GAME COMMISSION POSTS TURKEY MANAGEMENT PLAN ON WEBSITE
After
reviewing public comments and making revisions, the Pennsylvania
Game Commission has posted the updated wild turkey management
plan for 2006-2015 on its website. The 71-page report can be
viewed on the agency's website (www.pgc.state.pa.us),
by selecting "Hunting"
in the left-hand navigation column on the homepage, then
clicking on the photograph of the wild turkey and choosing "Wild
Turkey Management Plan."
"Our first turkey management plan, written in 1999, helped us focus on critical wild turkey issues and needs at that time, and helped build partnerships with other groups, agencies and organizations," said Mary Jo Casalena, Game Commission wild turkey biologist and author of the management plan. "This management plan identifies the strategic goal, objectives and strategies for guiding wild turkey management and research decisions through 2015.
"Now that wild turkey population restoration is completed, the focus of wild turkey management for the next 10 years centers on acquiring more detailed harvest data and research on harvest and survival rates for population modeling and directing harvest strategies, determining habitat and social carrying capacities, minimizing and abating human-turkey conflicts, quantifying, enhancing, and acquiring turkey habitat throughout the Commonwealth, assisting and educating land owners regarding turkey habitat management, and improving hunter safety through increased educational opportunities and law enforcement."
Casalena noted that the report opens by highlighting 15 of the major accomplishments of the previous plan, and then outlines the agency's vision for wild turkey management through 2015, at which time a new plan will be developed.
"The strategic goal of the new plan is to provide optimum wild turkey populations in suitable habitats throughout Pennsylvania for hunting and viewing recreation by current and future generations," Casalena said. "This goal is to be achieved by completing strategies under six objectives."
The objectives are: (1) population management - sustain or enhance healthy wild turkey populations in each Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) at or below social carrying capacity; (2) habitat - improve quality of existing, and minimize loss of, wild turkey habitat throughout the state; (3) information and education - assess and improve the public's knowledge, awareness and understanding of the wild turkey resource and its management; (4) hunting heritage/hunter safety - promote and improve the knowledge, safety, and participation of wild turkey hunters; (5) wild turkey protection - improve hunter compliance with laws and regulations regarding wild turkey management; and (6) cooperative partnerships - maintain and enhance partnerships in all aspects of wild turkey management.
"A list of strategies accompanies each objective," Casalena said. "Some strategies are to be accomplished within this 10-year span, while others are ongoing. This plan ties in directly with the agency's Strategic Plan, which calls for species management plans to guide management decisions, and is the foundation for program, project, and budget development.
"Implementing the 47 strategies in this plan will require personnel and budget commitments, yet resources are always limited. Additional revenue and resources will be needed for scheduled completion of management plan objectives and strategies."
To assist with implementation preparations, the plan includes information that sums up suggested target dates. The plan also summarized public comments received on the previous draft of this document, and an outline of the history of wild turkey management in Pennsylvania from 1954 to 2006.
"Turkey hunting is among the most challenging and rewarding types of outdoor recreation available," Casalena said. "We endeavor to emphasize the experiences and challenges gained in turkey hunting, not the harvest. Many non-hunters and hunters alike know about wild turkeys and value their presence even if they seldom see turkeys.
"As turkey populations continue to expand into more human-populated portions of Pennsylvania, the public's knowledge of their presence and appreciation for their attributes will continue to grow, and possibly change. Through this planning tool, we strive to maintain the wild turkey as a treasured natural resource."
On Oct. 14, 2005, the Game Commission began accepting public comment on a draft revised wild turkey management plan. After reviewing the public comments, modifications were made to the plan, and public comment again was sought beginning Oct. 24, 2006. After considering the second round of public comments, the plan was finalized and approved by Carl G. Roe, Game Commission Executive Director.
"I want to thank the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation for its support in this process, as well as its contributions on an annual basis to the management of wild turkeys," Roe said. "All Pennsylvanians, and especially hunters, are indebted to the dedication NWTF members have demonstrated to this important natural resource."
Created in 1895 as an independent state agency, the Game Commission is responsible for conserving and managing all wild birds and mammals in the Commonwealth, establishing hunting seasons and bag limits, enforcing hunting and trapping laws, and managing habitat on the 1.4 million acres of State Game Lands it has purchased over the years with hunting and furtaking license dollars to safeguard wildlife habitat. The agency also conducts numerous wildlife conservation programs for schools, civic organizations and sportsmen's clubs.
The Game Commission does not receive any general state taxpayer dollars for its annual operating budget. The agency is funded by license sales revenues; the state's share of the federal Pittman-Robertson program, which is an excise tax collected through the sale of sporting arms and ammunition; and monies from the sale of oil, gas, coal, timber and minerals derived from State Game Lands.