Turkey transplants

CAMPBELL, Mo.

It isn't easy catching turkeys. Paul Provow, apparently blessed with an abundance of patience and an uncanny ability to keep still for hours at a time, helped catch thousands of them over the last 30 years.

Provow and wildlife-catching teammate Dale Sikes just the other day spent 11 hours underneath a blind in Fredericktown, Mo., waiting for the wild birds to approach their bait without trapping one.

Why go to the trouble?

Two reasons.

The turkey population in the Bootheel and a couple of counties in Southwest Missouri have diminished in recent decades.

And there was a farmer near Fredericktown who was tired of wild turkeys eating his cattle's food.

So Provow and Sikes, undeterred by their 11-hour failure days before, tried their luck again on Tuesday. They shot nets out of cannons and trapped six birds, three male and three female.

They then drove more than two hours to the birds' destination at Morris State Park near Campbell.

It may seem like a lot of work for six birds, especially for Provow, who retired 10 years ago but still offers his services as a turkey expert. But it only takes a few birds to build up the population, conservation officials say. Provow said they released 18 turkeys in Adair County in the state's northwest corner several years ago. Six years after the release, hunters killed 31 turkeys there.

Tuesday's release was one of a few that have taken place over the last couple of weeks in Southeast Missouri.

"Today we're out here in the Bootheel where they don't have a whole lot of habitat," Provow said. "We're bringing in new blood and making plans for habitat improvement."

The men began in mid-December by baiting the fields. So far, they've released 19 turkeys in four parks in the Bootheel -- Morris State Park, 10-mile Pond in Mississippi County, and Coon Island and Big Cane in Butler County.

The release program is the first of its kind to the Bootheel in the last 20 years.

The Missouri Department of Conservation began a turkey release program in the late 1950s that was aimed at increasing turkey populations, said wildlife management biologist Brandon Turner. The program continued for 20 years or so and worked in most areas of the state.

However, the turkey releases in the Bootheel didn't work as well.

The conservation department has eliminated fall turkey hunting seasons in seven Missouri counties. Five of them -- Scott, Mississippi, New Madrid, Dunklin and Pemiscot -- are in Southeast Missouri.

Attempts at increasing the turkey population in the Bootheel, Turner said, didn't work for three reasons:

* There is very little public land to release the birds.

* Most of the area that is not public land is used for farmland, meaning there is limited forest areas for the turkeys' habitat.

* Seasonal flooding in the area's lowlands destroys turkeys' nests.

The conservation department is doing the release a little different this time around, Turner said.

It is only releasing the birds in specific areas that are high and out of flooding areas. The location at Morris State Park, for example, is on Crowley's Ridge.

The releases will also complement a bigger program aimed at replenishing more of the turkey's habitat. The conservation department plans to work with landowners to offer incentives to grow trees around creeks on their property. The efforts will not only help the turkey population, they will also improve water quality and reduce erosion.

The turkeys on Tuesday arrived in cardboard boxes in the back of a pickup truck. The birds didn't appear at all spooked by being carried from the truck to the woods at the park. They didn't make any gobbling sounds or struggle inside the boxes.

But they didn't stick around long after the boxes were opened.

The birds all soared off deeper into the woods to make their new homes.

bmiller@semissourian.com

243-6635