I would suspect that this has something to do with the price as well. I read a recent article in The Economist about dried/smoked foods like parma ham etc., and how nearly all the traditional techniques used for preserving meat without cooking it are either banned by the USDA or made prohibitively expensive by requirements that e.g. temperature and ph be measured and recorded every four hours. No idea whether this extends from the import of saucisson sec and jamon iberico to the making of jerky, but it sounds likely.
Or just wedge an oven-mitt in the door; that kept it open enough to make (what I recall many years later) IMHO palatable jerky.
Nope. Turkey jerkey is reasonably common. In the PNW, we also get tuna jerkey and salmon jerkey.
Of course, what I’m curious about is why the Asian grocery stores have such huge selections of beef jerkey in all kinds of weird flavors. I mean, who woulda thunk to make strawberry-flavored beef jerkey in the first place?