It's spring and the haunting gobble of wild turkeys echoes across Minnesota.
From Thief River Falls to Caledonia and from Duluth to Pipestone — and even Twin Cities suburbs — more turkeys are strutting and gobbling here than ever before.
Far more than when settlers first encountered them in southeastern Minnesota in the 1800s, before they were extirpated by unregulated hunting and logging.
But Nick Gulden remembers when there weren't any.
Gulden, 74, of Rollingstone, Minn., is a retired Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist. He was excited that day in 1971 when he helped release 13 Missouri wild turkeys in Houston County in the tip of southeastern Minnesota — birds that triggered a turkey renaissance and one of the great wildlife success stories in state history. Over the next 38 years, officials turned loose more than 5,000 wild turkeys at about 280 sites around the state.
And now gobblers roam three-quarters of the state.
"It's amazing," Gulden said. "Before we released the first bird, we thought even if we don't get a huntable population, it would be neat just to have some birds out there to add to the wildlife."
But turkeys took off, surprising even the most optimistic wildlife managers.