What's happening to our turkeys?

What's happening to our turkeys?
By Bill Cochran

My wife, Katherine, and I recently were driving along a rural road on Virginia’s Eastern Shore when she said, “Look at that big flock of turkeys!”

I scanned a table-top flat field on my side of the road and spotted about 10 turkeys. The late afternoon sun was radiating a metallic sheen off their chestnut-colored feathers. A nice bunch of birds, I thought, but not exactly a big flock.

Then I noticed what Katherine had been viewing. On her side of the road was a second flock, this one probably numbering 40 turkeys. We were in the middle of 50 turkeys.

Not many years ago, it was rare to spot a flock of turkeys along a rural road, or anywhere else. Now I see them from the Interstate. There were 30 parading across our back yard not long ago.

Such observations promote the feeling that Virginia’s turkey population is booming. But is it? Fall kill figures recently released by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries reveal that just the opposite is happening, that the population is in a tailspin.

Hunters last fall reported killing 4,428 turkeys. That is a 22 percent drop from the previous season. You have to go back more than 20 years to find a lower figure. The recent fall kill was slightly more than one-fourth of the number taken in 1990, when the tally reached a record 16,861.

“I got turkey dogs two years ago and the turkey population hits the skids,” said Bob Duncan, chief of the wildlife division of the DGIF.

What’s happening to our turkeys? They appear to be showing up everywhere but in the kill figures.

The spring figures are only slightly better than the fall. Spring gobbler results have been on a downward trend since 2002. The kill last season was 14,355, nearly 4,000 lower than the record 18,345 that occurred in 2002.

In 1995, biologists told hunters that both spring and fall turkey kill figures would increase significantly if sportsmen were willing to give up hunting turkeys during the peak of the deer season, which they did. In 10 years, according to the estimates of biologists, the spring kill would jump by 382 percent and the fall kill by 77 percent. The concept was that the new regulations would save hens and the population would boom.

It didn’t happen. The figures have gone in the other direction.

Most hunters bought into the plan, and many still say it was the right way to go. A rare exception is Richard Pauley, a highly successful turkey hunter from Botetourt County. At the time, Pauley predicted it wouldn’t work. For one thing, there wouldn’t be enough hunters or opportunities to kill all those extra turkeys, he said.

“It turned out worse than I even thought,” Pauley said recently.

Gary Norman, DGIF turkey biologist, admits that the turkey kill hasn’t advanced like the computer model indicated it would. But you have to wonder, he said, where would the population be if the regulation changes hadn’t been made?

This leaves hunters pondering: Is the decline in the turkey kill the result of fewer turkeys or less interest in turkey hunting? Or both? Is the food supply for turkeys changing? Are predators, including coyotes, getting turkeys? Is the decline in the kill a weather factor? Are fewer young hunters coming into the sport because you no longer can hunt turkeys during the peak of the deer season? Has interest in trophy bucks and the muzzleloading deer season taken away from interest in turkey hunting? Are hunters simply failing to register the turkeys they kill because of recent changes in the way big game is checked?

Norman points his finger at the string of poor reproduction years that turkeys have encountered. In 1979, for example, there were 4.9 juvenile birds per hen, an indication of good hatching success. Last year that figure had fallen to 1.9. The past 24 years, the juvenile-to-hen ratio has been 3.2. It dropped to 2.3 the past 10 years and 2.1 the past five. The declines are credited to weather conditions that are unfavorable to young birds in the springtime. But you have to wonder, has the weather changed that much the past decade or so?

Something strange is happening out there in turkey land, and it would be wise for us to get a handle on it.

In the meanwhile, here is a promising observation. The juvenile-to-hen ratio in 2004 was 3.1, the best in 10 years. The 2-year old birds from that positive hatch should provide good hunting during the 2006 spring season which opens April 8. What’s more, we had a mild winter, and a quick late-March green-up so turkeys should be vigorous.

I’m hopeful we’ll have an increase in the spring kill,” said Norman. “Weather, as always, is critical to a good spring harvest, particularly on weekends.”

According to my records, gobbling started about two weeks later than during recent years. Some seasons, the peak has occurred by the time the season opens. That doesn’t appear to be the case this spring.

Look for good numbers of 2-year old toms and poor numbers of 3-year olds and jakes. Tally all of that and the result should be a decent season.

Bill Cochran won the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Botetourt Longbeards, a chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation based in Botetourt County. The organization honored Cochran with a plaque that stated: "We recognize his involvement and dedication to the outdoors, both by his coverage as an outdoor editor for The Roanoke Times, as an author, as an Internet columnist, and, most of all for being the kind of individual you would like to share a hunting or fishing trip with. We thank you for being a friend and role model for all outdoorsmen."