As she pulled out of her driveway, Amanda Kerr was shocked to see a feathered flock gathered outside her building.
The visitors were a gathering of meleagris gallopavo, more commonly referred to as the wild turkey. The large birds roam parts of the city of Ottawa, trading forest floors for front lawns and turning some suburban streets into avian runways. The birds are native to North America and in Canada are most common in Southern Ontario and Quebec.
Justin Naccarato, who grew up in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe-Beechwood area, says he encountered flocks of turkeys frequently in his youth — and now often on his way to his job.
“I see them out early in the morning on my way to work,” he says. “They keep their distance but aren’t shy about foraging in yards or crossing streets.”
Kerr and Naccarato aren’t the only ones noticing the big birds. While the wild turkey population in Southern and Eastern Ontario has been stable over the last few years — at about 100,000 — experts say the birds are being displaced from their natural habitat by development, and hence are more visible.
Kerr, who lives in Lincoln Heights near Mud Lake, says she witnessed a large flock of wild turkeys in her neighbourhood while pulling out of the garage of her apartment building.
“It was like 20 of them just outside of the garage door,” she says. “When there’s that many of them, it’s hard not to notice.” She says her neighbours have shared similar experiences.
Sheila Craig, a board member at the Ottawa Field Naturalists’ Club, says that the roughly 100,000 wild turkeys in Eastern and Southern Ontario are a good sign for the birds because, before the 1980s, the population was significantly lower because of hunting.
In 1984, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources began to successfully work to help build up their numbers, and in 2007 updated its Wild Turkey Management Plan, which emphasizes population growth and control as well as habitat.
“Forty years, it went from zero to about 100,000,” said Craig.
Craig says the birds only become a nuisance, even aggressive, because of human activity. “When we feed them, they become habituated to humans, and then they’re not afraid of us anymore, and then they attack us.” said Craig.
“In the spring, the toms, the males, get very aggressive … from March to June, when they’re in breeding mode, they are very territorial, and they can be very aggressive. The females are very docile, and the males are docile the rest of the year.”
The City of Ottawa has addressed some concerns about the local turkey population in a report that says wild turkeys (alongside beavers and Canada geese) are species that require management because of their potential to damage infrastructure such as parks and stormwater systems. Turkeys also take up space in parks, recreational areas and other green spaces where the find homes in trees.
Lisa Wood, an avian care technologist at the Ottawa Valley Wild Bird Care Centre, says wild turkeys in Ottawa have been losing their homes to the city’s urban upgrades.
“What is happening is we’re seeing them more because we’re building up their normal living areas. So the fields and the bush that they used to live in, we’re now putting houses on,” she says.
The city also says urban expansion impacts wildlife habitats, contributing to more sightings of species like wild turkeys, which are adapting to altered environments.
In June 2024, the city’s Environment and Climate Change Committee, alongside the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee, approved an updated wildlife strategy to tackle human-wildlife conflicts.
The updated strategy involves a 10-point plan that aims to protect wildlife habitat, reinforce public education and monitor wildlife-transmitted diseases.
