The coronavirus pandemic has canceled dozens of spring traditions, but there's one rite that's going on largely unfettered — turkey hunting. Every state except Alaska, which is the only state with no turkeys, hosts a spring turkey hunt each year.
In this Monday, May 4, 2020 photo, a wild turkey crosses a field in Freeport, Maine. States around the country are encouraging hunters to hunt turkeys this spring despite social distancing rules. The hunt will look different than usual because of concerns about the virus.
Every state except Alaska, which is the only state with no turkeys, hosts a spring turkey hunt each year. The birds, whose domesticated cousins grace Thanksgiving tables from Hawaii to Maine, are among America’s greatest conservation success stories. But all 49 states are going ahead with turkey hunts in some form or another, said Mark Hatfield, national director of conservation services for the South Carolina-based National Wild Turkey Federation. That even includes Hawaii, where the birds aren’t native but were introduced in the 1960s.
Turkey hunting takes place every spring in part to control the population of the birds, which were once numbered in only the tens of thousands before repopulation efforts brought them back. The population rose to 1.3 million in the early 1970s and is now more than 6 million, Hatfield said. “That person may say, ‘Well I’m going to turkey hunt more. I used to be able to turkey hunt more on the weekend, now I can do it during the week.’ It could increase the harvest of resident hunters,” Hatfield said.
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