When I was a young bloke and before the mechanical sugar cane harvesters came into the sugar industry, there would be hundreds of men, of all nationalities, in every sugar cane growing town, through out Queensland! They were the men who cut and loaded the sugar cane, to be sent to the various sugar mills, for processing into raw sugar...They lived, mostly on farm, in what was called "The Barracks."....In those days, most of the cane cutters had guns, of one sort or another and they regularly went out to the bush, to hunt the Brush Turkey, for food.... The cane cutters wern`t the only ones doing the hunting, either!...Like a lot of kids of my era, I had a .22 rifle and I was a pretty good shot.
In the rain forest, the turkey stays on the ground, scratching for food, most of the day and they are difficult to find because of the vegetation.... Most hunters had dogs, mostly, Fox Terriers, trained to find and chase the turkey into a tree....Once it was in the tree, the dog would stay at the base of tree, barking at the turkey, until the hunter found the tree..Some guys were not satisfied, with one or two, they`d bag as many as they could and turkey`s became scarce.....Finally! The turkey became protected and the cane cutters were fazed out by the machines...With no more hunting, the number of turkey`s has increased dramatically.
Last week, Fran and I took a couple of people to the Goldsborough camp site, in the national park...Brush Turkey`s were scratching around, not the least bit concerned that we were there.
This is the Scrub Fowl or Scrub Hen, also found in the rain forest.
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Frank.