How many Wild Turkeys are running around out there?

Photos by Barry Wallace

  The best guess is approximately 7 MILLION

By the late 1930s, there were only about 30,000 Wild Turkeys in the United States and virtually none in Canada.   Heavy hunting was the main culprit.   But a concentrated effort to reverse the dwindling number has been incredibly successful in the past 80 years.   The Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is by far, the most numerous of today's six turkey species, at approximately 5.3 million birds and they exist throughout the eastern half of the United States and many places in Canada. 

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Barry the Birder