Status of turkey research?

I know that we have a lot of wildlife biologists who read here. Does anyone have access to the studies that the TFT videos discussed last year that should be finished by now? I believe that they referenced studies in GA and MS on WMAs with a delayed start that had completed 4 years with no effect at all on poult production. A shorter running study in TN looks the same. These were the studies that were gonna show all the benefits of a later starting date, but instead it made no difference. I think it was the turkey guys at Auburn and UF who said that the evidence was mostly in that moving the season later wasn't going to make any difference to poult recruitment, but there was another year to go.

The results from that last year should be in by now. Does anyone know what it showed?

Here is a link to one of their podcasts; it may not be the one I am thinking about where they said that the evidence was mostly in and was showing no benefit to a later season, but they are interviewing the turkey guy from the MS dcnr and it's an excellent video. The thing that he said that really stuck with me was that they didn't want to change anything unless they had data showing it would be beneficial. He said he expected the WMAs with the later season to show that, but it didn't. So with no data, they have made no changes. I can only wish our dcnr had that attitude.

https://youtu.be/V4MRXhcrzIs?si=2ufa0yPpH8SX9HIs

Pretty sure the MS stuff is currently in the editing/publication process. Hopefully its out within the year.

From what I remember, they weren’t expecting it to show any change cause of how little they set it back. They mentioned that it wasn’t enough to actually make a difference, but hunters wouldn’t put up with that much of a change. So, essentially, they did a study that they knew wouldn’t show any change, but the hunters will point to it and say ‘see, I told you that changing dates wouldn’t change anything.’

Basically, the only thing accomplished with the study is more of a distrust of studies. 🤣

They moved the date 15 days, from 3/15 to 4/1. They had another WMA for a control group and they left it at 3/15.

You can listen to the link I provided if you doubt me, but the MS guy said very clearly that he expected the 15 day change to produce positive results; it didn't. I don't know how others will interpret it, but it certainly won't cause me to distrust studies. Your perspective is likely different, as we seem to have a different perspective on most everything.

The main point I will remember is that MS didn't want to change hunting seasons without data supporting it. AL and many other southeastern states chose to change the seasons first, based on a theory. If the theory is debunked, what are the chances that we get those days back? I think I already know the answer to that - zero.

It may be that changing the season to open 4/20 might produce more poults. I doubt it, but that wasn't what the study was about.

I thought their discussion in the linked video was real interesting when they talked about how the declines in turkey populations were somewhat in sync with when they were reintroduced. We have been talking about that here for years - turkeys are reintroduced into an area and the population soon explodes, then goes down after 20 years or so. It happens everywhere and it's just normal. MS and AL had their restocking done long before many other states, and we have already experienced the cycles that other states are just now seeing.

What are you talking about me doubting you? I’m telling you what I heard some of those guys say. Something about it would need to be setback to the start of either nesting or incubation(I don’t remember which off the top of my head). Nothing I said was my perspective, it was passing along what I’ve heard them say. So, your perspective discussion is with them, not me.

Preacher, on the southern outdoorsman podcast they discussed a study by the university of Tennessee that has been going on for 6 years. I can’t find the published research but here is a link to Turkey for tomorrow where they discuss the findings. Here is an excerpt:

“Dr. Craig Harper and Dr. David Buehler, both with the University of Tennessee, have led a comprehensive study of wild turkey ecology and management in five counties of south-middle Tennessee for the past six years. Their preliminary findings are both striking and encouraging. In brief, findings indicate low nest success and poult survival as a result of predation is limiting the population, and a two-week delay applied to the hunting season’s opening has not impacted any aspect of reproductive success. “

Reducing bag limits and pushing season dates back has little to no impact on turkey populations. It’s always been about predators and habitat.

Whatever happened to quail is what is happening to the turkeys

Why is it that March 15 referred to as when it opened. It opened March 20 for a long time and was moved back because of hunters jumping up and down. Just like the northern zone was April 1 and was moved earlier. It was April 8 in Colbert in the 80s and had a 2 week season and then 3 week season. Lauderdale was closed for 25 years due to over harvest. It reopened with a 5 day season. It now has a strong population.

