Turkey numbers

12752 Views 250 Replies 49 Participants Last post by Fairchild #17, 1 mo ago

The Pennsylvanian

Discussion Starter · 3 mo ago

While trying not to sound like chicken litte, I wanted to see what/if you fellas were seeing in the SW region. Around me, turkeys have become scarce. Two springs ago we had a flock of close to 100 birds that was around for years start disappearing. It dropped by half in one year and now I haven't seen a turkey around the house since Novemeber. I went out yesterday morning to listen for gobbling and nothing, I walked a 6 mile loop too. I didn't even hear far off gobbles, no scratching sign, no droppings under the old typical roosting trees, no feathers laying around. I no the populations go through high and low cycles but I've never experienced anything like this in my life. Last year was the hardest year I had filling tags, I still got it done but it took a long time for me to find some birds..... this is hopefully just my experience. Curious how others in the region are .asking out with he spring scouting?

It wasn't a total bust yesterday. I went through a fee bedding areas I know and ended up finding 5 sheds 4 of them being 2 matched pairs!

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Fairchild #17

· #101 · 2 mo ago

R. S. B. said:
Temperatures aren't really even as big a factor in turkey poult survival as just the number of day of rain over the summer months of June, July and August. It can be pretty darn warm and young turkeys just walking through wet grass will soon be dead if they get wet and hen can't brood them. That hypothetic shock can, and often will, affect them and have them paralyzed and near death in just a matter of a few minutes.

Dick Bodenhorn

I understand it doesn’t have to be “cold” but colder only makes a bad set of circumstances accelerate.
I don’t know how a turkey poults ever stays dry. Walk around in your sneakers and long pants any morning as the sun comes up and watch how quickly your pants get soaked from the morning dew.
If they can die in a matter of minutes from getting wet even in warm weather, how do any of them ever survive? Unless they wait until the sun burns the dew off every morning before they move, how do they ever stay dry and not die?
I remember seeing a hen with a pile of poults just a few days old. That night we had torrential downpours, straight line winds and temps plummeted. I figured that batch was a gone. Didn’t even give them a chance of making it. Yet the next day she had them all fluffed up and tripping over each other to kee up with her. I was blown away. All I could figure was she headed for a cedar thicket and squatted all night.

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REDLAB

· #102 · 2 mo ago

I know several years ago they trapped turkeys in numbers to trade for the wild pheasants they tried to restore and was a total loss. What about the fishers ? did they do the same thing there ? and now they are talking about reintroducing Pine Martens are they going to trade more ? I remember seeing a couple of big flocks before season breakups for days on end out in this cut field and them bam they all disappeared without a trace ! Not sure if they were trapped ! This has been several years ago!
It does seem awful weird that since they went to the second tag and beginning all day hunting that all of this has taken place ! I don't really agree with the all day hunting because that puts allot more people in the woods to bump hens from the nests and maybe never to return. Also I think allot of the gobblers getting killed in the afternoon are being killed at the spot of the roost in ambush and not called in ! JMO ! I have seen allot of stuff in my 40 yrs of hunting this area.

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The Pennsylvanian

Discussion Starter · #103 · 2 mo ago

REDLAB said:
I know several years ago they trapped turkeys in numbers to trade for the wild pheasants they tried to restore and was a total loss. What about the fishers ? did they do the same thing there ? and now they are talking about reintroducing Pine Martens are they going to trade more ? I remember seeing a couple of big flocks before season breakups for days on end out in this cut field and them bam they all disappeared without a trace ! Not sure if they were trapped ! This has been several years ago!
It does seem awful weird that since they went to the second tag and beginning all day hunting that all of this has taken place ! I don't really agree with the all day hunting because that puts allot more people in the woods to bump hens from the nests and maybe never to return. Also I think allot of the gobblers getting killed in the afternoon are being killed at the spot of the roost in ambush and not called in ! JMO ! I have seen allot of stuff in my 40 yrs of hunting this area.

O boy, I don't think we need to go down that road.....

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REDLAB

· #104 · 2 mo ago

It's just my opinion in which I am intitled to. I'm just saying that there is something they could have put out there in game news or other ways but they kept it quiet. The only way I knew about it was from a buddy that works as a warden !

Fairchild #17

· #105 · 2 mo ago

What part did the warden reveal?
Turkeys for pheasants trade? What decade did that occur?

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R. S. B.

