CLEVELAND, Ohio — Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost called a news conference this week to announce six legal, noncitizen immigrants had been indicted for felony illegal voting. A day later, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mike O’Malley announced one of the people indicted had been dead for two years.
We’re talking about indicting a dead man on Today in Ohio.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, City Hall reporter Courtney Astolfi and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.
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Here’s what else we’re asking about today:
We talked yesterday about Ohio Attorney General trumpeting the prosecution of a measly six voters for voter fraud two weeks before Election Day in a year when his party is trying to convince America elections are rigged. Wha did we learn Wednesday about one of the six he indicted?
The state appellate court for the Cleveland region has gained a reputation for bizarre rulings, and one about a bleached cat was so out there that it brought rare unanimity from the divided Ohio Supreme Court, which reversed the appellate ruling. What’s this one about?
U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who received widespread derision when he said post-menopausal women should not care about abortion rules, offered a kind of mew culpa Wednesday, but then he said some other stupid stuff. What did he say?
A Cuyahoga County woman was sentenced Wednesday for leaving her young children at home and going to Florida for a few days. How old were the kids, and what is her sentence?
The battle by the Green Party’s Jill Stein to get her Ohio votes counted took an odd turn this week, with some court testimony that doesn’t come close to passing the sniff test. What happened?
If you’re going into the car theft racket, a tow truck would seem to be the ideal tool of the trade. Prosecutors say one prolific thief employed that tool frequently. What’s the case?
Our latest profile of a Northeast Ohio county in advance of the presidential election focused on Summit. What did we learn?
Much of the nation’s workforce has reached equilibrium on people working from home, but Cuyahoga County government has been slow to join the party. What does a new policy allow?
Yesterday it was walleye. Today it’s wild turkeys. What does something called the poult index tell us about their status in Ohio?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris Quinn (00:00.965)
We‘re back on pretty much non-existent voter fraud in Ohio, despite the Republicans’ efforts to make you think it exists. A huge development yesterday in a story that we talked about on the episode yesterday. It’s Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston, and Courtney Astolfi.
And we did talk yesterday about Ohio attorney general Dave Yost trumpeting the prosecution of a measly six voters for voter fraud, something he announced two weeks before election day in a year when his party is trying to convince us all that elections are rigged. Laura, what did we learn yesterday about one of those six?
Laura (00:45.135)
He’s dead, at least according to Cuyahoga County prosecutor Mike O’Malley. This is Ramesh Patel, who Davio said was a 68 year old man from North Royalton who voted in 2014, 2016 and 2018, not a citizen. But prosecutor O’Malley said on Wednesday that Patel died in December of 2022, which you think you would check that before you issue a giant press release and a press conference in which you lay out
your cases for voter fraud. But if we could back up just a little bit, you remember last month, Republican Secretary State, Frank LaRose, he issued this news release calling for Dave Yost to investigate 633 cases of potential voter fraud that his office had flagged. In response, Yost said his office lacked the legal authority to investigate most of these. But then on Tuesday, there was a news conference, six legal non-citizen immigrants had been indicted and then
We found out the next day, one of them at least is dead. I don’t know about the other five.
Chris Quinn (01:49.797)
What bothers me about this is the normal process for anybody who finds evidence of a crime is to send it to county prosecutors. These are the kinds of cases that are prosecuted in state courts in each county. It’s a common pleas case. And Larose did, in fact, send these cases to the various prosecutors, and they looked at them and they said, we’re not doing this. This is a waste of our time.
So LaRose then went to Yost and said, they’re ignoring me. These are crimes. Please investigate. Yost could have said no. Yost could have said, look, that’s not my office’s chief responsibility. That’s what county prosecutors are for. If they’re not charging these things, I’m going to respect them. Instead, he played it both ways. He said what you said, Laura, that I don’t have the ability to investigate all these, but two weeks before election day, I’m going to have a big honking press conference to say, I’m shocked.
