The Pennsylvania Game Commission's first turkey management plan, written in 1999, helped focus on the critical wild turkey issues and needs at that time, and helped build partnerships with other groups, agencies and organizations.

The Game Commission, working with various partners and with input from the public, has developed a new plan that identifies the goals, objectives and strategies for guiding wild turkey management and

Now that wild turkey population restoration is completed, the focus of wild turkey management for the next ten 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.

The strategic goal is to provide optimum wild turkey populations in suitable habitats throughout Pennsylvania for hunting and viewing recreation by current and future generations. 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 publics' 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;
6. cooperative partnerships - maintain and enhance partnerships in all aspects of wild turkey management.

The list of strategies accompanies each objective. 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.

• The PGC-approved plan.