Do Turkeys Have Memory?

[turkey junky]

animals that dont run when they see something they think is danger die very fast & are very dumb... animals that run for what seems like nothing are tad smarter in the grand scheme of things i think???

be it smart or instinct any creature that can pin point my sounds from hundreds of yards away then come find your set up is smart to me his instinct may be in control bad thats smart in my book???

as far as the not being call shy i have to agree & dis agree i have hunted merriams out in nebraska in heavy hunted public lands & have seen with my eyes how gobblers react when they hear calling in these high pressure areas many birds will gobble strut a little & start slowly moving away from your calling i used to think they were going to a spot they preferred to meet/breed a hen & or strut so i have followed & or tried to get ahead of these gobblers or flocks of birds & call they re peat the process most the times even if its back wear they came from they will gobble strut around & they keep it moving... on the other hand i tried the keep quit approach & them birds would just fly down & set up strut camp in a area... id make a move over to them & start calling & low & behold them turkeys would start moving away in 1 direction or another... i have talked to guys that have hunted the region for years & they all say the same thing after the 1st few wks of season you really have to look to find a bird that runs to the call... i have seen real hens have to run to catch up to a gobbling long beard in this area & she was answering & came into my calls the gobbler ran the other way... the next season i took my buddy to the area he missed a gobbler the 1st day after i called him in i had to walk away from my buddy calling to pull gobbler over to him he missed that bird but the gobbler roosted in that same tree he did the morning my buddy missed the next 5 days!!! he would answer calls strut & then run or strut real fast from place to place once you maid a call to him i seen how he acted & it was the same way as the birds i have worked in that high pressure area them birds learn awful fast that running into a loud yelping hen that stays in 1 place is not a good idea to run to so they just move to another area & set up camp there... them same merriams have a mean trait for gobbling in the dark either AM or PM & then once they hit the ground the zip there beaks for at least a couple hours after fly down & in that woods the most dangerous time of day is the 1st couple hours after fly down i have to think they learned to shut up for that reason even lone gobblers with no hens will just zip it for the 1st few hours??? ive seen shot at rios out in OK doing the same type thing they hear a hen yelp they gobble then run off the other way type thing... i have found that decoys in these areas have worked more then in other areas??? dont know why that is??? but its what i have seen??? ive watched them same merriams turkeys act like they didnt hear my yelps till they seen my decoy & most the times they come running if there are hens in the flock they will run in first gobblers on there heels...

i can remember at least 3 times either my father me or somebody in our camp has missed a tom & did not make the last big move & was seen B4 the shot & my father or i has been with or went to or stayed in that same spot thinking that gobbler would come back that never happen for any of us... never seen a gobbler of any kind come back to that area that day... it happened last yr in KS i got the hell out of wear i missed a bird my father called in for me he stayed & herd a bird gobble a ways off but nothing came in & he sat there till dark & that creek always has birds come back to roost in it??? the bird my buddy missed in NE that roosted in the same tree the hole hunt would not come back with in 100-150 yards of the area my buddy shot at him from... my buddy is a rookie & maid a yelp from the same tree he missed the bird at & i was set up at another location trying to guess wear the gobbler would run after the calls & once my buddy called the bird gobbled struted around & then just ran up over a hill away from us like he seen something bad??? my buddy was hidden well & i was 2 that bird was just pressured bad & new that was not a good hen to run into or that spot was not good but the calling was the final thing that sent him into panic mode...??? i did not try to gobble him in or gobbler yelp but a day B4 plain hen yelps worked had his lust for male gobbler companionship changed in a day or 2??? or was it that hen yelps & gun shot at point blank range???

if turkeys cant become call shy they do have a 6th sense then & it helps keep them just out of range of a hunter calling to him...