Laura (02:33.604)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (02:44.291)
Shock to find voter fraud, even though it’s so infinitesimal, there’s not enough zeros after the decimal point. You’d need a scientific calculator to get it right. And like you said, we didn’t do the basic investigation and find out if these people were still alive. This stinks. This stinks to the high heavens. It seems like a stunt to play into that Republican stump speech that we have voter fraud.
because if Donald Trump loses, they’re gonna say, see, see, see, voter fraud, it’s all rigged. This shouldn’t have happened. They shouldn’t have done this two weeks before election day. should, Yo, probably shouldn’t have taken these cases at all. He should have told LaRosa, shut up. But now look what happens. It’s a big embarrassment. The whole nation is looking at the idiotic nature of Ohio where we’re indicting dead people for minor crimes like voting when they shouldn’t have.
Laura (03:14.756)
Right.
Lisa (03:14.811)
Thank you.
Laura (03:37.293)
Right. O’Malley called this one of the greatest examples of prosecutorial overreach I have ever witnessed and said, we don’t do that in my office. But you’re right. This is happening in the backdrop of questions being raised. Obviously, the entire 2020 election and the coup in the federal government in the Capitol, that’s not that far in the past. That’s incredibly scary. then as much as, Rose, I feel like speaks out both sides of his mouth here, right?
We have fair and impartial elections in Ohio, but I’m rooting out the evil that I find because it, you know, to find six cases dating back to 2014 out of the 8 million voters that we have in Ohio, infinitesimal is right. And I do feel like while he’s saying on one hand, these are, these elections are safe. It’s sowing the seeds for later and just in case it doesn’t go the way they want.
Chris Quinn (04:35.075)
Yeah, the whole thing is so I mean, what it shows is there wasn’t basic investigation done. You could have found out the guy’s dead before you indict him. The timing of it raises all sorts of red flags. It’s just another embarrassing moment in the national spotlight for Ohio because of our elected leaders that are playing games with their jobs. You are listening to Today in Ohio. The state appellate court for the Cleveland region has gained a reputation for
bizarro rulings and one about a bleached cat was so out there that it brought rare unanimity from our divided Ohio Supreme Court. It reversed the appellate ruling. Courtney, what’s this one about?
Courtney (05:17.398)
Yeah, the Ohio Supreme Court was not having the Eighth District’s conclusions in this case. And it goes back to October, 2021, when a Cleveland man, you know, he said he poured bleach down some steps at his his home to scare away an apparently stray kitten. Well, what ended up happening is the cops found the eight month old kitty at the bottom of the stairs, soaked in liquid bleach. Its paws were red and swollen. It had bleach induced ulcers and this could have killed the cat. It didn’t, but
Yikes. So the man who did this, Alonzo Kiles, he was convicted under Ohio’s enhanced animal cruelty law. It’s a fifth degree felony and it differs from like the regular misdemeanor animal cruelty law in that it applies to companion animals specifically. It defines them as any animal that’s kept in a home as well as any dog or cat, regardless of where it is kept. So the legal maneuvering that this
this kind of case and appeal and the Ohio Supreme Court ruling played around with was that issue of the word kept. Was this a stray kitten kept by no one and therefore it wasn’t a companion animal? That’s what the Eighth District Court of Appeals decided. Or do you read it more broadly and you look at it’s any dog or cat, regardless of where it’s kept and therefore it would apply to this stray kitten? And the Ohio Supreme Court read it
more broadly in reversing the appellate decision. They concluded that kept men a companion animal or they ruled that kept wasn’t the issue here and applied to any dog or cat. And this guy was subject to this enhanced felony charge.
