When scouting the state for wild turkeys to include in data collection, researchers found one right next to a rail road track in the middle of a 10-yard stretch of the road’s median, said Nicolle De Filippo, a PhD student at Ohio State University studying turkey disappearances.

“Surprisingly, she hatched one bird,” De Filippo told Salon in a phone interview. “It didn't survive very long, but it just shows their resilience — that even when they're nesting in something that is terrible, such as the side of the road next to a train, they can make it happen.”

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Although most of the turkeys taking center stage on Thanksgiving dinner tables this week probably come from farms, turkeys do roam wild in many U.S. states. Considered one of the country’s greatest conservation success stories, wild turkeys made a comeback after facing near-extinction in the 20th century. But in the past decade or so, turkey populations have again declined in some regions, and scientists studying this phenomenon are unsure why.

“It's probably not one specific cause, and there's not going to be a silver bullet that's driving turkey population decline,” said Dan Kaminski, a wildlife research biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources studying turkeys. “It's probably a combination of factors.”

As colonists landed in North America in the 1600s, they destroyed huge swaths of the native turkey’s forest habitat to make room for agriculture and nearly hunted the bird into extinction. By the 1930s, it’s estimated that fewer than 30,000 turkeys survived — which is roughly how many polar bears exist today.

Considered one of the country’s greatest conservation success stories, wild turkeys made a comeback after facing near-extinction in the 20th century.

Turkeys........

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