BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 22, 2025
I watch birds. Occasionally I eat them. On Thanksgiving, there will be a drumstick on my plate. It is likely that wild turkey was on the banquet table at the first Thanksgiving in 1621. Wild turkeys are exclusively a New World species. There are five subspecies. Our own eastern wild turkey is the most widely distributed. The wild turkey almost disappeared. At one time, it was the primary game bird in North America. Unregulated hunting and habitat loss decimated the species. Reintroduction efforts began in several states about 50 years ago. Since then, they’ve done so well that you can hunt them in all 49 states that have breeding populations. The first reintroduction attempt in Maine occurred in 1977. It’s hard to fathom now, but turkeys were difficult to reestablish here. Nine years after they were reintroduced, legal hunting resumed. Nowadays, Maine has flourishing populations statewide. ~ Bob Duchesne