We aim to strengthen the current wild turkey population in southwestern Alberta and, in future years, expand their range to central Alberta. We initiated landholder surveys in 2021 to gather winter counts of turkey to better understand their trend and distribution. These results suggest the population has declined in the past 15 years with several pockets of birds more isolated than the early 2000s. As such, our primary objective is to foster a widespread distribution of viable subpopulations that are more closely linked enabling the entire population to become more resilient when harsh winter conditions, or local predators, reduce numbers in a local area. To accomplish this, we are translocating wild turkeys from other jurisdictions and releasing them at additional suitable sites, as well as relocating birds from viable source areas within Alberta and moving them to other locations to jump start additional local populations. Our main objectives and activities include:

• Translocate turkeys from source populations in other jurisdictions (e.g., BC, Idaho, Washington, Manitoba) and release them in Alberta to build up viable sub-populations.

• Conduct annual volunteer landholder winter counts to track population trend and distribution across southwest Alberta.

• Use volunteer observations of poults and hens (i.e., brood survey) to assess annual breeding success, and together with winter count data, track turkey trends among years.

• Redistribute wild turkeys from existing, viable (source) populations to other suitable locations within southwest Alberta.