Gould's turkeys making a comeback in Arizona

At one time, they had vanished from Arizona, but thanks to a multi-partner reintroduction effort, Gould's turkeys, one of only two wild turkey subspecies in our state, are making a comeback.

Twenty-five Gould's turkeys captured in Mexico were released into the wild in the Santa Catalina Mountains on Jan. 12, part of an ongoing collaborative effort between the Arizona Game and Fish Department, National Wild Turkey Federation, U.S. Forest Service and the Mexican government to repopulate these birds where they existed or were thought to exist in Arizona.

"Our goal is to repopulate Gould's turkeys in suitable habitat in southern Arizona, particularly the sky island mountains," says Brian Wakeling, big game supervisor for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, who has worked on the reintroduction program for more than a decade.

The Jan. 12 release was the first done in the Santa Catalinas. Ten of the turkeys were fitted with radio transmitters to allow Game and Fish biologists to monitor the birds to determine movements, survival and reproduction.

Since 2003, the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the National Wild Turkey Federation have transferred 82 Gould's wild turkeys from Mexico to the Chiricahua, Huachuca and Pinaleno mountains of southern Arizona as part of their Go for the Gould's project. Last year, Game and Fish staff and National Wild Turkey Federation volunteers relocated 28 Gould's wild turkeys within the borders of Arizona. Seven of those birds were released with radio telemetry units attached.

Current estimates show Gould's turkeys expanding their population and range. "A survey we did in the Huachuca Mountains last year observed 321 Gould's turkeys. The highest previous number for that area was 90 in 2004," says Wakeling.

"The Chiricahua, Huachuca and Pinaleno mountains all contain Gould's wild turkey flocks that are surviving and increasing," says Dr. James Earl Kennamer, National Wild Turkey Federation senior vice president for conservation programs. "There was even a report of several turkeys being seen in the Patagonia and Santa Rita Mountains where birds have not been released. Our partnership with the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the ability to work with Mexican officials has increased the U.S. population of Gould's turkeys considerably."

Gould's turkeys are one of Arizona's two native wild turkey subspecies. They are slightly larger than Merriam's turkeys, which are found throughout much of Arizona's high country. Gould's turkeys were once found in riparian corridors and isolated mountain ranges in southeastern Arizona, but their numbers began to decline with the westward expansion of settlers.

Gould's turkeys were an important food source for people who settled and worked in the rugged lands of southeastern Arizona, and by 1920 the birds had disappeared from our state largely due to unregulated hunting and unregulated land use practices. A small population is still found in New Mexico, and a larger population exists in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico.

Starting in the late 1930s, the Arizona Game and Fish Department began a wild turkey restocking program in the southeastern Arizona mountains utilizing the Merriam's subspecies. Over the long-term, Merriam's translocations in this habitat had mixed results, and the program now reintroduces the Gould's subspecies, which seems to be better adapted to the climatic and habitat conditions of the southern Arizona mountain ranges.

Bull elk harvested in Arizona may be new archery world record

Getting a potential new archery world-record bull elk in Arizona--a 7x7 typical bull with 60-day entry scores of 423 6/8 inches gross and 414 0/8 inches net--was a bit of a coin toss for Shawn Patterson. Ironically, he lost the coin toss but got the monster bull anyway in Hunt Unit 10 in northern Arizona on Sept. 16, 2005.

The huge bull had been spotted the day before, but in another area a couple of miles away. The guide service, John McClendon & Son's Guide Service in Flagstaff, had two clients in the field. They flipped a coin to see who would get a chance at the huge bull. Shawn lost. Or thought he had. As it turned out, the huge bull had moved into the area he would be hunting.

Shawn, a soft-spoken 41-year-old archer from Chandler, knows about coin tosses in big games: He was a defensive lineman at Arizona State University and played with the Green Bay Packers from! 1988-1993.

Still, Shawn was not really aware of the size of the bull until some time after taking his kill shot. In fact, he thought the game was over earlier in the day when he and the guide, Levi McClendon, got busted by a rag-horn bull that came around a corner and saw them. "The raghorn ran off and all the bulls scattered," said Shawn. "We thought it was all over."

Patterson and his guide still stuck to tracking the big bull for about 400 or so yards, until it entered a huge thicket of junipers and pinyons, and they lost its tracks in the rocky terrain. "We had about given up. Then a bull bugled in the distance, and the monster elk responded. We had heard it call once before, it had a distinctive, throaty sound. We knew it was him."

Finding the big bull was still a challenge. "It was just a jungle out there. The junipers were really thick. We never did see the whole bull, just glimpses of its huge rack. We didn't know if it was a 350, 370 or a 400 ! bull. All I really knew was that you don't pass up a bull that big."
Shawn saw the direction the bull was moving, and positioned himself to have a shot when the elk stepped across a 15-foot-wide gap in the thick junipers. "I was concentrating so much on making a good shot that I really didn't see how huge the rack was, I just knew it was big."

At first, Shawn thought he had missed having a perfect shot placement. "The bull was at a slight angle, and I thought I had shot a few inches too far to the right and a little too low. As it turned out, it was a nearly perfect kill shot."

He and the guide backed off so they wouldn't spook the big bull into running. "Many times, they will go 20 or 30 yards and look back. If they see you, they will take off. We wanted to give the bull some room to be comfortable and avoid spooking it."

They waited about 30 minutes, then followed the tracks. As it turned out, the precaution wasn't necessary. Shawn had achieved a near-perfect kill shot and the bull went 93 yards and died. Shawn fi! nally got to see how magnificent the bull truly was.

"To put it mildly, it was a great hunt," Shawn said, then added the philosophy he has shared with other media. "To me, being able to be in the field, that's the cake. To get a good shot at an elk, that's the icing. And to actually harvest something like this, that's the cherry on top."

Shawn will have to wait some time before finding out whether his cherry on top is a new world record or not. The bull will be officially scored by the Pope & Young Club during its convention during April of 2007 in Lancaster, Pa. At least for now, it appears the Patterson bull exceeds the current 409 2/8 inch archery record bull taken in 2000 by Chuck Adams.