Chris Quinn (07:00.593)
It was a dopey ruling by the appellate court. They’re basically saying it’s okay to abuse stray animals. It’s just pets you can’t abuse. And I think it says something that all seven Supreme Court justices ruled on this the same way. It’s a very divided court. The Republicans are at war with the Democrats. The Republican majority makes idiotic rulings that are based on party instead of law. But in this case, they’re like, you know what, we’re not going to allow
The intent of the law was not to allow the punishment and torture of some animals and not others. The clear language was to stop the torture of animals. And I hope that the appellate court gets its act together and stops being bizarre.
Courtney (07:44.728)
Yeah. You know, Mike O’Malley, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor here who ushered through this case, he thanked the Supreme court for its basic common sense. can, you know, is that a slight to the appellate court? Who knows? But, but O’Malley told us that, you know, this unanimous ruling speaks volumes and, and well, you know, some of the state Supreme court judges, you know, one of them wrote in the opinion that the state law is not clearly written. He acknowledged what you are describing.
Chris that this is designed to protect all cat and dogs. It’s nice in this highly partisan, highly divided court in those times that they can agree, don’t hurt little kitties. Yeah.
Chris Quinn (08:17.083)
Right.
Chris Quinn (08:26.883)
Yeah, clearly the intent was to protect animals and the appellate court trying to parse it the way they did was absurd. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. US Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who received a widespread derision when he said post-menopausal women should not have any care about abortion rules, offered Amy Okoppo Wednesday, but then he said some other really stupid stuff. Lisa, what was it about?
Lisa (08:55.544)
Yeah, not much of an apology. And of course he made this now infamous comment at a September campaign stop in Warren County when he said, it’s a little crazy that suburban women vote on abortion rights, especially those over 50 years old. So he was interviewed by the Washington Times. It was published yesterday. He said he never intended to offend. said, we live in a society where people wake up every day trying to be offended. And he said it probably wasn’t the best wording, but
He went on to accuse his opponent, Sherrod Brown, of twisting his words in the TV ads, because Brown immediately jumped on that statement and put it in an ad. And Moreno said, I never said women were crazy. I said, it’s crazy that women are single issue voters. So back in 2021, Moreno said he was 100 % pro-life without exceptions, but he told Washington Times that he supports now common sense restrictions on abortion and the
and respects the will of Ohio voters who enshrined it in the Constitution. But he said he would support a national ban after 15 weeks with exceptions. So he’s changed his tune quite a bit on that. And then he shifted the interview focus away from abortion. He said, and this is kind of interesting, actually. He says he wants to equalize contraception access, especially for women. He said that, you know, men can go into a drug store, get contraception and a Coke. Boom. And it’s so much harder for women. So there’s
A little glimmer of common sense there.
Chris Quinn (10:24.333)
Yeah, I don’t buy what he was trying to do yesterday. He was trying to split hairs. even said when he made the idiotic statement, my wife’s going to kill me for this or some variation of that, he knew how offensive what he was saying was. And he said it anyway. He got obliterated by by attacks for that across the country. People paid attention to it. And so now he’s doing this backstroke saying, yeah, that’s not really what I said.
Lisa (10:33.976)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (10:50.223)
I didn’t say women were idiots. said it is idiotic that women do this basically, which is not really different. You’re basically calling women idiots. And he really, you know, the only way out when you do something that stupid is to just say, I screwed up big time. I apologize. Right. I mean, and it’s amazing how many politicians we deal with that are completely incapable of saying I was wrong. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’ll never say it again.
Lisa (10:50.334)
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Lisa (11:07.02)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (11:20.349)
Instead, he’s pretending to say he’s sorry, but he’s not. So the idiotic statement he made stands. Sherrod’s commercials are legitimate and voters should clearly take that into account. I don’t know why any women would vote for Bernie Moreno given where he stands these days. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Cuyahoga County woman was sentenced Wednesday for leaving her young children at home and going to Florida for a few days.
How old were the kids and what is her sentence?
