Smith: A celebration of wild turkeys and the people who brought them back

MADISON – Well, this was different.

“And better,” said Alexander Pendleton of Shorewood, Wis.

We stood May 17 on Bascom Hill on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and took in the sight.

The grassy space is famous for hosting gatherings, sometimes even pranks by students. One of the most well-known was the Sept. 4, 1979 placement of about 1,000 plastic pink flamingos on the sloping terrain.

But this day Bascom was graced by something more natural.

The hill was peppered with dozens of wild turkey decoys. Hens. Toms. Preeners. Strutters. Feeders.

A crowd of people, volunteers, biologists, conservation organization staff and curious onlookers, reveled in the scene.

I think I even saw a satisfied smile crease the face of Pres. Abraham Lincoln, the statue that overlooks the hill.

Everybody knew this was no joke. This was a gathering with meaning.

“The most successful wildlife reintroduction in state history,” said Pendleton, accompanied by his wife Terese. “What an achievement.”

The May 17 event on Bascom, and a subsequent luncheon and program in UW Memorial Union, was a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the reintroduction of wild turkeys to Wisconsin.

The National Wild Turkey Federation was the primary sponsor of the events. Department of Natural Resources staff, both current and retired, also took part.

Significantly, former DNR employees Ron Nicklaus and Jon Nelson were on hand. Nicklaus was the leader of field operations of the 1976 turkey reintroduction and helped release the first 29 birds near Romance in Vernon County. Nelson was hired as a field technician about three months after the first birds arrived and worked on the turkey project for 10 years.

“Nobody really knew how it would go,” Nicklaus said. “And if anyone tries to tell you they knew it would be so successful and over so much of the state, they are lying. It’s been incredible.”

Wild turkeys were native to Wisconsin but the species was depleted through the 1800s by removal of vast areas of timber and high, unregulated turkey harvests by market and subsistence hunters.

By 1860 the birds were rare, and in 1881 the last wild turkey in the state’s original flock was killed near Darlington, according to the Department of Natural Resources’ document “Ecology of Wild Turkeys in Wisconsin.”

Efforts through the early to mid-1900s to bring the species back, mostly through stocking game farm birds, largely failed.

But by the 1970s the DNR had seen what worked in other states and put a plan together for Wisconsin.It was based on transferring wild turkeys obtained in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri into suitable habitat. In Wisconsin, the best wild turkey habitat was in the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin.

The plan also relied on an agreement between state agencies. The Wisconsin DNR would exchange three ruffed grouse for each wild turkey provided by the Missouri Department of Conservation.

That proved trickier than it may seem. Nicklaus, who was tasked with capturing the grouse, had to bend and even break some rules to get it done.

“The grouse were tough to trap, and then of course you had to check the traps at least once a day, even on weekends and holidays,” Nicklaus said. “So we worked every day to get it done.”

Eventually enough grouse had been captured to convince the Missouri biologists to collect some wild turkeys for the trade.

On Jan. 21, 1976 the first flight of 29 Missouri wild turkeys landed at the La Crosse airport. It was met by about a dozen people, including Nicklaus and wildlife biologist Carl Batha, local rod-and-gun club members and UW-Madison professor Tom Yuill, an expert in wildlife diseases.

Yuill took a blood sample from and inspected each turkey. After the birds were pronounced healthy, Nicklaus, Batha and a crew of other DNR staff and volunteers drove the birds to Vernon County and released them on the farm of Butch and Iva Lee Baumgartner near Romance.

More turkey transfers followed. The success is now seen in all 72 Wisconsin counties.

Wisconsin started a spring turkey hunting season in 1983 and a fall season in 1989. By 2000, the DNR had earned a reputation for one of the leading turkey management programs in the nation. Wisconsin regulations spread hunting pressure over time and space and have helped reduce hunter conflicts, improve hunting quality and protect the turkey population, all while providing ample hunting opportunity.

It’s become common for the Wisconsin spring turkey harvest to be in the top three in the nation.

Pendleton, who was a UW freshman in 1979 when the flamingos were planted, hatched the idea for a wild turkey flock on the hill.

“I’ve always thought that in celebration of one of the anniversaries of the 1976 successful reintroduction of wild turkeys to Wisconsin a group should get together and cover Bascom Hill with gobbler and hen turkey decoys,” Pendleton wrote to me in October 2017. “Would be even better [and more germane to Wisconsin] than the 1979 covering of Bascom Hill with the pink flamingos.”

He and I corresponded about it over the years and it came together for the 50th due to the NWTF’s expert and enthusiastic staff and volunteers.

When I suggested it to Al May, state chapter chairman, his immediate response was: “Let’s do something!”

Scott Chandler, NWTF regional director, and Brian Dalsing, Wisconsin NWTF board member, took on lead roles in the planning and execution. More than a dozen other NWTF staff and volunteers pitched in.

Decoy manufacturer Avian X donated 50 dekes for the event, most of which were raffled off at NWTF banquets to help sponsor the 50th celebration and will be used in future years at Wisconsin learn to hunt turkey events.

The donated decoys arrived in an NWTF trailer wrapped with turkey images and information on the organization’s “Roots to Roost” program, a Midwestern initiative to provide landowners and others with training, tools and resources for forest management, prescribed fire and conservation best practices.

Those donated decoys were joined by dozens of others brought by attendees to help adorn Bascom Hill.

After group photos, the celebration headed indoors to UW Memorial Union for lunch, speeches and raffles.

Award winning turkey call makers Heather van Doorn of Glen Flora and Dave Constantine of Durand donated hand-carved and painted turkey calls.

Van Doorn’s wild turkey hen was made of basswood and nested on a northern Wisconsin red oak burl and a maple base, accompanied by a hand-turned red oak pot call including pyrography art and a bit of color depicting an alert hen with a spring trillium flower.

Inspiration for the call was “based on my appreciation for the wild turkey hen and her dedication which is unwavering for ensuring the continued existence and survival of the wild turkey population,” van Doorn said.

Pendleton, who earned a history degree from UW and a law degree from the University of Minnesota, said the turkey reintroduction is “a great example of the Wisconsin way.”

“We’ve got the university, a private conservation organization and the DNR, which I’ve always thought is the governmental agency that’s closest to the people, in this tremendous success story,” Pendleton said. “Everybody should know about it and take inspiration from it.”

Nicklaus and Nelson, the retired DNR biologists who were blazing the reintroduction trail in 1976, were humbled by the attention.

Fifty years have passed and the signs of their success are visible daily around the state.

“Working on the turkey reintroduction was one of the greatest privileges of my life,” Nicklaus said. “I hope it helps people realize what good can happen and also to make sure these birds, and other native species, will never get wiped out again.”