AMIDST THE DEATH OF HUNTING:

In the broadest sense, what we see in our backwoods and backyards today is a result of something called the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, which eliminated commercial hunting and put states in charge of implementing policies to restore populations to optimum levels, and then keep them there.

For so-called game animals, this success has been remarkable. In 1900, when commercial hunting was essentially outlawed nationally, there were only 500,000 white-tailed deer left in the United States. Today there are 30 million. Massachusetts has an estimated 93,000, despite its small size and the country's third-highest population density. That's far more than we've ever had, specialists say, even before European colonization.

Turkeys, which disappeared from the state sometime around the Civil War thanks to a loss of habitat and overhunting, were re-introduced to Massachusetts in the 1970s, beginning with 37 birds released in the Berkshires. Today, there are 35,000 of them, so ubiquitous, even in urban areas, that they dropped off many people's point-and-shout list, something that has already happened with hawks and rabbits.

Back when those turkeys were released in the 70s, they didn't have to worry too much about black bears. There were only 100 of them in the state. Fast-forward to today and MassWildlife, the state's conservation agency that has overseen the science-based rebound, estimates there are 4,500 in Massachusetts. And with increased sightings in the suburbs, they are definitely moving east.

And while it was hunters who got us into a lot of problems, it was their dollars that got us out, funding the recovery of the game species through the sale of licenses, tags, and stamps, as well as a 1937 federal law that placed an 11 percent excise tax on hunting weapons, including guns, ammunition, and archery equipment. In 1950, Congress placed a similar tax on fishing and boating equipment to fund the recovery of sport fish.

That money has allowed states to conserve huge swaths of land as "wildlife management areas," which also allow non-game animals to thrive, said Eve Schlüter, assistant director of the state's Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program, a subdivision of MassWildlife that focuses on conserving native plants and animals, with an emphasis on 432 species that are listed as endangered.

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