A Look Back
North Dakota’s spring wild turkey season ends this month. More than 6,000 licenses were made available to hunters in 20-plus hunting units that blanket the state from Williston to Wahpeton.
When the Missouri Slope Chapter of the Izaak Walton League initiated efforts in the early 1950s to establish a wild turkey population by releasing birds in river bottom habitat, the idea that birds could one day be hunted in those areas was only a guess. The notion that turkeys could someday be hunted statewide was crazy talk.
“While it’s quite possible that the turkey will live in the areas stocked by the Missouri Slope Chapter, the Department feels that the amount of suitable habitat in our state is far too small to allow the turkey to increase to the point where an open season would be possible,” according to the April 1952 issue of North Dakota OUTDOORS.
While the Game and Fish Department did not take an active role in the turkey stocking program at the time, Department officials watched the effort with interest.
“Such an experimental planting can only be undertaken by a large and active organization, such as the Missouri Slope Ikes. Considerable planning has gone into this program, spearheaded by transplanted southerners among the membership, who know and admire the game qualities of the wild turkey in their native states,” according to the April 1952 issue of NDO. “Common belief is that the turkey will not find the winter snows and available winter food to their liking. However, the Ikes are not going to let it go at guessing. They are going to find out.”
The first North Dakota wild turkey season was held in November 1958.
“The Izaak Walton League, the group most responsible for the turkey’s introduction, recommended that turkey permits be issued by means of a lottery with the cost of the permit set at $6, the same as for big game,” according to “Feathers From the Prairie,” a Game and Fish Department publication.
It was reported in “Feathers” that 475 licenses were made available to hunters, but only 376 hunters bought them. It was believed that the high price of the licenses was one of the reasons for many not being sold.
That first season, just 88 turkeys were bagged.
While an experimental spring gobbler season was held in North Dakota in 1976, what many consider the state’s “first” spring season was held in 1982 in Slope and Dunn counties.