The United States Department of Agriculture estimates Americans will enjoy cooking and consuming 46 million turkeys this Thanksgiving. Around 88 percent of Americans will eat turkey whether it was smoked, roasted, baked, fried or grilled but that’s enough about domestic turkeys. 

Americans have a lot to be thankful for and Thanksgiving offers a great opportunity to appreciate America’s largest upland game bird, the wild turkey. People can also appreciate the bird’s conservation success story. 

When Europeans first arrived in North America, there were an estimated 10 million wild turkeys living on the landscape. By 1920, unregulated market hunting and habitat degradation had caused 18 of 39 states to lose their wild turkey population where the bird was once abundant and an estimated 50,000 turkeys remained. Connecticut was the first state to lose its population of turkeys in 1814 with Vermont losing its population in 1842. 

Conservation efforts by state game and fish agencies, private citizens and the National Wild Turkey Federation allowed for the wild turkey to bounce back. 

Early conservation efforts focused on relocating turkeys to new areas of states to populate. Mississippi had 3,764 turkeys relocated in various counties across the state. Lincoln County is one of seven counties in Mississippi that did not have to have turkeys restocked. 

Today, there are an estimated 7 million wild turkeys across the United States with 49 states having a viable turkey population. Alaska is the only American state to not have any wild turkeys. 

There are five distinct subspecies of wild turkeys in America. Eastern Wild Turkeys live in 38 states and numerous Canadian provinces. Osceola turkeys live in Florida and have a population around 100,000 according to NWTF. 

Rio Grande turkeys live in western desert regions of states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and other western states. Merriam turkeys can only be found in the mountainous region of the west. Gould’s turkeys can only be found in New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico. 

According to the NWTF, a wild turkey’s gobble can be heard up to a mile away. It is most often heard in the spring time during the breeding season but you can hear male wild turkeys gobble any time of the year. 

Wild turkey conservation efforts are far from over. As land use continues to change, human populations grow and cities begin to sprawl there are new challenges to face in managing turkeys. 

Did you know, wild turkeys are most numerous when hardwoods comprise one third of the landscape. In Lincoln County, this is a concern due to the growing acreage of pine plantations and a shrinking number of hardwood acreage. 

A simple private land site visit with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks is a great way to learn how you can help the wild turkey with your land. Diversity of habitat, forest stand improvement, maintaining openings and fighting invasive plants such as privet are general ways you can help wild turkeys.