South Carolina has recognized the need to make season and limit changes in their spring seasons to address a declining wild turkey population:

"""new structure creates two regional season periods: April 1 - May 10 for the upstate and March 22 - April 30 in the Lowcountry. """

These are about a week late r than historic and designed to leave more breeding birds in the flock longer at peak breeding times.

"""""Other provisions in the bill are designed to help reverse the statewide decline in wild turkey populations and they include:
a daily bag limit of one bird;
a one-bird limit in the first 10 days of the season, which is intended to reduce early season harvest so more gobblers will be available for breeding early in the season;
state residents will still be able to take three birds during the season and nonresidents will be allowed to take two;
a fee for turkey tags will be implemented to support future wild turkey research and management;
and finally, the bill makes possible the development of an electronic check-in system for reporting harvests.""""

Done be surprised to see other states make some similar adjustments....
Personally I think nest predation is far and away the larger issue and until that gets addressed( if it can be) the regs changes won't make a huge difference.......

That's a bold move.. bound to lose out of state money if it passes, no one will want to travel with the chance to only kill one bird.. as opposed to what was it 4 or 5 before.??

But I applaud it.

Agree Randy, great points. Yes, a bold move but at least they are trying something. May not be the answer for all but maybe a step in the right direction.
Predation is a major issue, but yes how can that issue be addressed. No one seems to trap anymore. Habitat is another key issue.
I personally do not think the turkey population will grow. But if anything can be done to sustain or stabilize it I would be willing to sacrifice something.

Earl

It's the information I'm looking for as well.

I agree with all said. I don't think Trapping will come back until fur prices go up. Don't know if that will happen anytime soon. I might do some trapping this fall just to help birds out.
V

here is a contrary opinion to the S C legislature moves----

"‘Sometimes science loses’: SC legislature ignores science and research | Opinion"


https://www.islandpacket.com/opinion/op ... 62603.html

That seems to be the case with most states. That the biologists even after extensive research and sound data the legislators refute it. The legislators are not concerned about turkey management (and that shows in that not so mature statement) but more so loss of out of State dollars and even state residences that can only kill one bird the first 10 days of the season.

Its sad but a couple of folks I talked to about SC seem only concerned with themselves and hunting and not so much a good management plan in this case for turkey that may just maintain or even increase the population for the future.

I have always said, and that is if data and a good management plan can show where fall hunting needs to be stopped that I would be 100% in. That would be a hard pill to swallow but to me having turkeys for future generations to enjoy is way more important that my own hunting needs or desires.

I don't know if to many fall turkey hunters would agree with me but TN, I think that state did not do a very good management plan and issued way to many fall tags over the years.

But at least some are trying something and will have to wait 3-5 years and see what the results yield.


Earl

GG-IMO you are correct about the wholesale hen tag availability in Tenn for years and years. The issue was hopefully fixed last year or so, and the breeding hens will hopefully be a larger portion of the population in those counties where some fairly incredible "legal" abuses occurred in the liberal tag years. Tennessee had a strong rebound in bearded bird harvest numbers this spring as opposed to the prior spring, but still below the five year average for prior years. Its always a mystery about harvest numbers it seems.

Glad to hear they have corrected that and great news on the spring harvest. I know what you mean about the harvest mystery as I have seen the same here at the Q and State.


Earl

Im bumping this up because I had an interesting discussion with a southern biologist recently who said there is some theories and research from some turkey biologists indicating that killing dominant gobbler in a flock can seriously affect the reproduction of a hen flock that the dominant gobbler dominated...that hens which lose their dominant LB prior to egg hatch will abandon the nest, and that older theories about subordinate birds breeding when the Lead goober dies are not accurate anymore....

I dont buy any of this foregoing , and it is directly contrary to the statement contained in the first item I quoted in this post last year...but what I paraphrased yesterday was what the man said. He was not saying he believed it either, but apparently some biologists are headed to the paraphrased conclusion above . Bottom line to me is that science has no idea what makes a turkey tick in some cases, and there is a lot of guessing goin ' on about cause and effect.

