Egg Hunt Proposed to Control Wild Turkeys

Can you have too many wild turkeys in one location? Apparently, yes. While this sounds like a belated April Fool's Day joke or an Easter weekend event gone wrong, it's not.

According to The Spokesman-Review, residents of Spokane, Washington's South Hill have a problem: too many wild turkeys. The solution, suggests state wildlife conflict specialist Candace Bennett, includes these two options.

Wildlife department staff will find eggs in nests and destroy them. Yep, you heard right.

As for the other strategy, residents will coat eggs with corn oil to stop further growth.

The latter approach of course is the same management tactic used on resident Canada goose populations, called addling; which incidentally (ironically?) the Humane Society of the United States supports.

Seems the situation is getting out of hand. Since December 2014, Bennett reports she's received over 60 complaints from residents.

Why do they want to get rid of these wild turkeys? Flock noise and bird droppings in their yards..

What should be done to solve this situation? Is this a people problem not a wildlife issue? It surely runs counter to wild turkey conservation standards many of us uphold.

Steve Hickoff is Realtree's turkey hunting editor and blogger.