Apr 27, 2014 By Ben Moyer for The 5 min read

Something like 300,000 wild turkeys will be roosted in the woods across Pennsylvania when the spring gobbler season opens just before dawn on May 3. That’s down from the peak estimate of 410,000 birds in 2001 and biologists don’t yet know the impact of the severe winter, but turkey numbers remain far above populations that hunters were happy to have for decades.

Some senior hunters can even remember when Pennsylvania’s wild turkeys seemed to be on the same sad path as the passenger pigeon. Bringing turkeys back to their present day abundance took work, money, and a crusade against the Game Commission’s logic of the past.

“There were no more than about 3,000 (wild turkeys) left at the low point in the 1920s,” said Game Commission wild turkey biologist Mary Jo Casalena. “The last flocks were tucked away in the most inaccessible reaches of the Ridge and Valley Province–too steep to log or farm–in Bedford, Fulton, Franklin and Juniata counties.”

Today hunters take about 35,000 bearded gobblers every spring season, and another 15,000 or so birds of either sex during the fall hunt.

As with other decimated wildlife species, the first step to restoration was protection.

“The Commission cut back on fall hunting dramatically in the ’30s (spring hunting began in Pennsylvania in 1968),” Casalena continued. “Then they scaled back the bag limits. Hunters could take as many turkeys as they wanted before the ’30s. Up to that time habitat destruction and market hunting dramatically impacted flocks across the state.”

In 1930 the Commission also began trying to restore populations by stocking farm-raised turkeys. Soon after, flocks began to grow and spread in the northcentral mountains and game commissioners believed their stocking effort was working. Not so says Casalena.

“The Commission learned later that it wasn’t the game farm birds at all,” she said. “At that time the cutover forests of northern Pennsylvania were regenerating and the original hemlock forest was replaced by oak and cherry, which was much better turkey habitat than the native conifers. Wild birds were actually expanding northward from remnant flocks in the southcentral ridges on their own.”

Besides being ineffective, stocking posed the risk of introducing disease to wild flocks. Ignoring recommendations of its own biologists, the Game Commission continued to stock game-farm turkeys until 1981.

Pittsburgh Press outdoors editor Roger Latham wrote often about the folly of stocking turkeys. “Surely by now the commissioners have learned that this game-farm stock contributes absolutely nothing to the wild population,” Latham wrote in May of 1978.

Even early in the game-farm controversy, biologists began perfecting trap-and-transfer, which Casalena said was the real engine that drove wild turkey restoration across the state.

“You had all this habitat with no turkeys. Once biologists learned to trap some of the birds out of thriving flocks and move them, new flocks were able to explode,” Casalena said.

Trap-and-transfer was labor-intensive and costly. Fortunately its emergence coincided with the growth of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, which raised funds to support trapping and whose members helped in the effort.

“Trap-and-transfer of wild birds was one of the best wild turkey management decisions ever made in Pennsylvania,” said Don Heckman, former president of the state NWTF chapter.

The NWTF’s Pennsylvania State Chapter has been amazingly successful in its work with the Game Commission to restore turkey populations. More than 85 local chapters work to improve turkey habitat, raise money, and promote safe and ethical hunting within their regions. Pennsylvania’s state chapter has won numerous national awards for its success.

“The PA Chapter of NWTF has been instrumental for more than 25 years,” Casalena observed. “NWTF provided a lot of money that’s been put into research, management, habitat and education. It’s a fantastic organization to work with.”

The adaptability of the wild turkey itself proved another piece in the restoration puzzle. Early in the effort biologists believed wild turkeys could only live within extensive forest. But when the birds proved adaptable to the small-woodlot landscape in places like Greene and Washington counties, range expansion accelerated.

“We’ve learned that small woodlot habitat is good for turkeys because it’s a tapestry of diversity,” Casalena said. “But woodlot birds are more vulnerable to hunting mortality, so we have to be conservative with our fall seasons when hens are legal game.”

Manipulating fall seasons, made possible by the Commission’s establishment of 23 Wildlife Management Units in 2003, allowed for “fine-tuning” turkey management.

“WMU 2A is a good example,” Casalena said. “We cut back the fall season there from three weeks to two. You have to think of variables. If we got an early snowfall, the hens would be vulnerable to fall hunting.”

This year’s spring gobbler season runs May 3-31. The season limit is one bearded gobbler, but hunters may take a second gobbler if they have acquired the special additional tag before the season begins.