NY numbers

[hookedspur]

Just because the harvest was down does not mean the birds are not there.

I know what you are saying , NY had a bad season ,but a lot of the blame may be atributad to such a late spring.

[1tiogabowhunter]

Funny I talked to a buddy in Ny this morning and he has heard more gobbling since the season has closed then he did the entire last three weeks of the season. 

[Rick Howard]

I felt like I heard and saw a good number of birds.  This was my first true season though.  My view is probably further skewed by the countless hours I spend calling coyotes.  Sometimes that is like beating your head against the wall lol.  Especially since the rise in popularity of the sport for the past few years.  My point is the lack of response you often encounter while calling coyote makes turkey calling feel like your get really good action if you see or hear a bird every few times out.  Lol

Is there any official count on turkey from the DEC?  If flocks have been reduced by as much as some estimate... My guess would be disease. 

[mikejd]

Y

I felt like I heard and saw a good number of birds.  This was my first true season though.  My view is probably further skewed by the countless hours I spend calling coyotes.  Sometimes that is like beating your head against the wall lol.  Especially since the rise in popularity of the sport for the past few years.  My point is the lack of response you often encounter while calling coyote makes turkey calling feel like your get really good action if you see or hear a bird every few times out.  Lol

Is there any official count on turkey from the DEC?  If flocks have been reduced by as much as some estimate... My guess would be disease.

Unlikely to be disease. A few wet springs and yoy can be down 30% just like that.

[MACHINIST]

which the last 2 springs were from what I remember

[steinea286]

NY has actually had bad nesting seasons for 7 of the last 8 years if I remember correctly.  Trapping was way down of the same amount of period until fur prices just went up last year and I noticed a lot more people trapping, which is good, but consecutive trapping would be more productive. I had a hard times finding birds this year before the season but ended up being my best season ever! For the first time, I felt like I actually heard both peak gobbling periods during the season instead of just one and I am seeing more turkey in fields now then I did during the season!

I have a friend in the catskills that said their population was going downhill due to blackspot (I think) and its a disease normally found in chickens but has spread to the turkey population. Don't know how true that is and how it can be tested but I guess you never know...

Fall hunting I don't feel truly endangers the population much as I don't know that too many people do it as their is way to many other things to do that time of year. I have only ever shot at one during bow season while deer hunting, and I missed...lol

[turkeyfeathers]

Hunted 7 days in NY (9H) this year. Heard birds gobble every day. Sometimes 1 bird, sometimes 3 or 4. With turkeys you never know what you're going to get that morning. Not every bird talks every day. Killed a 2 yr old opening day and a great bird at the end of the season. Coyotes were yapping right below where the Tom I was hunting had gobbled 93 times on roost the day before. Found fisher tracks this winter which is a new critter to the area. Many a coyote tracks seen thru deer season. Guys run dogs on them but there's still a lot of them. IMO it's been the recent wet springs and harsh/cold winters that hurt the # of birds. I"m hearing and seeing birds but not like 5-6 years ago where the woods would erupt . Been seeing strutters in freshly plowed fields that way lately.

[Rick Howard]

Y

I felt like I heard and saw a good number of birds.  This was my first true season though.  My view is probably further skewed by the countless hours I spend calling coyotes.  Sometimes that is like beating your head against the wall lol.  Especially since the rise in popularity of the sport for the past few years.  My point is the lack of response you often encounter while calling coyote makes turkey calling feel like your get really good action if you see or hear a bird every few times out.  Lol

Is there any official count on turkey from the DEC?  If flocks have been reduced by as much as some estimate... My guess would be disease.

Unlikely to be disease. A few wet springs and yoy can be down 30% just like that.

I did not consider wet springs which seems logical.  Alao the harsh polar vortex winter! lol.  My logic, the hunting pressure and predation does not seem intense enough to cause a large depletion of flocks.  Disease can wipe out numbers fast.  Why unlikely to be disease?  This is all hypothetical based on the theory numbers are actually low. 