[turkey junky]

im not a pro turkey biologist or done studys on turkeys but i do understand imprinting & memory & imprinting on the 1st creature you see as moma is not the same as a memory of wear they keep being disturbed or harassed or by what is doing it...

the turkey man that raised imprinted turkeys had a great idea of what turkeys were thinking but he will never know for sure but i do think its true that them turkeys did know there home range very well & would/could realize that there was something moved or out of the ordinary in there woods aka home range & how the heck would/could that be the case if them turkeys had no memory??? & they just wondered around from place to place just happening onto food/water & roost trees???

[grizzly]

i guess i'll add my two cents on call shy birds . i feel that old toms become old cause they can learn . here's why any given season i can pick out a good setup spot and call there's a good chance that i'm going to have a jake come strutting in without a second thought . same spot and same calling an old tom hangs up out of range why cause he's got an idea of where the hen sounds are comeing from but he not going to commit till he see's a hen. why he's been there before i have try to defeat this problem with a single hen decoy guess what i see old tom strutting out of range waiting for the hen to come to him . my why of thinking if a tom made it pass 3 years old menory or not they become a hard kill.....wayne

[charlie elk]

The idea of imprinting in this discussion is kind of confused. Imprinting, as I understand it, is a pretty narrow thing. Chicks imprint on their mother, and learn to follow her around. There is also a window where chicks become imprinted to respond to predators. Beyond that, I am not so sure you can talk about imprinting as a separate process from learning.

Imprint learning is more than that.- Imprinting is phase sensitive learning to establish a behavior pattern. It continues throughout life, not just at birth or shortly after. We humans also do some of our learning this way.
When I think of imprinting I'm thinking of the behavior pattern that is learned: imprinting is a form of learning just more simplistic. Most of what I see in turkeys are behavior patterns. Like in heavy hunted areas the turkeys clearly form a behavior pattern to avoid hunters as they apparently do to avoid any area with a high degree of danger whether from humans, avian or ground based.

The best way I have for looking at it is to look at the turkey's worldview. It is pretty simplistic. He does not have much of a theory of mind-- that is, he cannot speculate what is going through another being's mind. This is probably a good thing for turkeys. If they were as suspicious as nature would let them, they'd all go huddle in the middle of a field somewhere and starve to death. They see each encounter with a predator as a one-off thing, and it takes something pretty spectacular for them to get so scared that they will avoid a particular place or situation for ever more. In some cases they do. In some, they can be back in a half-hour looking for the hen. My guess is the ones that never ever come back to a blind are possibly experiencing a less-than-common insight, or they get involved somewhere else. Perhaps it takes the sting of a pellet.

I mostly agree and my interpretation many of the other posts it really seems like we are agreeing more than disagreeing and most disagreement may come from our different definitions of memory & learning processes.
Regarding learning by pain: There was one instance while hunting with a newbie, he shot a gob in the leg. I urged him to stay put and continued calling in a few minutes the gob hopping on one foot came back in to his death. Clearly no memory exhibited on the tom's part.

they just wondered around from place to place just happening onto food/water & roost trees???

In my humble opinion, yes. Once they find it, they imprint (behavior pattern) until the food is gone, stumble upon other food or are flushed out and find whatever they need where they land. Perhaps they then imprint (behavior pattern) in the new area. But does this new imprint replace the old? I think not, at least not always.

my why of thinking if a tom made it pass 3 years old menory or not they become a hard kill.....wayne

I too have noticed this is sometimes the case.
You bring up another question that puzzles me. How do we know if the turkey who gobbles from the same roost day after day is the same turkey? How do we know any turkey is the same turkey?
Last spring I found a roost tree with a gobbling tom, he was the only turkey in that tree, he flew down in sight and charged over to his death. The next week another turkey was in the same tree and few days later yet another turkey roosted there and they all met their end. Had I not killed them I may have thought I was hunting the same bird. Hmm.

[Treerooster]

I thonk it can be hard for us humans to conceive how animals think, learn, remember, imprint, whatever you want to call it. Very different from the way we do.


Charlie it seems to me this whole memory/imprinting thing boils down to the definition of what imprinting is.

Yours is a very broad definition. Most have a more narrow approach to the definition of imprinting.

