I started trapping to save the turkeys. Like many hunters in the southeast and midwest, I had noticed fewer birds and less gobbling over the past few springs, and I wondered why. “We don’t know everything, but we’ve had a long trend of late, rainy springs and those lead to poor hatches,” is the most common response you’ll hear from a biologist. ” ”.
I’ve always believed that cold, wet spring weather is detrimental to turkey hatches, and I do think that But over the past few years, I’ve also come to believe that we now have a bigger predator problem than we did previously and that the effects of predation on the hatch are more significant than we’ve previously acknowledged. That’s important because, thanks to targeted trapping, we can somewhat control predation even though we have no control over the weather.
In my opinion, if you are already using methods such as food plots, controlled fire, better timber, and so on to manage for turkeys, then learning how to trap ought to be the next thing you acquire. You might be surprised to hear that removing a few coyotes, skunks, opossums, and raccoons from the landscape at the right time of year can accomplish a lot more to help with the localized hatch.
Turkeys are fascinating creatures, known for their distinctive gobbles and impressive plumage While they’re often associated with Thanksgiving feasts, these birds can also be a nuisance, especially if they’re causing damage to your property or garden If you’re looking for a humane way to remove these feathered friends from your yard, you might consider trapping them.
This guide will delve into the world of turkey trapping, exploring various methods, their effectiveness, and ethical considerations. We’ll also discuss alternative solutions for dealing with unwanted turkey visitors.
The 50-Gallon Drum Trap: A Simple Yet Effective Method
The 50-gallon drum trap is a popular and straightforward method for catching turkeys. Here’s how it works:
- Bait the Trap: Place crushed corn inside a 50-gallon drum, with the bottom facing upwards.
- Lure the Turkeys: Over several days, replenish the corn to attract turkeys to the area.
- Set the Trap: On the fifth day, flip the drum around, ensuring the opening faces upwards.
- Catch the Turkey: The turkey, unable to see the new opening, will likely jump into the drum to reach the corn, becoming trapped inside.
The turkey’s limited mobility in small areas makes this strategy effective. But it’s crucial to remember that different places have different trapping laws, so before using this technique, make sure you understand what they are.
Additional Turkey Trapping Techniques
While the 50-gallon drum trap is a popular choice, other methods exist for catching turkeys These include:
- Netting: This method involves using a large net to capture turkeys as they feed or roost.
- Drop-door traps: These traps utilize a weighted door that falls shut when a turkey steps on a trigger plate.
- Live traps: These humane traps allow turkeys to enter but prevent them from escaping.
The effectiveness of these methods depends on various factors, such as the trap design, bait used, and the turkeys’ behavior.
Ethical Considerations and Alternatives
Trapping turkeys raises ethical concerns, as it involves confining animals. Before resorting to trapping, consider alternative solutions:
- Habitat modification: Make your yard less attractive to turkeys by removing food sources and potential nesting areas.
- Scare tactics: Use visual or auditory deterrents, such as motion-activated sprinklers or loud noises, to frighten turkeys away.
- Exclusion techniques: Install fences or netting to prevent turkeys from entering your property.
If trapping is your only choice, make sure to use humane trapping techniques and release the turkeys far from your property in a suitable habitat.
Turkeys can be effectively removed from your yard by trapping them, but it’s important to think about the moral ramifications and look into other options first. Knowing the different types of trapping, how well they work, and any applicable laws will help you make wise choices regarding handling intruding turkey guests.
When Should You Set Your Traps?
Management trapping is simply a matter of temporarily reducing predator numbers at strategic times of the year. For turkey hunters, that means trapping as close to the nesting season as possible. Most predators are born in the late spring or early summer, and the young-of-the-year disperse in the fall. In February, most of the predators on the landscape are mature adults, and many with established territories. The goal is to eradicate them sufficiently to temporarily clear the areas where turkeys usually nest, making room for a few remaining nests.
Mark my words: The predators will return when the new young-of-the-year disperse again early in the fall. That’s evidenced by the steady number of critters Woods traps at the Proving Grounds each year. And even though the season is only a few weeks old, Anse and I have already caught more nest predators than we did the year before. Part of that is because we’ve learned more—but you can’t catch what isn’t there.
