Virginia DWR’s take on population decline

[eggshell]

That is one well thought out and soundly stated post RMP. Be careful  in this world today, you may get canceled talking common sense facts (I don't mean that for Old Gobbler posters just this society as a whole in the US).  I agree wholeheartedly

[Chordeiles]

779 Turkeys without a beard harvested in 2022 fall season.
48.1% of total harvest

Makes no difference? Lol.

[RMP]

There were 19,711 bearded turkeys taken in the 2022 spring season, and 842 bearded birds taken during the 2022-2023 fall season.  770 hens (or unbearded birds) taken during the 2022-2023 fall season.  Between the two seasons, hens accounted for 3% of the total harvest. 

2022-2023 had the lowest fall harvest since 1962, despite having a exponentially higher population.  The highest harvest during the fall occurred in the 1990s and early 2000s, when turkey numbers werer known to have been increasing.  In 1990, there were something like 16,000 fall birds harvested, and the population was lower then than it is now.  And unbearded birds were legal then, too.  If the ratio of hens to bearded birds was the same back then as it is now, something like 7,600 hens would have been taken in the fall of 1990.  Yet the population has gone up since then.

If there is something to worry about - it's not the current fall season and the harvest of a few hens.

[Chordeiles]

I agree. There's more to be worried about but it absolutely does not help and it's definitely something that can be controlled, to an extent.(unlike the weather)

[Chordeiles]

And I guess we'll just disagree because I don't consider over 700 hens to be "just a few".

[deathfoot]

And I guess we'll just disagree because I don't consider over 700 hens to be "just a few".

Don't allow rifles for turkey hunting in Virginia and I think that will help. Too many deer hunters killing them.

I love the 2 week winter season here except for this year when the extended anterless season was in during that time in the county I hunt. It was just more opportunity for deer hunters to kill more turkeys.

[RMP]

We can agree or not, it doesn't much matter.  But the numbers speak for themselves.

779 hens not shot during the fall does does not necessarily correlate to 779 extra hens breeding come spring.  Illegal and natural mortality will still take a toll on them. 

Whatever one wants to believe, the numbers show that the population grew substantially through the years when there was greater fall pressure than there is today.  There are more birds in Virginia today than there were in the 1990s and 2000s.  Yet fall harvests were far higher then.



BTW, the decrease in harvest from 1990 in no way reflects fewer birds.  It reflects less hunter participation.

The simple fact is, populations fluctuate each year.  But the trend is up and there is no reason at this time to believe that won't continue, and no reason to believe that restricting fall hunting further will have some substantial positive increase in the number of birds. 

If you spend lots of time outdoors in Virginia, it's not hard to see where the real problems lie:

Fields and woods that used to have lots of birds are now covered with housing developments and condos.
Fields that are still there are covered in geese increasing the chances of disease transmission.
There has been huge increase in the numbers of raptors that take poults and adult birds.
Few people in Virginia hunt raccoons, skunks, coyotoes or crows anymore - all will either kill adult birds, poults, or destroy nests. 
Poaching is a huge problem and the Va DWR is underfunded and understaffed to deal with it.

I'm not particularly ready to simply give up hunting, in the spring or fall, when despite all this, the population trend is going up.  I will not support further restriuctions to the fall season when the objective evidence doesn't support that it will have any substatial positive impact. 

[deerhunt1988]

More than one ongoing research study is finding out just how important hen survival is to maintain growing or even stable turkey populations. I suspect we will see more states start nixing the harvest of hens, even in the fall, once the research is published and results are spread.

[eggshell]

As an avid fall hunter I would accept the closure if the science proved it was necessary. I'd miss it but I am for good management. In our area the fall kill is so small it's insignificant. Most years it is less than 50 birds for the whole county. I know one year it was around 15 birds. No one fall hunts here, most are killed by archery deer hunters. I know of 6 fall birds killed in my area by gun hunters last fall. 4 of those six were gobblers. That's a 3 township area (over 70,000 acres).

[RaspyD]

In the early 90s there was still a "fall only" tag for turkeys which would account for the higher fall harvest numbers then. Sometime after that Virginia went to having the 3rd tag to allow for a fall or spring bird and many hunters opted to save that tag to be able to take 3 birds in the spring.

[RMP]

Some states rely on the 10% rule of thumb for hen mortality to maintain a steady or slightly growing population.  Assuming half the estimated birds in Virginia are female (and I don't know that to be a fact), that would be roughly 90,000.  779 in a year accounts for .8% of the female population. 

Since the DWR is trying to increase fall turkey hunting participation, there must be some belief that an increased hen harvest can be tolerated.  I supect the people that would be interested in fall turkey hunting already have a big game license, so any argument that the DWR is just trying to make more money doesn't make a lot of sense.  The big game license includes turkey tags whether they are used or not.

There just aren't a lot of hens being killed in the fall season by hunters.  I do think turkey kills, and all big game kills, are underreported.  The honor system leaves a lot to be desired. If you've hunted in a part of Virginia for any length of time where deer hunting with hounds is allowed, you will eventually see every manner of deer in the back of someone's truck, whether its a legal deer or not.  There is no question that some big game harvests are not being reported.