WILD TURKEY FORENSICS (MISSISSIPPI PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT)

[3bailey3]

Back in the day what almost wiped out the Tukey population? Over harvest! I have heard some tales!! 

[Cottonmouth]

I'm in central MS and I'm nearly certain that predators are more of a concern for population decline. Yes, we have hunters that go over the limit, but the predator population has exploded.  I do all I can, I trap and hunt coyotes,  shoot every bobcat I see. Not enough hunters getting involved in my opinion. Mississippi is notorious for being reactive instead of proactive.  Go back and look at the wild hog regulations.  For years, hunting them was very regulated because they were scared somebody would shoot a deer out of season. Now the hogs are out of control.  Now they are here for good.

[Hoot 000]

I'm in central MS and I'm nearly certain that predators are more of a concern for population decline. Yes, we have hunters that go over the limit, but the predator population has exploded.  I do all I can, I trap and hunt coyotes,  shoot every bobcat I see. Not enough hunters getting involved in my opinion. Mississippi is notorious for being reactive instead of proactive.  Go back and look at the wild hog regulations.  For years, hunting them was very regulated because they were scared somebody would shoot a deer out of season. Now the hogs are out of control.  Now they are here for good.

Predators are more of the cause than anything but the government likes to spend money on research while the turkey population is in decline, hunters are going to pay with new regulations while the predators keep eating.

[GobbleNut]

I'm in central MS and I'm nearly certain that predators are more of a concern for population decline. Yes, we have hunters that go over the limit, but the predator population has exploded.  I do all I can, I trap and hunt coyotes,  shoot every bobcat I see. Not enough hunters getting involved in my opinion. Mississippi is notorious for being reactive instead of proactive.  Go back and look at the wild hog regulations.  For years, hunting them was very regulated because they were scared somebody would shoot a deer out of season. Now the hogs are out of control.  Now they are here for good.

Predators are more of the cause than anything but the government likes to spend money on research while the turkey population is in decline, hunters are going to pay with new regulations while the predators keep eating.

These comments once again bring up a point I have been trying to emphasize.  That point is that, not only should groups like TFT and NWTF be telling us about the studies and research they are spending our contributions on, they should be telling us exactly what their plans are to address the findings of those studies/research.

The presumption is that predation in all its forms,...nest predation, poult predation, and adult predation,...may be significant factors (and perhaps THE MOST significant comprehensive factor) in our wild turkey declines.  Assuming that presumption is, in fact, true, tell us what the plan is to address that?  It does little good to spend money for research/study without having an anticipated solution/remedy based on the results.

How many times do the "it's predators" comments have to be made by turkey hunters before the researchers put two and two together and say to themselves,..."I suppose we ought to tell people what we plan to do about it if we do indeed discover that the problem is predators"?  Of course, the same applies to all the other possible culprits causing these declines.   

[TurkeysForTomorrow]

I'm in central MS and I'm nearly certain that predators are more of a concern for population decline. Yes, we have hunters that go over the limit, but the predator population has exploded.  I do all I can, I trap and hunt coyotes,  shoot every bobcat I see. Not enough hunters getting involved in my opinion. Mississippi is notorious for being reactive instead of proactive.  Go back and look at the wild hog regulations.  For years, hunting them was very regulated because they were scared somebody would shoot a deer out of season. Now the hogs are out of control.  Now they are here for good.

Predators are more of the cause than anything but the government likes to spend money on research while the turkey population is in decline, hunters are going to pay with new regulations while the predators keep eating.

These comments once again bring up a point I have been trying to emphasize.  That point is that, not only should groups like TFT and NWTF be telling us about the studies and research they are spending our contributions on, they should be telling us exactly what their plans are to address the findings of those studies/research.

The presumption is that predation in all its forms,...nest predation, poult predation, and adult predation,...may be significant factors (and perhaps THE MOST significant comprehensive factor) in our wild turkey declines.  Assuming that presumption is, in fact, true, tell us what the plan is to address that?  It does little good to spend money for research/study without having an anticipated solution/remedy based on the results.

How many times do the "it's predators" comments have to be made by turkey hunters before the researchers put two and two together and say to themselves,..."I suppose we ought to tell people what we plan to do about it if we do indeed discover that the problem is predators"?  Of course, the same applies to all the other possible culprits causing these declines.   

We just shared some year 1 preliminary results from the 3 projects we are conducting in Alabama in a new thread. We are currently working on strategies and action plans to help educate land managers and hunters on how to improve nesting and brood rearing habitat on their property.

[GobbleNut]

These comments once again bring up a point I have been trying to emphasize.  That point is that, not only should groups like TFT and NWTF be telling us about the studies and research they are spending our contributions on, they should be telling us exactly what their plans are to address the findings of those studies/research.

We just shared some year 1 preliminary results from the 3 projects we are conducting in Alabama in a new thread. We are currently working on strategies and action plans to help educate land managers and hunters on how to improve nesting and brood rearing habitat on their property.

  Great to see solutions to the various issues impacting turkey populations are being contemplated and that we are looking for solutions to problems rather than just identifying what those problems are. Simply stated, we need to be discussing VIABLE solutions to those identified issues as we go.

Working with willing private landowners is one element, but I would personally be interested in knowing what sort of interactions are, or will be, going on with public land management agencies regarding their willingness to implement recovery strategies (predator control, timber management, fire management, etc.) that are favorable to wild turkeys but are not necessarily part of the "bigger picture", landscape-wide, land management policies. 

For instance, it is one thing to state that predator control needs to be implemented, but quite another to get public land managers to even consider that when the general public would most likely implode over the mere suggestion.  The point being, solutions to the problem have to include that element of being acceptable to the far-greater majority of the public, as well as that probably-much-larger percentage of private landowners who manage their private holdings for something other than what is in the best interest of wild turkeys.

At the risk of further wearing out this oft used cliche, we really do need to be "thinking out of the box" when discussing wild turkey recovery efforts.