Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 32. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset is 4:41 for 9 hours 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 41 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
As the state approaches the 50th anniversary of its wild turkey reintroduction, the birds are found in all 72 counties, ranging from remote wilds to farms to urban parks.
Combining science-based wildlife management and multiple partners, including local and national conservation organizations and private landowners, the Wisconsin wild turkey project is widely regarded as one of the state’s most successful native species reintroductions.
“Quite frankly, there is nothing like it,” said Rob Keck, CEO of the National Wild Turkey Federation from 1978 to 2008 who now works as Bass Pro Shops hunting and fishing ambassador. “To go from zero to statewide and have decades of growth and stability, it’s remarkable in every aspect.”
Wild turkeys were native to Wisconsin but by the mid-1800s its population was strained. The pressures included the removal of vast areas of timber from southern Wisconsin, high turkey harvests by market and subsistence hunters and the disappearance of source populations in Illinois.
By 1860 wild turkeys were rare in Wisconsin, according to the DNR’s document titled “Ecology of Wild Turkeys in Wisconsin.”
The last wild turkey in Wisconsin’s original flock was killed in 1881 near Darlington, according to the DNR.
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So by the 1970s Wisconsin DNR managers were set on a plan.
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“Textbook case of restoring an animal that was once there, into a favorable environment, and watching it take off,” [then DNR wildlife staffer Charley] Burke said.
In 1983, just seven years after reintroduction, the DNR held the state’s first spring turkey hunting season. In 1989 it offered a fall season, too.
