JW

ARIZONA — The National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF), the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the USDA Forest Service and the Coronado National Forest recently made history by transferring 69 Gould's wild turkeys — the largest number of Gould's wild turkeys ever transferred within the state — to southeastern Arizona's Pinaleño Mountains and Galiuro Wilderness Area.







Photo credit: United States Forest Service

Fernando Henry of the USDA Forest Service releases a Gould's wild turkey from a transport box.
Forty-nine of the turkeys were released into the Galiuro Wilderness Area and 20 were trapped in the Chiricahua Mountains and released in the Pinaleño Mountains.
"The dedication and hard work of the Arizona Game and Fish Department and partnerships with USDA Forest Service, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the Coronado National Forest have made this release and the comeback of the Gould's wild turkey in Arizona possible," said James Earl Kennamer, Ph.D., the NWTF's chief conservation officer. "The NWTF's dedicated volunteers and staff are proud to work with these great agencies to help restore wild turkey populations, improve habitat and preserve our hunting traditions."
The Gould's is the least known and least populated of the wild turkey sub-species in the United States and is found in the mountains of southern Arizona and New Mexico. It is more common in northwestern portions of Mexico. Efforts to restore the Gould's wild turkey population in Arizona have been ongoing for 25 years, and this project carried on those efforts.
"The interagency cooperation shown in our project to restore Gould's wild turkeys in Arizona should serve as a model of how agencies and sportsmen can work together to improve habitat and ensure the future for all wildlife," said Jim Heffelfinger, regional game specialist with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, who oversaw the Gould's release.
Scott P. Lerich, NWTF regional biologist for Arizona, said earlier attempts to establish a Gould's wild turkey population in the Galiuro Wilderness Area ultimately failed because the birds were released near an access road and had difficulty finding their way to prime turkey habitat on top of the mountain. The wilderness area presented a challenge because there were no roads near the best wild turkey habitat. This first ever use of a helicopter to move wild turkeys helped the project partners place the birds directly into the correct habitat.







Photo credit: Arizona Game and Fish Department

The recent Gould's wild turkey release marked the first time a helicopter has been used in a wild turkey release.
"The transplant within the Galiuro Wilderness Area was a technically complex operation that required special authorizations, hard work and cooperation," said Jeanine Derby, forest supervisor for the Coronado National Forest. "However, the outcome was well worth the extra effort. Besides restoring ecological diversity within these mountain islands, the successful transplant of these birds will complement the future wilderness experience for visitors."
A national nonprofit conservation organization that was founded in 1973, the NWTF has worked with wildlife agencies to restore wild turkey populations from 1.3 million wild turkeys in 1973 to nearly 7 million today. Now, NWTF volunteers raise funds and work daily to improve critical wildlife habitat, increase access to public hunting land and introduce new people to the outdoors and hunting. To date, the NWTF and its partners have spent more than $286 million upholding hunting traditions and conserving nearly 14 million acres of wildlife habitat.
Since the 1950s, state and provincial wildlife agencies have moved more than 195,000 wild turkeys to suitable habitat across North America. The NWTF, its volunteers and partners joined the fight to help restore turkey populations in North America in the late 1980s, which greatly accelerated these efforts.
When the NWTF was founded in 1973, there were only an estimated 1.3 million wild turkeys in the country. Thanks to the work of many, there are now more than 7 million wild turkeys and nearly 3 million turkey hunters

From the NWTF Newsletter and it is free

JW

hunting junkie

That's a good thing.

UncleNorby

Interesting.A good project for sure. There must not be any wild turkeys in that area. If there were, and they were a different sub-species, they would likely interbreed and the effort to expand the Gould's range and population would be wasted.