WILD TURKEY MANAGEMENT PLAN POSTED FOR PUBLIC COMMENT

Pennsylvania Game Commission officials are seeking public comment on a revised draft management plan for wild turkey.   The plan can be reviewed by going to the Game Commission's website (www.pgc.state.pa.us) and clicking on "Wild Turkey Mgmt. Plan" icon under "The Outdoor Shop" box in the center of the homepage.

Public comments on the draft wild turkey management plan will be accepted through Nov. 24.  Public comments will be accepted via e-mail or by mail to: Wild Turkey Management Plan, Pennsylvania Game Commission, 2001 Elmerton Avenue, Harrisburg, PA 17110-9797.

"The success of wild turkey management in the Commonwealth is directly related to a program of monitoring, applied research and habitat management, vigilant protection, education, planning and collaboration with many partners, most particularly the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the NWTF," said Mary Jo Casalena, Game Commission wild turkey biologist and primary author of the plan.  "Operations over the past six years have been guided by the 1999 Wild Turkey Management Plan, and there is much to celebrate.

"This revised management plan will guide wild turkey management and research decisions through 2015.  The 62-page document describes the strategic goals and objectives, along with strategies for accomplishing each objective.  It also provides background information on wild turkey life history and how wild turkey populations are managed in Pennsylvania."

Casalena noted that some of the accomplishments include: annually assessing population trends with harvest and summer sightings indices; conducting a 2.5-year radio-telemetry study in southcentral Pennsylvania (Wildlife Management Unit 5A) to assess the reasons for the low population level and developing management strategies to restore the population; and, with financial support from the NWTF and Pennsylvania Chapter NWTF, developing an eastern wild turkey population model for the northeast states that will identify the data components most needed to more effectively manage the wild turkey resource in the 21st century.

Other accomplishments include: maintaining and/or exceeding baseline statewide turkey hunter success rates (spring and fall); establishing several turkey habitat management demonstration areas on State Game Lands, and creating or maintaining thousands of acres of wild turkey habitat, much of which involved cooperative projects with conservation organizations, sportsmen clubs, and federal, state and local agencies.

Casalena noted that the Game Commission signed a cooperative agreement with the NWTF to partially fund a NWTF regional biologist to work closely with agency staff on wild turkey research, population management, and habitat management, as well as provide technical assistance to private landowners.

The agency also established a wild turkey section on the agency's website (www.pgc.state.pa.us), which can be viewed by clicking on "Wildlife" then choosing "Wild Turkey." This site features many articles on wild turkey biology and management.

In 2001, the Game Commission implemented a one-half-hour segment of turkey hunting education to include safety, ethics, and hunter responsibility into the existing basic hunter-trapper education program.   The agency also supported legislation and created regulations to legalize the use of manmade blinds in 2002, and to create a second turkey-hunting license to begin in the spring of 2006.

With the assistance of the NWTF, the Game Commission, from 2000-2003, also transferred 515 wild turkeys to southeast Pennsylvania to fully restore turkey populations in areas of that region that can support turkey populations.

Created in 1895 as an independent state agency, the Game Commission is responsible for conserving and managing all wild birds and mammals in the Commonwealth, establishing hunting seasons and bag limits, enforcing hunting and trapping laws, and managing habitat on the 1.4 million acres of State Game Lands it has purchased over the years with hunting and furtaking license dollars to safeguard wildlife habitat.  The agency also conducts numerous wildlife conservation programs for schools, civic organizations and sportsmen's clubs. 

The Game Commission does not receive any general state taxpayer dollars for its annual operating budget.  The agency is funded by license sales revenues; the state's share of the federal Pittman-Robertson program, which is an excise tax collected through the sale of sporting arms and ammunition; and monies from the sale of oil, gas, coal, timber and minerals derived from State Game Lands.

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