Found a little bit on the southern TN research.

Jeez Louise...

This is worthless.

Necropsies are only helpful when looking at sick birds, not healthy birds taken by hunters.

Histomoniasis is the primary concern from chicken litter. If a turkey becomes ill from blackhead disease, it'll be showing obvious symptoms of lethargy for only a few days before it dies. It is VERY obvious on necropsy with the target lesions in the liver, but you won't find those lesions on perfectly healthy birds.

UT needs to notify the hunting public to start collecting birds found dead while hunting, quickly freeze them, and then perform necropsies. But of course, only 1 out of 1,000 that have died of disease are found intact. Predators usually finish off and eat the ill birds a day or two before they would have died.

Perhaps we could actually consider the real problem causing the turkey population to plummet in parts of TN.... removing the male segment of the population before successful fertilization of hens has actually occurred.

We can't affect poor hatches or brood rearing due to predation, wet and cold weather, etc... but we CAN at least improve fertility rates to give the poor hens a chance at a fertile nest. It isn't rocket science.

Time to quit wringing our hands and scratching our heads why our turkey population has steadily declined over the past 10 years. Time for action.

Heck raise the limit to 100 mature gobblers per spring per hunter for all I care... but at least allow jakes to reach maturity, and push season opener back to April 15.
 
Yes, I agree. Alot of our gobblers are getting killed before the hens are bred.
Also, them looking for blackhead through hunter donations is worthless.

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Megalomaniac this is the issue in southern counties where birds used to flock in the hundreds and now nobody sees them. It's not a steady decline from over harvest, they just disappeared over a couple of years, and are still in healthy populations in surrounding areas. I know rockhound lives down there and has seen it happen, and he knows more about it than me. It's not from a few gobblers being killed before the hens are bred I'm pretty sure of that.


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catman529":2luvqieu said:
Megalomaniac this is the issue in southern counties where birds used to flock in the hundreds and now nobody sees them. It's not a steady decline from over harvest, they just disappeared over a couple of years..
Click to expand...

Actually, it didn't happen in a couple of years, it has been a gradual decline over the past decade, but the tipping point was just in the past 3 years or so. But no, I never said anything about overharvesting them. I don't believe that is the problem. In fact, I KNOW it is not the problem, because I have been extremely restrictive in the number of gobblers I have allowed to be killed on my farms for the past 10 years. I believe the problem is recruitment of poults that has led to the dramatic decline. And the decline has happened in a MUCH, MUCH larger area than the few southernmost counties. I never see the recent (past 5 years) data on statewide August brood surveys, that used to be published annually. But the trend dramatically reversed from running 5 poults/ hen in August to well less than 2 poults/hen around 2002 or so. And as you know, if a local population recruits less than 2 poults/ hen, then the population declines (NOT counting ANY removal of birds through hunting- it declines FAST with less than 2 poults per hen plus removal of toms and hens through hunting). The real question is what is causing the decline in poults. Is is just terrible weather killing all the poults as the hatch for the past 10 years? Is it predation of nests? In populations with few males, is it their removal before eggs have been fertilized? Or is a 2nd mating never happening resulting in only half the eggs in the nest being fertile? Or maybe even there is a chemical or disease (like DDT in bald eagles) resulting in decreased fertility in hens. I'd love to know the answer, but I don't think a necropsy on gobblers is going to fix the problem. I freely admit I don't know for certain that allowing males to successfully fertilize females will make a difference, but at LEAST it is something that we CAN control, and would not impact TN's turkey hunters nearly as much as not having any turkeys to hunt at all in those areas.

And yes, I do lament the loss of the glory days. I was one of those who saw 300 birds in a mixed flock in the fall and winter annually. My best spring day was calling in and working 29 different gobblers in one day. I had so much fun I didn't want to shoot a single one and end the hunt... so I didn't. Back in those glory days, our statewide turkey biologist (NOT our current one) predicted we would plateau at an annual turkey harvest of 70,000 birds once turkey restoration had been completed. Fast forward to the new normal- just be satisfied with 30-35,000 birds and go about your business. But it COULD be so much better. Last year was the first year since 1992 I did not kill a turkey in TN. It was my choice. I just could not justify killing any of the small handful of gobblers I had.

