For decades, New Brunswick hunters have travelled to places like Ontario and Maine and invested big money to hunt wild turkeys.
Premier David Alward says that will change in the spring of 2015, when New Brunswick will implement its own hunting season for wild turkeys.
"While work is ongoing on when and how to best develop a wild turkey population in the province," Alward told the inaugural banquet of the Canadian Wild Turkey Federation on Saturday in Riverview, "tonight I am pleased to announce that we are implementing a limited-entry draw for a turkey hunt in New Brunswick."
The Wild Turkey Federation has striven for years to encourage the conservation and management of wild turkeys in New Brunswick, including a hunting season that will be designed to grow the province's turkey population while allowing the opportunity to hunt the big birds on a limited basis.
Contrary to their reputations, wild turkeys are cagey quarry with sharp eyesight and an innate nervousness that prompts them to take flight like a dart at the slightest hint of a threat, and the challenge of outwitting them is why hundreds of New Brunswick hunters flock outside the province to hunt them in states and provinces that already enjoy a season.
The federation has lobbied in favour of a season for years, arguing it will bring out-of-province hunters to New Brunswick and boost hunting-related tourism by both New Brunswick hunters and out-of-province visitors beyond the peak summer tourist season. Outfitters who cater to out-of-province hunters will also benefit because they will have another offering for their clients besides the spring bear hunt. In many places, outfitters take their sports on a turkey hunt in the morning, then take them bear hunting in the evening.
Turkey-bear outfitter packages have proven very popular in places where the seasons run parallel to each other, which is what could be the case in New Brunswick in 2015, though no season dates have been announced yet.
The term "limited-draw entry" means that for conservation purposes, only a restricted number of turkey licences will be issued, and hunters will enter a draw in the hopes of winning the privilege of purchasing one. The number of licences and the cost have yet to be worked out.
Many wild turkeys in New Brunswick are pen-raised birds that were released by well-meaning people who raised them. The federation discourages that practice while promoting true wild turkeys, most of which have crossed into the province from Maine, where the birds, and the turkey hunting industry, are thriving. Being immigrants from Maine, most true wild turkeys are found west of the St. John River, though not all of them. Pockets of turkeys live near Mary's Point in Albert County, near Beaumont in Westmorland County and in particular around the Grand Lake area, though it is thought most of those birds were pen raised.
Initial efforts to establish a larger population of wild turkeys in the province involved a plan to import birds, with much or all of the cost being absorbed by the Turkey Federation. That caused some concern among those who feared introducing a new species to the province - some proponents argue turkeys are not a new species but were once native to the province - and among farmers who feared crop damage. Once the idea of importing turkeys was put on the back burner, much of the opposition to a turkey hunt evaporated.
Much work remains to hammer out the details of what will be the first new-species hunting season introduced in New Brunswick in living memory.
"And I give you my commitment tonight that we'll continue to work together on developing a wild turkey hunt in this province," Alward said in the written text of his speech obtained by the Times & Transcript.
Alward painted his government as supporters of the province's sizable hunting and fishing communities. So far during this mandate, the Conservatives took measures to make it easier for those who have gone a long time without being drawn for a moose licence to win the privilege of buying a licence, lengthened the moose season, allowed the use of crossbows in almost all hunting seasons, extended the bear season and allowed successful bear hunters to buy a second bear licence. On the fishing front, the Tories implemented measures to allow anglers to make greater use of the Crown waters system and reduced the cost of fishing those waters at certain times of the year.
