Hunting Archery Duck Deer

Going wild over wild turkeys - arrival of the Pilgrims and disappeared from Massachusetts for a time — is now thriving.

Some residents are dismayed by growing turkey populations. Reports of turkey flocks pecking at letter carriers or tormenting schoolchildren have increased at local and state conservation offices, though turkeys pose no greater danger than other wild species, said Ellie Horwitz of MassWildlife.

”No one bothers to find out (if they really are a threat,)” she said. ”They call us and say they are a nuisance.”

But to hunters like McCarthy, the growing turkey population is good news.

”There is nothing better than getting up at 3:30 in the morning and finding your way in the dark to a spot where you know the turkey population roosts,” he said. ”The sun starts to creep up over the horizon. … You hear the birds gobble, and it sends chills down your spine.”

McCarthy, the regional president of the National Wild Turkey Federation, teaches turkey hunting tactics to women mastering outdoor skills. At home, he talks about turkey hunting so obsessively it drives his wife crazy, he said.

He likes to quote author and turkey hunting guru Tom Kelly, who wrote, ”I do not turkey hunt because I want to. I turkey hunt because I have to. I am fully in the grip of my compulsion.”

Making a comeback

For many, McCarthy said, turkey hunting is an obsession. Hunters’ dedication to the bird has a lot to do with the fowl’s resurgence, he said.

Until the mid-1800s, wild turkeys were prevalent in every part of Massachusetts. The population locally was abundant enough that some believe it explains a North Andover nickname, Turkey Town.

But Colonial settlers razed most of the turkeys’ natural habitat, and the last known turkey native to Massachusetts was killed in 1851.

In the early 1900s, MassWildlife attempted several times to reintroduce the bird, but the farm-raised turkeys they released quickly died in the wild. Finally, in 1972, the state got permission to capture wild birds in New York. Wildlife experts believe the 18,000 to 20,000 wild turkeys living in Massachusetts today originated from 37 birds released here in 1972.

Horwitz said one reason the birds have been so successful is because the forests where they live have slowly returned in Massachusetts, bringing with them animals such as deer and fisher cats, and pushing out pheasants, cottontail rabbits and other animals that live on the plains.

But McCarthy and other hunters like to say they had a lot to do with it. Hunting organizations such as the Wild Turkey Federation spend much of their time raising money for conservation efforts, he said.

Hunters volunteered for MassWildlife during early efforts to distribute the new population across the state, trapping birds where they were thriving and releasing them in other parts of the state. Hunters fill backyard feeders in winter months when snow keeps turkeys from their natural food source. Hunters are also mostly responsible for counting the population, he said.

”We’re not that much different from the average person who embraces nature and wants to save the planet,” McCarthy said.

Thrill of the hunt

McCarthy, a former rock climber who fell in love with turkey hunting 10 years ago, said wild turkeys provide a thrill like no other species of game.

Farm-raised turkeys have most of their smarts bred out of them. Wild turkeys, on the other hand, have such well-developed senses that they can see a person blink. They make and respond to different sounds at different times of year. Hunters must learn their social structures and mating patterns in order to track them and lure them close enough to shoot.

Tom Costa, 31, hunts most of his turkeys in Harold Parker State Forest in North Andover, where he lives. He said turkey hunting takes more skill than hunting other types of game.

”You have to physically call them in,” he said. ”It’s nice to have a bird gobbling all the way in to your calls.”

When they are lucky, hunters also get to watch what McCarthy called one of the most beautiful displays in nature: the male turkey unfurling his feathers in his yearly mating strut.

”This,” McCarthy said, ”is not your average butterball.”