GN, in your other thread about “when should turkey season open” the University of GA is one doing that study. But like stated other states have gone back to trapping and putting radio transmitters on then to do more study and research in the area of spring hunting disturbance and the impact of dominate gobblers breeding, hen abandonment of nest etc.

That’s why I am waiting for the next turkey symposium research book to come out, which is published every 5 years.
I have read some articles over the last 3 years where all day hunting during the spring season may cause more hens to abandon nests. When hens start incubating the eggs they only seem to leave the nests in the afternoon for food and water.
Thier studies are suggesting greater chance of hen disturbance causing hens to abandon the nests. Supposedly these studies being done through monitoring transmitters on controlled hunting areas.

There does seem to be more studies being conducted by other states for such research. I know PA started there trapping and monitoring again, last done in 2010-2014. But have not talked to Mary Jo about what specifically she will be looking at.

The dominate gobbler thing came up about 4 years ago but again not enough study and research to say anything.

I do remember my grandfather and his 2 hunting partners when PA started talking about a spring turkey season for 1968 and they pleaded with the commission to not let it happen. Thier point was that it would disturb the breeding and nesting of the turkeys. And if a lot of hunters started hunting turkeys during that time. Now my granddad and his friends were far from biologists just old turkey hunters that knew the biology, nature and habits of them. Just from hunting them and studying them year round.
I may not be around to see any results but at least more studies and research seem to be starting up once again.

The trapping and monitoring I was involved in the project leaders goal was just the ranging of gobblers, hen nesting and hatch along with predictor predations. Very interesting results for only 4 years.

Earl

Im aware of a very very thorough study( cameras, videos, telemetry tracking, visual observations, etc) in the south in last couple years where the clear problem with turkey populations was nest predation and hen predation on the nest and during incubation. . Plain and simple. Every egg eater and hen turkey predator had an impact, and by the time the season was over and all the egg and hen fatalities were accounted for ,maybe one monitored nest hatched some poults out of maybe twenty attempts by various monitored hens and their nests.

Predation, predation, predation. This is not wise old turkey hunters guessing , this is factual filmed and recorded events. No offense any ones grandfathers or anyone else. Bt those are facts, not theories.. Since some of the hen/nest predators are protected by law, the question of how to protect the hens and nests from this predators is complex. On the other hand, for the ones that are free of regulation or protection , they need to be eliminated or at least substantially reduced in numbers in the turkey habitat. , IMO turkey hunters need to wage a holy war on them.

Agree somewhat since our own study was crows destruction of eggs then followed by fox, raccoons and then only a couple coyotes.

Yea my grandfather was wise and old but what he called spring turkey hunters is not printable.

There are so many variables I believe known and unknown that effects not only turkey but many upland birds. I am just happy to see states getting funding and doing studies to see what is impacting populations. Hopefully stabilize the population and in places increase it.


Earl

GN, I am aware of 4 studies like that over the last 15 years. But on those studies they did not allow any hunting on 2 of the plantations and 2 I believe they were both WMU. They were controlled that way to specifically show results for only nesting and predation study.

Earl

I am sure there are many reasons for decline. I think these studies, though very beneficial , usually only look at 1 or 2 variables at a time. I am sure hunting and turkey hunting popularity has an impact on the bird population. Weather also impacts bird population by affecting the hatch. I still feel that a big impact is predation. Since they have killed the sell of fur to China and Russia the prices of furs has dropped drastically. If there is no money to be made people won't trap nest predators. That leaves many more racoon, opossum, etc to eat nests. I do find it interesting that Crows are one of the primary predators against turkey nests. Might have to start whacking more crows. I have also thought about buying some dog proof traps to take out coon and such, just because.

Great discussion guys. I really like this kind of thing. Son and I just checked our varmint guns out Friday morning. The .22-250 might just have to take out more than groundhogs this year. Crows might be on the menu too.

V