ELYRIA — As if the potholes weren’t enough, motorists now have another hazard to dodge while driving down state Route 57: wild turkeys.

 

 

BRUCE BISHOP / CHRONICLE

This turkey wandering on the north side of Elyria wound up at Broad Street and Fairlawn Avenue, where Elyria police were trying to figure out what to do with the bird. Eventually it ran off.

Several turkeys have been sighted in Elyria over the past few days, giving pedestrians reason to pause and drivers cause to slam on their brakes.

And it’s safe to say that — aside from attending a Thanksgiving dinner — a busy highway is just about the last place a turkey wants to find itself.

 

“He was out of his element, that’s for sure,” said Kevin Ferris, an Elyria resident who took an unexpected detour Monday afternoon after spotting the jaywalking turkey near Speedway. Ferris — afraid that the turkey would be hit — slowly followed it in his car and “shooed him” down some side streets.

 

 

Ultimately, the police were called, but the turkey got away.

 

 

So, why are all these turkeys on the loose?

 

 

Well, for starters, it’s mating season.

 

 

Wild turkeys — males especially — start straying from the forests in May and June and strutting their stuff in search of hens, according to Mike Reynolds, a wildlife biologist with the Ohio Department of Wildlife.

 

 

And although drivers might not be happy to see them, biologists are.

 

 

Although wild turkeys dominated the landscape in pre-colonial times, they were completely wiped out of Ohio by 1904, according to Reynolds.

 

 

The Ohio landscape — which went from being 95 percent forested to less than 10 percent by the 20th century — forced turkeys from their homes and into the paths of hungry colonialists.

 

 

But then, beginning in the 1950s, the ODNR took concerted steps to revive the population and succeeded.

 

 

“We’ve seen a wonderful comeback,” Reynolds said. “The population is booming.”

 

 

In fact, the turkey population has been healthy enough to be hunted in Lorain County since 1993. In that year, 14 male turkeys — also called gobblers or Toms — were killed for the first time in the county for almost a century.

 

 

And in 2007, 140 turkeys were killed.

 

 

Reynolds estimates that Lorain County is home to between 1,000 and 1,500 wild turkeys now — some of which are bound to end up on our roads and in our yards.

 

 

And while turkeys don’t want to cause us trouble, sometimes they do.

 

 

They might confuse us for competitors or predators, Reynolds said. The best thing to do is to face them, stare them down and call a county wildlife officer if they get out of hand.

 

 

Of course, there is one other option.

 

 

“Turkey season is right around the corner,” Reynolds said. It starts the third week of April and lasts for a month, he said.

 

 

If you want to hunt you must get a license — 10,000 were purchased in Lorain County in 2006 — and you can shoot only male turkeys and you can use only a shot gun or archery equipment.

 

 

And not your car.

 

Contact Michael Baker at 329-7128 or mbaker@chroniclet.com.

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