Popcorn & Program: Wild Turkeys – An IL Conservation Success Story

They can fly 50 miles an hour, sprint at 25 miles an hour, and they play with squirrels and even deer. You’ve read the title of this article, so you know we’re likely talking about, yes, wild turkeys. Doesn’t sound much like the awkward creatures that amble around our fields and backyards, does it? But that’s what the researchers claim.

In the not too distant past, wild turkeys were extinct in 18 states, including Illinois.  How did they make such a dramatic comeback?  In the middle of our country’s semi sesquicentennial year, and with Thanksgiving and the fall hunting season around the corner, JDCF thought it would be a great time to do a program on these somewhat peculiar birds which figure so prominently in America’s story and which are, themselves, one of the great American conservation stories.

The Apple River State Bank/First Community Bank of Galena is generously sponsoring this event.