Fire inspired the Rocky Mountain Restoration Initiative. Water may bring it to fruition. This work to create more fire-resilient forests and improve water quality is improving wild turkey habitat.
Operating as a federation, the NWTF employs biologists, foresters and fundraising staff, and invests in research and habitat enhancement projects at a regional level, tackling the most pressing issues a particular state or region may face.
Sweat equity, partnering with equally determined organizations, raising crucial funds, engaging volunteers, revitalizing wild turkey and overall wildlife habitat on a landscape level — these are the pillars of success evident in the ongoing floodplain restoration project in Vermont’s Otter Creek Wildlife Management Area.
The San Diego Chapter raised funds and organized a work party on various sites of Lake Sutherland to install signage and clear roads to make hunting access easier for the 2021 hunt.
The NWTF and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife have partnered during the last six years to conduct wild turkey population research and open 4,900 acres to turkey hunting.
To inhabit one of the northern-most habitats in the lower 48 and to still be thriving, wild turkeys in Maine must be cold-hardy birds, and indeed they are, but there are other factors at play that allow these rugged wild turkeys to thrive.
Thousands of public and private land managers employ fire annually to improve habitat. Fire can help promote new growth of herbaceous plants. It can also be used to kill undesirable saplings or other unwanted vegetation.
Through most of the NWTF’s history, chapter-raised funds, Super Fund dollars and even grants have been used to purchase and provide upkeep for land-management equipment.
A great example of what the National Wild Turkey Federation is doing to actively increase populations is the ongoing Eastern Wild Turkey Super Stocking Project in east Texas.
To improve wildlife populations and overall wildlife habitat in the Ashland Ranger District, the NWTF partnered with the USDA Forest Service and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to reinvigorate a parcel of upland wildlife habitat through a Forest Service-led multiyear project.
The NWTF excels at partnering with agencies, industry and others who have similar goals as ours, and through our own mission delivery, satisfy the objectives of all of the partners involved.
Over the last two years, the NWTF, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the United States Army Corps of Engineers have collaborated to improve the Ray Roberts Public Hunting Land.
The organic waste from conservation projects may be trash to most, but the NWTF and partners are finding ways to turn biomass into treasure for wild turkeys and other wildlife.
When thinking about ways to further conservation efforts, people likely attribute habitat enhancement projects or land acquisitions as key elements, and rightly so. However, significant funding for habitat enhancement projects comes directly from the hunting licenses purchased by outdoorsmen and women each year.
Catastrophic wildfires may be near-apocalyptic in their destruction, but with the right attitudes, partnerships, planning and treatments, they are mostly avoidable.
Landowners who manage their property for hunting and wildlife are always looking for ways to improve habitat and increase hunting opportunities. Planting food plots to create cover and high-protein sources of forage has created a booming industry to provide seed, fertilizer and herbicides to hunters and landowners.
The U.S. Senate recently passed the Great American Outdoors Act, with broad bipartisan support. The act will provide permanent full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which conserves critical lands and helps to create access to public lands.
One of the most overlooked items involving land management is old snags. On our rural land, I always try to leave standing dead trees, or snags, in a number of places.
For the first 25 years of the NWTF’s existence, assisting state agencies with wild turkey restoration efforts was a priority for the organization and its volunteers.
The NWTF has actively been working with members of Congress to advance key federal conservation funding bills for land protection and access, wetland restoration, and conservation and management of wildlife.
In 2019, the Arkansas State Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation approved the use of license plate funds to aid in the acquisition of two land parcels.
Montana's NWTF staff and volunteers joined USDA Forest Service to construct fencing around a three-acre aspen stand in the Lewis and Clark National Forest.
The NWTF, Bureau of Land Management and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation collaborated to improve the forest health on, and around Gardner Mountain in Wyoming.
Landowners considering property improvements designed to benefit local wildlife often focus on planting fast-growing food plots that can deliver a near-instant draw.
