Yucatan's Ocellated Turkey
from Sporting Classics Podcast Hosted by Sporting Classics
The eastern wild turkey of North American is one of our nation's great conservation success stories and hunters played a direct role in this recovery. Today, the ocellated turkey – the iridescent cousin of the eastern wild turkey – deserves the same chance. The ocellated turkey is native to the Yucatan Peninsula, Belize and Guatemala and boasts a stunningly bizarre coat of many colors, and it suffers from the familiar threats of subsistence hunting and loss of habitat that our native birds faced over a century ago. Thanks to improved land management and funding through hunting, the ocellated turkey has recovered from the brink of extinction and population numbers are on the rise. As a model of conservation, the revenue from ocellated turkey hunting ensures sustainable populations and habitat conservation. Dollars spent through these singular hunts reinforce the true value of the species to the locals and creates a pragmatic reason to protect the gorgeous birds and the wild habitat – just as the fathers of the North America Model of Wildlife Conservation foresaw over 100 years ago. This week in Sporting Classics with Chris Dorsey, Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation Board Member Francisco Bergaz joins Chris Dorsey in the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula to hunt the gorgeous ocellated turkey. The series airs every week on Outdoor Channel at: Monday 11:30 a.m. Wednesday 9 a.m. Friday 7 a.m. Saturday 12:30 p.m. Sunday 9:30 a.m. (all times ET)
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