Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk ALTurkey Talk -- Beards and Spurs April only - 3 bird proposal

If you are considering writing a letter, now is the time, near the meeting so it is fresh on their minds.
Here are some points that are probably salient.
Turkey populations fluctuate normally with weather and predator populations and they have been very (possibly unnaturally) high after restocking
Are the "indicators" of "poults per hen" truly indicative of reproduction and or population trends? Mostly collected on public land. Not scientifically significant
Alabama's "wild turkey report" reproduction data shows NO decline over the last 10 years.
According to the hunter survey hunter harvest trends have been relatively flat until they changed survey techniques in 2017 when it went down.
According to the hunter survey days per kill trends have been relatively flat until they changed survey techniques in 2017 when it went WAY up.
Other states with later start dates, shorter seasons and lower limits are seeing the same perceived declines
Hatching eggs and raising poults is the only way to increase populations and lowering limits does nothing to help this.
Weather and predators controls reproduction
If early harvest of "dominant gobblers" is a real concern, ban decoys and fans
Is baiting increasing nest predator and pig populations thereby decreasing turkey nest success?
Is feeding corn leading to higher mortality due to aflotoxin to which turkeys are HIGHLY susceptible?
Does the dominant gobbler theory have any grounds in reality in a wild population of turkeys? We truly don't know.
We do know that multiple males are often represented in turkey clutches
Should turkey nesting season be 30 days or 100 days - we don't know but other ground nesting birds that renest often opt for the longer season to avoid weather event issues
We don't know how many turkeys are in Alabama......
We ought to change the season and limits on public lands and study the effects to see it it makes a difference
We ought to form a committee to look at the available data and make recommendations

Just some thoughts

Gobbler nailed it. Grab a few of his bullet points and mail away

Excellent Gobbler 👍🏻

Emails outbound soon

Great list by gobbler!

Here's another question that I would like answered, and I really wish I could get a straight answer from someone who knows. I doubt that anyone who really knows would answer it publicly, but if you would pm me I will promise to keep your name out of it and I will be the villain who spreads it. .

So here's the question:.

Has a certain biologist who has a very strong social media presence made a whole lot of money off the dominant gobbler theory? His name seems to be included on every turkey study in every state, so I would think that he is getting paid on each of them. If so, isn't keeping the theory before the public making him rich? Or am I wrong and he just draws his university salary and all the studies are charity work?

Ok, that's actually more than one question, but in most things you just follow the money. Maybe I am completely wrong on this one, but I would like to know for sure. Thanks for any info.

I can only speculate here but it usually works like this. The university pays these guys a salary. The professors as well as any one else (NWTF, AWF, DCNR) is in search of $$ to conduct research on relevant projects. Once a project gets funded it is conducted, sometimes cooperativley with another researcher from another university and usually with graduate students who get a stipend for their time on the project. The professors usually do these meetings, meet and greets, podcasts, etc on their own dime to not only present the data but help drum up more research $$ (and it is good for the ego ;)). I doubt he is getting a dime from his presence on social media and I don't doubt his motives. my $.02

Thanks gobbler.

That is how I thought it worked, but I thought that the professors got a certain % of the grant as a salary for his work on the project. That was the way it worked long ago in vocational education, but everything I know regarding academic research is long since obsolete.

All grants are open to public record requests. Now, individuals would have to report any "outside" business in their annual disclosures. This is where it can be more difficult to determine benefits.

Federal grants have many rules concerning how funds must be spent (as do many state grants). Privately funded grants are not heavily regulated.

I am not speaking directly about any person specifically. And schools have varying levels of determining conflicts if interest with their faculty and how benefits can be accepted.

He’s a narcissist - his benefit in all of this is the fame and recognition. They like money too but more than that they like all eyes on them for how great they are. He pumps his shucks more than those YouTube guys with the hashtag and emojis in the video names.

Some schools will let professors buy out all/part of their teaching obligation; where I went to school, the professors could use grant money to pay their summer salaries since most were on 9-10 month contracts and didn't teach during the summers.

Unless said biologist (I have no idea who it is) has started their own company - and is getting paid through the company and the school, he is probably not going to get rich doing research.

The decoys/fans/aflatoxin are all interesting topics that should probably be explored.

Thanks, that was the kind of information I was wondering about. I had a little experience with such stuff long ago, but I have intentionally tried to forget about it. It seems like that it used to be that a prof who pulled in a research grant for his university couldn't get money out of it, unless it was to fund his salary in the summer when he wasn't normally paid. But back then they could take consulting work with a different entity and they could get extra money that way. I will drop pursuing this unless someone can tell me about a specific incident.

Based on the people I know that started Turkey hunting in the last 10 years.....

a ban on hunting out of a ground blind or using a decoy would pretty well eliminate 90% of those people's chances at ever killing a bird. Harvest numbers instantly cut in 1/3 or maybe 1/2.

That’d be awesome, baiting would sky rocket

If that’s the case then it’d be counter intuitive. You’d lose even more birds to aflotoxin from people feeding them.
And if you banned ground blinds then you lose the opportunity to take young hunters that can’t sit still

If a kid needs a blind maybe he isn't old enough to be hunting.

Now there’s an idea.

Y’all getting off track. Stop acting like we NEED to cut harvest. Kinda the point of this whole thread. It’s a lazy idea for the powers that be, to lower a limit and delay the season, like other states have done with virtually zero success.

Or maybe you start out easy in a ground blind and end up with a hard-core, traveling turkey hunter that doesn't need a blind ...

As the father of a young turkey hunter who KILLED his first turkey NOT in a blind..

That’s absurd

I’m all for a kid killing a turkey out of a tent, using decoys, or even over a big pile of corn. It’s the adults that do the same that screw everything up

The guys that kill 15 birds a year poaching on other clubs land and claim they’re in TN when in AL can really feel good about themselves when the 3 bird limit ever does pass.