Here is what I found when I looked up imprinting and is more in line how I define it.

imprinting (mprntng)
A rapid learning process by which a newborn or very young animal establishes a behavior pattern of recognition and attraction towards other animals of its own kind, as well as to specific individuals of its species, such as its parents, or to a substitute for these. Ducklings, for example, will imprint upon and follow the first large moving object they observe. In nature, this is usually their mother, but they can be made to imprint upon other moving objects, such as a soccer ball.


I do have one more question for you. It is pretty common for a jake to have a not-too-good gobble. At times it is almost comical to here them try to gobble. Sometimes even an experienced hunter can tell whether a gobble he has heard (a decent one) came from a tom or a jake. Its a guess but an educated guess IMO. Anyways a jake will eventually gobble like the rest of the older turkeys. I am sure some turkeys pick up gobbling kind of naturally and some don't.

What would you call the process of a bird improving his gobble or any bird his song as there are other species of birds that don't get the song right at first? No memory involved? No learnig involved? The bird has to change the way he sings to improve the song so it sounds right.


And then there is this bird. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... BuPiC3ArL8

[grizzly]

and what about mocking birds they must be able to learn cause they have so many different songs they sing we had a pair nesting across the road and it was fun to listen to the male sit up in the tree and go threw all the songs that he knew....wayne

[charlie elk]

Psychologists define imprinting as -

Imprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning (learning occurring at a particular age or a particular life stage) that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior.

It was first used to describe situations in which an animal or person learns the characteristics of some stimulus, which is therefore said to be "imprinted" onto the subject

. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting ... chology%29
Yes I agree I define imprinting more broadly perhaps because I am "old school"; the second sentence is the way I think of turkeys. (rightly or wrongly) ;) So if not imprinting; what word describes it now a days?

Jakes do not learn to gobble "correctly" rather their "voice" matures. Now you have me wondering if turkeys have vocal cords? How do turkeys make sounds if they do not?

The heron video does not have much to do with turkey behavior (IMHO) rather it is more crow like behavior, as I indicated in my earlier post about crows using rudimentary tools. I have never seen or heard of turkeys using any sort of "tool". However, I have seen and heard of herons, egrets, storks and kingfishers doing so. Apparently not all birds are created equal in the brain department.

and what about mocking birds

The only thing I know about mocking birds is they drive me nuts when they imitate my turkey calls while I'm setup calling turkeys.

[Cut N Run]

I suppose the root of the question is; Does a turkey's experience(s) continue to trigger a reaction beyond ingrained instincts for a long enough period of time past the time of the incident that the reaction could be considered learned behavior.

I have had gobblers come back after being shot at & missed, but I'm sure they don't realize the danger (unless they see you move) and they most likely associate the sound of a gun blast to the sound of thunder. I have also had turkeys come into decoys, then leave, only to be called back in & get tagged. Considering how unrealistic some of the older foam & inflatable decoys look, it is amazing turkeys pay attention to them in the first place. I suppose they're so jacked up during the limited time they get to breed that they will investigate almost anything that looks or sounds like a ready hen ( think drunken sailors on leave after a long deployment with a pocket full of money & failing to use good judgement ). **Not to imply anything against sailors here, just using an example**

Jim

[ylpnfol]

memory?? or something thats similar, they have no problem being in a field w/ cows or horses, if they catch sight of a human/dog/coyote in the same field, even if you [ the human ] don't approach them....why do they leave....somehow they know what object would like a turkey dinner and what is not a threat....then again, if you've ever watched one try to navigate a wove wire fence, FOR HOURS, you really do have to wonder what makes them tick.....

[turkey junky]

i have shot at gobblers & missed clean & had them gobble write back at me then i shot & finished the job???

about 75%-95% of the time that bird just runs off & dose not stick around to think hey what was that thunder??? but there is always that 1 bird that dose so???

i give up on this 1 its had to make somebody else see wear your coming from if they already have the mind maid up on the subject each to there own...