Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Turkey tourism is booming in Florida.

Who knew the state’s native wild turkey was such a draw, right up there with its high-profile manatees, panthers and gators?

Certainly the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which says it needs more money to meet the “pressing needs of wild turkey management” as hunters from around the world descend on the state to bag the bird.

Florida’s wild turkey has “drawn increasing global interest in recent years,” the agency wrote in a budget request to lawmakers in September. That, along with “concern for the Florida wild turkey resource, calls for increased monitoring and research,” it said.

The agency is asking for $300,000 from the State Game Trust Fund to better staff its wild turkey managem

See Full Page