After opening it earlier a few days and now has been moved back to or after what the opening day was in the 80s. A friend gathered all the info from when it opened earlier in Lauderdale and Colbert. Season as closed for some time and then reopened back to traditional time frame. It’s no different than what has happened this time.

Evidently there is long history of hunters wanting it opened earlier and earlier. Then there seems to be an adjustment. Hunter sentiment seems to be hard to handle.

I didn't expect an argument over what a video says when I included a link to the video. The guy being interviewed is Adam Butler who is Turkey Project Coordinator for the MDWFP. At the 1:09 mark in the video, he said, "Honestly, we expected we were gonna see positive results. We did not start where we've ended up in terms of our thinking."

If you doubt that's what was said, you can watch it again yourself.

If you will read my comment about our differing perspectives, you will see I was talking about your conclusion that:
"Basically, the only thing accomplished with the study is more of a distrust of studies. 🤣".

My perspective is that is false. I think these studies are valuable because they are trying to measure the impact of the changes that AL and other states have already implemented. And the conclusion so far is that those changes have accomplished nothing. The fact that the studies didn't reach the conclusion that Butler expected, and he is willing to admit that, makes me regard his studies very highly.

From what I’ve seen…..It doesn’t appear hens are failing to nest. The failure is happening once they are sitting and later

I’m sure in some of the most hard hunted areas both public and private some hens are going un-bred but this doesn’t appear to be widespread

Arkansas started late openers 10+ years ago and saw no marked improvement.

Weather, predation, habitat is the key. Spring hunting is the easiest thing for DNR to control vs the other three . It can be done with the stoke of a pen and costs nothing. So here we are. Kudos to Mississippi for not taking away opportunity for their resident’s prematurely.

Thanks!

I believe that these studies are showing that when common sense is applied to the known facts about turkey biology, the results are just as expected.

1) The size of the turkey flock is almost entirely dependent on poult recruitment.

2) A hen only needs to be bred once in order to be fertile.

3) A single gobbler can breed many hens, not only in a season, but in a single day.

4) It doesn't take a lot of gobblers to breed the hens, so legal spring gobbler hunting has little effect on the overall population.

My conclusion has always been that the only places where removing spring gobblers by hunting is likely to effect reproduction would be in places that already had very few turkeys. The simple solution is to close the season completely in those places, and that was exactly what AL did under previous administrations.

I expect the anti-hunting forces attacking turkey hunting to use the same techniques as the anti-gun forces. Gun control laws are passed and they never reduce crime. Their advocates never conclude that they don't work; they just say they didn't go far enough. The next law will work becomes their message, and they don't intend to stop until there is a complete gun ban.

The turkey hunting bans are likely headed the same way. Starting 4/1 doesn't change anything, so it needs to go all the way to 4/20. That won't do anything either, so the next step will just be the elimination of the spring season. It seems to me that Chamberlain is already laying the ground work for that. I've heard him say nobody would dream of hunting ducks during the mating season, so why should turkeys be hunted then?

Hunting ducks during the mating season most definitely happens in the wintering grounds. And on top of that….turkey hens are protected and generally harvesting hens (fall season) is frowned upon now more than ever. Another factor is ducks pair where as turkeys do not…..

They allow the harvest of hen ducks and it isn’t frowned upon to kill hens like it once was…..

Nailed it.

Here's a link to a thesis about the TN study:

Assessing the Effects of the Spring Hunting Season Start Date on Wild Turkey Seasonal Productivity and Hunter Behavior


TN Study

If you are asking about the MS studies I referenced, the MS season starts 3/15 and has for many years. They changed the start dates of the WMAs in the study to 4/1. It wasn't about Alabama.

I remember 3/20 being the starting date in Alabama during the 60s and maybe the early 70s, but it was changed to 3/15 . I believe that it was first changed in the mid 70s for counties that had a lot of turkeys but no fall season. I know that in Perry county we got those 5 days and Wilcox didn't, because they had a fall season. They eventually changed it to 3/15 for much of central and south AL, with a whole lot of exceptions for areas further north, like yours. I think they were just trying to limit hunting in places with fewer turkeys.

