We all love delicious turkey on Thanksgiving, but what happens if the turkey population is now down 15% from historical times? That may not seem a lot, but factories and companies think this is not very pleasant. This is bad for companies that make turkey and sell it since they won’t get many turkeys and will lose some money. 

The reason why the turkey population is dropping is because of loss of habitat, diseases, weather patterns, and predators. This Thanksgiving is going to be rough for turkey lovers because the prices got a little higher. The average pound of turkey in Pennsylvania is now $1.79. And you might wonder, why aren’t there a lot of turkeys in stores either? This is due to birds having diseases and whenever there is a turkey with a disease, you probably wouldn’t want to eat that. This is also a problem for hunters, since it’s very common for them to hunt turkeys during the fall and winter.

 “I don’t like the population dropping, because it could affect me wasting money on my turkey tag to hunt them, if I don’t shoot them.” Jordyn Moehrle, sixth grade student, stated. The sad thing is in 2021, there were about 159,000 turkeys, while in 2001 there were about 280,000, and that is a big change. Turkey Farms are also raising prices for turkeys due to paying a lot more for feed, fuel, and labor.

“I feel that the turkey population dropping isn’t super concerning, because I think it will bounce back.” Cameron Stumpf, seventh grade student, explained.

“I feel like we shouldn’t eat as many turkeys as we do, but we can’t really do anything about that. But other than that, it doesn’t really affect me.” Madison Fehir, eighth grade student, explained.