Examining the animals you catch can reveal patterns that indicate the effectiveness of your trapping efforts, which is an interesting process in and of itself. “It’s crucial for a manager to monitor the gender and weight of every animal we capture,” Woods states. “On our place, the catch is now slanted toward yearling males, which have just dispersed. That makes sense, because we’ve reduced the resident population of older adult animals. ”.
Woods laments that the Missouri trapping season, which concludes at the end of January, doesn’t run later. In many other states (Kentucky and Tennessee included), trapping season ends the last day of February. State-by-state differences in trapping laws seem to be the most extreme I’ve found in the field of wildlife regulations thus far. These variations include season dates for different species and permissible equipment. “Check your regulations,” is a CYA I like to write, but if you’re new to trapping, please do so.
Set a Trap, Save a Turkey
Interest in trapping fell along with the fur market. While wearing fur has become socially unacceptable in many places, pelt prices have significantly decreased even though some people still purchase furs. One could make a compelling case that the decrease in fur purchases is what’s causing predator populations to increase. For example, even though the raccoon population has been growing steadily for more than 20 years, the raccoon take in Missouri, one of the few states that tracks both furbearer harvest and population trends, was at its lowest point in 76 years in 2018. That’s eye-opening when you compare it with the turkey decline of the past decade.
But there seems to be a small comeback in the popularity of trapping, mainly among hunters who care about the environment. The effects of predation on game populations and the effectiveness of trapping to lessen predation have long been contentious issues for hunters, wildlife biologists, and conservation groups. To put it mildly, a lot of contemporary hunters think that the potential of trapping as a management tool has been intentionally overlooked because the practice isn’t always socially acceptable.
Dr. Grant Woods, one of the country’s best-known and respected wildlife biologists, has been hearing it for years. “I think that a lot of biologists learned in college that predators are not a problem, and the public has been told for a long time that trapping will not result in an increase in the number of turkeys,” he says. “I think that’s the wrong message. The rates of decline in Missouri’s fur and turkey harvests over the past 20 years are almost the same. You’d have to be pretty hard-headed to not pay attention to that. The data shows a significant upward trend of coons, opossums, and skunks. Unequivocally, everyone is seeing more of those animals. And these are known nest predators. Not maybe. Not casually. They’re known. ”.
Despite an abundance of constantly improved habitat, Woods noticed a sharp decline in turkey populations on his own 1,576-acre farm near Branson, Missouri, known as the Proving Grounds. “We had good nesting cover,” he says. “We do prescribed burns. We cut hundreds of acres of cedars. But our turkey population was getting really low. So, we started conducting more concentrated trapping efforts. ”.
Over the past decade, Woods and his crew have worked to trap and remove predators every winter. This year was their most productive yet, with 115 critters taken out. “You know what?” Woods says. “Our turkeys started coming back. ”.
Statewide, Missouri reported another poor hatch last year of . Each hen produced nine poults, despite Woods reporting one of the best hatches he’s ever seen on the Proving Grounds. He says he knows other hunters who are tired of hearing that the rain is to blame for the lack of turkeys, claiming that they are seeing the same thing. ”.
My friend Kerry Wix has been trapping extensively on the farms where he hunts in middle Tennessee for the past five years. Wix reports that turkey populations are booming in his favorite locations, even though they have been declining in other parts of the Volunteer State, especially in middle Tennessee. “We started catching raccoons four years ago, and we now hunt them this time of year every year,” he says. For crying out loud, farmers have told me they have never seen so many turkeys on the areas where we trap, and we have seen more poults than ever before since we started trapping. ”.
Call me a convert, too. I tried trapping for the first time in February of last year, and I was almost always accompanied by my 5-year-old son Anse. From the two farms in Kentucky that I usually hunt, which total slightly less than two hundred acres, we took about twenty-five opossums, skunks, and raccoons. Furthermore, I noticed more poults in bigger broods scuttling around those two areas in particular this past summer than I had in previous years. In all fairness, the hatch this year was the best the state has seen in a long time, so coincidence or not, I’ll take it.