This is taken directly from the Missouri Department of Conservation Website:
By the 1990s turkey populations around the United States began to level out. A tenant of wildlife management is that exponential population growth is eventually curbed by predators, disease, competition for food and changes in habitat. Missouri’s turkey population had reached unimaginable levels, close to a million entering autumn, and flocks of hundreds of turkeys in winter were not uncommon.
Although turkey population growth flattened in the 1990s, hunting success peaked in 2004 with a record spring harvest of 60,744. With 98 percent of these birds being males shot after the peak in breeding, this level of hunting had little or no effect on future long-term abundance. Similarly, fall harvest had fallen over the years to a small fraction of the statewide population, translating to little or no effect on long-term abundance or the quality of the spring hunt.