Laura (11:52.015)
This was a talker in our newsroom yesterday, so it’ll be interesting if we debate it today on the podcast. But Dominique Knowles, 32, left her three kids at home for three days while she went to Florida, the Miami area. She asked the oldest, a 10-year-old, to watch the twin sisters, who are seven, and have special needs. And the grandmother is in the picture, which is kind of bizarre here, because when a teacher raised the flag about this,
She had one of the twins in class. called police, asked the officers to check on the kids. And then there were apparently the mom was communicating with the kids over video call, had been feeding them by ordering food on delivering apps. And they got ahold of the grandmother who insisted that the mom was in Cleveland with a friend. She had not left the state, but I’m not sure why the grandmother couldn’t help out here then. It just seems like a mess.
Chris Quinn (12:47.633)
Yeah, I mean, let’s just say right up front, you a 10 year old to seven year olds, they’re way too young to be left home alone. There’s no way this is okay. And I’m surprised that the sentence isn’t more strict. But many years ago, when my
Laura (13:00.239)
Yeah, sorry, I, the sentence, I didn’t give you the sentence. It’s one year house arrest, $800 fine and probation.
Chris Quinn (13:04.004)
of descent.
Chris Quinn (13:07.439)
Yeah, it’s not much of a sentence at all. Although she has to be home with her kids, I guess, which was part of it. But years ago, when my kids were young, we were doing some stories on child abuse stuff. And I ended up having a long conversation with Judith Goodhand, who was then in charge of Cuyahoga County’s Children and Family Services. And I said to her, do you have an age at which you charge people with doing bad things?
Laura (13:13.277)
She can’t go to Florida for a year.
Chris Quinn (13:35.281)
if they leave their kids home alone. it 12? Is it 14? And she said, look, it’s different for every family. There are some kids who are much more responsible at young ages than other kids. And so we look at the situations to decide, was this dangerous to leave the kid home alone? I was talking more or less about babysitting while the parents go to a movie. I think leaving for three days would greatly increase the age at which the kids would be.
Laura (14:04.035)
Right. I mean.
Chris Quinn (14:04.817)
But there is no set standard. Obviously, a 10-year-old should not be taking care of two 7-year-olds for three days, even if the mom is ordering food by car.
Laura (14:16.247)
Right. I’m not going to leave my kids home alone for it to go on a vacation while they’re in high school ever. That to me is just a recipe for disaster. But you’re right. And kids are different maturity levels. And it depends if they’re home with a next door neighbor who’s right there that they could go run and see if they had a problem or if it’s just one kid home alone or both kids home alone. actually, sometimes having one kid might be better because then they’re not going to fight with each other.
And I think it’s something that every parent grapples with and you start small, right? You could run to Target, be like, I’ll be back in 15 minutes. Here’s the, we used have the FaceTime up on the computer, like call me if you need me, because they didn’t have their own phones. And then you work up to, am I okay leaving them after dark for two hours to go out to dinner? But leaving them to go to Florida is just absurd. I cannot imagine why a parent would think that was okay.
Chris Quinn (15:10.317)
And major credit to the teacher that became suspicious and notified the authorities. Teachers are in a very difficult position. They’re required to report any time they get a sense of abuse, but because of that teacher’s alertness, the kids were taken care of. They were placed with the grandparents, I guess, until the mom came home. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. The battle by the Green Party’s Jill Stein to get her Ohio votes counted took an odd turn this week.
Laura (15:12.461)
Yes.
Chris Quinn (15:38.747)
with some court testimony that doesn’t come close to passing the sniff test. Courtney, what happened?
Courtney (15:44.258)
Yeah, right here a key person involved in this case over Jill Stein’s ballot disqualification changed her story completely in court this week. It’s this kind of a wild turn of events. So we’re talking about Ohio Green Party co-chair, Felina Farley, and she had submitted this letter to Frank LaRose that ended up getting LaRose to order that any votes cast in November for Stein running as an independent, but previously with the Green Party here in Ohio.
and her running mate, Anita Rios, know, Lerose ordered that those votes should not be counted. And it all comes down to this letter that Farley submitted to the Secretary of State’s office. Until now, we’ve been told by Farley that Stein’s running mate Rios was aware of this letter she submitted it, that she submitted, that Rios knew she was writing this letter. She was aware that it was gonna go to Lerose.
