You can hunt down your Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas tree in Nevada. Here’s how.
Turkeys are synonymous with Thanksgiving, but if you’re looking to bag a bird in Nevada somewhere other than the grocery store or butcher shop, you need to plan ahead — really far ahead.
The Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) allows turkey hunting from late March to early May, but, with less than 150 tags issued last year, very few sportsmen are putting a Nevada-caught bird on the table this holiday season.
“We’re never going to be a turkey state. We’re just not,” said Justin Small, upland game staff specialist. “But there’s a lot of demand for the little we can supply for turkey populations.”
Turkeys, which aren’t native to the Silver State, were introduced to Nevada 60 or 70 years ago. NDOW doesn’t track their numbers, but estimates put their population at somewhere north of 1,000 birds across the state.
But, because of their particular habitat requirements — riparian areas with tree cover for roosting — their populations are limited to just a few areas. And with those limited, site-specific populations, come challenges for hunting.
Idaho, Small pointed out, has “more turkeys than they know what to do with. We’re not in that boat.”
George Forbush, president of the Nevada Predator Hunting Association and a longtime sportsman, has bagged three or four turkeys over the years. The last one was more than a decade ago, he told me a couple weeks ago while we discussed proposed regulations for coyote calling competitions, which I wrote about earlier this month.
Their popularity, combined with the limited number of tags issued, means he can’t draw a tag, he said. Last year, 2,800 people applied for tags, according to NDOW — 139 were issued, and hunters bagged 83 turkeys.
“Turkey hunting is extremely fun — I would do it every single year,” Forbush said.
Nevada’s season is limited to the spring in large part because of the state’s turkey population, and the success rate hunters have in the spring versus the fall.
In the fall, prospective turkey hunters would need to do what Small called “opportunity-based” hunting — Forbush cut to the chase and called it an “ambush.”
“You set up on a trail and hope they come walking by,” he said.
But in the spring, hunters set up a blind and, by mimicking the call of a female, lure a male turkey (known as a Tom or a gobbler) close enough to shoot.
“I’d rather hunt them in the spring,” Forbush said. “It’s challenging. It’s great when you get one.”
NDOW is accepting tag applications for the spring turkey hunt for two weeks in January — if you’re looking to bag a Nevada bird for your 2026 holiday feast, it’s time to start planning.
Speaking of holiday traditions, government shutdown doesn’t affect cut downs
Despite the federal government’s record-breaking 43-day shutdown, there’s one holiday tradition proceeding without a hitch. The 2025 Capitol Christmas tree was felled in Nevada this year, and a dedicated team from the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest kept working, without pay, to harvest and transport it from the Reno/Tahoe area to Washington, D.C.
Our D.C. correspondent, Mini Racker, and I wrote about some of the fun, behind-the-scenes details (the tree spent its weeks of transport with its trunk covered in toilet wax rings) of Silver Belle’s cross-country journey — check out our story this coming Sunday.
And if reading about the harvesting of our Capitol Christmas tree makes you want to cut your own, the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest is the place to go. Just make sure you remember to grab a permit online beforehand.
In the weeds:
A winter tradition for the birds — The Red Rock Audubon Society will kick off the annual Christmas Bird Count Dec. 14 to conduct a census of the region’s roughly 400 bird species and help monitor population trends. Counts will be held at seven Southern Nevada locations through Jan. 2. Last year, volunteers counted 154 species and more than 48,000 individual birds. Northern Nevada counts will be held Dec. 14 to Jan. 5.
The U.S. Committee of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative estimates that since 1968, nearly half of aridland habitats such as the Mojave Desert have been lost, leading to 31 species of Southwestern birds being listed as “tipping point” species, or those most at risk.
That’s a lot of trash — The nonprofit Clean Up The Lake has expanded its Lake Tahoe underwater cleanup efforts to greater depths. More than 1,900 pounds of litter was removed between February and July as part of a pilot program expanding to depths of 35 to 55 feet below the surface along 6.1 miles of lakebed and 4.75 miles of Placer County shoreline. While previous cleanup efforts circumnavigated the lake, they stuck to depths of less than 35 feet. Extrapolating out, the group estimates that based on the litter it found in the sample area, there could be more than 29,000 pounds of litter and 17,000 items remaining at similar depths across the lake.
A mine-permitting ‘emergency’ — Utilizing an accelerated 14-day environmental review process, the Bureau of Land Management this month approved the expansion of the Coyote Mine, one of the nation’s few barite mines, near Carlin. Completed under what the federal government is calling “emergency permitting procedures,” the authorization allows Progressive Contracting Inc. to expand the existing mine by 47 acres and extend the mine’s life for another 7-10 years, removing an estimated 40,000 to 100,000 tons of ore annually.
Help Reno plan for fire — The public review period for the draft of the 2026 City of Reno Community Wildlife Protection Plan is open through Dec. 3. The plan identifies key wildfire risks and mitigation strategies for Reno, which has experienced several significant fires in the past several years, including the 2024 Davis Fire that burned more than 5,800 acres and the 2020 Pinehaven Fire that burned more than 500 acres.
Speaking of fire hazards — Data compiled by Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a nonprofit cohort of active and retired federal wildland firefighters, shows a dramatic decline in wildfire mitigation work in Nevada.
Analyzing publicly available data from the U.S. Forest Service, the group found that since January, the state has fallen far behind on hazardous fuels reduction projects meant to mitigate wildfire risk on Forest Service-managed lands.
According to their data, just under 9,000 acres of Forest Service-managed land had been treated in Nevada through the end of September, down from more than 35,000 acres last year. From 2021 to 2023, the agency treated a combined more than 58,000 acres. Hazardous fuels treatments include thinning overgrown forests, clearing brush and conducting prescribed fires.
Rapid radon testing — New electronic radon kits can be checked out from UNR’s Nevada Radon Education Program, allowing homeowners to test their homes for radon and see results in minutes. The program has relied on one-time-use disposable test kits since 2007 that require users to mail them in and wait for results. Testers with consistently high readings are encouraged to retest with mail-in kits, available for pickup through the end of the year for $15, and free of charge in January and February.
More than one quarter of Nevada homes have radon levels at or above the Environmental Protection Agency’s action level; the agency estimates radon exposure causes 21,000 deaths annually, making it the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the United States.
Here’s what else I’m reading (and listening to) this month:
Bipartisan bill proposes Bureau of Land Management use drones to herd wild horses and burros, E&E Politico reports.
What to know about a new Nevada law that allows home insurance that excludes wildfire coverage, per the Reno Gazette Journal.
Utility Dive explains why nationwide power outages are getting longer.
Former Indy reporter Daniel Rothberg joins KNPR to discuss whether Nevada’s water rights buy-back program can keep the state’s groundwater from drying up.
A closer look:
