There’s the potential for what I just mentioned to happen and it probably would to some degree……but I’d think the way it would actually play out is that a really high percentage….something like 60-70% of all properties where turkey hunting was taking place would have someone trapping on it…….That would mean that the vast majority of existing populations would be positively effected or affected… ..and there are already existing turkey populations in every county……So you should get some growth and possible expansion out of the current populations…….Also, even if all the coons may not directly impact a turkey nest…….If we start taking out something like 100,000+ coons per season statewide then we could potentially lower the overall base coon population and decrease immigration/dispersion rates…….which in turn should help the existing populations with any growth and expansion……

Of course this is assuming that the hawks don’t kill all of the excess chicks that you create……..I think that actually may happen on some years when their main prey sources are low…… but on the years when there are plenty of other prey, that’s when you’ll see bigger jumps in the population growth of the turkeys due to the incentive.

You also got ask, what is it costing in terms of extra birds being killed and does that cause any negative outcomes that offset the gains from the trapping. There’s really no way of saying definitively beforehand but I think that 20:1 rate would more than pay for itself in terms of producing way more birds than what gets killed. Like has previously been said…..if 5,000 people participated that would equal 100,000 coons……..If half of those people were successful at getting a bird during that early week it would only be 2,500 birds……and its safe to say that a portion of those were going to get killed anyways ……So I’m just guessing that the total net extra kills will not really be that many compared to boost in overall production.

Those are just some things to ponder about such an incentive.