Talking turkey: Celebrating a conservation success story

One of the common complaints about environmentalists is that they are, as a group, so gloomy and pessimistic. According to some people, those who care about the environment are so quick to talk about extinctions and climate catastrophe and the end of everything. There’s more than a little truth to those accusations. The month of Thanksgiving, though, seems an appropriate time to celebrate a success story, a story of a creature brought back from the brink by citizen action and sound conservation policy. It’s the story of the wild turkey. Ghost Turkeys The first time I saw wild turkeys, few believed me. My dad and I were hunting deer on family property in central Pennsylvania when we saw dark forms moving through the woodlands: turkeys. They moved silently, like ghosts, as turkeys often do when alarmed. When I told friends, they asked a barrage of questions: Was I sure it wasn’t actually a flock of turkey vultures? Free-range chickens? Guinea fowl? Their skepticism was understandable: Turkeys were a rare sight in central Pennsylvania in 1983. Today, though, nearly every woodlot, meadow and forest in the state has some turkeys scratching and gobbling. It’s the same from Maine to California, and most places in between—including the Inland Northwest. At one point, turkeys did seem to be “ghost birds,” and not just because they can move so quietly. In the early 1900s, the world’s wild turkey population was an estimated 30,000 birds. That’s a smaller number than exists today for such high-profile species as polar bears, orangutans and African elephants. Today, 7 million turkeys live in North America, occupying almost all suitable habitat and even occupying new areas, including Idaho, Washington and Oregon. How did such a dramatic turnaround happen? The fact that conservationists (and turkeys) pulled this off should offer some hope for today’s conservation challenges. Wildlife Of the People Since colonization, people in North America treated wildlife as an unlimited resource, to be shot, sold and plundered for any reason, at any time. At one point, many considered it a foregone conclusion that North America’s iconic wildlife would become extinct, including bison, elk and even turkeys. Some museum curators rushed west to collect what they considered the final remaining specimens of North America’s game. Early conservationists, though, saw another future. Visionaries like Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell framed our collective ownership of wildlife in a new way: as a common investment that all people had a stake in protecting. The United States passed wildlife legislation. Even more importantly, it enforced that legislation. Citizen-conservationists played vital roles, from protecting habitat to funding turkey reintroduction efforts. Groups like the National Wild Turkey Federation worked closely with state and federal agencies to ensure a full restoration of wild turkeys. There were missteps, to be sure. At one point many state agencies relied on hatchery programs to stock forests with semi-wild birds. These turkeys proved naïve to predators and hunters, lacked basic survival skills and were prone to disease. Overall, conservationists were spectacularly successful. This success was mirrored with many other game species, from elk to Canada geese, from pronghorn to white-tailed deer. It’s easy to take these successes for granted. Not many environmentalists, I suspect, see a flock of geese and exclaim: “Success!” Which is too bad. When conservationists feel hopeless about the plight of tigers or rhinos, it can be a powerful reminder to remember that elk and turkeys once faced a similar plight. As conservationists, we’re striving towards a future where we can live alongside abundant wildlife, where we don’t lose the tremendous diversity that comprises life on earth. Turkeys prove that this goal not just a pipe dream, but well within reach—if we can muster the citizen support and political will. This Thanksgiving, let’s be thankful for the turkey, and let’s use its example to guide our way.