Utah Has a Thriving Population of Wild Turkeys

By Ammoland Editor Joe Evans

USA -(Ammoland.com)- As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, many Utahans aren’t aware that they share their state with a thriving population of wild turkeys. Late November is a perfect time to get outside and see them.

Turkeys in Utah

Today, Utah’s turkey population numbers almost 25,000 wild birds. But that wasn’t always the case. In fact, until the 1950s, established turkey populations hadn’t been seen in Utah in 100 years or more.

“Based on historical and archeological evidence,” says Jason Robinson, upland game coordinator for the Division of Wildlife Resources, “it’s clear Native Americans and turkeys coexisted in Utah. That evidence includes pictographs, petroglyphs, blankets made from turkey feathers and turkey bones found at places Native Americans lived.”

Except for a failed reintroduction in the 1920s, no records exist of turkeys being in Utah from the time Europeans started exploring the state to the successful reintroduction of birds in the 1950s.

In the 1950s, biologists with the Utah Department of Fish and Game (the agency’s name was changed to the Division of Wildlife Resources in 1967) successfully released Merriam’s wild turkeys in southern Utah. Subsequent releases, of both …Read the Rest

Source:: AmmoLand