· #106 · 2 mo ago

REDLAB said:
I know several years ago they trapped turkeys in numbers to trade for the wild pheasants they tried to restore and was a total loss. What about the fishers ? did they do the same thing there ? and now they are talking about reintroducing Pine Martens are they going to trade more ? I remember seeing a couple of big flocks before season breakups for days on end out in this cut field and them bam they all disappeared without a trace ! Not sure if they were trapped ! This has been several years ago!
It does seem awful weird that since they went to the second tag and beginning all day hunting that all of this has taken place ! I don't really agree with the all day hunting because that puts allot more people in the woods to bump hens from the nests and maybe never to return. Also I think allot of the gobblers getting killed in the afternoon are being killed at the spot of the roost in ambush and not called in ! JMO ! I have seen allot of stuff in my 40 yrs of hunting this area.

There hasn't been a trapped turkey that left this state in twenty years and probably closer to thirty years. The last ones that were traded all came off of larger tracts of land that was closed to hunting, such as state prison or large estate land or hunting club lands where public hunting was not allowed.

Even most of the trap and in state transfer of turkeys, those that were used to jump start turkey populations in some of Pennsylvania's counties, came from private lands that were not open to public hunting.

All recent turkey trapping, what has been done over about the past twenty years, as been simply research trapping where any turkeys caught were simply banded and released at the same place they were trapped. Some even got GPS backpack transmitters so they could monitor their movements and mortality rates and causes.

Dick Bodenhorn

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trout5512

· #107 · 2 mo ago

In the last 20 to 25 years I believe it was the South Dakota Game and Fish trap turkeys with nets at a farm in Washington County and load them up
to go back to their state it's been too long I can't remember what Pa was trading the turkeys for but they took hundreds of them

TrashPanda

· #108 · 2 mo ago

I doubt that very much. South Dakota is polluted with turkeys and doesn't need any. Besides, they have Merriams turkeys and I doubt they would want to corrupt theirs with eastern birds.

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trout5512

· #109 · 2 mo ago

Well you can doubt what you want I just made a call to my cousin who lives next to the farm they were on and was there with me watching it was The South Dakota Game and FIsh that
was doing the the trapping and South Dakota has 3 species of turkeys Merriams Rio's and Easterns

Patrapper01

· #110 · 2 mo ago

I'm skeptical on the wet spring theory only because inclement weather is normally a factor with others areas worse off than PA.
They time our season when most hens are supposed to be bred, if that was the case poults should be hatched by late May, I've yet to see 1 during season. Usually don't start seeing them until late June on, indicating either the first nest failed, storing sperm, or they get bred after season starts.
Since hens are thought to be bred before season its often said the males are then useless and become extra birds, but what if those extra birds take enough predation pressure off the hens to make a difference. They are vocal in the spring which could draw attention to them instead of a nesting hen.
Maybe removing the higher percentage of the population coupled with predation is too much to overcome or sustain, more out than in means less overall.
Who knows maybe none of these matter but the combination along with other factors do.

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Fairchild #17

· #111 · 2 mo ago

Patrapper01 said:
Since hens are thought to be bred before season its often said the males are then useless and become extra birds, but what if those extra birds take enough predation pressure off the hens to make a difference. They are vocal in the spring which could draw attention to them instead of a nesting hen.
Maybe removing the higher percentage of the population coupled with predation is too much to overcome or sustain, more out than in means less overall.
Who knows maybe none of these matter but the combination along with other factors do.

That’s thinking outside the box and actually a plausible theory.
I’ve read that very few gobblers actually see their 3rd year because of being so flamboyant and therefor easy targets for predation.
Ive sneaked up on many gobblers fanning (them fanning, not me. Calm down) and gotten within feet of them. Broke cover and literally walked up behind several in open fields. They are sitting ducks to real predators.

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Mike M.

· #112 · 2 mo ago

Patrapper01 said:
I'm skeptical on the wet spring theory only because inclement weather is normally a factor with others areas worse off than PA.
They time our season when most hens are supposed to be bred, if that was the case poults should be hatched by late May, I've yet to see 1 during season. Usually don't start seeing them until late June on, indicating either the first nest failed, storing sperm, or they get bred after season starts.
Since hens are thought to be bred before season its often said the males are then useless and become extra birds, but what if those extra birds take enough predation pressure off the hens to make a difference. They are vocal in the spring which could draw attention to them instead of a nesting hen.
Maybe removing the higher percentage of the population coupled with predation is too much to overcome or sustain, more out than in means less overall.
Who knows maybe none of these matter but the combination along with other factors do.

So maybe then we should eliminate the spring season for an indefinite amount of time to see if the population rebounds.

Patrapper01

· #113 · 2 mo ago

Mike M. said:
So maybe then we should eliminate the spring season for an indefinite amount of time to see if the population rebounds.

