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The “Proyecto Pavo” is a project dedicated to the conservation of the Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris ocellata) through sustainable use of the species in multiple-use, community-managed forest concessions of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Peten, Guatemala. Since 2000, the project has conducted selective turkey harvests, performed related research, and promoted the conservation benefits of managed sport hunting for this species. Field activities of the project feature providing high-quality Ocellated Turkey hunts to sport hunter clients. Participating concessions benefit directly from harvest revenues of a resource that was not previously exploited commercially and indirectly from affiliated project activities. The project began operations in a single concession on an experimental basis and evolved into a commercial enterprise operating in multiple concession units. The project has overcome numerous development and operational challenges, including compatibility issues with timber and NTFP extraction. Under proper circumstances, carefully designed sport hunting programs can offer profitable and sustainable forest product diversification alternatives that are highly compatible with tropical multiple-use management and forest conservation objectives.

Since the late 1950's the population of Brown Pelicans (Pelicanus occidentalis) in the United States has experlenced a substantial decline. The last nesting of the native Louisiana population occurred in 1961 (Williams and Martin, 1969). Schreiber and Delong (1969) described population declines and reproductive failure in California. Beckett (1966) reported a declining population in South Carolina. Hildebrand and Blacklock (unpublished report) reported a reduction in the population nesting on the Texas Coast. Only the Florida population has remained relatively stable (Williams and Martin, 1970).

During a 10-year study, Salmonella spp. were isolated from 18 of 411 (4.4%) wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) examined in Florida, including five juvenile birds, one only 10 days old. Ten serotypes were found, with S. typhimurium being most frequently isolated. This is the first reported isolation of Salmonella spp. from the wild turkey.

INFORMATION on pelagic bird life in the Gulf of Mexico has been slow in accumulating. Current literature on the status of the jaegers is particularly deficient. A fairly recent summary'9 listed fewer than 20 separate records of all three species in accounting for virtually all records for the entire Gulf through about 1952. Although the number of records has increased greatly during the past decade, the current A.O.U. Check-list3 lists neither the Parasitic Jaeger (Stercorarius parasiticus) nor the Longtailed Jaeger (S. longicaudus) as occurring in the Gulf, and it lists only two localities in the Gulf for the Pomarine Jaeger (S. pomarinus). This represents no change since the 1931 A.O.U. Check-list.2 Now enough data are available to evaluate better the status of these birds in the Gulf of Mexico. An important source of information on jaeger distribution is Audubon Field Notes, which has reported most of the jaeger observations in the Gulf in recent years. Table 1 lists these records through 1963 and all other records except my own made in 1961 from the U. S. Coast Guard cutter "Gentian" off the Texas and Louisiana coasts. The latter records appear in Figure 1. So few jaegers have been collected in the Gulf that any realistic evaluation of the status of the three species must take sight records into account. In this report all records which have come to my attention are included. For purposes of this report the waters of the Atlantic Ocean west of 81? west longitude and north of 220 north latitude are considered to lie within the Gulf of Mexico.

SYNOPSIS From 1969 through 1972, 605 wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo Linnaeus) from 10 localities in Florida were examined for blood protozoans. The prevalence in turkeys more than a month old was 84% for Haemoproteus meleagridis Levine, 1961 and 72% for Leucocytozoon smithi Laveran and Lucet, 1905. Sixty-three percent of the birds were infected by both parasites. Infections were most prevalent in juveniles 8–12 months of age. No infection of H. meleagridis or L. smithi was found in 111 poults younger than 35 days. Prevalences were similar in both sexes. Haemoproteus meleagridis was more prevalent (87%) in the southern part of the state; L. smithi was more prevalent (75%) in the north. The prevalence of H. meleagridis did not change during the 4 year period, but L. smithi decreased markedly in 1971, a year of low rainfall. None of the 605 blood films was positive for Plasmodium, but 24 (75%) of 32 blood samples were found by subinoculation technics to be positive for a species of Plasmodium morphologically similar to P. durae Herman, 1941. No trypanosomes were seen on the 605 blood films or in bone marrow cultures (saline-neopeptone-blood) made from 11 turkeys.

Experimental blood-induced infections of Plasmodium hermani were studied in young domestic and laboratory-reared wild turkey poults. Anemia, splenomegaly and decreased growth rates were observed, but no mortality due to the malarial infections occurred. It is suggested that malaria, acting in concert with other factors, may contribute to mortality of wild turkey poults in Florida during the first 3 to 4 weeks after hatching.

