Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk ALTurkey Talk -- Beards and Spurs The Turkey Numbers '26

This ^^^^ is called “shadow projection” …..or something to that effect.

Cartervj………I’ve been giving it some more thought and we very well may be looking at the effect of both great horned owls and eagle on the maps…….It looks pretty apparent that we’re looking at the impact of the avian flu outbreak in 2022-23…..I cant find any article that points to a big owl die off like you do with the eagles but it does say that great horned owls are highly susceptible to it so it would stand to reason that they too suffered mortality……Basically we removed the avian predator pressure on adult gobblers and that’s what we see reflecting on the maps.....That's my guess anyways

I did a little more reading on eagles too and their diet and saw where they have been documented attacking Canadian geese ……What I figure occurs and what has been occurring here in Alabama is that they take advantage of the easy stuff when their populations are low……but as populations grow then the easy stuff becomes harder to come by and the higher the eagle populations get the more they are forced to go after “alternative food/prey sources”…….I would imagine that as their populations have grown and eagles have spread out across Alabama over the last 25 years that they have probably been forced to adapt their diet to the landscape and all the things they go after for food has changed in that time…..I don’t think the ones nesting in the plantation belt are making a living on fish year round

Now that I think I have it figured out a little better let me go back and clarify on this one again so that this part is understood…….

I think we have two different avenues for “limiting factors” to come into play……Avian predation on adult gobblers is likely not a limiting factor on population growth…….its a limiting factor on hunting opportunities……There’s also a limiting factor to population growth that is occurring as well though with hens, eggs, and poults that may very well be hinging on completely different variables…..What I believe we are looking at on the harvest maps is eagles and great horned owls impact on hunting opportunities.

There are 105 posts on this thread. 67 of the posts are by CNC. With about half of them being him responding to his own previous posts. Harold, please put the crack pipe down.

The statewide decline in turkey numbers (if they really are down) could be attributed to habitat loss, poor habitat, predation, more hunters, killing all the dominant gobblers, out of state hunters killing all the birds, starting the season too early, starting the season too late, weather patterns, disease, fire ants, pigs, coyotes, bobcats, dogs, coons, feral cats, possums, aliens, bigfoot, most of the south being clearcut and planted back in young pines, wind farms, solar farms, hawks, eagles, owls, people killing over the limit, people hunting out of season, cell cameras on every field and tree, you tubers, avian flu, corn everywhere, more Aflatoxins, baiting, hunting over bait, poaching, natural population swings, lack of control burns and use of fire, too much burning, too much rain, not enough rain, closed out understory, and on and on. Just take your pick and take off on each and every one of these and you alone can get this thread up to 500 pages. All I know is that in the 4 main counties I hunt, while it is certainly not like it was in the late 70's, early 80's and 90's, we've got way more this year, hens and gobblers, than we've had in the past 10 yrs, on all the places I hunt.

Damn abolt…..that gave me Tucker Carlson face......

Figured you needed something other than eagles and owls to pontificate about. Expand your net. All in good fun buddy.

Heard from someone at the A-day game that Russell looked really good and the position "should be" his to lose, but unfortunately, the O-line looked like it was going to just be more of the same thing we've seen for the past 3 yrs. Said he was really disappointed.

Last year someone put a map up by county that compared turkey harvest ytd compared to last year ytd by county.
Could someone so this again and update it every few days?
It was wonderful

Yeah cause the eagles all died 3 or 4 yrs ago duh

Right now we're on pace for at least 1/3 of the state to see the highest harvest in the last 7 years

Apparently that 2022-23 avian flu outbreak ran through some of the hawk populations as well knocking them back too.......We're probably seeing the delay in hunting success I was talking about if you take pressure off of poults.....That's the two years it takes those extra poults to become adult gobblers.....I think we're probably currently (2026) seeing the success from the folks who had eagles, great horned owls, and (specie?) hawks thinned out from the flu but who have not yet had eagles and great horned owls return in numbers to kill those extra gobblers

Also to add to that.....a very real possibility for why we're seeing some areas really down this year in the red is that if you take away those species of avian predators ^^^^ then its likely that foxes, bobcats, and coyotes have greatly benefited in some areas......especially in grass dominated prairies where rodents are a main keystone prey specie.

This ^^^^ is when central and southeast Alabama needed to have those footholds broke out......

Just ran into Rashaan Evans in Tractor Supply and exchanged a Roll Tide with him.....He's a pretty good sized ol' boy

I’m no biologist or anything of the sort but I have seen a bald eagle post up on a cow bird, “cattle egret,” roost and catch cow birds mid flight every evening for months

Everything eats turkeys at various life stages

That’s nothing new for for a prey species so I’d surmise they’re population cycle up and down. I’d also surmise that predators population cycle alongside

I’ll go out on a limb and wonder out loud if hatching and poult survivable is very important thus leading to wonder again if the BEST things going forward is habitat driven conservation. Seems like most bios I’ve talked with it boils down to habitat. Quail populations really show this to be the case. There’s all sorts of fluctuating factors but habitats seems to be the one stable thing that’s makes an overall difference.

Burn baby burn should be the mantra

There's quite a few counties that are about to obliterate their highest totals for the last seven years that I have data for.......A lot of those are areas where eagles are typically pretty thick like along the Tennessee River.......

You’re gonna have to expand your mind to think bigger than that…..I’m certainly not going to discourage the burn managers but there’s far more to it than just “burn baby burn”…..If that were the cure all solution then why isnt southeast Alabama booming after taking away a lot of the main avian predators from the equation……The answer is that all of that late winter burning is creating chit loads of grass and creating its own issues to deal with…..When you took that limiting factor of avian predators away then another factor quickly took its place….. Look at the timeline and prove me wrong

Cartervj……….Macon, Bullock, Russell, and Lee counties all average killing less gobblers per year than Blount……Is it because they have less hunters and excess gobblers are running around everywhere??......If that's the case then why arent they shooting those excess this year??.....Why are they so down this season?? Lawrence Co has currently killed more gobblers than those counties……Colbert Co is doubling them up…..Hell even Etowah Co has killed more

All I'm saying is that there's more to it than simply burn, burn, burn......That sounds good though.

4/20 Update

Here's a sneak peak of tomorrow's update with 3 weeks left to go in the season.....Again this is a comparison to average and the asterisk represents a new 7 year high........

https://www.facebook.com/turkeysfortomorrow/videos/1285924839926841/?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&fs=e

Not sure how to post videos, but interesting comments from Craig Harper on predator control