And in fact, Farley told us and state officials that she was on the phone with the running maid when she hand delivered this letter to LaRose’s office. But in court this week, Farley, you know, did a 180. She said Rios didn’t specifically know that she was going to submit a letter in her name. And she said she didn’t talk to Rios on the phone until after she handed the letter over to LaRose’s office.
And we heard from the running mate in court this week as well, Rios, she said she didn’t understand what Farley had done until after the letter was turned in.
Chris Quinn (17:16.317)
I’m not buying it. This just it seems like a last ditch effort by Stein to get her votes counted. You can’t change your story that dramatically at the 11th hour. And Stein just doesn’t seem like she’s somebody you can count on to be truthful. I’m not buying any of this. think that that LaRose probably has made the right call here. And I just don’t see this changing it. I don’t see the judge going, okay, I’ll forget everything you said previously.
and believe you now. It just, it stinks. There was a letter from the campaign that went in, La Rose made his ruling, good luck getting it changed.
Laura (17:53.279)
And didn’t Barley last time say that she felt like she was being scapegoated for this? To me, I’m totally with Chris. Yeah.
Lisa (18:00.68)
She did say that. She did say that.
Courtney (18:04.302)
What comes next now is going to answer the question over whether these votes are counted in a couple of weeks. The ball is in the court of US District Judge Michael Watson. He’s been asked to issue an injunction to overrule the Rose’s order and basically get those votes counted. We’re going to hear from Watson in the coming days. He’s going to issue a written decision on whether to grant that request. But I think it’s important also to back out and look at how much of the vote this is going to affect.
Back in was when Stein was running as a Green Party candidate, not an independent. She got about 0.84 % of Ohio’s votes or about 46,000. And presumably, correct me if I’m wrong, I guess I don’t know Stein’s politics that, that in, in depth, but you’d think the Green Party candidate would draw away from Harris votes here.
Chris Quinn (18:53.517)
It would, it will. Look, this is all ego. She’s been asked repeatedly in the swing states to drop out because she could single-handedly end up putting Trump in office. And she just says, I don’t care. She doesn’t care that we could be in the hands of a fascist dictator, but because she wants to get her paltry, meaningless votes. She’s committing a crime against her country by doing her nonsense. She has no chance of winning. This is all silly.
I hope she doesn’t get her votes counted in Ohio. I hope that this case continues. She should get the hell out of this race. We are in a perilous position right now and she is making it worse. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. If you’re going into the cart theft racket, a tow truck would seem to be the ideal tool of the trade. Prosecutors say one prolific thief employed that tool frequently. Lisa, what’s the case?
Lisa (19:47.244)
Yeah, he is year old layman Eddie of Cleveland. He’s charged in common police court on conspiracy, grand theft, receiving stolen property and a pattern of corrupt activity for being part of a stolen car processing operation. So the indictment alleges that he used his tow truck to steal cars and he also helped others in this crime ring process stolen vehicles after they were dropped off near his home. He also stole cars from the auto shop after it was closed.
He worked with several others in this ring, but one of them was Tracy Turner, who was charged in 15 thefts back in 2021-22. He’s currently serving three years in prison on 12 of those counts. And Eddie himself has several priors going back to the 1980s, including car theft. But yeah, so he had his tow truck and apparently Turner stole cars all over. He stole them in Cleveland, Parma, Rocky River, Highland Heights, and Cleveland Heights. He would break into car dealerships.
into auto shops and even a condominium to find keys to steal these vehicles after hours. And so Eddie was part of this larger ring.
