which eventually turns into road 1711 where we came across a whole flock of them that insisted in running in front of us in the road for several miles.

Folks realize that a modern turkey is the evolutionary result of what was once a velociraptor, right? Velociraptor dinosaurs evolved into turkeys. Be wary, they remember.

Twice now I have seen turkeys up the Wind River. They looked big and healthy!

Are they native here? Did someone just let loose a flock for hunting purposes?

Interestingly they aren't native to Oregon or Washington. From what I understand, they were introduced in 1961 in Oregon and in the early 1900s in Washington.

I saw a bunch of turkeys in late April just outside of Trout Lake, near Atkisson Sno-Park. Maybe I'll luck out eventually and see them on a trail, and not on the drive to the trail.

Last October on Wind River Highway. Didn't want to move off the highway. We could have had lots of turkey for Thanksgiving!

I was surprised by a big flock of them on the Cook-Underwood road near Mill A a couple of years ago. A similar scene to what dmthomas49 found on the Wind River Highway.

Also, I saw a large flock on the Collins Point Slide between Wind and Dog Mts.
They were near the abandoned powerline corridor:
dn