Turkey Hunting and Ethics

[Dhamilton1]

Being new to turkey hunting (2nd serious season), I don't know about the days of over abundant turkey populations and seeing huge flocks in fields around my area.

With that said, I've seen a few YouTube videos and podcasts discussing declining turkey numbers.

With this being a site for hardcore turkey hunters and individuals who hold a deep passion for this bird, this is my question and/or discussion/debate.

With rising gas prices, if you lived in an area with declining turkey numbers and could not afford to travel to areas with solid numbers; could you and/or would you refrain from hunting and/or be very selective on harvesting one bird to help the declining numbers. (This would be the ethics part of my post).

I also understand that there are many other factors that contribute to declining numbers (predators, food sources, habitat, etc.)

Just a thought I had and interested in others perspective on the topic.


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[Happy]

Absolutely I would. As it is now, my yearly local take varies according to what I am hearing in the pre-season. If my boy and I were to fill all if our tags that would be 8 gobblers. I almost always set the number lower and then see how much he hunts and how his season is going before I start getting serious. This also allows gobblers to get almost all the hens bred as well. I have always felt our first duty is to protect the resource.

[nativeks]

Im not buying a tag this year. Ill shoot one with my camera.

[ChesterCopperpot]

A lot of thoughts here, but first and foremost if the resource became too dire and unsustainable at home and I was unable to travel, I wouldn't hunt them. I'd likely still go get amongst them and watch them because I don't think I could give up that so long as they're there and being turkeys. I'm reminded of grouse here in the mountains of North Carolina, pheasants the old timers called them. We don't have many any more and the men I knew who chased them most, they've hung it up. Not because they couldn't flush and kill birds but because they wholeheartedly believe the population is not at a sustainable level to hunt.

As it is I hunt two states each year, NC and SC. I get four birds between the two. I never kill two birds out of one place. I try to never shoot jakes. There are also places I tend to hold off till late season in hopes the breeding is fully accomplished and the hens are nesting. I've come to really enjoy those late season hunts the most. If I could only hunt two days it'd be first and last.

All this to say, there's what's legally permissible and then there's personal discretion when you feel that what's legally permissible may not have the best interest of the resource at heart. For me, I fall to the latter. I set my own rules. It's hard for wildlife commissions to manage statewide and have that play out well across the board. In North Carolina the birds at the eastern part of the state have been doing very well for the past few years. The birds in the western part of the state where I live, not so much. As such, I limit where I hunt, when I hunt, and what I take. That's just me.

But as hunters I think we tend to place a whole lot of blame a whole lot of places (habitat loss, nest predators, wet springs, nest predators, disease, nest predators, did I say nest predators) and very rarely if ever consider ourselves in the equation. There are places where 80% of adult gobblers are being taken off the landscape by hunters each year. 80% of adult gobblers wiped out over the course of a few weeks. Tell me something else that kills turkeys that efficiently? Disease can. Weather can. But those tend to be unique and once in a blue moon events. Hunters are doing this to these populations every year. I think we need to change the way we look at and talk about this. And if we're honest with ourselves about the impact we're having we'd likely self impose greater restrictions with the same enthusiasm that we trap and kill coons and coyotes.


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[Gobbler428]

If they reach a point where I hunt that they are not sustainable and I cannot afford to hunt where they are sustainable, then I would not harvest a bird.  I would most likely still go hunting but without a gun. I would hope to still get the opportunity to work a bird into shooting distance and then enjoy seeing him walk away. In my opinion that's really what it's all about. I think each person has to make their own rules when it comes to the ethics of turkey hunting.

[Spyderman]

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I don't think that shooting male birds during turkey season materially affects the population. A very high percentage of turkeys die each year. Arguably, removing a male turkey from the population also removes competition for resources, so it may actually help the surviving turkeys and poults survive into next year.

[joey46]

Too much deep thinking here.  If your state's population is declining then hope they cut the length of the season or reduce the bag limit.  If  they don't and you are allowed two birds stop at one on your own volition if that makes you feel better.  Simple as that. 

[eggshell]

I hunt mostly private land that I and my cousins own. I have almost exclusive control over the turkey harvest. I scout and take an inventory every year and we set kill limits/quotas. We do our best to hold to them and the flock has been stable on these properties for 30 years. Typically we take 25% or less of the mature gobblers. So for every one we kill we leave 3. This is a total of 1200 acres and has an active timber management plan and hunting is strictly managed as well. My cousins main farm was named National Tree Farm of the year once. So, in my opinion, good forest management and game management work. So, the answer is yes and I have done it for years

[gmbellew]

harvest of males can affect the overall population if harvest occurs before most of the breeding because some hens wont get bred. Over harvest of males can also affect the number of 2+ yr olds on the landscape (assuming jakes/gobblers are harvested at equal rates), which has an obvious impact on hunt quality that is usually measured in # gobblers heard and/or taken by each hunter.

[fallhnt]

Im not buying a tag this year. Ill shoot one with my camera.

Is it getting that bad? I've not been there since 2019. My not ever get back. My hunting buddy has Parkinsons now.

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[Chief Razor]

I believe most states are good about giving some general guidelines to hunters based on what they find statewide or by region. That being said it's just a guideline. If your area or property is holding lower numbers then the state or region average, its on you to show some restraint. I truly believe anyone who appreciates the resource has and will always do that regardless of the game.

[mountainhunter1]

I did that last year, killed two birds (the season limit was three), and even though I called in 7 different long beards, I refrained from killing my third bird of the season. Yes, I had watched some stuff online about turkey population declining and it got me to thinking about it - and also I was really pretty happy with two birds I had killed and just did not pull the trigger again. But I also have no opinion about the guy who fills his tags. If they law says one can shoot three, he/she is doing nothing wrong to pull the trigger on three birds.

I think for me it was that I just did not see hardly any hens in the woods last year. That is what made me think maybe I needed to back off. Maybe it was just a fluke, but anxious this year to see how many hens I see in the same general area.

[Tom007]

I have walked out of of several of my spots over the years with a Turkey on my shoulder hearing another gobbler on my way out. I smiled, left them for the next season. Kind of controlling my own population. I never take more than one bird off the same parcel, especially in the last 5 years when I have seen declines....

[randy6471]

 Yes I would and we have been doing it around my place for many years. Some of my preseason scouting/listening is done to get a count on how many gobblers we have in the area, so we know a realistic number of how many we can harvest. Some years it's more than others, but we always seem to have a good number of birds around, so I believe it works.

[Marc]

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I don't think that shooting male birds during turkey season materially affects the population. A very high percentage of turkeys die each year. Arguably, removing a male turkey from the population also removes competition for resources, so it may actually help the surviving turkeys and poults survive into next year.

Probably an accurate take on the situation...

Harvesting male turkeys, probably has little overall populations.  But, I did see an interesting podcast with a biologist specializing in turkey behavior (that also hunts), who states that hunting during the breeding season, and taking prime birds out of the equation during breeding, probably does effect productive breeding for hens...

Habitat probably remains the single largest limiting factor for turkey and other game species.