I think it's a little premature to go to those extremes, but I have no doubt it would increase.

R. S. B.

· #114 · 2 mo ago (Edited)

trout5512 said:
In the last 20 to 25 years I believe it was the South Dakota Game and Fish trap turkeys with nets at a farm in Washington County and load them up
to go back to their state it's been too long I can't remember what Pa was trading the turkeys for but they took hundreds of them

Sorry but I have to call "Fairy-tail" on at least a part of this story.

I no longer have the data on the years, locations or numbers turkeys trapped and removed from the state, though when I was still working I did have that data. I also looked at and paid attention to that type of data.

First of all there were NEVER hundreds of turkeys removed from any county. Not even dozens of turkeys removed from a single county during a single year.

During my time with the agency, 1977-2012, almost all of the turkeys trapped, even for in-state transfer, were trapped on lands that were hunt clubs or other properties not open to public hunting.

Even though on a few occasions turkeys were traded to other states it is very unlikely that any other state was here to actually do the trapping. Even when another state was getting the turkeys it was Game Commission personnel doing the trapping, handling and boxing the birds. The state receiving any trapped and traded turkeys might very well have been responsible for transporting the turkeys back to their state though so it is possible there were trucks from another state on scene. It is just as likely that any trapped and traded turkeys would have been loaded on a Game Commission truck or trailer and hauled to the other state so they could then come back with what they had been receiving in the trade.

What is equally likely though is that each of the two states would trap what they were trading away, load them on their trucks or trailers and head toward the cooperating state. Then the two agencies would meet somewhere in the middle, transfer their stock then turn around and head back to their home state with what they had received in the trade.

Dick Bodenhorn

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The Pennsylvanian

Discussion Starter · #115 · 2 mo ago (Edited)

R. S. B. said:
Sorry but I have to call "Fairy-tail" on at least a part of this story.

I no longer have the data on the years, locations or numbers turkeys trapped and removed from the state, though when I was still working I did have that data. I also looked at and paid attention to that type of data.

First of all there were NEVER hundreds of turkeys removed from any county. Not even dozens of turkeys removed from a single county during a single year.

During my time with the agency, 1977-2012, almost all of the turkeys trapped, even for in-state transfer, were trapped on lands that were hunt clubs or other properties not open to public hunting.

Even though on a few occasions turkeys were traded to other states it is very unlikely that any other state was here to actually do the trapping. Even when another state was getting the turkeys it was Game Commission personnel doing the trapping, handling and boxing the birds. The state receiving any trapped and traded turkeys might very well have been responsible for transporting the turkeys back to their state though so it is possible there were trucks from another state on scene. It is just as likely that any trapped and traded turkeys would have been loaded on a Game Commission truck or trailer and hauled to the other state so they could then come back with what they had been receiving in the trade.

Dick Bodenhorn

You ever notice that these kinds of stories are always, always its second hand. I know a guy, or some such like that.

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Fairchild #17

· #116 · 2 mo ago

I’d then have to question whether the number we remove as hunters would be any different or of any significance compared to the number removed by other predators.
Surely they would not all survive if it weren’t for us, but surely some would. Outside their displaying season I would think a mature gobbler or flock of them is pretty good at surviving. Except for those darn owls.

Jeff Donahue

· #117 · 2 mo ago

I often see poults in late May in these parts. Not every year, but often.

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Fairchild #17

· #118 · 2 mo ago

Jeff Donahue said:
I often see poults in late May in these parts. Not every year, but often.

It's more common than not that I'll see my first poults before season ends in 4E

Fairchild #17

· #119 · 2 mo ago

I moved a cell cam today to keep tabs on some birds. This was on a farm I've been saying was lacking hens for years.
I set the camera and raked the ground with my feet to make a visual for turkeys to check out (like mock scrapes for turkeys and yes they are attracted to fresh dirt). As I walked away I saw several red heads walking towards where I just was and heard a hen clucking and yelping exactly where I was. I swear those birds hear me scratching in the corn stubble and came to check it out. I got a pic of 3 nice longbeards in front of my camera 30 minutes later.
On the way out I had 9 hens come out of the woods and across a green field single file. That's the most hens I've seen together on that farm in years.

Patrapper01

· #120 · 2 mo ago

Fairchild #17 said:
I’d then have to question whether the number we remove as hunters would be any different or of any significance compared to the number removed by other predators.

Predators, their the wild card, now way of knowing how many the take out but ill bet its astounding.

Fairchild #17 said:
It's more common than not that I'll see my first poults before season ends in 4E

Wonder if the higher gobbler to hen ratio you've been observing in your area has something to do with that.

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