xarcher - good post on the nwtf info, but I don't like the author's terminology on carrying capacity. Lovette Williams said there is no carrying capacity on turkeys. You can't have so many turkeys that they starve to death. Might be possible theoretically, but in the real world if a Jake survives that first hunting season, he has a great chance of gobbling the next year.

I think nesting capacity is a much better term to use, and is for sure a real concern. We can't change the weather, but landowners can indeed try to improve nesting habitat. Some of us spend our money to do it. One reason I am willing to do that is because I know I will have a chance to hunt those turkeys over an extended period of time. Take that away from me, and I'll probably not do as much. A lower limit could mean fewer turkeys, as I won't be the only one.

When I am elected Governor, I am gonna make gobbler the Grand Exalted Dictator in charge of the dcnr. You state people better tread lightly around him.

Wow, I finally rated a position in your administration It would be awfully lonely up there. I might need you to come by my office a LOT, just to keep me company

I am all for forgiveness when a man repents of his past misdeeds.

You won't be lonely; you will have many underlings who will agree with you completely. That's because we are gonna transfer those who don't agree to guarding prisoners. And instead of robbing the dcnr to fund prisons, I'm gonna rob the prisons to improve turkey habitat. "A turkey in every pot" is gonna be my campaign slogan. Younger folks won't get that.

OK, I am turning my own thread into nonsense. Still waiting on that biological reason.

Interested to see what they decide to do.

I DO believe predation and lost turkey habitat, and possibly disease in some areas is the main cause to a population decline.

However, if those 3 are the factors that are taking effect on the population, they are, for the most part, all out of our control. There is only one other solution to boosting the population... harvest less turkeys. Regardless of whether that means a shorter season or a lower bird limit.

4.... but ive already said multiple times (in the other half dozen discussions we've had on this), as long as the limit is 5, then 5 is my goal.
I dont think me cutting myself down from 5 a year to 3 is enough to have impact. However, if the state decides to lower the limit... then whatever the new limit is, that will be where im content.

Predator Control aint. It's incumbent on US to kill every predator we can legally can. People just don't do it.

I'm at home sick, have been for days, and taking care of sick kids too. What is the exact question we are trying to answer here? I can't read through all this stuff.

Make it simple.

Again, please explain how lowering the limit or shortening the season will "boost the population" more than the 2,000 unharvested gobblers that MIGHT result from it? We kill around one turkey per square mile in AL. This would leave an additional 1 turkey for every 26 square miles. Wowser! Big impact.



Ahh, compliance and faith in Gov't, exactly what they want

It's the title of the post. Is that simple enough?

Sorry to hear about the sick family, been there done that.

Matt, the original question was...Can someone make a biological case for a later season or lower limit?

Thanks gobbler your the man! When will hens begin to become receptive to the gobblers?

For those of you saying that a limit reduction wouldn't equate to more turkeys, well that makes no sense. Are gobblers not turkeys? Yes they are. More gobblers=more turkeys.

Some areas (TN Valley for instance) can not perpetuate turkeys with a long season. The population is impacted in such a negative way it can not rebound, given all other environmental factors equal. Season length can definitely increase or decrease populations. That's fact.

I think the sensible and logical answer is to start at the nest and go forward and look at where the most loss of life occurs to a turkey. If I understand it, the nest mortality rate is like 90% or higher due to predation, then the young poults that survive the nest are picked off by hawks, owls, coyotes, fox, bobcat, then the few that survive that hurdle make it to a juvenile then to adult. And, I believe predation is much higher in places that have loss of habitat. If a hen cannot hide her nest and her poults, they don't stand a fighting chance. Kind of like the quail that use to be plentiful in Alabama. I am convinced loss of habitat and cover is what lead to the almost extinction of quail around here.

So, the biggest loss of life it seems to me is predation early in the life cycle. Lower the predation, more birds survive to become adults, thus we have more turkeys.

I can't make sense of how lowering the limit is going to have a huge impact, or enough to bring back turkey numbers in droves. IMO that can only be done by allowing more to survive the nest and make it to juvenile status. My two cents and thats about all its worth.

I already said this and everyone told me I was wrong. Bet they won't say the same to you

3toe, predators are certainly a part of the equation, and yes it would help if there were not as many nest predators. It appears to biologists, and other observers, that there is an increase in the prevalence of hens that do not even attempt a nest. If they're not attempting a nest what is the underlying cause? Are they fertile? Did they attempt to nest and lose it early? After their first failure, why did they not attempt again? The rate at which we are recording group of hens without any poults during the peak incubation and poult rearing periods has increased, according to our surveys. Yes, we have better years than others, but the trend for the last decade has shown lower poults:hen, and more hens without poults.

Predators were here in great numbers when the Europeans arrived, yet to read the stories of their accounts of wild turkeys gobbling in the spring makes us assume turkeys were roosting in every tree. There is not a place on earth with more predators than some of the Midwestern and western states, yet their turkey populations are not only thriving, but increasing. You can't blame turkey declines on an entire subspecies from TX to West Virginia on predators.

Creating better nesting habitat seems like a step in the right direction. So what is proper nesting habitat?

Well, I will say it.

Kill a spring gobbler and you kill one turkey. Unless there aren't enough remaining gobblers to breed the hens, it will never be more than the death of that one gobbler. So if all of them survive you have an additional gobbler per 26 sq miles, according to gobbler's estimate. Maybe its really an additional gobbler for every 20 miles, or even every 10 miles, but I can't believe anyone would ever notice. The incidental killing of hens is the one argument I can buy, and have said it myself. The season came in 3/20 for many years. I could see moving it back for areas with few turkeys.

All the study groups seem to ignore the human factor on the things that are really important - will landowners try to improve turkey habitat if they can no longer hunt them but a few days? This is a question that AL used to consider and it led to us having the best hunting in the nation. I never see anyone mention it now. Times change.

Thanks for participating in the discussion Matt. I know the limit is going down; I'll just have to live with it.

I still can't understand why the dcnr won't release the number of limits that are killed according to the hunter survey. You must have now decided it has some validity since you are quoting it.

Matt,

I can not say thank you enough times to Steve Barnet and all the biologist who have made an effort to at least stop the bleeding up here. I hate to call names but Ron E. never made any attempt to help us in any way. He only muttered nonsense about turkeys not being able to live in Limestone, Morgan, Lauderdale and parts of Lawrence Co. What we need now is additional support from the department to protect the birds we have left and educate land owners and managers about what they can do to help what few birds we have try to rebound.