Had 28 hens on camera this afternoon. Saw 16 longbeards in one of my plots last week. Taking 85 coons off our place in the last 3 years has helped!!

I saw probably 200 different turkeys last week. Didn't trap anything.

I’ve hunted some places in Illinois that have the most Easterns I’ve ever seen…the property also has the most raccoons and coyotes I’ve ever seen. I think the crp nesting cover makes the difference and maybe the open crop fields or cow pastures for poults. I’m not sure. I have witnessed a hen turkey break out into a sprint to get out of a huge field when a bald eagle showed up circling overhead.

That’s the thing. How can someone say for certain anything is absolute.

At the farm best hatch in several years and I’ve gotten more coons and yotes in camera than ever before. Hunters are seeing lots of bobcats too. They’ve been green lighted to kill em all

I’ve often wondered if that’s is what’s missing. You’ve lays mentioned that short grass brings them in when they’re fresh off the nest. I know I see lots of hens with small poults in freshly disked and planted fields.

I agree. Predator control helps, but I've always been more of a habitat and weather guy.

I wouldn’t say there are absolutes either…..rarely is anything ever always or never…….but there are definitely rules of thumb that tend to hold true…….There’s more going on that JUST you seeing more predators and whether that equates to more or less turkeys in any particular year……There’s also the total amount of other prey that’s present this year that’s figuring into the equation……….Maybe due to environmental conditions of some sort there’s lots of rabbits this year and lots of rodents and lots of whatever else turkey predators eat……Maybe next year there isnt nearly as many…….That matters…..As a rule of thumb though you can just about take it to the bank that the more predators you have in an area the more prime habitat you gotta have to be successful. Take away the prime habitat and leave the predator load high and you’ll likely not have many turkeys…..The problem we have in a lot of areas is that taking away or losing the prime habitat doesnt take away the predators.....they just adapt to different conditions

The biggest component to the quote unquote “turkey decline” imo is the fact that we’ve increased predator loads across the board and therefore eliminated many marginal habitats as potential nesting and brooding grounds….In most places you gotta have the good-good now if you want turkeys due to there being so many hawks and so many coyotes and so many coons. etc. We’ve boosted their populations with human influenced subsidies……I just about guarantee you that if you look at any these urban areas with lots of turkeys the common theme will be that they are lacking in major predator populations…..Maybe avian predators like Cooper hawks are few and far between in some of these urban places and poult survival is really high

seen a bunch this year for sure

So what turkey predator is NOT found in the urban areas? Seems to be plenty of coons, possums, hawks, owls, coyotes, etc. I can't think of any that aren't found in back yards.

I don't have any personal experience with city turkeys. I don't think they will ever be a problem here in Alabama where there are plenty of folks who would shoot one off the Capitol steps while the governor was giving a speech. But I still would think that the poults are being produced in the transitional areas where a hen has enough cover to set on a nest for nearly a month without being disturbed. There have gotta have that and then they have gotta have places for the poults to grow up without getting eaten by something.

Once they get a little age on them they can survive most anywhere.

Probably more predators in the city than out in the boonies . Lol


But ,,,,, its easy for them to stay fat on people trash

I’d have to do more research on the individual situation to know for sure…..Arent most of these urban areas with turkeys in the northeast?.....I’m not sure what kind of avian predator situations they have going on up there but that would be my first guess as to what is lacking compared to places around here….. ……My second guess would be a lack of urban coyotes compared to around here…..Are coyotes as prevalent in the northeast?......It wouldn’t make any sense for those areas to be full of predators with very limited amounts of nestin/brooding cover and the turkeys thriving…..They gotta avoid being eaten first and foremost

Gotta agree that the most important stage is the first 14 days or so

Also I think there are years where the weather etc…. Something happens and we have an incredible hatch that overcomes all other factors. Friends in MS and TN are seeing banner hatches and poult recruitment. Doesn’t matter what folks think, etc. it just happens as a part of nature and then things get back to normalcy of cause and effect is my belief.

Your centipede grass recruitment center tells me they need short grass for the early phase of their life. I believe they seek what they need or the next best thing.

Don’t forget you’ll also have an increase in other predators like dogs and especially feral cats.

I see almost as many Cooper’s hawks around town. Enough trees to suffice I’d guess. Lots of red tails and red shoulders and I see an occasional broadwing. The squirrels around here are not safe. Watched a Sharpshin work on a flock of cowbirds the other day. To no avail but for an hour those cowbird wouldn’t hardly come out of the bushes.

Its probably just magic then and not something we can understand

You definitely take it to the next level.

I don’t necessarily disagree with your positions it’s just this one isn’t as complicated or involved as you want it to be.
Sometimes things just happen

A wet spring is supposed to bad for poult survival and nesting hens yet this past spring being really wet up here to the point implanted a month later than normal yet somehow we’ve seen more poults this year than we have in years.


We have had decent hatches the past few years so the laws of exponentiality may have played a part. Predator control has never been done except Killeen when we see them but we don’t seek them out

No they don’t……Things don’t “just happen”……There is an explainable reason for all of it…..Sometimes you just don’t understand it….Turkeys arent thriving in some cities “just because”

I’ll await your thesis

Yep, sometimes there’s just so many contributing factors one will never know any and or all. Some will assume they know but they don’t. We get that a lot now don’t we. Causation versus correlation 🤷‍♂️

Sometimes I think cherry picking has become a sport

The new sport is to run interference for the truth and act like some things just cant be understood so that everything stays as cloudy as possible for the general public……Come to think of it, maybe that's not such a new tactic