NH Wild Turkey Population Going Up

By Jim on October 6th, 2008

This article ties in well with a column published in this month’s Hawkeye about there possibly being too many turkeys. The column isn’t online so I can’t link to it but the gist of it was that the author that the reintroduction of turkeys to NH might have been too successful and that so many turkeys might be having an adverse impact on other species perhaps even including grouse or deer.

The author called for an expanded hunting season.

I am not sure if he’s right or wrong. A biologist from Fish and game disagreed about turkeys competing with other species to the detriment of some of them. I have no idea who’s right but it seems like we have a surplus of turkeys so that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned.

Wild turkeys are now so plentiful in New Hampshire that hunting restrictions are being eased.

The fall turkey season no longer requires an extra permit. Hunters only need their regular turkey license bought last spring and a shotgun.

New Hampshire began a turkey restoration program in the 1970s after they had been gone for a century. As the population of the birds grew, the state expanded the hunting seasons to include one in the fall three years ago.

The fall shotgun season is still small, running just five weekdays: Monday through Friday, Oct. 13-17, and not covering the entire state. The archery season runs through December.

“There will be quite a few more (hunters), potentially,” said Ted Walski of New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.

The spring hunting season in May is more popular. Hunters killed a record 4,098 turkeys this spring, compared with 343 turkeys during last fall’s season.

Dick Pinney makes a VERY important point about who paid for the recovery of wild turkeys in New Hampshire…hunters!

People reading this column should know that the effort to reintroduce wild turkeys back into their traditional areas in this country was almost exclusively financed by hunters, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly through taxes levied on certain sporting goods and equipment. It is a well-documented fact that the nation’s most dedicated conservationists have been hunters and anglers.