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

I might be reading your theory completely wrong but it sounds like you’re saying these counties are on the upswing due to the possibility of avian flu decreasing the raptor population. I can tell you there are no shortage of eagles, hawks,owls in this region, especially around these farms that are predominantly catfish/cattle. It’s actually the opposite. I work with these guys closely and it’s nothing to see half a dozen eagles/ half a dozen hawks on each visit to any of these farms. That’s just what I spot as I’m riding through glancing occasionally. Probably more eagles per square mile than anywhere in Alabama by a lot. The counter point is they are seeing and killing MORE turkey than ever in the region. Now, this may be due to record hatches the last few years but the raptors seem to have minimal impact on the turkey population as far as I can tell. It’s really prime ground for turkey. Good bedding, good brooding and enough cover/woods for roosting.

I can tell you that much of the prairie ground due to the vast openness and lack of swamps throughout much of the region, they have less of a hog problem. That’s kind of a blanket statement, as there are plenty of hogs along the rivers lowlands and WMA’s throughout the black belt, but from Selma to Eutaw as you ride the Hwy 14 corridor, much of that ground is wide open pasture ground with enough pine plantations to hold good populations of deer/turkey. Hogs are restricted to smaller pockets along the waterways/sloughs/swamps. It’s pretty dry ground through that area of the black belt compared to the rest of Alabama as far as major creeks, streams are concerned and lack of water means lack of pigs. My theory is wild hogs are more devastating to the turkey population than we are lead to believe. I don’t see how any turkey nest survive in high pig populated areas. All I can gather from my friends across this region, just in conversation, the landowners who have high hog populations, and many of these reports, the hogs haven’t been established and are somewhat new arrivals on their farms, they report much less turkey sightings when the pigs arrived. It took several years but sightings are down. These guys along the rivers historically had the finest turkey hunting around for generations. The guys with the cattle farms in more open ground, less hogs, are seeing a turkey invasion even with extremely high raptor populations. I’m leaning to pigs as the greater issue. That’s my elementary hypothesis.

I’m also dealing with pigs migrating to our hunting land in Perry county. They just showed up two years ago and this is already the worst turkey season I’ve had in 20 years. I’m blaming pigs for everything at this point. Ha!