Did you watch the video I linked? I thought about you when watching the part where they talked about the inevitable decline some 20 years after restocking. My area had turkeys decades before yours and we experienced that decline in the 80s. I suspect that your time has been more recent, though it's good to hear you are seeing an upswing. Don't expect it to ever again be like the peak; it isn't normal for the population to go back to that.

PCP,
I’m not the one doing the arguing, so. .. I’m not talking about the video you posted. I’m simply telling you what I’ve heard others say in other videos about the length of time that the seasons are being moved to. The distrust has already started. If the start time that they have moved it to isn’t enough to make a difference as some have said, then the conclusion from hunters will be that, ‘see, we told you it wouldn’t make a difference.’ This type of thing leads to that distrust over time cause folks will reference this type stuff and be against it from the start.

TRUST THE SCIENCE

Ding, ding, ding.... we have a winner

Announcement: after 6 years of research, we have concluded that….the rednecks were right!!!!

I'm gonna guess fire ants on quail

A lot of truth there. Some things need better explanation I feel. This is based on my personal experiences since the 90s when I started chasing these things.

The biggest factor that bugs me is the shear number of hunters. What is the numbers of hunters compared to now, 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 years ago. That is left off for some reason as if hunters are not having an impact. Sure we kill gobblers but hens are inadvertently killed and harassed too. The biggest impact I feel is hunters bumping hens off nest. Constant hunting pressure surely has an impact

Early 90s very few turkey hunters around these parts. Those old timers that did killed all those flying cats they could. Killed a lot of nest predators too. They loved chunking baited hotdogs etc…. Out and about. That stuff killed and killed and killed. I’m not advocating for. That in the least but that’s what they did. The fact is lower numbers of predators so populations probably exploded in the best habitats and i feel that explains exactly what I experienced in the 90s. Unreal numbers of turkeys.

Habitat as mentioned took a major hit around here. A lot of acres of cut timber at the same time. Thousands of acres and birds were easily killed in those cutovers. It’s thick now so that allowed things down. I darters to take pics day of my old stomping ground just for reference.

I’m seeing decent numbers rebound but still not nothing like it once was.

Something has happened across the south with regards to the numbers. It’s being reported all across the south

The only thing I know has happened is the shear number of hunters has increased 100 fold. Can’t deny that. Doesn’t matter if the same number of gobblers are being killed.
I personally think it’s the continued harassment of the flock and nesting hens being stressed during the season

There a no way to compare todays number of hunters that stay after them all day to the days when I started and or before. The need to post pics of the kill have far outweighed anything else.

It’s a shame what’s happened on youtube. Everyone is cashing in…… mossy oak is one of the worst offenders. THP, pinhoti are pimping. Woodhaven 100% sold out Alabama. What many have done can’t be undone and every turkey hunter is paying the price. And I’ll quit there

I just saw this and I’m glad you asked if I’d watched it. I’m agreeing with almost everything they’re saying. It’s funny that as you mentioned and they brought up as the population explosion so to speak. That may explain my personal experiences and southern Tennessees as well. The shear number of birds around, well is unbelievable. They mentioned harvest per acreage. No wonder no one believes what I’ve said. Jerry’s place with the trade splitting it would be 400ish acres. We killed at least 2 limits off that place every year from mid 90s to 2012-14 or so. The land around it saw as many killed. There is 9 mike air so Laing that bottom and most hunters killed their limit if not more than a limit. I’m talking around 20 hunters thru there.

No wonder it’s nothing like it was and I’ll admit that maybe I was completely spoiled. 😂

The 50% population decline being normal is also may be my experience and feel good that is considered normal. I’d never thought that to be the case.

Now I’m at the 50 minute mark and I’m also agreeing that too may gobblers killed too soon in the season could be detrimental

At the 1 hour mark is where Hunter sentiment wants a longer season when MS doe sin fact one of the earliest opening and longest. Also they’re very content with the season but lower the limit and days and you can see what happened here.


At the 1 hr 13 minute mark refers to hunter excitement with gobbling peak whichbis an overall better experience

MS said moved opening back from 18-20 to March 15 in 2005

At the end they got to the early successional and burning. Nesting in pasture in TN etc. all important stuff about increasing turkey poult etc…
That’s the best course of action.

I’ll add this Mississippi has a 3 bird limit and similar season. I could agree with that.


