Osage Roost
General Forum => General Discussion => Topic started by: turkeyfanatic on May 22, 2013, 05:08:33 PM
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Interesting read in the PA Outdoor News.......It states that PA population has dropped 25 percent. WV population has dropped by 100,000 and NY is at a 20 year low with their population.....could it be that America is losing about 6000 acres of wildlife a day......
That's a little scary.
Booser
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I live in WV and saw more turkeys this year than I have seen in a while. Mostly hens and jakes. Very little gobbling however. *aah* *aah* If they survey them by how much they gobble, I'd say we don't have very many.
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I'll agree with that statement Bambam. I didn't hear many gobbles this year either.
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We have more turkey's in south Alabama than we've had since the 70's, and that's a lot! We didn't hear a lot of gobbling here either, I think due to the cold weather.
Billy
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According to NWTF we are loosing 6 million acres a year. Lets look at weather patterns and wet springs. Numbers of coyotes, bobcats etc are increasing. Add it all up and numbers are in big decline. Lets look at added bonus tags and that is additional numbers. Think about it!
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According to NWTF we are loosing 6 million acres a year. Lets look at weather patterns and wet springs. Numbers of coyotes, bobcats etc are increasing. Add it all up and numbers are in big decline. Lets look at added bonus tags and that is additional numbers. Think about it!
How are we losing that much land when all you hear from them is how much they've helped to purchase every year?
How much does fall hunting effect turkey populations?
I was always under the impression that wildlife was a rotating cycle. Coyotes high for a few years, once they depleted their food source, they declined in numbers while their prey made a comeback. Then the cycle started all over again. I found a hen sitting on 11 eggs on one of our fiber optic easements, which was right off the road. I figured she'd be fine there with all of the highway traffic. Last week one of the guys on the construction crew wanted to take a picture of her. What we found was a bowl of feathers and a bunch of eaten eggs. Primary wing feathers and tail feathers scattered all up and down the road.
How about the explosion of new turkey hunters each year? That number has to be at an all time high which made for some really high numbers for a few years and now the numbers are going down because of over-kill? There is also more and more people hunting out of state these days. Many people today are hunting 3 & 4 states where as in the past a man just usually hunted his own state and was through once he killed his limit there.
I bet if you did a survey and asked how many people have been hunting 30 + yrs, 20 -30 yrs, 10-20 yrs, 5-10 yrs, less than 5 yrs, those last two groups would be off the charts.
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Mark, The land lose is according to the NWTF. At the PA state banquet this past January, that is the number they put out on their presentation. Population explosion and expansion are eating up prime land daily. I don't know the answer to all of those. Yes, numbers of turkey's are up more than they were when I started hunting and I have seen some decline in my area over the last several years without an increas in the number of hunters. I can't explain it.
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I was really confused with my large track here on my mountain this season a lot like what Billy mentioned above.. I have hunted it over twenty years , and I see more sign of more turkeys than ever before. However, the gobbeling activity was slim to none. It was very confusing. Our corn crops didn't make this year, but we had great clover fields.
We are considering going to millet for row cropping instead of corn this year due to millets tolerance to drought.
Another big issue we are facing is an EXPLOSION of preditors. The coyotes have got to the point we have to wage war on them some how ??? And you cannot overlook raccoons, opossums, and skunks and their effect of nest predation. That is a bigger problem than most consider.
Then, as this thread started, habitat is a big issue also. Luckly, I only have that problem on my Alabama properity. My Ga , Fla, and Tenn land are safe from those issues.
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I'm no biologist, but the past three years in my area of VA, I see more turkeys than I have in 10 years. No problem hearing gobblers either.......not one day in the last two years with out hearing one gobble during the season.
Bill
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Turkeys are gone in my neck of the woods....they kut our fall kounty limit in 1/2 last year & rumor has it they are kutting it back to 1 for this year... >:(
...i had to drive an average of 50 miles one way to even get on a bird this past spring season... :-\
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Our numbers are down due to several years of poor hatches. Although our predation numbers seem to be up, we need some good hatches strung together. Saw my first Jake in three years this past season, so that was encouraging.
Kenny
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I can see that here in GA with rapid habitat loss, but also the spread and abundance of coyotes and the wide spread use of chicken manure for fertilizer. I just have this theory that the chicken manure is introducing disease to turkeys.
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I can see that here in GA with rapid habitat loss, but also the spread and abundance of coyotes and the wide spread use of chicken manure for fertilizer. I just have this theory that the chicken manure is introducing disease to turkeys.
chicken skat it is....i feel it first hand...:'(
we are having a diskussion with the TWRA over the situation on the 28th at one of the lokal civik centers.....figure they will try & feed us a bunch of B.S..or should i say C.S... :-\
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Fewer turkeys should make us better hunters and weed out the "Weekend" hunters.
