Another factor serving to aid turkey populations was habitat improvement, albeit unintentional. The vast stretches of old-growth forest that had been cleared 30 years earlier were now alive with new growth, and these young forests provided good food and habitat for turkeys.

In February 1852, Arkansas’ first outdoor writer, Charles Fenton Mercer ("Fent") Noland, boasted in a newspaper story of killing 54 turkeys in the first few days of a hunt near Batesville.

Also during this period, biologists began using the cannon net to capture wild turkeys, too. Use of the net paved the way for increased turkey trapping and restocking, both of which were key to the restoration effort. Additionally, a conservation ethic was taking root among hunters and non-hunters alike, with both groups frowning upon illegal activities such as poaching.

But perhaps the main factor fueling the turkey population expansion in the 1940s and 1950s was a rapid improvement in the burgeoning science of wildlife management. Wildlife agencies and wildlife biologists began actively managing wild turkey populations, mainly through improving habitat conditions and developing a framework of regulations that allowed seasonal hunting without damaging turkey population growth.

THE SLOW ROAD TO RECOVERY
Recovery of the Arkansas turkey flock started slowly after the three-year closure. In fact, for the first year or two, biologists were half-convinced that the closure had come too late to save Arkansas’ turkeys. For example, in 1945, the year before the three-year closure of the season, the reported harvest was a paltry 299 birds. In 1949, the first year of legal hunting following the closure, the kill was only 195. In 1950, the harvest dropped to 145 -- the lowest turkey harvest ever recorded in Arkansas.

In 1955, though, the number rose to 317 from 201 in 1951. The population was going in the right direction, but the growth rate was painfully slow.

LEASING THE TURKEY FACTORY
In 1960, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission leased Brandywine Island, a hard-to-reach 8,000-acre island in the Mississippi River upstream from West Memphis. Because of its remoteness, Brandywine had a high turkey population, and the scarcity of oak trees on the island made it very easy to take trap turkeys using bait -- always a prerequisite for successful trapping.

Turkey populations languished during the 1930s and 1940s, their totals going as low as perhaps 2,000 birds.

Over the next 15 years, AGFC biologists trapped an average of 150 turkeys per year on Brandywine, relocating them to suitable habitat elsewhere in the state. Most of these early relocation efforts were concentrated in the Ouachita Mountains. But Brandywine birds were also released in the Ozark, Gulf Coastal Plain and the Delta regions. During the same period, some turkeys were also trapped and relocated from White River National Wildlife Refuge, Wapanocca National Wildlife Refuge and the St. Francis National Forest.

By 1972, the efforts were paying off. The estimated Arkansas turkey population was now at 20,000, and that year’s total reported kill was 2,231 -- the first year more than 2,000 birds were taken in the state. Except for a blip during the drought in the early 1980s, the curve in both turkey population growth and annual reported turkey harvest has been steadily upward. Today, Arkansas’ estimated turkey population is 175,000 to 200,000 birds -- maybe more. Last spring, Arkansas’s official kill was 16,969 birds, which was down 15 percent from 2003. Turkeys are now legal game in at least part of every one of the state’s 75 counties.

Today, Arkansas’ estimated turkey population is 175,000 to 200,000 birds -- maybe more. Last spring, Arkansas’s official kill was 16,969 birds, which was down 15 percent from 2003. Turkeys are now legal game in at least part of every one of the state’s 75 counties.

FULL OCCUPANCY
In the early 1990s, the AGFC was able to cut back on trap-and-transplant operations, as all suitable turkey habitat was stocked with birds. But the efforts have continued since then and will continue in future years, largely because key turkey habitat is being created often.

Today, every place that will support turkeys now has turkeys. Additionally, as new areas of suitable habitat come into existence, birds will promptly be trapped and released there as well.