Chris Quinn (20:53.433)
Ohio has very specific laws though that require scrap yards to get clear documents of ownership before they take a vehicle for scrapping. Clearly, they didn’t get them here because he didn’t have the documents. I wonder why prosecutors are not going after the scrap yards for taking these vehicles without having proof of ownership. If a guy pulls up into my driveway, well, there was a woman in the story. She dropped her car off for service, which she came back, it’s gone.
Lisa (21:19.565)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (21:21.797)
They clearly didn’t have title to that car. How do you take that to a scrap yard? The scrap yards are complicit here. I’m not, I just don’t get why we’re not seeing charges against them.
Lisa (21:32.194)
Well, they may be coming, but scrapyards are infamous for, you know, breaking down car parts, you know, so they can’t be traced.
Chris Quinn (21:39.121)
Yeah, but there should be a police unit that visits scrapyards every day to check that out. Because if you close that off, these guys don’t get away with stealing the cars. I guess they stole some of these cars and sold them for use as well. But for the scrapyards, something’s wrong. You’re listening to Today in Ohio, our latest profile of a Northeast Ohio County in the advance of the presidential election focused on Summit. Laura, what did we learn?
Laura (22:08.003)
that while Akron does not consider itself an extension of Cleveland, it has a lot of political similarities. So I grew up in northern Summit County. My parents, my sister still live there. I am there at least every month, if not more often. And Laura Hancock’s profile struck me as really accurate. So she talked to a bunch of people, including Steve Millard, the president and CEO of the Greater Akron Chamber of Commerce. He said, in Akron and a lot of towns like ours, you’ve got a lot of people who are just trying to make it work.
They’re very practical. There’s a lot of grit here. And she touched on the region’s rubber making past and their polymer future. Summit County voters have chosen Democrats for president every election since 1960 with just two exceptions. Richard Nixon in 1972, Ronald Reagan in 84. The suburbs around Akron are more conservative, especially the more rural townships are. But they passed the abortion rights amendment last year.
The majorities supported it in all semi county communities except for the village of Clinton, an average of 65 % approval, which is well above the statewide average. It’s the second most diverse County in Northeast Ohio, 25.5 % of residents identify as minorities. So, and obviously it’s urban because, know, Akron is the center city.
Chris Quinn (23:27.473)
We have two more of these to go.
Laura (23:29.423)
Yeah, yeah, but how many we have four more right four more we’ll do Lake and Lorraine this weekend
Chris Quinn (23:32.901)
for more.
Chris Quinn (23:37.625)
Okay. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Much of the nation’s workforce has reached equilibrium on people working from home, but Cuyahoga County government has been slow to join the party in any kind of organized fashion, at least. Courtney, what does a new policy allow for?
Courtney (23:54.478)
Yeah, Cairo County is opening up and loosening its remote work abilities for its workers. County Council on Tuesday passed an ordinance that lets county departments kind of set their own terms for which employees are able to work remotely and how often but generally folks are going to be limited to to work from home days. There can be some exceptions here and it sounds like those will mostly go to health and human services workers.
who are kind of looking to continue what they’ve been doing for some time now, which is work from home three days a week. And, you know, this has proven kind of to be a controversial policy as it’s moved through the council and approval process, because those HHS workers don’t want to downgrade from the three days they have been working to the two days that are now part of this formalized policy. But hopefully the exceptions, you know, it seems like the exception
the ability to have exceptions here is kind of maybe quelled some of that. But in the meantime, generally we’re talking about County workers being able to work from home up to two days a week. And you know, these are like workers who are under the executive’s office, but there are some exceptions. So like the sheriff’s department and the jail, obviously jail guards can’t work from home. So that’s really not going to be an option here. Same with customer facing posts. I’m thinking an example here is probably like,
the office clerks and the treasurer’s office who take your tax payments, things like that. And then, you know, like all policies at the county, the prosecutors and the courts, they’re their own thing. They have their own elected leaders. So that policy falls outside the scope. We’re generally talking about how this is going to apply to departments like the law department, the human resources department, the fiscal folks over at the county and, leaders there, you know, want to make the
the labor situation a little bit more competitive. When you’re trying to attract employees to work for the county and you’re up against maybe job offers from other companies who allow work from home, it makes sense why folks may opt against that county employment. So they’re hopeful that this draws more workers in and keeps more workers there.
