“Yeah, I know about the wild turkeys here.”

Dianne Erskine-Hellrigel said she sometimes sees them scurry onto lawns, or fly into trees to roost.

Erskine-Hellrigel is the executive director of the Community Hiking Club in Santa Clarita. On Monday, she confirmed the presence of a dozen of the large game birds with the colorful plumage and the crinkled necks in the Happy Valley neighborhood of Newhall.

“They are just lovely,” she said. “They have those beautiful iridescent feathers. They are so cute,”

You might say Erskine-Hellrigel is rare bird herself — most Southern Californians have never seen Meleagris gallopavo, except for the domesticated version laid out on a Thanksgiving Day platter.

Though few might now not know the heritage of one of America’s most iconic birds, the wild turkey, and its the ups and downs, represents a tale spanning the entire country from Plymouth to Southern California.

Wild turkeys have become almost nonexistent in and around Los Angeles, driven away by over-hunting, droughts and urban development.

Today, you may glimpse their pink and blue colors in niches like the one in Newhall, or on the forest edge in northeastern San Diego County near Palomar and Julian and sometimes in slices of the Angeles and Cleveland national forests, bird experts said.

What started at well over 10 million individuals during the Pilgrims’ time has dropped precipitously 400 Thanksgivings later. But through conservation, re-introduction and millions of dollars invested in habitat restoration, the largest game bird in North America and the main course of America’s First Meal — on the brink of extinction 100 years ago — is making a comeback.

Covered in tar

Some biologists say about 6 million exist in the wild in North America today, in every state except Alaska. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates the state’s turkey population at 250,000.

Kevin Vella, biologist with the state chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, said that’s too low. “Anecdotally, we have a larger population than that.”

A related species, Meleagris californica, roamed the wetter parts of the region from Orange through Los Angeles County, and into Santa Barbara County. That was until a prolonged drought at the end of the Pleistocene Age squeezed them into West Los Angeles, where many became encased in the La Brea Tar Pits.

Paleontologists found 11,116 remnants of wild turkey encased in black goo, representing 791 individuals, the second most of any species found in the pits, according to local bird experts and a study by Zbigniew Bochenski and Kenneth Campbell Jr. The study suggested California was populated with its own species of wild turkey before the Ice Age; when the gallopavo variety spread, it was nearly wiped out by human activity.

In response, DFW put limits on hunting and began introducing both relatives of the native turkey species and a sub-species from Texas into various locales in California from the 1970s to late 1990s, said Scott Gardner, a state senior environmental scientist and upland game bird manager.

Though controversial, the wild turkey plantings worked — sort of. They thrive in Central California in San Luis Obisbo County all the way north to Eureka, he said. But some scientists disagree with introducing a non-native species — even a related one — because they can interfere with native plants and animals.

Gardner said he believed the limited number of studies cancel each other out. If there is any damage, it is subtle, he said.

“Turkeys have a beneficial relationship with fairly similar birds,” he said, adding they don’t seek out rare plants, invertebrates or birds for food. He said more problems come from flocks of 20 to 30 birds inhabiting lawns and rooftops in residential neighborhoods, where they can be a nuisance.

More in Northern California

Kimball L. Garrett, the ornithology collections manager at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said all the turkeys living today in California are here because they’ve been introduced by the DFW and private hunting clubs for sport.

“We don’t really have them right around L.A.,” he said. “There has never really been successful attempts to introduce them into the San Gabriel or Santa Monica mountains.”

He’s seen flocks fly across the back roads while driving in Mendocino County. Some sightings — perhaps a lost flock or two — have been reported in San Juan Capistrano, as well as Santa Clarita.

And some have made it into the mountains, said Punky Moore, spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service.

“There are turkeys in the Angeles National Forest,” she said in an email. “They can be found at a wide elevation range within the San Gabriel Mountains.”

The re-introduction effort has pumped up the birds’ presence in the state, usually near rolling hills and oak woodlands, because they like to eat acorns.

“They’ve made a comeback. Now there are probably more turkeys than before,” Gardner said.

Hunting for Thanksgiving dinner

There are two hunting seasons permitted by the state: one in spring and one in fall. In the spring, tom turkeys display their feathers because they are looking for a mate, making them easier to spot, Gardner said.

The fall season now in place runs from the second Saturday in November through the second Sunday in December. Each hunter is allowed to kill two in the fall and three in the spring.

Gardner estimates about 25,000 wild turkeys are taken in California each year. He said that number is on par even with more well-known turkey hunting states, such as Texas and Georgia.

Wild turkeys are leaner than the butterballs in the grocery store, Gardner said. But they make a very healthy meal.

Nick Cundy, Southern California regional director of the National Wild Turkey Federation, said his members hunt mostly in the Cleveland National Forest, which stretches from inland Orange County to eastern San Diego County. His group recently finished adding a water cistern to an area in the Cleveland that provides water access for all forest mammals and birds, from deer and bobcats to quail and wild turkeys, he said.

“We like to hunt birds. We also understand you have to be a good steward of the land,” he said.

Skilled hunters use rifles, but it’s not like shooting fish in a barrel. They often scout the area for up to a year to learn the elusive birds’ hangouts. Most butcher the animal and eat it, often for Thanksgiving dinner. The trick is learning how to prepare and cook wild game, he said.

“I have people who will bake it. Some will deep fry it,” Cundy said. “My dad will grill it and put it on top of the salad. It does taste a little different” than store-bought birds, he said.

Both Cundy and Vella say it is more humane to have a turkey shot once and die instantly from a bullet, then being raised in tight cages and killed en masse.

“These animals are out there living wild lives. They are not just stuffed in a box and sent to a slaughter house,” Cundy said. “It is free range, natural, organic meat.”