The words are simple and bold: “Dedicated to the conservation of the wild turkey and the preservation of our hunting heritage.” We could also say they’re timeless. The words that make up the National Wild Turkey Federation’s mission statement have guided the organization from its earliest days and continue to steer it half a century later as leaders and volunteers look toward a challenging, yet exciting, future. To be sure, it’s a future with a lot of promise.
When the organization was founded in 1973, there were an estimated 1.3 million wild turkeys in North America. Many populations had been extirpated from their traditional forested ranges of the 1800s as a growing nation cut timber for farms and killed the birds for food and market. Today, through coordination with state and federal wildlife agency partners, combined with volunteer and corporate support, the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) has helped boost the population to more than 7 million birds in our nation’s fields and forests. Huntable populations can be found in all 48 contiguous states, as well as Hawaii and parts of Canada and Mexico.
At the same time, the NWTF’s commitment to hunters has never wavered. While there have long been plenty of sporting groups that served hunters in various capacities, at the time of the NWTF’s founding there were no national conservation organizations that so boldly pronounced the objective of supporting the growth of hunters and hunting opportunity like the NWTF, which put it in its mission statement.
