![]() ![]() Infographic by Andrew Moore / NC State College of Natural Resources. In the 1950s, several years after the creation of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, the agency initiated a “trap and transfer” program that involved live-trapping and relocating wild turkeys to areas where the bird had previously disappeared. “It wasn’t long before they realized that pen-raised birds just couldn’t survive in the wild,” Moorman said. ![]() Unfortunately, the birds weren’t accustomed to predators and extreme weather conditions. However, by the early 1900s, the state’s turkey population had dramatically declined due to unregulated market hunting and habitat loss caused by unsustainable logging and agricultural operations, according to Christopher Moorman, professor and interim associate head of the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at NC State’s College of Natural Resources.Įarly restoration attempts began in the late 1920s with the release of pen-raised turkeys into the wild. Wild turkeys were abundant in North Carolina when the first European settlers arrived. The subspecies that exists in North Carolina, the eastern wild turkey, ranges from southern Maine to northern Florida, west to eastern Texas and north to North Dakota. Today, five subspecies of wild turkey can be found across the continental United States and Hawaii. The wild turkey has also become one of the country’s most popular game species, providing a number of socioeconomic benefits. While Franklin considered the eagle “a bird of bad moral character” that steals food from other birds, he called the wild turkey “a much more respectable bird” and “a bird of courage” that “would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his farm yard.”įranklin never made his opinion publicly known, but his enthusiasm for the turkey is now shared by millions of Americans who feast on the bird for Thanksgiving every year. In 1784, a year and half after Congress adopted the Great Seal, Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to his daughter in which he expressed his disapproval of the bald eagle - the national symbol. ![]()
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