Oh, and no poults yet again this year :(
 
catman529":1cvs19lq said:
It's not from a few gobblers being killed before the hens are bred I'm pretty sure of that.
Click to expand...

That is where you could NOT be more wrong, unfortunately.

In an area with 20-30 gobblers and 200 hens, removing 'a few gobblers' will not make a bit of a difference.

However, in a population that has already declined markedly, where there may only be 1 or 2 gobblers, and 10-15 hens... in those populations, removing the gobblers before fertilization has occurred is absolutely DEVASTATING. You still CAN kill ALL the gobblers after fertilization has occurred each year (as long as jakes are protected- you need them to become 2 year olds and successfully fertilize the hens the following spring) without negatively impacting the overall population. Of course in that scenario, you'll never kill a limbhanger.
 
We can say all of this and speculate all we want to. I do believe that it could be the problem, that we are shooting too many gobblers on opening weekend, thus not enough gobblers to breed every hen.
But when you read about turkey seasons, they are supposedly set to where most of the breeding has already been done. I am not sure that is correct. I believe, for around here, April 15 or so is when most hens have been bred.

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I do not claim my opinions to be the facts, but it is a possibility. To me it makes more sense than disease, especially the disease blackhead.
Nest predation is also what I think could be the problem. Armidillos have been in southern Giles county now for about 7-8 years. 2006 was the last year that we had great turkey numbers. Turkeys have always had to deal with nest predators such as raccoons and possums, but armidillos are something new that is taking away turkey eggs.
I'm not sure if it has been terribly bad weather or not. Come to think of it and look back, spring is always wet and rainy.

North Alabama, is also having problems.

I too, have not seen a poult within a 10-12 mile radius of my hunting property since 2007.


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Along with not seeing poults, I have anywhere from 3-7 broodless hens use my clover fields each summer since 2007. I see them, and have trail cam pics, never a poult.
This makes me lean more towards nest failure. Whether it's weather, nest predation, or sterile nest, something is wrong.
It could also lean towards poult predation, but wouldn't at least one or two make it long enough for me to get their picture or see them?

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megalomaniac":35mmrnx6 said:
catman529":35mmrnx6 said:
It's not from a few gobblers being killed before the hens are bred I'm pretty sure of that.
Click to expand...

That is where you could NOT be more wrong, unfortunately.

In an area with 20-30 gobblers and 200 hens, removing 'a few gobblers' will not make a bit of a difference.

However, in a population that has already declined markedly, where there may only be 1 or 2 gobblers, and 10-15 hens... in those populations, removing the gobblers before fertilization has occurred is absolutely DEVASTATING. You still CAN kill ALL the gobblers after fertilization has occurred each year (as long as jakes are protected- you need them to become 2 year olds and successfully fertilize the hens the following spring) without negatively impacting the overall population. Of course in that scenario, you'll never kill a limbhanger.
Click to expand...
so you're saying that killing gobblers now that population declined, that makes sense. That still doesn't solve the problem of whatever killed the flock off in the first place.


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It's more than nest failure... our big flocks of turkeys disappeared in a 2 yr. Period.

BI agree that a big problem now is the fact that th birds are still being hunted despite the low numbers, but that's not what killed the flocks off to start with. We had hundreds upon hundreds of birds, and 2 years later they were gone.

Fast forward 10 years it's getting better but very very slowly.

This is all I have to add to this thread because I'm sick of arguing the point.
 
Rockhound":uguqv5dv said:
It's more than nest failure... our big flocks of turkeys disappeared in a 2 yr. Period.

BI agree that a big problem now is the fact that th birds are still being hunted despite the low numbers, but that's not what killed the flocks off to start with. We had hundreds upon hundreds of birds, and 2 years later they were gone.

Fast forward 10 years it's getting better but very very slowly.

This is all I have to add to this thread because I'm sick of arguing the point.
Click to expand...
I was hoping you would chime in. Megalomaniac you have some solid facts and good points but seem to miss what has happened in a more localized area in the southernmost counties. Something I hope never happens in other places and I hope the flocks down there come back to healthy numbers.




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On my farm in Dickson Co we have not had any poults in the past 3 years. This past spring we did not see any jakes, we did see some younger males but no jakes. Our farm is the only cattle farm in a couple square mile area, therefore we seem to winter the majority of birds. The surrounding properties are mature hardwoods.


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