Turkey Numbers Down

As January marks the end of our deer season, I’ll be interested to look over the harvest data for this past deer season as many processors were covered up with record numbers of deer to slice, grind and smoke into some tasty treats. Some feel that COVID will be responsible for an increase in the deer harvest as many wanted to get out and enjoy nature while supplementing the cost of meat at the supper table.

The big question on my mind is whether or not we’ll see the same thing this turkey season. In fact, if you think back to last spring, turkey hunters hit the woods like wildfire after COVID first came on the scene, and it resulted in a lot of flopping turkeys.

All of you hopefully saw last month’s GON cover that asked for input regarding future turkey hunting regulations. GON asked hunters if they would be in favor of one or more of the below turkey hunting regulation changes.

1) Delaying the season opening date.

2) Reducing the daily bag limit to one gobbler.

3) Making a one-gobbler limit for the first 10 days of the season.

4) Reducing the season bag limit to two gobblers.

Those taking the survey could also answer “No Changes” or “Don’t Know.”

With that prompt, I researched and found an interesting article from the Audubon Society called “Pandemic-fueled Surge in Wild Turkey Hunting Tests Declining Populations.”

The article interviews University of Georgia Turkey Biologist Mike Chamberlain, and he has some interesting things to say about his concern for the number of people who hunted during last year’s COVID pandemic.

The article says, “In Georgia, during the first 23 days of the season, hunters shot 26% more turkeys than they did in 2019. Compared to last year (2019), 34% more hunters shot two turkeys, and the number of hunters who killed three turkeys (the state limit) was up by nearly 50%.”

This is concerning to me because we have a decreasing turkey population but increased crowds in the woods because of COVID who are killing more birds.

Restoration of our country’s wild turkey population is one of the greatest conservation efforts we have ever seen. We can thank in part President Teddy Roosevelt for supporting some of the first conservation and preservation efforts in our country. The turkey population had declined to about 200,000 birds in the entire U.S. largely due to unregulated hunting and logging efforts.

The 1920s saw some of the first regulations designed to limit hunting and address the decline of several species, including deer, elk and turkey. Fast forward to the early 2000s and biologists saw a turkey population recovery to 6 or 7 million birds. That’s a lot of tail feathers!

Predators are a part of the reason for the decline, but it’s easy to argue that so is the loss of habitat, increased harvests and more hunters. It will be interesting to see if our state wildlife folks make changes to our hunting regulations. If they do, those changes would take place during the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

To see the Audubon article, go to www.audubon.org/news/pandemic-fueled-surge-wild-turkey-hunting-tests-declining-populations.