Ask Dr. Tom
HOW RARE ARE WHITE TURKEYS?
We’ve been watching a local wild turkey flock with one all-white hen in the group. How rare is this?
John P. Missal
Palmerton, Pa.
I get this question quite often, making me wonder if white wild turkeys are more common than we think. However, a little informal research indicates that these turkeys are indeed quite rare.
I asked a number of wild turkey biologists and trappers across the country to consider all of the trapping they’ve done and observations they’ve made over the years and estimate how many of those were of white wild turkeys. They all agreed that roughly 1 in 100,000 wild turkeys exhibit some type of albino (pigment lacking) trait. That is indeed pretty rare.
Note that white wild turkeys are not true albinos. They have a recessive gene that causes the different coloration. Many of them successfully breed and pass this gene on to their offspring. However, many of them don’t make it in the wild since they are easily seen and eaten by predators. That also explains why we get so many reports of them in the wild!
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