Comparing nesting rate and space use between extant and translocated eastern wild turkeys

Translocations are commonly used in conservation but can often lead to behavioral changes in relocated individuals, which may affect the success of translocation efforts. Wild turkeys ( Meleagris gallopavo ssp.) were re‐established across North America using translocations in the mid‐to‐late 20 th century. We used recent translocation events in east Texas, USA, to evaluate nesting rate and space use by extant and translocated female wild turkeys. We compared behavioral differences between nesting and non‐nesting females, along with females translocated without male or female wild turkeys (i.e., conspecifics) present on the landscape (TCA) and females translocated with conspecifics already present on the landscape (TCP). We compared nesting rates and space use among 199 extant females, 33 TCA females, and 20 TCP females. We found that TCP females had a lower nesting rate of 0.75 (95% CI = 0.56–0.94) than extant females 0.85 (95% CI = 0.80–0.90) while TCA females had a lower nesting rate than either TCP or extant females (0.55, 95% CI = 0.38–0.72). Nesting and non‐nesting females had similar pre‐laying range area, but pre‐laying ranges of TCA females were 125% to 200% larger than ranges of TCP or extant females, respectively. Translocated nesting females had a lower probability (0.43, SE = 0.04) of using pre‐laying areas used by females in previous years (i.e., pre‐laying range overlap) when compared to extant nesting females (0.67, SE = 0.06). Our findings suggest that nesting rates and space use of translocated female wild turkeys are similar to extant wild turkeys when conspecifics are present at release sites. The similarity in pre‐laying space use between nesting and non‐nesting females suggests that pre‐laying range area may not be directly tied to nesting rate of individual females. Translocated females seemed to adjust behaviors when they were translocated to a landscape with conspecifics present, but it is difficult to define how the presence of conspecifics affects nesting rates for wild turkey females without year‐over‐year data on individual females.