OCONTO COUNTY, Wis — Charges were filed March 16 in the poisoning deaths of more than 100 turkeys found Jan. 29 in a northeastern Wisconsin field.

Mark A. Kostreva, 50, of 9448 Swenty Road, Pound, Wis., faces three charges of mistreatment of animals. He is slated to have an initial appearance at 1 p.m. April 7 in Oconto County Circuit Court. If convicted, Kostreva could face fines of up to $10,000, or three years and six months in prison — or both — on each count. 

According to the criminal complaint, Kostreva had experienced troubles with turkeys eating hay, straw, corn silage and other items during winter at his feed lot the past several years. Up to 500 turkeys per day would appear at the lot, which Kostreva claimed cost him several thousand dollars.

He attempted to solve the problem by contacting personnel at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and other agencies without success. He later obtained information from another source indicating that pouring antifreeze over corn would eliminate the problem, the complaint said.

He then purchased three gallons of antifreeze in January and poured some over corn in a pail, according to the complaint. He then traveled to a nearby pine grove of a neighbor, where turkeys had been gathering during winter, and spread the poisoned corn around trails in that area.

At about 5:30 p.m., Jan. 29, conservation warden Joseph Paul received a telephone call from poaching hotline staff about a confidential call reporting more than 40 dead turkeys. Paul visited the informant, who said a family member had found some of the dead turkeys while snowmobiling. Some other turkeys were still alive but couldn't fly. Many of the dead turkeys had been consumed, as only feathers and bones remained. Most of the birds were in a 2-acre area, the complaint said. Paul and other wardens visited the site and found about 100 dead turkeys. 

According to the complaint, DNR veterinarian Julia Langenberg told wardens to transport five turkeys to the animal-health lab for testing. Results were released Feb. 10 that the cause of death was poisoning from ethylene glycol, commonly called antifreeze.

The investigation led to Kostreva. During a Feb. 4 interview, the complaint said, he admitted mixing several pails of cracked corn with antifreeze and spreading it in near the pine grove. He told wardens he did not know that 100 turkeys were found at or near the pine grove. After putting out the corn, he reported seeing only a few dead turkeys around that area.

Also, the complaint said, Kostreva said he did not know the mixture would have such an effect and that he had not wanted to hurt other animals or people. Further, he said it was out of character for him to do such a thing and offered to help wardens pick up the dead turkeys.

by Jake Edson, F&W Media Outdoors editor

Wisconsin's spring turkey season is still seven weeks away, but I can't stop
thinking about it. Maybe that's because for the past four days I've watched
every morning as a pair of over-anxious toms puff and pirouette in a snowy cow
pasture for a group of about 25 hens.

The presumptuous pair might be in for a rude awakening though, because we are forecast to receive 6 to 10 inches of snow starting this afternoon. I wonder if they'll make it five days tomorrow, or if they'll sulk back to their roost like a pair of sophomores who just realized they won't be able to make the beach party because they don't have driver's licenses.

by Brian Lovett, editor

Winter-weary Northern turkey hunters might be wondering how much their birds can stand.

Turkeys are resilient, of course, but record snowfalls and weeks of frigid temperatures have many folks concerned about bird survival in the Northeast and Upper Midwest.

Here’s what Lovett E. Williams Jr., noted turkey biologist and contributing editor to Turkey & Turkey Hunting, had to say.

“Prolonged deep snow the turkeys can’t scratch through is much worse than cold temperatures,” he said. “If they can get enough to eat, turkeys can stand extreme cold indefinitely. It’s when they can’t get to any carbohydrate foods that they die. Icy, crusty snow might prevent them from scratching through to the ground. In deep snow, turkeys sometimes congregate around spring seeps, if they can find one.

“(Biologist) Wayne Bailey, when he was in West Virginia, was of the opinion that turkeys can endure four or five weeks of deep snow if they are able to obtain some food.”

In agricultural areas of the Midwest and prairie states, turkeys often key on crops during winter.

“Ag practices can help turkeys in deep snow, depending on what the practices are,” Williams said. “Grain farming and cattle — with grain coming through their feces — would be helpful.”

Some research indicates how much turkeys can tolerate before they start to die.
“There was a study … about starvation of game-farm turkeys,” Williams said. “Two birds, at 0 degrees with the wind at 5.8 mph, survived seven and nine days without food. They lost 25.75 percent of their body weight. Two other birds in a calm atmosphere at 0 degrees survived 11 and 16 days. Their loss of weight was 67.8 percent. The conclusion was that a turkey can endure a week of severely cold weather without food.

“It points up the effect of wind. Evidently, the wind and cold had an independent effect that killed the turkeys before they actually starved to death.”

Time will tell how Winter 2008-’09 affects Northern turkey populations. Hunters can take solace in the fact that the birds are tougher than most people believe. They just don’t want to see turkeys pushed to the limit.

Turkeys are opportunistic feeders, but this might be taking things to the extreme.

We recently received an e-mail from Linda L. Bischoff of Grand Haven, Mich., who said the local turkeys took quite a liking to her back yard in October.

“We have had quite a time lately with the turkeys visiting our bird feeder,” she wrote. “It is very funny to watch. A couple of them have figured it out, but most will fly up and not be able to get the sunflower seeds we keep in (the feeder).

It’s just amazing to watch the 13 to 17 birds that mosey through our yard. We even have a short movie we filmed with them flying up to the feeder.”

Thanks to Linda and her husband, Gary, who took these photos.

A Cuddeback camera captured a hawk carrying away a dead turkey near Waupaca, Wis. Tom Mitchell said he found a dead turkey in the field behind his house. So he put a camera on the turkey. He thought he would get some pictures of coyotes. Along came a hawk instead.