Sorry, but this one will be long. I know we discuss this a lot and I know, most know/think that it is a myriad of reasons for turkey population decline vs. just "the one thing". I think most have figured out that predator/nest predation, and habitat loss play into it, but the more I think about it the more I can't help but feel like we are a huge reason for it. Some of these threads where we are discussing the opening dates this season, whether the limit should be 2 or 3, etc. and some of the comments got me thinking about this a lot lately.
As many know I hunt a lot on the WMAs in my area. I have a small 32 acre tract that we own. There used to be turkeys on my land, but now they are gone. That is mainly due to key habitat loss. There is some hunting now where as when I first bought it I am pretty sure there was none, so maybe a little bit hunting, and predators are everywhere, but the loss of that cow farm to build a brewery dispersed them. However, on the WMAs in a lot of the areas not much has changed. Occasionally a new neighborhood pops up, but that generally means more safe areas and food for wildlife. When I started hunting turkeys in 2010 there were literally flocks of over 100 birds. In deer season it was not uncommon to see 20+ long beard bunched up. Jakes were all over, so that tells me hatches were surviving. Now that is no longer the case. These WMAs are heavily trafficked. There are predators there, but there are a bunch of hunters that are more than happy to have an excuse to pull the trigger, so they get hammered, like all animals. Nest raiders have always been prevalent there. Basically, I cannot see habitat loss and nest raiding predators/predators being the main cause. So while I have been hunting I am thinking, what has changed on these WMAs.
The answer is easy IMO. Our chokes, and shells have changed and the # of hunters has gone up significantly. When I started I was using the only shotgun I owned at the time, a Mossberg 500 capable of shooting 3" shells. My shells were Remington premier magnum #5 lead shot. I had an undertaker choke I got at Wally world for $10. 40 yds. was pushing my luck, and depending on my shooting in the moment 35 yds. may be pushing it. I could go anywhere I wanted most days and never see anyone. I know for a fact in my first two seasons I wounded 2 birds. They flew though so I assumed I had missed. Knowing what I know now, they probably died. Later I shot at a bird in a field on my property that I was certain was at 45 yds, using a different gun, choke and mag blends... he was 65 (I misjudged) and I probably wounded him. The more I think of those birds the more I think how many people have wounded birds and thought they lived, only to go kill another, so essentially they killed x # of birds, but only found Y # of birds, which is what is checked in? Then I start thinking about how many people really hunt turkeys in TN?
So, after all this discussion of the season and limit changes, the pros and the cons, I don't think we will be able to know what type of a difference we are making because we don't have the data form the past, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't start collecting it now for future reference and that data is how many people are actually hunting turkeys? I think we can add a "free" designation that you must have to hunt turkeys, kinda like a migratory bird stamp. Not one that you have to designate when you buy or you can't hunt, but one that can be added with the click of a button on the TWRA app at any time, if you decide to hunt turkeys. Exit surveys are great, but not everyone gets one or will fill it out, so the "stamp" will give us a truer estimate of turkey hunter #'s. With that data we can have a better idea of hunter success vs. total kills and that is a better gauge to base changes on. Simply saying, we killed 40K this year and we killed 35K the year before doesn't tell us anything, if we don't know how many people were out there shooting. If we kill 5k more, but there were 10K more hunters that is not better, that is worse, so knowing the # of hunters is key IMO.