Thanks for prodding me to listen. I need that to adjust some beliefs I had.

Another thing that is maybe more important than anything. Hunter participation in data collection so real information can be used. I wonder the percentage of participation compared to Alabama. One of the most critical elements to making changes or not, needs accurate information/data from the participants.

Fire ants on eggs and poults?

they'll eat them alive in the shell , when they make that first peek in the shell if the ants find them they'll kill the whole nest . I'm sure they get turkeys eggs too . i know they'll run chickens off the nest and kill ever one .

Ok, thanks for the comments.

Glad you watched it and learned from it.

As I've told you before, I have never experienced hunting a place as good as yours was. It must have been a unique set of factors coming together at once to produce that. What we experienced in Perry county fits in very well with what they said about cycles. We got turkeys on the place in the mid 60s and had good hunting until the mid 80s. Then we didn't kill a turkey on the place from 84 through 89. We had enough to start hunting them again in 90 and have hunted it hard every year since. It's been consistent in producing turkeys ever since. Some years we have killed as many as 6, but I've never seen any indication of hunting having any effect on reproduction.

To be fair to Chamberlain, he might have said Mallards instead of ducks. Are mallards hunted during the mating season anywhere? I thought it was a comparison that didn't make much sense and have wondered why he said it.

Thanks to all for the comments and especially for the links. A good day to everyone!

I was referring to mallards mainly.

Mallards are usually paired up by the end of the season. It’s why the season “used to end” January 20 by federal law. It was pushed by hunters and the hunting industry in general to the end of January. Alabama usually ends theirs on the last Sunday of the month. Arkansas usually ends theirs on the last day of the month. Didn’t matter research had shown it was better to end it prior to the end of the month. From what I’ve been told by bios is they’re paired up on the return to the breeding grounds.

I see them paired up every year at the farm. My game cam will showing them paired up swimming together even though there is 15-20 in a group. Also will see those rogue drakes harassing the hens. Last week I had a pair that were acting broody for lack of a better word. The ducks I killed the last day were in twos and threes. The threes were two drakes and a hen otherwise they were paired up.

Most of the woodies I have pics of are paired up too

What that has to do with turkeys 🤷‍♂️

Auburn did a 4 year study about 12 years ago on Skyline. Our season got shortened not long after.

It has nothing to do with turkeys, except that I remember Chamberlain making some sort of comparison to indicate that maybe turkeys shouldn't be hunted in the mating season. But since I don't remember exactly what he said, everyone just disregard it.


I've not watched a lot of his videos, and most of them were linked from here, so did nobody else hear it?

I have killed only one mallard in my life so I never tried to learn much about them. I thought the drakes would breed multiple partners during a single mating season; is that not true? If it isn't, why are the limits designed to encourage hunters to kill the drakes? It looks like they should want them harvested in equal numbers if they have to pair up. Sorry for the OT question, but it looks like my original question has played out.

A good day to everyone; I am about to head to the lake and go fishing. Some have to work, some have to fish; we all gotta do our duty.
.

Duck populations have a greater amount of males than females.

I’ve read that the mallards pair up but once they get to the breeding grounds if there is too many drakes they disrupt nesting. Basically the drakes will gang rape hens and cause problems with nesting.

Drakes have have higher bag limit. 4 in our flyway, some states it’s 1 or 2 hens.

We used to do a hen jar. Charge a dollar for each hen you shoot. When you teach 5 hens for the season it then goes to $5 a hen and so forth. We’d send the money collected to DU as a donation. I think they promoted it.

This is the interview with Craig Harper where he discusses the season changes and its impact on the nesting research. I don't think the final paper has been published yet but could be wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpJLKQBsB6w

This is the MS pub on the same
https://pdfhost.io/v/o8GD899.K_Cons...easons_in_the_Southeastern_United_States

Not defending Chamberlain but I think his comment RE ducks was something like "turkeys are the only gamebird species we hunt during breeding season. Imagine if we hunted ducks then" or something to that effect.

RE seasons (among other things) is Thank God for Mississippi! If they stay the same it will be the only southeastern State that didn't wilt under Chamberlains pressure and we can look if there is any better or worse effects of season changes. Chuck folded like a cheap pocketknife and is now Chamberlains Boy.

