Wild Turkeys: A Conservation Success Story Facing a New Challenge

As the snow melts and temperatures climb, spring turkey seasons across the country are starting to open. In some regions like the Upper Midwest, wild turkey populations seem healthy. In others, especially the Southeast, an ongoing turkey population decline has many hunters worried.

We don’t know the precise number of turkeys or how sharply the population declines are because game agencies struggle to accurately count the birds in their state. However, based on inaccurate population estimates and hunter harvest reports, we know that populations are declining in a significant portion of Turkey Country. Hunters and biologists are reporting reduced gobbling, fewer birds on the landscape, and shockingly low poult counts.

How Hunter Harvest Impacts the Turkey Population Decline

In 2020, Tennessee’s poult production hit a record low at the same time as the hunter harvest hit a record high of 40,000 birds. The next spring, the TWRA modified a few hunting regulations (Shields mentions that hunters pushed for these changes).

“The statewide season bag limit was reduced from four bearded turkeys to three, and ‘bonus’ birds were eliminated. Additionally, the report notes that the Commission changed hunting regulations with the goal of increasing the number of turkeys in these counties because several of them were experiencing sharp declines in harvest. “Spring turkey season in these counties starts two weeks later and lasts two weeks shorter, ending with the state-wide season closure.” ” ”.

Shields claims that this later start to the hunting season allows the majority of the breeding season to occur without hunter interference and before hunters remove any gobblers. In addition to delaying the start of the spring season, the state reduced the bag limit for Tennessee counties bordering the Mississippi River to two birds.

The changes that nine Tennessee counties saw in 2021 will become effective statewide for the 2023 season. Every turkey hunter in Tennessee will begin the season two weeks later than usual. The bag limit will be two birds and only one jake.

It might seem like Tennessee’s liberal bag limits were irresponsible, given the long decline in poult production. But the harvest caps were set based on research, and they actually carry on a long-standing tradition of state agencies setting hunting restrictions for turkey over a long period of time. But Chamberlain says the old guidelines for setting harvest limits may now be outdated in many states.

“To ensure quality hunting, we had to kill 30 percent or less of our toms each year,” Chamberlain states, noting that 30 percent was dependent on wild turkey production, which is more than double what it is today. Historical information that was mostly utilized to suggest timing, bag limits, and seasons “We were making a lot more birds then We see harvest from 30 to 40 percent, 50 percent of some populations, and that’s just not sustainable. ”.

The opinion that turkey harvest needs to be significantly reduced isn’t exactly a popular one among hunters. Shields claims that hunters in Tennessee are more outspoken in their opposition to the regulatory changes than hunters in Western Tennessee, where flooding from the Mississippi seems to be having a greater detrimental effect on turkey populations, as well as urban sprawl around Nashville and Memphis. Shields compares Tennessee’s turkey hunts to Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

As a lifelong turkey hunter, Chamberlain understands these frustrations.

He states, “I don’t like hearing that any more than anyone else does because I was a turkey hunter long before I was a turkey scientist.” ” “At the end of the day, I live for the spring. In my neck of the woods, it’s spring, and turkeys are gobbling, and I want to go. I’m ready to call a turkey up and shoot him. Facing the realization that changes have occurred is hard to accept.

As hunting pressure increases, Chamberlain claims, “you see pretty significant declines in gobbling activity at a population level.” The gobbling of birds will decrease daily once hunting starts and could eventually reach very low levels where they will either not gobble at all or very little in the tree and not gobble at all on the ground. We occasionally shoot vocal birds, but other times we leave the birds alone because their behavior is only a response to danger. They perceive risk and they change their behavior accordingly. They’re wired to reproduce and survive. And if there’s something that causes risk to that survival, they have to react to it. Otherwise, they’re dead. ”.

Dominance Hierarchy and Later Hunting Seasons

The intricate social structure that wild turkeys depend on is known as a “dominance hierarchy” by Chamberlain, although hunters may refer to it as a pecking order. ” ” The most dominant toms and hens are the first to breed, hatch, and raise young. Chamberlain’s theory states that a flock as a whole postpones breeding when boss toms pass away during the breeding season.

“Dominant toms breed more than subordinate toms. They’re more aggressive, more fit, they have longer snoods and more colorful heads, more iridescence. And hens can perceive that,” Chamberlain explains. We don’t know what, if anything, eliminating those dominant toms at a specific time of the year accomplishes. But, it might have an effect if you entered a population and removed a significant number of dominant toms at an early stage. We just don’t understand the magnitude of that effect. This is hard because we don’t see who is dominant a lot of the time. We simply go outside and converse with a few birds, but we have no idea what’s really happening. ”.

According to the National Wild Turkey Federation, breeding doesn’t begin until late February or early March in Eastern turkey populations. It can sometimes last until the early summer and poults begin hatching in June. As of 2020, most states’ turkey hunting seasons began in April. Some waited until May but others began as early as March.

The most conservative way to schedule the turkey season, according to research from the 1980s, is to open it when most of the breeding has already occurred, i.e., when the hens go to nest. At that point they’re not receptive to being bred,” Chamberlain explains. “That’s what the research has shown for decades, but a lot of people have never heard that research. ”.

Shields claims that the two-week delay in nine Tennessee counties in 2021 functioned as a test for reproductive success after allowing turkeys more time to breed. While it’s too soon to determine whether the postponement made a big difference, one area that saw a later season start in 2021 had a very productive year in 2022.

We were trying to stay out of the woods for a little while and let the birds do their thing before starting to meddle with their behavior. We wanted to be sure that it would actually lead to increased reproductive success before proposing that the entire state implement it,” he says. “We conducted the delay [in 2021] last year in Region 1, which was the best region in the state for reproduction.” “Yet, we haven’t really noticed any effects from our research in the south-central region of the state, which includes some of the other counties that were delayed.” Yes, we thought it would be best to give the dominant gobblers several weeks to finish their assignment. But I think it’s a little bit of a mixed bag. ”.

Is the TURKEY POPULATION DECLINING? (Conservation Corner EP. 1)

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