Wild Turkey Photographs

These two photographs show the wild turkey – called pileewa in the Myaamia language. It is found mainly in southeastern and portions of central Ohio. Turkeys were plentiful in Ohio before white settlement. American Indians like the Myaamia used the birds for food and their feathers for decorative purposes. By the 1850s, few turkeys could be found in Ohio and in 1904 they were officially extinct in Ohio. In the 1940s and 1950s turkeys moved back into Ohio from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky and gradually began to recover. 

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