I just hope that in time, the numbers pick back up.
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During the spring I am out in the turkey woods every day either hunting or checking hunters...This springs weather was horrible, Rains, cold spells high wind..I STILL saw and heard more turkeys than ever...I videoed and posted a field of over 100 birds together...not sure about the rest of the country but NC's turkeys are doing fine...
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The spring harvest in Arkansas this year was around 9000 birds. Five years ago that number was around 20,000. They discontinued our fall season last year. I think last year's hatch was decent and maybe things will turn around with a couple more good hatches. It sure is hard to hunt where you do not hear a gobble in three days of hunting.
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I did not get to hunt a lot this Spring due to work and jury duty. I hunted 4 straight mornings in a place that has been very good to me for years and never heard a gobble, but this has happened to me when I knew there were a lot of gobblers in an area. Changed places and heard two gobblers and killed both, one on a Friday, one on Sat. I did have luck on my side. I think as a whole in the areas I hunt the turkeys are down a lot from what we had in the late 70's and early 80's. I am not saying we have no turkey but I do think it is down a good bit. Also I am seeing turkey in places I have never seen them before. So how much they are down I can't say for sure. I do think a lot is playing into the turkey being down in places, from hunters to pred. I base turkey being down when I get to hunt or be in the woods a lot and don't hear anything, and I did not get to hunt a lot this Spring so I can't say for sure.
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are there any studies about the use of Chicken manure as fertilizer---we do use it on our corn crops to get it started
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http://www.mdwfp.com/wildlife-hunting/turkey-program/turkey-ecology-and-life-history/will-disease-decrease-turkey-numbers.aspx
http://www.nwtf.org/conservation/bulletins/bulletin_25.pdf
Looks like there are also studies that show no ill effects.
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The turkey POP isn't down where I live but I am trying to keep them from taking over the state. Lol
TRKYHTR
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The local paper said that West Virginia had a spring kill of nearly 11, 000 which is UP nearly 32% over last year.
Those birds weren't near me. *cry*
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I'm not hearing alot of gobbling here in Pa either, But with the amount of turkeys I seen last fall , with that many hens they don't have to gobble, they wake up with thier hens right with them. Last week alone my cousin and I called in two yotes and a huge bobcat , that tends to make the gobblers pretty quiet. One day we heard eight different gobblers On a huge top back in the mountains, haven't heard them since, but there is sign everwhere. And where i grew up there are just two many hens. Cutter and I will have to do something about that this fall.!!!
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I heard more turkeys in P.A. than ever before, hunt state gamelands and heard 4 to 12 a day for first week. New York on the other hand was totally different,lucky to hear a bird a day.Our camp in N.Y. has always had a good amount of birds around this was worst season in 20 yrs.
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One of the problems that I encountered was not yotes or bobcats, it was other peoples dogs that were running loose.
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Here where I hunt in PA I know its down, way down as compared to past years. Dont see anywhere near the number of birds and gobbling is more of a rarity than the norm. Tough hunting. Went to WV this year too to hunt some and saw lots of birds but gobbling was minimal compared to past seasons there for me
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I think in one way it's is a cycle of good hatches, but there are so many places down this way that were full of turkeys in the eighties that are gone with very little apparent change....Mark brought up alot of good questions....
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you have to look at it on a big scale,....start the scale (graph) in 1980 and take it up to 2010,....most everyone will agree that their graph goes up DRASTICALLY over those years,....there is no way in any species that that can continue,..mother nature will correct that graph somewhere along the way,...it has to come down and then stabilize for about the same time it took that drastic climb. We are just starting to see that downward trend on the graph,....that trend along with some unique weather conditions made things very noticeable over the past two years. It will be fine over time,......we just got spoiled very badly during the late 90's and early 2000's in certain areas.
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Here is the harvest report from the West Virginia DNR. Marion county where I live is actually up quite a bit.
http://www.wvdnr.gov/2013news/13news112.shtm
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The last issue of the bird hunting report had an article about the numbers being down in OK which is what I have witnessed hunting the same property the last 4 seasons.
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With the amount of rain in the country, hatch numbers could be worse. Northeast has taken a pounding just as poults have hatched or will hatch
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Was at my cabin this past week, took a ride one eve. with the wife and my sister. We seen 62 deer, a bauld eagle, a nice bear, 2 grouse hens, one had 3 little ones that we seen and the other had one little one that we seen. We seen 2 young hens no little ones and we seen one old hen that had 13 polts with her. All the polts got accross the road with her and I got out of there to make sure I did not bust them from her. Seen several hens on Sunday on our way home, but grass was to high to see any polts. Might be a better year for polts than what I thought. *up*