By BEN NEARY
NMWF Conservation Director
For the first time in nearly 50 years, New Mexico will issue a handful of tags through the public draw this spring to allow hunters to pursue the Gould’s Turkey.
In response to successful recovery efforts, the New Mexico State Game Commission voted in October to remove the Gould’s Turkey from the state’s list of threatened species.
As a result, the state will offer four tags for the Gould’s Turkey through the public draw this year as a once-in-a-lifetime hunt in Hunt Units 26 and 27. In recent years, the state has offered tags only through auctions to raise money for recovery efforts.
Casey Cardinal, turkey and upland game biologist for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, will give a presentation this week on the Gould’s Turkey — the latest in the New Mexico Wildlife Federation’s Wildlife Wednesday series. Her talk will begin at 5:30 p.m., Wed., Jan. 11, at Marble Brewery’s Northeast Heights Taproom, at 9904 Montgomery Blvd NE, Albuquerque.
The Gould’s Turkey is the largest subspecies of wild turkey and is found only in far southwestern New Mexico, as well as in Arizona and northern Mexico. Demand for hunting tags is high among hunters dedicated to completing a “slam,” meaning successfully hunting one of each turkey subspecies.
“I’m sure that a lot of folks know that there are different subspecies of turkey in the US and down into Mexico,” Cardinal said. “New Mexico is pretty unique in that we have three.”
The Rio Grande turkey mainly lives in river valleys, Cardinal said. The Merriam’s turkey are the most common variety in the state, found in most New Mexico mountain ranges.
“The Gould’s is only found in Arizona and New Mexico in the United States, and their range extends into Mexico,” Cardinal said. “We find them pretty much only in Hidalgo County in New Mexico, in the Peloncillo and Animas Mountain ranges.”
All the subspecies of turkey look similar, Cardinal said, but the careful observer will see key differences.
“The terminal tail band differs on each of the subspecies,” Cardinal said. “The Rio is the most brown of the three subspecies, and like an Eastern, is pretty brown.”
The Merriam’s turkey has a more creamy-colored terminal tail band. “And the Gould’s have like the whitest terminal tail band,” she said.
The Gould’s Turkey is also generally a bit taller than the other subspecies, Cardinal said.
“They’re pretty cool because they are like a true arid mountain turkey,” Cardinal said of the Gould’s Turkey.
There is occasionally crossbreeding between the Rio Grande and Merriam’s turkeys, Cardinal said. But she said the Gould’s Turkey habitat is cut off from other turkey populations by desert terrain that has kept them from mixing with other subspecies.
“As far as Gould’s and Merriam’s, I’m sure that they could overlap,” Cardinal said. “Right now, there are pretty significant habitat barriers between their different ranges. Where the Peloncillos end, it’s pretty extreme desert country between the northern end of the Gould’s range, at least in New Mexico, and then the Merriams come into the Gila, but it’s relatively inhospitable between them.
“In Arizona, there are closer mountain ranges, and of course they tried Merriam’s in some of the Gould’s mountain ranges back in the day,” Cardinal said. “It seems like Merriam’s just don’t do well in Gould’s habitat. I don’t know if it’s just too little water, or what it was, but they didn’t seem to thrive. So for the most part, habitat barriers keep those two apart.”
The Gould’s Turkey isn’t a picky eater, Cardinal said. “They’re just a turkey; they’ll eat just about anything,” she said. “We see them eating seed heads, and of course mast crops from piñon and juniper, manzanita and the oaks. They like acorns. They’ll eat just about anything.”
The Gould’s Turkey has been classified as threatened under New Mexico’s Wildlife Conservation Act since the act was first enacted in the early 1970s, Cardinal said.
“The wording of it is somewhat like a federal listing where you’re prohibited from taking the species,” Cardinal said of the state listing status of the Gould’s Turkey. “So for Game and Fish, we haven’t had an open hunting season since 1974.”
New Mexico has offered limited raffle permits to take the Gould’s Turkey since 2007, with money raised from raffles going back into the enhancement of the species, Cardinal said.
The New Mexico Gould’s Turkey tags have brought in about $5,000 a piece at auction, Cardinal said. She said the tags have attracted bids from hunters around the country who want to complete a turkey “slam” but who don’t want to travel to Mexico to get it done.
Population surveys of the Gould’s Turkey have shown a steady increase over the years, Cardinal said. She said the count increased from having 80-odd birds in the 1990s to having over 100 in 2006.
New Mexico also increased its turkey population when the state swapped pronghorn to Arizona in exchange for 60 Gould’s Turkey over from 2014-2016. She said the swap boosted the New Mexico population and also increased its genetic diversity.
New Mexico’s population of Gould’s Turkey also has links to populations in Mexico, Cardinal said.
“We started a really big research project in 2018, with backpacks, and now better know where turkeys use, and so counts now are like minimum population count is around 200,” Cardinal said.
Biologists aren’t able to enter some private lands in the area, Cardinal said. However, she said landowners have confirmed to the game department that they have more turkeys on their properties.
Currently, there are probably over 300 Gould’s Turkey in the Peloncillo Range and perhaps as many as another 200 in the nearby Animas Range, Cardinal said. She said the game department estimates there are at least 500 in the state.
Turkey restoration efforts have included tree-thinning projects to protect the Gould’s Turkey from potential wildfires. Recent fire in the Peloncillos has augmented that work and Cardinal said biologists will be watching to see the effect on the turkey population of having less piñon and juniper cover in the area.
“It’s amazing what you can do if you put a little bit more effort,” Cardinal said of New Mexico’s Gould’s Turkey recovery effort. She credited Recovery Coordinator John Bulger with pushing the project hard in recent years and getting good results.
Biologists estimate that turkey populations in general could sustain an annual take of 30 percent of the male population, Cardinal said. She said that issuing four tags in New Mexico this year is a conservative figure, representing less than 10 percent.
“I think the success rate these first couple of years is going to be pretty high just because so few tags have ever been issued that I think the birds are relatively naive,” Cardinal said of the coming hunting season. “And I think they’re going to respond pretty well to artificial calls, to manmade calls.
“One of the challenges of course is that large portions of their habitat are in private property,” Cardinal said. “So I think that once the turkeys wisen up, it could become a more challenging hunt for sure.
“There are big pushes from some of the land owners down there to close portions of the road access into the Coronado National Forest. If that ever goes through, it could make southern access to the range pretty difficult,” Cardinal said. “More of kind of like a hiking, backpacking type of hunt. But I think at least the first few years, it could be easy.”
The hunts will be held from May 1 to May 30, Cardinal said. The deadline to apply is Feb. 15.
(PHOTO: Mark Watson/NMDGF)