[cuttinAR]

Don't confuse anecdotal evidence of hearing birds during spring at your particular property as evidence of the health of the turkey flock in your area/state.  We've been going through years of decline here in AR and our fall season has been cancelled as spring shortened and pushed way late.  Also have a no jakes rule. 

An expanding turkey population exhibits a poult/hen index of 2.0 or greater for each years brood.  What causes poor hatches is up for debate, but we've had numerous studies done here and predation is very influential.  If I remember correctly we had 55 or so hens fitted with tracking devices and of those that nested only 2 hatched out poults.  The vast majority were predated on the nest or the eggs were eaten.

Others point to weather as the main factor.  Our strongest hatch in years was in 2012 and that was a very warm and dry spring here.  Not by coincidence our harvest numbers increased this year by 25%.  Our hunting conditions were very good so I'm curious to see what % of the harvest was 2-yr olds.

If you want to know more look up some of our brood surveys and harvest results.  I think all the SE states come to AR every year to share ideas and try and find solutions to prevent the declines we are seeing.

[VaTuRkStOmPeR]

Hearing birds is a very inconclusive way to assess the numbers but observation in both the fall and the spring offer empirical data.

Where I hunt, fall flocks could and did exceed 80-100 birds. Now, those same flocks dwindle below 50. 

Weather and predation are factors that the DEC and we as hunters cannot directly affect. I make the fall hunting comment because they do have the ability to protect hens but choose not to.

I'd rather have 40 hens lay eggs and have a 70% loss of nests than have 30 hens lay nests and lose 70%.  It's basic scales of economy.

Bottom line, the more hens you have, the faster your population can be established or in the case of NY, replenished.

[mikejd]

this is not about gobbling this is about numbers.

[mikejd]

Don't confuse anecdotal evidence of hearing birds during spring at your particular property as evidence of the health of the turkey flock in your area/state.  We've been going through years of decline here in AR and our fall season has been cancelled as spring shortened and pushed way late.  Also have a no jakes rule. 

An expanding turkey population exhibits a poult/hen index of 2.0 or greater for each years brood.  What causes poor hatches is up for debate, but we've had numerous studies done here and predation is very influential.  If I remember correctly we had 55 or so hens fitted with tracking devices and of those that nested only 2 hatched out poults.  The vast majority were predated on the nest or the eggs were eaten.

Others point to weather as the main factor.  Our strongest hatch in years was in 2012 and that was a very warm and dry spring here.  Not by coincidence our harvest numbers increased this year by 25%.  Our hunting conditions were very good so I'm curious to see what % of the harvest was 2-yr olds.

If you want to know more look up some of our brood surveys and harvest results.  I think all the SE states come to AR every year to share ideas and try and find solutions to prevent the declines we are seeing.

I think NY is trying to move in the right direction. Heres a good article.

Solving the Puzzle of Wild Turkey Management

turkey-management.jpgIt is a challenging, yet exciting time for wild turkey management in New York State. Turkey populations expanded rapidly through the 1990s due to restoration efforts; however, DEC biologists and New York hunters have observed a gradual decline in populations of this popular game bird since 2001, with a sharper decline from 2007 to the present. There are several reasons for this, including a natural contraction as turkey populations settled down to levels more in line with local environmental conditions. Other factors include density dependence, poor production, and changing habitats and predator communities. Currently, turkey populations are around 200,000 birds — the lowest level since the mid-1990s. DEC biologists are committed to understanding if and how turkey population dynamics have changed in relation to changing environmental and social circumstances.

The main "drivers" of turkey populations are weather, habitat, predation and, potentially, fall hunting mortality of hens. DEC has three ongoing research projects focused on gathering information about these factors to determine their relative importance, and to adapt turkey management to better fit current conditions. There is evidence that both the ecological system (e.g., habitat, predators) and social system (e.g., hunter opinions and behaviors) have changed over the past 20 years. For example, the impact of predation or fall hunting mortality in 1993, when populations were rapidly expanding, may be different from the impact of predation or fall hunting mortality in 2013. It is our objective to figure out if and how the system has changed, and to adjust our management accordingly.

