Page 47 - South Mississippi Living - March, 2021

“Unregulated hunting and habitat loss in the early decades of the 20th century almost put turkeys into extinction,” remarks Adam Butler, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries & Parks Wild Turkey Program Coordinator.
In the 1930s, the state began enacting laws to regulate turkey harvests and protect habitat. During and after World War II, many people left their farms to get jobs in cities. Agricultural lands once devoid of trees began
to grow into forests again. Still, turkeys only existed in a few pockets
in Mississippi. From the late 1950s through the 1980s, the state captured turkeys from places with adequate populations and released them in good habitat.
“The rebound of wild turkeys is probably the greatest conservation success story of the 20th century,” Butler recalls. “We were one of the few states that did not have to rely on turkeys from out of state. All of the turkeys we restocked came from Mississippi.”
The state used three primary sources to capture wild turkeys for restocking elsewhere. They found some birds
on private lands in Amite County
and behind the levee in Coahoma County. They also captured birds from what was then called the Leaf River Refuge, now the Leaf River Wildlife Management Area in Perry County
near Wiggins.
“Relocating turkeys has been a huge
success story,” Butler says. “However, there’s been a lot of concern in the past 15 years about turkey populations across the southeastern states. Turkey numbers are down. In southeastern Mississippi, they are not nearly what they were 20 years ago.”
Hurricane Katrina devastated southern Mississippi in August 2005. The storm destroyed major forests. Even remaining trees lost all their leaves. By some estimates, Katrina damaged or destroyed more than 80 percent of the hardwood strands in southern Mississippi.
“Turkeys need a third of the
landscape in good hardwoods to have good populations,” Butler explains. “When a storm wrecks 80 percent of the hardwoods across a big region of the state, turkey populations are going to suffer. Fortunately, a lot of those forests are finally starting to come back. The forests needed time to heal and it’s starting to happen now. In two of the last three summers in southern Mississippi, we’ve seen good turkey hatches so we’re starting to see the numbers rebound. Many people in that part of the state report seeing and hearing more turkeys in the past year or two than they have in a long time.”
The Leaf River WMA still holds a good turkey population. Butler also recommended hunting Mason Creek WMA in Greene County, Wolf River WMA near Poplarville and the DeSoto National Forest near Hattiesburg.
Turkey season runs from March 15 through May 1 statewide with a limit of one gobbler per day and three per season. Youth sportsmen 15 years old or younger can hunt from March 8-14. For more on turkey hunting, see www. mdwfp.com.
With proper management, ethical hunting and preservation of habitat, people will hear wild turkeys gobble across the state for many years to come.
Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks releases a turkey back into the wild.
A hunter places a decoy. Turkey season runs from March 15 through May 1.
SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living | www.smliving.net
March 2021 | 47