Here you see an Eastern wild turkey that had no hesitancy about parading with her extended family around here during the Thanksgiving season. Maine, once an importer of wild turkeys, is now exporting part of its surplus of them to east Texas, where they have been in perilous decline.
Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 19, 2021
In years gone by, Maine had its own difficulties preserving wild turkeys, our biggest game bird. Early attempts to reintroduce the birds were failures. Fifty years ago, wild turkeys had become as scarce as flamingoes here. It was thought by some that they could not adapt to harsh winters or survive serious spring hunting.
Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 21, 2019
However, during the 1970s and 1980s, wildlife officials in Vermont and Connecticut contributed 110 turkeys to a new Maine turkey reintroduction and wildlife management program. It was a well-managed program that succeeded; some now say that it was too successful.
Wild turkeys here are at unprecedented numbers and even populate our coldest, snowiest, and most hunted counties. Maine’s spring population of the big birds has increased to between 60,000 and 70,000, providing hunters about 6,000 harvested birds in the spring and between 2,000 and 3,000 in the fall, according to State officials and the National Wild Turkey Federation.
Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 17, 2018
(Brooklin, Maine)