Are Turkeys really smart animals ?

shamlin · 04-06-2008, 08:34 PM

I have heard people talk before about how smart turkeys are. I am no wildlife biologist and I am open to other opinions. To me turkeys are a bird, just like a chicken, just like a duck. I think turkeys have a keen since of sight, and have very reactive predatory INSTINCTS, but that is all they are instincts. It seems to me that they dont have a thought process or the ability to reason, all their actions are driven by instincts. The cannot stand there and think there might be a hunter there I will walk this way. If they see you they run or fly, to me this is just instinct not smarts. If you are calling and hit a sour note and the bird never shows, or goes in the opposite direction does he know a hunter is close by or is it that because the sound you made fails to register as a hen and instinct does not tell him time to breed.Bass are harder to catch than catfish but does that make them smarter.

hoosierHUNTER76 · 04-06-2008, 08:40 PM

um um i don't know

kdsberman · 04-06-2008, 08:44 PM

Yes they are smart or else we wouldnt have to "hunt" them.

huntnma · 04-07-2008, 03:28 AM

you'll find that answer , just spend time hunting them and you'll see how dumb they are, lol.....you'll be in for a shocker, lol....

kingvjack · 04-07-2008, 05:09 AM

The word for it is.... Paranoid...

superstrutter · 04-07-2008, 08:16 AM

They seem to be smart this season so far[:@].

gmil6184 · 04-07-2008, 08:43 AM

I would agree with the poster at the top that they aren't "smart" but they have increadible senses and are extremely spooky. That's what makes them so tough, not smarts.

Tuco · 04-07-2008, 08:53 AM

I have seen them do some really smart things and some really dumb things, you just never know with them, that is why they are so much fun to hunt.

RIStrutStopper · 04-07-2008, 08:56 AM

Dumb bird, FANTASTIC survival instincts. I may have scored a new spot to bow hunt becausea fewToms trashed this guy's wife's newly waxed and shiney mini van. IMHO, anything that wants to kill its own reflection in a car door doesn't qualify as smart.

vmartin · 04-07-2008, 10:39 AM

i don't think they are smart, i also don't think any one breed is any smarter than the other. some are just pressured more, pressured birds and older birds are the wise ones. i think just as stated above that they are very spooky and they have very keen sences. they do however remember being chased or shot at in a spot and will be more apt to be carefularound that spot, but i often see the same bird come back to that same spot time and time again after we shoot his buddies.