Chris Quinn (26:05.691)
Given the history, might be safer for the inmates if the guards did work from home. Ha ha ha. I think they could lose some workers over this by changing the number from three to two. There is a lot of competition for workers, and I’m a little bit surprised that they’re putting that squeeze on even in the limited fashion that they are. We’ll have to see how that comes out.
Courtney (26:28.578)
Yeah, the chief of staff, the HR director is going to have to sign off on these so there will be oversight and we’ll have to see how many exceptions are granted for those three day HHS worker requests.
Chris Quinn (26:39.279)
and we’ll have to see if they’re donating to campaigns. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. All right, Lisa, it’s a bird story. it’s yours. Yesterday it was walleye, today it’s wild turkeys. What does something called the Pult Index tell us about the status of wild turkeys in Ohio?
Lisa (26:57.25)
Yeah, I was driving on Chagrin River Road just a couple days ago and three turkeys ran across the road right in front of me. Actually like stopped traffic so they could get across the street. But the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Pult Index is done in July and August when young turkeys are about five to ten weeks old and they do get help from the public. They had 2,000 responses from people who spotted and counted turkeys. the Pult is a young turkey of either sex.
The pulse survival rate is 2.9 per hen. That’s just above the 10 year average. But here in Northeast Ohio and Northwest Ohio, it’s much higher. It’s actually 3.1 pulse per hen. ODNR biologist Mark Wiley says, that’s a thriving wild turkey population. know, turkeys were nearly gone in Ohio in the early 20th century.
Ohio brought birds from other states starting in the 1950s and now they’re living in all 88 counties and they’ve been doing that since 1999. So hens lay an average about 12 eggs per clutch. I’m not sure how many clutches they have a year, but only one third of turkey nests survive. The nests that do survive, the eggs usually hatch, but half of those poults are lost to predators within the first couple of weeks. So it’s tough out there for a turkey.
Their survival rate goes up when their flight feathers come in because they can roost in trees and get away from predators. yeah, and this is, you know, think fall is when turkeys get pretty active. They gather in large groups for the winter.
Chris Quinn (28:25.861)
I guess they’re predators or foxes and coyotes.
Lisa (28:30.259)
Yes, and I’m assuming that some probably feral cats too. I’m sure they do a lot of damage.
Chris Quinn (28:35.115)
yeah, that’s true. That’s true, especially in the closer they get to urban areas, which they have invaded, not quite in the same numbers as deer. But like you said, you do see them around.
Courtney (28:46.02)
There’s a there’s a large flock that that frequents my parents backyard in rural Erie County. I get like photo updates from my mother. They’re they’re so funny to watch. I’ve always enjoyed watching them. And fun fact, I learned this week that a flock of turkeys is known as a rafter of turkeys.
Lisa (28:46.354)
yeah.
Chris Quinn (29:04.089)
And we do see them out at our office at the printing plant on 480 Theodoman Road on occasion during the year. Not nearly as many as we see the Canadian geese, but we do get them walking around sometimes right in the way of the entrance.
Laura (29:19.161)
Canada geese, not Canadian geese, Canada geese.
Chris Quinn (29:20.817)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, Miss Canada.
Lisa (29:22.51)
But I, you know, I’ve seen turkeys on Mayfield Road right by Brush High School. I had one fly in front of my car not too long ago. There’s a creek, you know, that runs through there. So there are turkeys in the burbs.
Chris Quinn (29:34.097)
All right. Appropriate conversation a little less than a month or a little more than a month before Thanksgiving. I guess it’s late this year, so it’s more than a month. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Thursday episode. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Courtney. Thank you for listening. We’ll be back on Friday, wrapping up the week of news.