The NWTF, the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and various other wildlife organizations demonstrated shared stewardship in what was a multiyear wildlife habitat restoration in the Missouri River Breaks region of central Montana.
The National Wild Turkey Federation and the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks are collaborating to improve habitat and hunting quality in the Charles Ray Nix Wildlife Management Area.
Access to your favorite hunting spot can be as valuable as the gold in Fort Knox. The trails, whether they are large enough for your 4x4 or simple walking trails, have a great importance for the overall usability and value of your property.
This is an excerpt from the revised report “Introduction to Prescribed Fire in Southern Ecosystems” authored by the USDA Forest Service, Research and Development Southern Research Station in August 2012, revised 2015 and 2018.
The NWTF partnered with the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency and the Cherokee National Forest to create habitat openings for wildlife across 1,249 acres in the Tellico and Ocoee districts of the Cherokee National Forest. The NWTF provided tractor implements to achieve these openings.
In partnership with the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, the NWTF created two water wells for wildlife in the Cedar Bluff Wildlife Area.
Friday at the 43rd annual NWTF Convention and Sport Show’s Conservation Conference, various state wildlife agencies and universities presented details of conservation projects with the NWTF. The presentations were part of the conference’s Wild Turkey Research seminar.
The NWTF collaborated with the USDA Forest Service and the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks on the Frenchtown Face Project – a project just west of Missoula, Montana, focused on prescribed burning and thinning ground cover in the Lolo National Forest to help wildlife and improve habitat.
We worked closely with other conservation and forestry organizations to build strong recommendations to ensure that the 2018 Farm Bill contains strong conservation and forestry titles that benefit farmers, forest landowners and the outdoor community.
Tools and techniques include hand-felling with chainsaws, lopping and scattering, girdling and mechanical piling to remove ponderosa pine and spruce from within and around aspen, birch and bur oak stands in the Sugarloaf project area.
What our volunteers — alongside our partners — are accomplishing is not only imperative for the wild turkey and countless other species but also for the continuation of our hunting heritage.
Pollination is the basis for important wildlife habitats and human food crops, but pollinator species populations (bees, butterflies, birds) are declining.
The NWTF and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service collaborated on a prescribed burn project at the Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge to improve pine and pine-hardwoods habitats.
The work, performed in the Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge, involved treating 50 acres with herbicide to control advancement by unwanted hardwoods and woody plants in 2017 and the reintroduction of prescribed fire in 2018 on 190 acres.
The NWTF’s Save the Habitat. Save the Hunt. initiative is now focused on maintaining those healthy, sustainable and huntable wild turkey populations for generations to come. An important part of doing that is active habitat management, which includes the use of prescribed burning or prescribed fire.
The North Dakota Game and Fish’s open access program receives an annual donation of $10,000 from the NWTF North Dakota State Chapter to help secure additional privately controlled acreage for public use, and 2018 was no different.
Each year wildlife officials and veterinarians are inundated with phone calls from individuals who have encountered what they perceive as an abandoned, helpless young animal.
With budget constraints, sustaining the health, diversity and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands has become a challenge. Using partnerships, such as the one with the NWTF, the work is being completed.
Want to create an eye-catching sight and help wildlife at the same time? Convert that empty field or part of your sprawling lawn into a dazzling wildflower meadow.
John D. Burk, NWTF district biologist for Missouri and Illinois, said the NWTF and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources have worked to re-establish open woodland areas at Siloam Springs State Park in Adams and Brown counties and Hidden Springs State Park in Shelby County.
Compared to any other method of habitat management and manipulation for wild turkeys in the Southern Piney Woods, prescribed fire is by far the best, cheapest and most efficient.
A new exhibit at the Allegany State Park Administration Building Museum commemorates the park’s role in trapping and transferring wild turkeys to other areas within New York and other Northeastern states.
The Endangered Species Act has been instrumental in the restoration of certain endangered species. Some, however, benefited more from the threat of ESA involvement than its actual implementation.
