Ryan Mathis winces when he’s reminded that his beloved wild turkeys in California and Oregon carry a scarlet "E" on their foreheads for what he says is no legitimate reason.

The "E" is for "exotic," the label these and other states affix to animals that got here with the help of humans. Exotics are non-natives and, therefore, second-class citizens of Oregon’s woods and waters.

Though widely popular and the core of an $11 million turkey-hunting economy here, turkeys are carpetbaggers from Southern states with fewer rights and privileges than animals deemed natives.

"That’s a subjective term — ‘native’," says Mathis, a field biologist for the National Wild Turkey Federation. "It depends just how far back you look."

Mathis is starting to look really far back in the history of what once flew over the West Coast’s terrain, and he’s finding increased evidence that turkeys actually are native to California — and perhaps, Oregon as well.

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Fossils found throughout California dating back more than 11,000 years show evidence of the presence of turkeys as far north as the Shasta Caverns, Mathis says. American Indian regalia dating back thousands of years also include turkey feathers — proof they are true Californians, even though the current turkey crop are progeny from imported birds.

"There are groups that have completely written off turkeys as native to their areas," says Mathis, 31, based in Eureka, Calif. "They’re just not looking far back enough.

"If I can find things like this in California, I can find something like that in Oregon. I just haven’t gotten to the Oregon side of the research yet."

If Mathis finds fossils and other evidence like he believes he will, such findings could stir an interesting debate over whether Oregon’s current crop of turkeys get reclassified from resident aliens of sorts to "re-introduced species," meaning a new version of an old native.

"It certainly something we’d be interested in," says Larry Cooper, a biologist who lead the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s "Wildlife Integrity" group that defined "native" and "exotic" and classified thousands of Oregon species in 1996.

Oregon administrative rules define natives as occurring currently or historically through natural colonization without aid from humans. It does not specify any dates or timelines for what "historic" means, Cooper says.

If Mathis unearths information acceptable to the scientific community, Oregon could investigate and possible reclassify turkeys.

"A ‘re-introduced’ population would have a different esteem placed on it than being called ‘non-native’," Cooper says. "It certainly would be looked at differently."

Talk about turkeys’ historical standing surfaces as the ODFW prepares a draft plan to govern turkey management across Oregon.

The finished plan is meant to guide future hunting, trapping and transplanting and other activities involving one of Oregon’s most popular and successful game birds.

It also will be the state’s first management plan for an exotic species.

Mathis would like to see turkeys lose that dubious distinction as well.

The bid to clear the wild turkey’s good name here begins in Southern California’s La Brea Tar Pits. The pits are home to fossils and bones from more than 135 birds captured in its ooze during the Pleistocene period from about 11.8 million years ago to about 11,000 years ago.

The pits include fossils of turkeys, Mathis says.

"The more I dig," Mathis says, "the more I find."

Also, The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley is home to American Indian ceremonial clothing that contains turkey feathers, he says.

Fossils discovered at Shasta Caverns north of Redding also has turned up evidence of turkeys during the same period.

With the proximity of Shasta Caverns to Oregon and similar habitats, Mathis theorizes that turkeys easily could have been here at the same time because the habitat was here.

"Do you think it’s a little coincidental that (transplanted turkeys) have adapted so well to (Oregon’s) habitat?" Mathis says. "Doesn’t that make you think maybe they were here before?

"Just because there’s a state border doesn’t mean the habitat changes."

A former biologist in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Endangered Species Program, Mathis has worked for NWTF since March and has done his native turkey research since April, largely during off-hours viewing fossils over the Internet.

"Every lead I get is telling me to keep checking," Mathis says.

A similar debate raged in Oregon over mountain goats, which were declared Oregon natives based on archeological finds and American Indian artifacts, Cooper says.

But whatever turkey-like critter is found here, it must resemble turkeys of today before any change of classification occurs, Cooper says.

There is fossil evidence that a giant beaver the size of a black bear lived in Oregon millions of years ago, Cooper says. But it’s far too different to be considered the same beaver of today’s Oregon.

Regardless, Mathis believes the bird Ben Franklin preferred over bald eagles should garner more respect.

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com