Turkey Harvest Potential – DEC has partnered with the National Wild Turkey Federation, SUNY-ESF, and Michigan State University to investigate the wild turkey harvest potential within New York. Important factors that affect turkeys here include spring weather effects on reproductive success, winter weather effects on survival, and the effects of habitat on reproduction and survival. The goal of this study is to look at the relationship between these factors and how turkey populations change over time in different parts of the state to determine each region's potential to produce and sustain birds.

Turkey Hunter Survey — Turkey populations have changed over the past 20 years, but so have the demographics, outlook and expectations of New York's hunting community. We are partnering with Cornell University's Human Dimensions Research Unit (HDRU) to conduct a statewide survey of turkey hunters. This survey will help determine their motivations and opinions on turkey populations, hunting opportunities and issues of concern to them, such as all-day spring hunting and the timing and length of the fall season. Understanding what hunters desire from and for the resource is an important part of turkey management. The survey will focus on hunter activity and attitudes about hunting regulations. It also will ask hunters to rank or prioritize management options for fall hunting seasons, while considering the tradeoffs associated with those options (e.g., fall season length and spring population size).

turkey-management2.jpgHen Harvest Rates and Survival Rates – Hen survival is the major driving force behind turkey population changes. To better understand what is happening in New York, we will capture and band hens and equip some with satellite radios to determine seasonal and annual hen survival and mortality. This will provide insight into the role of predation on hens, as well as the possible impacts of hunting mortality during the fall. Banding will take place during the winter, from 2013 through 2016. After two years under our current fall season structure (fall 2013 and 2014), we will revise fall season zones based on the results of this study and on the results of the projects described above, to create a new "map" of fall seasons starting in fall 2015. We will continue to assess hen harvest and survival under the new fall season structure (fall 2015 and 2016) to ascertain the effects of our management action.

Our primary goal for turkey harvest management is to protect the long-term security of the wild turkey population while still providing opportunities for hunters and others to enjoy the wild turkey resource now and in the future. The current suite of projects will enable us to achieve this important goal.

[troutfisher13111]

Great article and a promising sign. Thanks for posting!

[cuttinAR]

From that it appears NY is taking a logical approach.  Our fall season was just taken as kind of a knee jerk reaction to our decline.  Remember though that we have been in decline since the early 2000s, but turkeys have been in parts of Arkansas for much longer than other states.  We didn't have to repopulate certain areas of the state like the Ouachitas.  The Ouachitas used to be a major turkey hunting destination in the 80s and now, well, lets just say its not. 

One last soap box item...I cannot stand when the total statewide populations is estimated based of harvest.  They take the harvest and assume it is 10% of the population.  What a load of malarkey.  I could basically create turkeys out of thin air depending upon season length and time.  Give AR hunting an later March opener and keep it open for a month and we'd go from the 120,000 turkeys we presently have to close to 250,000 turkeys.  Just like that, we got more birds! 

[jperch]

Talk to any local in rural NY and they will drive you around for miles pointing into empty fields echoing the same message: "That field used to always have a bunch of birds using it and I haven't seen any there for several years."

You used to go to the better areas in NY (Oswego, etc) and hear 10-15 birds on a good morning.  Now, if you hear 4-5, that's a stellar AM.

The turkey hunting skill of the locals isn't germane to the conversation.  What is valuable is their insight and most local farmers and hunters will tell you.... The birds ain't just there like they once were.

And btw, I'm pretty sure NY is down 30-40% from 5 years ago. Anyone disputing the the trouble the NY flock is in is in denial.

I live and hunt in the Oswego area.  I was lucky enough to hunt a farm that held enough gobblers to make it interesting but I completely agree that numbers are easily 50% down from five or six years ago.  I saw only small numbers of hens in the local fields, which is a big change. That is to say that in past springs it was not uncommon to see a dozen hens in a field, recently the hen flocks often consist of two or three.  I have no idea about why the numbers have declined, but they certainly have in my area.  I hope things turn around in the years to come.   jperch