Wild turkeys: A conservation (and hunting) success story
During a recent five-day splurge of all things turkey, more than 50,000 mostly male and many camouflage-clad gobbler enthusiasts streamed into the Opryland Convention Center in Nashville for the National Wild Turkey Federation’s annual convention.
They found the hall packed with turkey paraphernalia: calls and callers, bows and shotguns, decoys and ground blinds, guides and outfitters; while abuzz with an almost circus-like, celebratory atmosphere that was undergirded with a bedrock of friendly yet steely eyed vendors pitching their wares to the willing and well-informed audience. Turkey hunting is big business.
During the show, many of the record-setting crowd made their way to aisle 1400, where Harold Knight was shaking hands, smiling for photos, signing the occasional autograph and talking turkey. A co-founder of Knight & Hale Game Calls, co-host of the long running Ultimate Hunting television program and a charter member of the NWTF, his is one of the most recognizable names and faces in hunting.
He is one of the most accessible, friendly and humble hunting celebrities in an industry littered with oversized personalities. Knight, who has been turkey hunting for nearly six decades, is also something of a touchstone for the nation’s 2.7 million turkey hunters.
“I love it,” Knight said of the endless glad handing and story swapping. “These people don’t owe me a thing. I owe them.”
Like many of the vendors, speakers, presenters and personalities on the selling side of the convention, Knight is riding the wave of one of the most successful wildlife restoration and recovery efforts in modern conservation and wildlife game management history, and one in which he has played a notable part.
The return of the wild turkey.
Bringing back an endangered bird
Today, the NWTF estimates that there are more than 6 million wild turkeys in the United States, but a century ago bird numbers had plummeted to historic lows.
Then, in the late 1930s, when bird numbers were at their lowest and the birds’ disappearance from the landscape was feared, a turnaround began.
“There were a couple of major things that happened,” said Tom Hughes, director of science and research for the Turkey Federation. “One was the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937. That really was a huge jump start to funding wildlife restoration. And at the same time there was a rising of land and conservation ethics.”
The Pittman-Robertson Act — officially the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 — placed an excise tax on sporting goods and ammunition and provided the seed money for large-scale wildlife restoration work. It would be another 15 or so years and before turkeys would begin to make a measurable comeback. By 1952, bird numbers nationwide had only grown to 320,000. But the groundwork had been laid.
During the early years turkey restoration efforts were hit and miss, largely because the men doing the work learned by trial and error. They first tried supplementing the few remaining wild turkey populations with birds that had been pen-raised; partly because trapping and transferring wild birds was so difficult.
The use of pen-raised birds was a failure at every level. Then, in 1951, a practical breakthrough happened.
“One single event that really helped propel restoration for the turkeys was the utilization of the cannon net to catch wild turkeys for trap and transfer,” said Hughes. “Prior to that we didn’t have a truly reliable way to capture wild turkeys.”
Cannon nets were originally used to trap waterfowl. When it was discovered that the same tool could be used snare turkeys — one of the wiliest of all wild game — the influx of new blood and fresh genetics quickly spiked bird numbers.
“Most of the wild turkeys that had survived were small flocks in very isolated areas,” said Dan Figert, a veteran wildlife biologist and assistant director of wildlife for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. State game officials estimate Kentucky’s turkey flock now at about 250,000 birds, up from 2,000 in 1978. Other states can boost similar turkey success. “When we were able to bring in birds that had been trapped from other areas things really took off,” Figert added.
Knight, a native Kentuckian who still lives in his hometown, also had a hand in this early work but recalls that biologists, hunters, conservationists and other workers badly misunderstood what birds needed to survive.
“I helped trap birds with cannon nets,” said Knight, who was one of a handful of hunters who bagged a turkey during Kentucky’s inaugural 1960 turkey hunting season. “But when we first started trapping turkeys it was thought that you needed a big, big area of woods for the birds to do well. But that wasn’t true.”
When restoration work started, the only wild birds left were in isolated, heavily wooded areas. Researchers assumed the birds clung to the dense, wooded habitat because it was needed for them to survive. But not so, they learned. Although early work was largely focused on areas covered by tens of thousands of wooded acres.
“We thought that was the case at the time,” said Hughes. “Because that’s where the remaining turkeys were. But it turned out you didn’t have to have those huge tracts of timber for the birds to do well. Those were just the places where they could get away from us.”
“We learned a lot,” Knight added. “I’m still learning. But anytime you have food, water and some cover and protection these birds thrive.”
Future not taken for granted
Conservation and wildlife restoration and recovery has evolved into an exacting science. Turkey numbers are thriving, with much of the work fueled by the NWTF and its 230,000 members. But other species — whitetail deer, waterfowl, quail and others — continue to benefit from ongoing restoration efforts and habitat work.
Knight, who will be 73 in April, easily remembers when turkey, along with deer and other wild game numbers, had dropped to alarmingly low levels, cautions that hunters and conservationists of every stripe need to remain vigilant in their work.
“I hope people realize that as a natural resource we have to take care of not just turkeys, but all wildlife,” he said while taking a brief break from the convention floor. “Just because we’ve got turkeys now doesn’t mean we will always have them. We’ve got to take care of them.”
Winter fishing: Trout run year-round at this Mo. park
Turkey facts and figures
The restoration of the wild turkey is one of the shining wildlife management conservation success stories of the past half century.
When Europeans arrived, the North American woods were teeming with wild turkeys. But the birds failed to withstand the advance of unrestrained civilization. Habitat destruction and unregulated hunting nearly erased wild turkeys from the U.S. and Canada. By 1900, only a handful were left. The low point arrived in the 1930s, when turkey numbers in the United States probably sank to below 250,000. Only those in the most isolated and inhospitable habitat survived.
According to the National Wild Turkey Federation there are currently an estimated 6 to 6.2 million wild turkeys in the United States.
These fall into five subspecies categories:
Eastern (4.5-4.7 million)
Osceola or Florida (115,000)
Rio Grande (853,000)
Merriam’s (260,000)
Gould’s (1,200).
The NWTF estimates that another 300,000 birds are subspecies hybrids.
The ocellated turkey is found in the Yucatan Peninsula and parts of northern Belize and Guatemala.
Male turkeys are larger than females. A mature male turkey generally ranges from 12 to 25 pounds; sometimes heavier. Osceola and Rio Grande subspecies are slightly smaller than Eastern, Merriam’s and Gould’s birds.
Turkeys roost in trees and, preferably, near water. They can fly short distances but are fleet afoot and can hit a top speed over short distances of 55 miles per hour.
Turkeys also have excellent vision, about three times that of a human, and can see in color.
The birds breed in the springtime and are generally considered to be one of the most challenging species to hunt.
The wild turkey was probably one of the “fowl” served during the harvest meal in November 1621 at Plymouth and shared by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Native Americans, an event generally considered to be the first Thanksgiving. But it would be nearly 200 years before the bird would become a holiday meal staple.
Domesticated turkeys and wild turkeys are similar in appearance but the resemblance ends there. Pen-reared birds were used in early wild turkey restoration efforts, with no success.
“A wild turkey is not the same bird that you buy in the market for Thanksgiving,” said Harold Knight, half of Knight & Hale Game Calls and a long-time supporter of and participant in wild turkey restoration work. “The wild turkey is very hardy and very tough. He’s a different bird.”
More at nwtf.org.