HARRISBURG — After reviewing public comments and making revisions, the Pennsylvania Game Commission has posted the updated wild turkey management plan for 2006-15 on its website, www.pgc.state.pa.us.

Visitors should select "Hunting" in the left-hand navigation column on the homepage, click on the photograph of the wild turkey and choose "Wild Turkey Management Plan."

"Our first turkey management plan, written in 1999, helped us focus on critical wild turkey issues and needs at that time, and helped build partnerships with other groups, agencies and organizations," said Mary Jo Casalena, Game Commission wild turkey biologist and author of the management plan.

"Now that wild turkey population restoration is completed, the focus of wild turkey management for the next 10 years centers on acquiring more detailed harvest data and research on harvest and survival rates for population modeling and directing harvest strategies, determining habitat and social carrying capacities, minimizing and abating human-turkey conflicts, quantifying, enhancing, and acquiring turkey habitat throughout the Commonwealth, assisting and educating land owners regarding turkey habitat management, and improving hunter safety through increased educational opportunities and law enforcement," she added.

Casalena noted that the report opens by highlighting 15 of the major accomplishments of the previous plan, and then outlines the agency's vision for wild turkey management through 2015, at which time a new plan will be developed.

"The strategic goal of the new plan is to provide optimum wild turkey populations in suitable habitats throughout Pennsylvania for hunting and viewing recreation by current and future generations," Casalena said. "This goal is to be achieved by completing strategies under six objectives."

The objectives are:

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Population management: sustain or enhance healthy wild turkey populations in each Wildlife Management Unit at or below social carrying capacity.•

Habitat: improve quality of existing, and minimize loss of, wild turkey habitat throughout the state.•

Information and education: assess and improve the public's knowledge, awareness and understanding of the wild turkey resource and its management•

Hunting heritage/hunter safety: promote and improve the knowledge, safety, and participation of wild turkey hunters.•

Wild turkey protection: improve hunter compliance with laws and regulations regarding wild turkey management.•

Cooperative partnerships: maintain and enhance partnerships in all aspects of wild turkey management.To assist with implementation preparations, the plan includes information that sums up suggested target dates. The plan also summarized public comments received on the previous draft of this document and an outline of the history of wild turkey management in Pennsylvania from 1954 to 2006."Turkey hunting is among the most challenging and rewarding types of outdoor recreation available," Casalena said. "We endeavor to emphasize the experiences and challenges gained in turkey hunting, not the harvest."