The Much Maligned Brush Turkey

The Much Maligned Brush Turkey
By Spencer Shaw of Brush Turkey Enterprises
Before you ask… No, we do not breed Brush Turkeys, we do not remove them from your property and we certainly do not provide them steaming hot and crispy with your choice of salad or steamed vegetables! Our link to the brush turkey name, goes back to my early days as a seed collector when I felt like a brush turkey scratching around in the leaf litter of the rainforest looking for seed! You may say that I could do better than taking the name of one of the most unpopular animals on the range as a business name… but I’ve always been a backer of the underdog (under-turkey in this case perhaps!).
Brush Turkeys are one of those local species that have adapted rather well, to the changes that we have wrought on the landscape and yet they are unfortunately referred to by many as somewhat of a nuisance. But they are not the only successful wildlife that cops a lot of bad press… Our cultural fear and loathing of snakes is astonishing. The car is far more dangerous and we realistically have far more of a chance of dying when in the vicinity of an automobile than from a dreaded snake. Native raspberries are often seen as a nuisance because of all their prickles and yet they are crucial wildlife habitat (because of the prickles!). If that’s not good enough in their fruit are also tasty to nibble on too. The list of successful and yet unpopular native species goes on and on, unfortunately and can include possums, bush rats, stinging trees, wattles, etc…, etc…, – but for now lets get back to the turkeys.
When I read of some of the many horror stories about brush turkeys devastating the revegetation sites that some intrepid revegetators have been planting up – I can’t help but think that the said writers are under the impression that the turkeys are purposefully targeting them or that these feathered little vandals should be more grateful for all the trees being planted. Well that’s where we might be wrong. The brush turkey is just doing what brush turkeys do (nature is very Zen!). They certainly do not think to themselves, “Oh how wonderful, those pale humans are creating a habitat that my descendants may enjoy and frolic in. Its so good of them to see the error of their ways and plant one tree for every 10,000 they cut down when they came here. What I should do is demonstrate how grateful I am by scratching up the weeds growing around those trees they have planted and rake the mulch into neat and orderly piles around each plant”.
To be fair, I’m not sure wether turkeys are prone to this level of sarcasm.
The brush turkey like the rest of nature is living very much in the here and now and seizes opportunity as it arises. The onus is very much on us to think of how we can better undertake our reveg’ and gardening in a manner that is better suited to our local environment and the turkeys!
So remember, give a brush turkey a hug today (metaphorically speaking – lots of scratches otherwise!), and revel in our good fortune at having these ancient megapodes as neighbours. Cheers to all the wildlife and plants that are taking advantage of us for a change!