A new technical committee formed by the Canadian Wild Turkey Federation (CWTF) aims to further our understanding of wild turkeys.
CWTF Biologist Tadeusz Splawinski was a leading driver in forming a group which aims to increase turkey science by ensuring healthy populations and promoting sustainable management practices, while creating more hunting opportunities.
Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters Wildlife Biologist Matthew Robbins is a member of the committee.
“CWTF’s new technical committee is an exciting opportunity for collaboration and communication in the world of wild turkey conservation and research,” he said. “Groups like this help to prevent gaps in the line of information and to ensure the right people are at hand for important conservation work.”
The CWTF is also participating in a wild turkey DNA study that was launched last year in the US.
Its purpose is to assess the genetics of wild turkeys and look at the four different subspecies of wild turkeys and hybridization between them. The CWTF will oversee the study in Canada, including recruitment of participants to submit their turkey DNA in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick.
In New Brunswick, the CWTF has been conducting brood surveys every August and September since 2023. It also plans to conduct winter flock surveys and expand both initiatives to Ontario and Quebec. Splawinski plans to start the new brood surveys on Aug. 1. He sees these as a valuable tool to evaluate brood success.
“Wild turkey populations are strongly influenced by female nesting and success, poult survival, winter survival, predation, disease, and hunting pressure, among other factors,” he said. “Direct quantification of turkey population size, density and distribution, particularly over large geographic areas, is costly and impractical. Wildlife managers therefore rely on indirect methods such as indices (brood surveys, winter flock surveys, hunter reports, harvest data, etc.) to assess population dynamics, distribution, and trends in relative abundance.”
Originally published in the Summer Bassin' 2026 issue of Ontario Out of Doors magazine