Also interesting that there is some data coming out that indicates that nesting success on SRS, an unhunted site in south Carolina, has lower nesting success than a nearby heavily hunted but well managed site in the same State. SRS also has a declining turkey population despite being unhunted.



Just FYI, what is happening to turkeys is NOT what happened to quail. Quail declined (and continue to decline) over decades of habitat change mostly related to more trees on the landscape and less fire. Also less small agriculture, possibly related to more predators. But it was slow and steady because it was habitat related primarily. Turkeys are declining (where they are declining) pretty quick. They are NOT declining everywhere - quail pretty much did decline everywhere. It is also not related to fire ants. They destroy less than 4% of nests in study after study.

Any studies on hunter impact on nesting hens.
Question I have relates to the last 30 years of chasing I’m seeing more and more turkey hunters. That can’t be denied.
Go back further and it’s even more dramatic at the increase.

This year had the most folks at the NWTF convention. I’d bet going backwards it’s a steep rise thru the years.

The LSU guy said a while back that they were starting a study on the question of hens abandoning nests after hunter disturbance. That might have been a couple years ago, so probably too soon to know. I would think that is going to be really difficult to get enough data to be very useful, but maybe they can. In his forum on OG, Lovett Williams said he was concerned that later seasons would cause this to happen a lot and make the season shift counter-productive. But he didn't have a FB army, so everyone ignored him and went with the theory of the Guru.

Thanks for all the info, gobbler! I wondered what you thought of the idea that it's just normal to have a population decline some 20 years after restocking? That theory seemed like common sense to me the first time I heard it, and it also lined up with my own anecdotal observations.

It seems normal to think that it takes predators a while to figure out how to raid turkey nests and even catch turkeys. They don't write books or have Internet access, so all they can do is pass on to their offspring a hunting method that worked for them. That's bound to take a lot of time and many generations - 20 years sounds reasonable.

That's also what we saw at our farm. We got turkeys in huntable numbers around 1965 and the population was good for about 20 years. It was never anything like what Carter and others saw in North AL, but we always had turkeys. The population took a big dive in the mid 80s, but rebounded in the early 90s and has been stable since.

Most of us learned it in wildlife management at AU Restocked populations rose quickly to high levels then dropped off, rose again but not as high and went up and down normally after. Gulsby and Lashly have discussed this as well and they seem to see the same - 20 years after restocking - on nearly every state.

One other thing, Carter - I know our experience is different and we form opinions based on our own experience. I don't doubt that there are more hunters than it used to be in many places. I am just gonna have to see some hard evidence that spring hunting makes any significant effect on the population.

Anyone who was there will agree with me, but hunting on the Coosa wma in the 80s and 90s just couldn't have been more crowded. Getting to work a turkey by yourself bordered on impossible. Main roads would have a truck every few hundred yards, every side road had a truck parked at it. How many turkeys were killed is unknown, but they killed every one they possibly could. And every year the turkeys were still there and still gobbling. It doesn't take many gobblers to breed the hens.

If there's more hunters, so what in regards to turkey numbers. I don't believe that there is any place today with more pressure than the Coosa, but that pressure didn't stop reproduction.

Thanks! Great info! They wouldn't let Ag teachers take those advanced wildlife classes so I only got the Farm Forestry version.

I can remember the idea being discussed here long ago, but hearing them talk about it on these podcasts makes it seem like a new idea to them. I guess they figured that telling people that it's just normal for their turkey populations to go down wasn't going to go over well. Something like DGT was sure to create more interest.

I definitely agree with what you’re saying. I guess I’m asking out loud out of curiosity so to speak.

I thought about what I’d posted and kinda LOL-ed. Speaking of ducks, watching to the X Series on waterfowl, bio named Larry for Louisiana brought up that hunter numbers were way up and hunter sentiment was way down. Kills hadn’t changed much outside the norm.

But here’s the kicker, when presented with a question that if a longer season with bigger limits was at the detriment of the duck population. Would you consider having a longer season and bigger limits. A resounding yes was the answer.

That bothers me

The first part I mentioned I think applies to management of turkeys.

The second part shows human nature

How those work together 🤷‍♂️