The coming of Spring in New Jersey usually means one thing for the local hunters: turkey season. With turkey season comes many out of area hunters, some even from out of state, their pickup trucks filled with camo and decoys in hopes of bagging a big gobbler. New Jersey is, after all, one of the best places in the United States to hunt the Easter Wild Turkey. Yet not many of us, especially the younger generations, let it cross our minds that not that long ago, there was no turkey season in New Jersey. Simply put, there were no turkeys.

Before Europeans came to the part of North American that is now the United States,the subspecies of the Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallapovo silvestris), occurred nearly everywhere in the northeast in plenty. In fact, wild turkey was so common that wild turkey was a staple in the diets of the colonists and was a major part of the now-traditional feast of Thanksgiving Day.

By the mid-1800s much of the lands that were heavily forested when Europeans first arrived in North America were cleared of the forests for farming land, timber for lumber or the charcoal industry. Because of these practices many of the once-abundant wildlife species like the white-tailed deer, black bear and wild turkey were forced to retreat to smaller and smaller areas of more remote forestland. Also, during this time these same wild animals and birds were hunted heavily for food by the settlers and farmers of the times. This unregulated hunting lead to the rapidly decreasing populations of the wild turkey and other wildlife species. By the late 1800s the wild turkey was nearly gone from its original New Jersey habitat. The last open season for wild turkey in New Jersey occurred in 1913. In that year the season ran from November 10 to December 15. In 1913 the open season on the wild turkey was closed and the bird was given full protection.

During the years from 1913 until 1930 the New Jersey Fish and Game Commission tried to make releases of game farm raised turkeys. That unsuccessful program was discontinued until 1960 when 26 more pen-raised turkeys were released. All of the attempts at releasing pen-raised or game farm-raised wild turkeys failed. During the 1950s and 60s, wildlife agencies and managers throughout the United States experimented with many different methods of raising and capturing wild turkeys. Most of these attempts failed miserably, too. Several states tried raising wild turkey in huge field pens with no top or covering wire into which wild male turkeys (gobblers) could fly. In those pens were hens whose primary wing feathers had been cut so they could not fly out. The theory was for the male turkeys to fly into the pens and mate with the "tame" hens in the pens. The poults, as young turkeys are called, were to be raised and released into the wild. The problem with this system was that although the hens produced eggs and chicks, those hens and their offspring were not inherently wild and within a generation or two, those turkeys disappeared. Wildlife Managers soon figured out that the only way to establish wild populations was to somehow capture and release wild turkeys from areas where truly wild turkeys existed. Few of those areas remained. The northeastern portion of the United States, areas of northwestern Pennsylvania and southwestern New York, still harbored remnants of populations of truly wild Eastern Wild Turkeys. These areas, namely the Allegheny Forest areas, served as the sites from which almost all wild turkeys used for re-introductions in the eastern United States were captured. Once the area from which to catch and transfer wild turkeys was found, a means to capture them had to be discovered too. Wildlife Biologists and Managers experimented with several other methods such as drop-nets and drugged bait. The drop-nets were not very successful because the Eastern Wild Turkey was reluctant to walk under any overhead contraption like the drop net. The drugged bait method worked but it too had it's own problems. The bait on which the wild turkeys to be captured had to soaked in the drug. Then, once placed in an area where wild turkeys had been feeding on undrugged bait (usually corn or wheat), the baited area had to be closely watched to insure that no other birds or animals other than the target turkeys fed on the drugged bait. When wild turkeys appeared at the bait it was important to be careful not to frighten the turkeys away before they consumed enough of the drugged bait to immobilize them. Doubly important was the need for wildlife managers to watch the feeding turkeys to make sure that they didn't wander off before the drug took effect.

The answer to the problem of wild turkey capture was found when wildlife managers discovered the cannon net. With this device many turkeys could be captured at one time. A cannon net setup is a long net, usually 30 X 40 feet, but can be larger or smaller. The system used a mortar like cannon that propelled weights attached to the front of the net. When the turkeys came to bait and were feeding a watching wildlife biologist could detonate the cannons by electrical charge causing the net to be propelled over the wild turkeys resulting in their capture. This one tool, the cannon net, and a slightly different system, the rocket net, changed the way wild turkey biologists captured turkeys and made reintroduction of wild turkeys possible in New Jersey as well as in most of the other states in the United States.

New Jersey Wildlife Biologists working for the New Jersey Division of Fish, Game and Shellfisheries (now the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife), explored the possibility of making releases of wild turkeys in New Jersey. It was determined that large areas of continuous woodland were needed to support and supply all the needs of the wild turkey throughout the year. In the 1960s and 70s the Federal Government and US Army Corps of Engineers was purchasing lands and homes from residents of townships along the Delaware River for the planned Tocks Islands Dam Project in Sussex and Warren Counties. The Tocks Island Dam never was built, but the land that was purchased for the dam project by the US Government in Sussex and Warren Counties, and in Pennsylvania on the other side of the Delaware River added up to huge areas of now almost uninhabited open land totaling in excess of 30,000 acres. By the late 1970s most of the homes purchased for the Tocks Island Project had been torn down and large areas of that land was in various states of reverting to forestland. This is just what was needed for a site for the first reintroduction of wild turkeys back into New Jersey. The area is now called the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

In 1977, the first reintroduction of wild turkeys was made in Sandyston Township, Sussex County on Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The wild turkeys for the original release were live-trapped birds from the states of Vermont (hens) and New York (gobblers). Twenty-two turkeys, 15 hens and 7 gobblers, were released in the winter of that year. Since 1979, when New Jersey Wildlife professionals started to capture and release wild turkeys within the state, between 1500 and 2000 wild turkeys have been live trapped in the state and a large number of these birds were relocated to unoccupied wild turkey range in 16 of the 21 New Jersey counties. These counties include Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Passaic, Salem, Somerset, Sussex and Warren. States such as New York, Delaware and Illinois and the Canadian province of Ontario have received wild-trapped wild turkeys from New Jersey to re-establish range within those states and provinces.

Wild Turkeys have expanded their range in New Jersey through natural dispersal and trap and transfer operations since their reintroduction in 1977. The birds now occupy 20 of the 21 New Jersey counties.

The reintroduction of the wild turkey to New Jersey using live-trapped wild turkeys was an amazing success. By 1981, the first limited hunting season for Eastern Wild Turkeys in New Jersey since 1913 was held, and a total of 71 gobblers were harvested that first year. The season was for male turkeys only. Wildlife Biologists recognize that male wild turkeys could be harvested in the spring without impacting overall wild turkey populations. The gobblers were hunted after the majority of the hens were bred and were then incubating eggs. This resulted in little impact to the hens (and their nests) and in effect the hunt resulted in the harvest of excess male turkeys. By 1997 a limited fall season for wild turkeys of either sex was held for the first time.

Wild turkeys now occur abundantly throughout New Jersey wherever there is suitable habitat. Even in the southern portion of the state where wild turkeys release attempts struggled a few years prior, hard work by the state's biologist and technicians in the turkey reintroduction effort improved population numbers wonderfully. Present populations are estimated at 20,000 - 23,000 with annual harvests of more than 3,000 wild turkeys.

Special Thanks to Director of Conservation Operations for the NJ chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, BOB ERIKSEN

And also to my father, NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife Technician, JOE GARRIS

These two men played a huge role in reintroducing the Eastern Wild Turkey to New Jersey. Without them, it would not have happened