After examining a large number of specimens representing all races, Petrides (1942) concluded that retention of primaries 9 and 10 from the juvenile plumage into the first post-juvenile plumage (first-winter plumage) is a species-wide phenomenon in the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo Linnaeus). Later, in describing first-winter plumages in the Galliformes, Petrides (1945), somewhat reversing his earlier opinion, reported a tendency for Florida turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo osceola Scott) to retain only the 10th juvenile primary in winter. His latter finding has been repeatedly overlooked by subsequent writers. Distal primaries.-I have examined 37 juvenile specimens from the southeastern United States: 12 from northern Florida, 17 from Alabama, 4 from Mississippi, 3 from southern Georgia, and 1 from Louisiana. With only four exceptions, these specimens, taken in all seasons, retained only the 10th primary from the juvenile plumage. The ninth had been replaced with a feather similar to number eight. (The exceptions: one spring and one fall juvenile had replaced both distal juvenile primaries; one winter and one summer (second-year) juvenile were retaining both distal juvenile primaries 9 and 10.) Supplementing these data is the testimony of biologists in Florida (James A. Powell, pers. comm.) and Mississippi (S. G. Clawson, pers. comm.) that u keys in their respective states do not retain juvenile primary nine as part of their first-winter plumage. It seems clear, then, that turkeys in the Gulf States, including those of Florida and nearby southern Georgia westward at least to the Mississippi River, do not normally hold juvenile primaries 9 and 10 through the winter. The exact geographic ext t northward and westward is not readily apparent. Thirty of the 37 specimens examined by the writer came from the coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico. Clawson (pers. comm.) reports that Mississippi turkeys from well into the northern part of the state (Greenville) exhibit a single juvenile primary during winter, but he can offer no definite information about populations north and northeast

Descriptions and photographs of three schizochroistic pale wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo osceola) specimens are presented, with comments on other color aberrancies in the species. It is concluded that the specimens described probably lack a single brownish pigment, and it is suggested that they represent a recurrent mutant condition. No plausible connection between the miscoloration described and the crossing of the wild stock with domestic turkeys is believed to exist. Pale-colored wild turkeys are regularly reported by laymen, and some have been mentioned in wildlife literature (Wright 1915, Mosby and Handley 1943, Bailey 1955, McIlhenny 1914, Latham 1956, and others); but apparently few of these specimens have been preserved, and none has been described in detail. I would like to describe three pale specimens recently secured from northeastern Florida and add some original observations of miscolored wild turkeys. On several occasions during 1958 and 1959, I saw pale-colored, wild turkey hens along the Alabama River in Wilcox County, Alabama. The sightings probably refer to four or five individuals, including a nearly white hen with half-grown poults of normal color, in mid-July, 1958. The pale hens were all very similar in color to the Florida specimens described below. During September, 1962, I found three pale-colored, wild turkeys in Baker County, Florida, and secured and preserved them the following month. On October 9, 1962, specimen number 30 (Fig. 1), a juvenile hen, was taken and on October 10, specimens 31 (Fig. 1) and 32 (Fig. 2) were obtained. Specimen 29 (Fig. 1), a hen, and sibling to specimens 31 and 32, was taken on September 25, 1962. Specimen numbers refer to my private collection.

Two female wild turkeys were captured by hand and necropsied during the late winter of 1969-70. Both birds were from wild populations of Meleagris gallopavo osceola. The captures were separated by a four-week interval and a distance of approximately 300 miles. Neither bird could have survived more than a few more days in the wild. One bird (A) presented for necropsy was captured by hand in Levy ,County, Florida, by a local resident and delivered, still alive, to a Wildlife Officer. The other bird (B) was captured with orally administered tribromoethanol at Lykes Fisheating Creek Refuge, near Lake Okeechobee, in south central Florida.

During approximately 1 year of experimental field use in Florida, 260 wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) were captured with alpha-chloralose, an oral anesthetic. Two grams of the powdered drug per cup of bait, used without regard for the amount consumed by each individual, proved to be the most effective dosage. Eight of the 87 turkeys captured with this dosage died. Heavier dosages resulted in greater mortality and lighter dosages often produced subeffective narcosis. A surgical technique is described which is capable of eliminating nearly all overdosage mortality by removal of excess bait from the crop soon after capture. The inability of pen-reared turkey strains to produce wild populations has made turkey trapping for restocking an important game management practice. Several state conser- vation agencies have been able to establish populations of wild-trapped turkeys, some well beyond the historically known range of the species. More effective trapping techniques would be useful. This report presents a new method employing an orally administered drug with which 260 wild turkeys were captured in 1 year of pre- liminary field trials. Wild turkeys have been trapped with many devices. An early trapping method

References to the prenuptial molt of wild turkeys ( Meleagris gaZlopavo) in the literature are apparently based only upon a brief, tentative statement by an early writer who declined to describe the molt because he had insufficient evidence. In the present study, no evidence of a prenuptial molt was seen in eight captive M. g. intermeduz in Oklahoma, examined regularly during late winter, or in 220 wild-trapped M. g. osceola in Florida. Taking into account other recent winter-molt data on M. g. silves- tris, we conclude that a prenuptial molt does not occur in the species. Leopold (1943) described the molt and plumages of young turkeys through the first winter plumage and discussed the annual molt of adult turkeys, but declined to dis- cuss winter molting because too few speci- mens were available to him. He did, how- ever, mention a prenuptial winter molt and suggested that it might involve a consider- able part of the plumage. Leopold's state- ment appears to be ffie source of subsequent allusions in the literature to prenuptial molt in turkeys. The purpose of this paper is to point out that Leopold (1943:141) did not describe a prenuptial molt, and that we found no evidence of such a molt in wild and captive wild turkeys examined during the winter.