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1880–2005, the managed returns · Run B #218
Chapman leaves all four on the edge — deer and otter "very rare," the turkey "almost entirely disappeared," the beaver already gone — and the twentieth century brings all four back under management, each on its own dated arc: Deer. The Virginia deer of Chapman's rare-list was finished off after him: the last known wild deer in Indiana was killed near Red Cloud, Knox County, in 1893, and the state stood deer-free for four decades. The Division of Fish and Game began restocking in 1934. The project's own history (John M. Allen, Project W-2-R) counts 296 whitetails released 1934–1942, from Wisconsin principally, with Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina stock — nearly all released on state and federal ground in the southern hills — while the DNR's public summary rounds the same beginning as "about 400 deer" trapped and transferred from those four states; both figures are printed, unreconciled, because both are the agency's. Northern Indiana, this ground included, was repopulated substantially by deer immigrating from Michigan and dispersing along the drainage systems, with biologists later trapping and moving deer to thin counties. Herd estimates run 900 in 1943, 1,200 in 1944, at least 5,000 by 1950; the first modern season opened in 1951, the first in 58 years. Deer now inhabit every Indiana county. Wild turkey. Extirpated statewide by the early 1900s — Perkins's 1930 notes give the last stands in the southwest (Gibson County, 1897; Posey County thereafter) — the turkey returned by trap-and-transfer of truly wild birds: between 1956 and 2004 the DNR released 2,795 wild-trapped turkeys at 185 sites around the state, beginning with birds obtained through the Crane naval depot flock in Martin County and the 1964 Missouri trade (70 ruffed grouse for 21 turkeys). The first modern sanctioned hunt came in 1970; turkeys are now found in all 92 counties.
River otter. Chapman's rare otter held on longest of the four and then vanished: protected in 1921, too late — by 1942 breeding populations had disappeared from Indiana, and the DNR's word for the end is extirpated in 1942. The return is the state's model reintroduction: 303 otters trapped in Louisiana and released at 12 sites in northern and southern Indiana between 1995 and 1999, the first 25 at Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge in early 1995, after a joint DNR–Fish & Wildlife Service basin review found the Muscatatuck, Tippecanoe and Patoka basins most promising. (The St. Joseph basin of this ground is not among the basins the record reached names as a release basin; the otters here arrived, on the record, by spread.) Otters were removed from Indiana's endangered list in 2005 — one later DNR document, the Natural Resources Commission agenda item of August 2023, prints the removal year as 2009; the two years are printed together and not merged, the weight of the DNR's own releases standing at 2005 — and a limited trapping season opened in 2015. The modern population is modeled at more than 8,500. Beaver. The trade's first casualty here as everywhere: Chapman already lists the beaver gone in 1880. The end-dates in the record conflict by place and are printed so: the trapper George W. Pitts recalled beaver, once plentiful, "extinct by 1830" in the White River ground of central Indiana, while the statewide telling has beaver completely trapped out by the late 1880s or early 1890s. The return: in 1935 the Indiana Department of Conservation obtained a few breeding pairs from Wisconsin and released them at Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area, with strategic relocations after; beaver are now abundant and found in almost every county — on this ground, the park's engineer of the Baugo Creek bottoms in fact, though no township beaver record is separately published in the sources reached, and none is claimed beyond the county-frame presence the statewide record supports.
Sources: Chapman (1880), Ch. II, p. 340 and "Scratchers," p. 342, read first-hand. Deer: Indiana Division of Fish & Wildlife restoration history as carried by the USDA/Purdue Wildlife Conflicts Hotline ("pushed to extinction"; restocking from 1934, "about 400 deer") and Allen, Indiana Deer History, Project W-2-R (last wild deer, Knox County, 1893; 296 released 1934–1942; herd estimates 1943/1944/1950; Michigan immigration into northern counties) — the 296 vs. ~400 conflict printed whole; Purdue Extension FNR-153 (elimination by 1893; 5,000 by 1951; first regulated season November 1951). Turkey: Indiana DNR, Wild Turkey page (extirpated early 1900s; 2,795 released at 185 sites, 1956–2004; all 92 counties); Backs, Wild Turkey Restoration, Indiana DNR, Winter 2004; Perkins, "Notes on the Wild Turkey in Indiana," Wilson Bulletin 42(4), 1930 (last dates via Butler: Gibson County 1897). Otter: Indiana DNR Division of Fish & Wildlife endangered-species record (breeding populations gone by 1942; 303 released at 12 sites in six watersheds, 1995–1999); Albers and Rossler, Indiana Woodland Steward otter accounts (Louisiana stock; Muscatatuck first release, 25 in early 1995; delisted 2005; modern population over 8,500) — against NRC Agenda Item #7, August 2023, printing delisting as 2009; conflict printed, not merged. Beaver: Indiana DNR Beaver page as carried in the Allen County wildlife record (Wisconsin pairs, Jasper-Pulaski, 1935; now almost every county); "Wild Animals of Indiana," Indiana Magazine of History (Pitts: beaver extinct by 1830, central Indiana); Limberlost beaver history (trapped out statewide by the late 1880s/early 1890s; reintroduced 1935) — end-date conflict printed by place.