Turkeys cause headaches in Wheeler County

Walking through the front gate of John and Cathy Goldsmith's home on Washington Street in Fossil, the signs of turkeys are hard to miss.

Turkey manure covers the front and back areas where a lawn used to be.

"I just cleaned this yesterday," Goldsmith, 83, says. "I just don't know what to do."

Surrounding Goldsmith's home are large pine trees, and behind it a small pasture that has been home to a couple of horses and a small chicken coop.

But during the fall and winter, flocks of turkeys, sometimes more than 100, descend on the property at dusk. One by one, the birds fly into the Goldsmith's trees, some of which are close to the roof line.

"They make such a mess," Goldsmith says, "and I can't get an answer about what I can do."

In the morning the turkeys are on the move and head over the Fossil Cemetery and into the property of Bill and Kim Lyle.

The Lyles have an 80-acre farm, most of which sits just within the Fossil city limits. The Lyles farm barley on the property.

Kim Lyle says that when they moved to Fossil nearly nine years ago, there were about ten to twelve turkeys that would occasionally visit their property. Now, more than 100 birds inhabit their property and regularly come onto their lawn and roost on the fence outside their house.

The turkeys have created such a problem for the Lyles, that Bill decided not to seed barley this fall and will instead plant in the spring.

"Last year when I seeded, I was watching turkey eat seed that I had just put down," Bill Lyle says.

In 2021, Bill Lyle contacted the Oregon Department for Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) office in Heppner to see what action he could take. ODFW said that within city limits, there was little that could be done by the agency until the city took action.

ODFW did issue Lyle with a hazing permit, which is valid for one year at a time, and allows for Lyle to shoot over the turkeys but is limited to non-lethal action.

"It did help a little," Bill Lyle says, "but they're smart and they know when I'm coming and as soon as I'm gone, back they come."

Fossil is not the only town in Wheeler County that is having a hard time with turkeys. Spray is also experiencing a problem and has seen the number of town turkeys grow over the past decade and balloon significantly in recent years.

Spray's mayor, Arcadius St. Laurent, says that there are two flocks of turkey at either end of town, with around five hundred in one and two hundred in the other.

Steve Cherry, district wildlife biologist for ODFW in Heppner, has been dealing with wild animals that pose a nuisance within towns for many years.

Cherry says that it is up to the city and its inhabitants to take the first steps when dealing with a nuisance animal.

Cities must pass an ordinance that makes it illegal to feed the nuisance animal. Often, that is hard to do-as some people love to see deer, turkey, and other animals saunter through town-while others are experiencing problems on their properties and cannot remove the animals.

"The first push is that the city has to have some skin in the game," Cherry explains. "Cities have to make it illegal to feed the species and I can't legally do anything inside of city limits without action from the city."

Cherry says that he has seen townsfolk and city councils divided on taking such action with regard to several different species - including turkey, geese, deer, and elk.

"Half of the people love them, half of the people hate it," says Cherry. "Sometimes cities just throw up their hands."

When cities have come to a consensus and passed the necessary anti-feeding ordinance, several scenarios can play out.

Last year, Spray did just that. The city council passed an ordinance just before spring turkey season in March of 2024 that made it illegal to feed turkeys in town. Residents were also given permission to haze and harass the birds, which has made little impact, Mayor St. Laurent said. Now, Spray is waiting for ODFW to come and take a count and to decide on what comes next.

In 2017, the city of Pilot Rock passed an ordinance to outlaw the feeding of turkeys and was given the choice to harass the birds into leaving, or to lethally remove them. The city council opted to lethally remove about 25 turkeys from the city limits.

In Boardman, the city council addressed its animal control codes and allowed for geese to be hunted inside of city limits during the winter months. Specifically, the city opened hunting at the city park during from December through February, where geese had become territorial and were leaving manure.

In Arlington, a handful of turkeys have caused problems at the China Creek Golf Course, and the city is taking action, passing an ordinance to limit the feeding of wild birds within city limits.

Apart from Spray, in all of these instances, the number of birds occupying the cities was still fairly small.

"It's easier to do it early before you have 200 or 300 birds in town," Steve Cherry of ODFW says. "When you've got that many nuisance animals, that's a harder problem."

When looking east to Grant County, turkeys have been causing problems inside and outside of cities for several years. ODFW shows that Grant County and parts of the Willamette Valley are consistently reporting most of the damage from turkeys.

In years past, ODFW caught thousands of turkeys a year in Grant County and dumped them around the state. But due to the avian influenza, ODFW is not capturing and releasing turkey. Cherry says that even without the issue of the avian influenza, the state is saturated with turkeys and relocation is no longer an option.

That leaves culling turkeys – the act of killing them outside of hunting season – and increasing hunting opportunities and lethal measures for landowners.

ODFW worked with Grant County to issue a special turkey hunting tag, which allowed for three beardless turkeys to be killed in spring and fall turkey season. When coupled with the regular turkey tag, a person could shoot three to ten turkeys, Cherry says.

"I'd like to see that expanded throughout the district," ODFW's Steve Cherry says. "Looking at Spray and Fossil, if you're 10 miles within these municipalities, it would be good to issue these beardless turkey permits."

Cherry says that he regularly gets damage complaints about turkeys in Wheeler County, specifically for Fossil and Spray. When he receives these calls, Cherry encourages property owners to open up their land to recreational hunting and to invite friends and band together with neighbors to limit places for the birds to wait it out.

Another incentive that ODFW is looking at is to reduce the price for turkey tags. Currently, hunters must pay $24 for a turkey stamp. "That's a lot to ask," ODFW's Steve Cherry says.

When looking at properties that are close to the city limits, landowners could band together and invite people to come hunt turkeys. And if given permission by ODFW, this could be done outside of the regular hunting season.

Many landowners want to see the numbers of turkeys significantly reduced in one fell swoop, which ODFW prefers not to do.

ODFW worries that a large culling action, removing large numbers of birds from an area, would limit recreational hunting for the hundreds of turkey hunters that visit the area each spring and summer.

"I've been doing this a long time," Steve Cherry says. "It's like you have to dip your toe in and show that it didn't decimate the population."

ODFW must prove that any culling or lethal measures that it permits will not hurt the overall population of animals in the district. However, Wheeler County and neighboring Grant County are awash in turkeys, which often have multiple hatching each year.

The clever fowl creatures have learned that they are safer in towns, where many people even help to feed them. But in warmer weather, as turkey venture further into timberlines and other areas, they are also presenting problems to motorists.

In 2019, a motorcyclist hit a turkey in Sherman County and was killed when he went off the road. With the ambulance service in the Fossil area suspended, tourists who visit are unaware of the lack of emergency responders, and should a similar accident happen, it could be deadly.

Turkeys in Fossil have also caused power outages when landing on an electrical transformer or power line. While power outages are an inconvenience, Bill Lyle worries that turkeys will start a fire should a similar incident happen again.

"We were lucky that happened when it did," Lyle says, "if it happened during the summer it could have been really bad."