Commission meeting news : 

News Release

FWC extends Holmes County spring turkey season to 16 days in 2009

February 6, 2008
Contact: Larry Perrin, 850-627-1773

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), during a meeting in Panama City Beach on Wednesday, approved expanding the spring turkey season in Holmes County from three to 16 days.

The expanded season will begin in spring 2009.

“This has been part of the plan all along, to expand hunting opportunities as they are warranted,” said Larry Perrin, the FWC’s Wild Turkey Program coordinator.  “We began a three-day season in 2006, but said we would increase hunting opportunities as the turkey population grows, and that’s what is happening.”

Holmes County was closed to turkey hunting in 1998, when surveys showed there were no wild turkeys in the county.  The FWC worked with the local chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, the Northwest Florida Water Management District, who owns lands in the county along the Choctawhatchee River, and numerous landowners and residents, to stock 121 turkeys at eight sites from December 1998 through February 2000.

As the turkey population began to rebound, a three-day spring season was opened in 2006, continuing each year through this spring. In addition, under the FWC’s action, there now will be two 3-day spring turkey quota hunts on the Choctawhatchee River Wildlife Management Area. The quota for each hunt is 10 hunters.

Since the reestablishment of this limited spring turkey season, biologists say the Holmes County wild turkey population continues to flourish.  They point to the most recent survey, which showed turkeys are now found at 16 of 28 survey sites in the county, providing further evidence of an increasing and expanding population.

“The return of wild turkeys to Holmes County would never have happened had landowners and residents of the county from every walk of life not supported the effort,” said Rodney Barreto, FWC Commission Chair.  “They embraced the restoration program, and this is something they can always be proud of.”