Final 12 months, we sat down with Drs. Mike Chamberlain and Patrick H. Wightman on the annual NWTF Nationwide Conference with some urgent questions on wild turkeys: Have been chicken numbers nonetheless declining? Did bag limits want to vary? Was reaping impacting turkey inhabitants? A full 12 months and one other spring gobbler season have handed since that interview, and since the state of affairs round these birds is at all times altering, we wished to convey Dr. Chamberlain, extensively referred to as the Turkey Physician, again for an replace on the state of the wild turkey. Chamberlain was simply coming off of his looking season with contemporary observations on the place turkeys have been and the place they’re headed. Right here is our Q&A, together with his total outlook for 2024 and past.
F&S: So, how was your turkey season?
Chamberlain: It’s been good, however I I’m drained. I journey fairly a bit. I wish to go to totally different locations, and I really didn’t hunt in my house state of Georgia a single day this season. I hunted in locations I’ve been to for quite a lot of years. In a few of these locations, the turkey inhabitants seemed secure—just about the identical variety of birds I encountered in earlier years. In others, it was apparent that the chicken numbers have been persevering with to go down. I additionally noticed plenty of looking stress, which is form of what I’ve been listening to from different individuals on social media and from speaking to pals. I believe what you noticed was an enormous spike in exercise throughout Covid, and whereas a few of that has waned, turkey looking continues to be a well-liked pursuit.
F&S: What are key adjustments you observed this season in comparison with final?
Chamberlain: I believe it actually is dependent upon the place you might be. The tendencies over the previous couple of a long time within the Southeast are nonetheless there, and there haven’t been any dramatic experiences of inhabitants will increase. However there are some good indicators in some locations. In Arkansas, as an example, turkey populations seem to have began to extend a bit in the previous few years. Harvest has trended up, and productiveness has trended upward as properly. However throughout the areas the place declines have been most documented—the South and the Midwest—we’re not out of the woods but.
F&S: Final 12 months you have been cautiously optimistic that populations could be stabilizing. Do you continue to really feel that manner?
Chamberlain: It took us some time to nail down the declines we spoke about final 12 months as a result of there’s no dramatic sign within the information from one 12 months to the following to provide us any clues. It takes taking a look at some information units throughout a decade to comprehend that one thing’s amiss. Since final 12 months, I don’t assume something has popped on our radar display screen that tells us we’re trending in a single route or the opposite.
Proper now, there’s extra analysis being finished on wild turkeys than there was at some other time in my profession, and that speaks volumes concerning the curiosity and the priority in what’s happening. However analysis takes time. It takes time to get the information, collate the information, summarize the information, and make sense of it. I do know as human beings, we don’t wish to wait. We wish solutions yesterday. However that’s simply not the best way science works.
So far as that analysis goes, what are you enthusiastic about?
Chamberlain: What offers me hope is that there are such a lot of ongoing analysis initiatives centered on the identical goals. In lots of instances, [researchers are] utilizing the identical know-how and the identical methodology, which ends up in the flexibility to match information from one research to the following. There’s an amazing quantity of collaboration that I’m seeing now that I didn’t see 20 years in the past.
You’ve gotten giant research being carried out in a number of states with the entire work being standardized, and that gives companies actually highly effective information units. There’s analysis ongoing proper now on each potential matter you may think about, whether or not or not it’s copy, making an attempt to determine what number of birds are on the market, potential illness points, and the way harvest could also be influencing turkeys. That offers me optimism that we’re going to search out the kinds of solutions we want within the upcoming years.
Final 12 months, we spoke particularly about utilizing turkey egg DNA to see what number of hens are literally contributing to hatches. You thought it may very well be as few as 10% of the inhabitants elevating profitable clutches. Has the information on that analysis are available but?
Chamberlain: We’re clearly seeing that many of the poults are produced by a really small share of hens. We don’t know precisely why that’s but. It seems hens are taking two totally different methods: There are some that prioritize their very own survival, and there’s a a lot smaller phase that prioritizes reproductive success, and people are the hens which can be making many of the poults.
Is it the identical hens making many of the poults year-after-year, or does that change?
Chamberlain: It’s the identical hens. We’ve established that clearly in articles we’ve printed. I don’t keep in mind the exact determine, however its one thing like, if a hen hatches poults this 12 months, it’s greater than 60 % extra prone to hatch them once more subsequent 12 months. If a hen doesn’t hatch this 12 months, it’s lower than 10 % prone to hatch the following.
Avian influenza is again within the information. How is that this illness affecting turkeys?
Chamberlain: To date, the proof suggests there have been very minimal impacts to turkeys outdoors of some very localized outbreaks that affected a specific flock on a specific farm. However at this level, it doesn’t look like one thing that’s negatively affecting the inhabitants.
You’ve been engaged on educating all of us on turkeys for a very long time. Do you assume the typical hunter is healthier knowledgeable than they was?
Chamberlain: Completely. I don’t assume there’s any query that the typical turkey hunter is extra educated concerning the chicken on the whole, and extra in control with what the enjoying discipline is with turkeys. And I don’t assume there’s any query that’s at the very least partially linked to our potential to speak with one another now in ways in which we couldn’t earlier than.
So, what can common hunters do proper now to assist turkeys as we wait to see how populations and copy end up?
Chamberlain: One necessary factor is to only be prepared to proceed supporting the useful resource. Buy looking licenses and preserve placing assets into the state companies. All of us should be conscious that in some areas, turkeys could be doing properly, however there are a lot of areas the place they don’t seem to be. The state of affairs is advanced, and it requires that all of us be prepared to interact one another and assume outdoors the field. However I believe that is for sure: Each turkey hunter desires the identical factor. All of us need to have the ability to pursue this chicken sooner or later, and all of us need to have the ability to know that we left the useful resource higher than we discovered it.
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