2017 CVM News: Emerging disease threatens wild turkey populations

Abstract

This news item is about: Wild turkeys are a conservation success story in New York state. Due to overhunting and loss of forest habitat to small farms, turkeys disappeared for over 100 years until a small population wandered over the border from Pennsylvania into Western New York in the 1940s. Over the next decade the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) repopulated turkeys across the state through both captive breeding and relocation of birds from successful flocks. After recovering to a high of around 300,000 birds in 2001, the population has been progressively declining over the past ten years to only 160,000 birds. Thanks to research by Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, SUNY College of Environmental Science and the NYSDEC, we may now know one of the reasons why: Lymphoproliferative Disease Virus, or LPDV.