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Ten state wildlife management agencies in the United States, including six within the Southeast, have delayed their spring wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) hunting seasons since 2017 by five or more days to address concerns related to the potential effects of hunting on wild turkey seasonal productivity. One hypothesis posits that if the spring hunting season is too early, there may be insufficient time for males to breed hens before being harvested, thus leading to reduced seasonal productivity. We conducted an experiment to determine whether delaying the wild turkey hunting season by 2 weeks in south‐middle Tennessee would affect various reproductive rates. In 2021 and 2022, the Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission experimentally delayed the spring hunting season to open 14 days later than the traditional date (the Saturday closest to 1 April) in Giles, Lawrence, and Wayne counties. We monitored reproductive rates from 2017 to 2022 in these three counties as well as two adjacent counties, Bedford and Maury, that were not delayed. We used a Before‐After‐Control‐Impact design to analyze the proportion of hens nesting, clutch size, hatchability, nest success, poult survival and hen survival with linear mixed‐effect models and AIC model selection to detect relationships between the 14‐day delay and reproductive parameters. We detected no relationship (p >.05) between the 14‐day delay and any individual reproductive parameter. In addition, recruitment (hen poults per hen that survived until the next breeding season) was very low (<0.5) and did not increase because of the 14‐day delay. The traditional Tennessee start date had been in place since 1986 while the turkey harvest increased markedly until about 2006 and more recently stabilized. Our data indicate that moving the start of the hunting season from a period just prior to peak nest initiation to 2 weeks later, to coincide with a period just prior to peak nest incubation initiation, resulted in no change to productivity or populations in wild turkey flocks in south‐middle Tennessee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo; hereafter turkeys) are an important game animal whose popularity among hunters has increased in recent decades. Yet, the number of hunters pursuing turkeys appears to be in flux, patterns of hunter abundance have primarily been described at broad spatial scales, and the ability of management to impact hunter numbers in the post-restoration era of management through opportunity for quality hunting is unclear. We used county-scale estimates of turkey hunter numbers collected over a 14-year period (2001–2014) and time-series analyses to evaluate the spatial scales at which spring and fall turkey hunter populations fluctuate, and also used generalized linear mixed models to evaluate whether attributes related to quality turkey hunting explain recent patterns in hunter abundance. We found heterogeneity in turkey hunter population growth at finer spatial scales than has been previously described (i.e., counties and management units), and provide evidence for spatial structuring of hunter population dynamics among counties that did not always correspond with existing management units. Specifically, the directionality of hunter population change displays spatial structure along an east-west gradient in southern Michigan. We also found little evidence that factors providing opportunity for quality turkey hunting had meaningful impacts on recent spatial-temporal patterns of hunter numbers. Our results imply that providing quality turkey hunting opportunities alone may be insufficient for sustaining populations of turkey hunters in the future, and that modern determinants of hunter participation extend beyond the availability of abundant turkey populations. Moreover, our results demonstrate that interpretation of harvest data as indices of abundance for turkey populations is difficult in the absence of hunter effort data, as changes to turkey harvest are a function of potentially fine-scaled changes in populations of hunters, not simply changes to turkey populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Biology the introduction is the establishment of outlandish species within the borders outside their natural range (natural habitats) under conditions in which they have not previously developed. The aim was to investigate the possibilities of introduction of wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) in the territory of Bulgaria and the changes to which they might have led to the morphological features of this species. The study was carried out in the territory of Trankovo village, Stara Zagora region (the pheasantry is a part of Mazalat), the territory of Stara Zagora Zoo and in a licensed game farm Graus. The used methods are: • interviews with poultry specialists; • photographic method - photo-documentation of areas, inhabited by wild turkeys and photo-documentation of morphological features of live wild turkeys; • biometric morphological method. In Bulgaria there are real opportunities for introduction of wild turkey due to the presence of objects with parental herds - the pheasantry in the village of Trankovo and the Zoo in Stara Zagora. The program for the production and displacement of birds bred in farms does not work with wild turkey, although it has been included in the program from 2006. Hunting farms prefer to buy wild turkeys ready for shooting from the pheasantry in Trankovo rather than rear them in the hunting area. When trying to introduce a group of wild turkeys, it should be composed of young and adult birds as well. The birds that are displaced should be at a distance from the rest that they cannot hear the birds from the parent flock. In order for a higher percentage of birds to survive, strict control must be carried out over the harmful predators - foxes, jackals and martens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Between 1979 and 2006, over 7,000 eastern wild turkeys ( Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) from 16 states were translocated to east Texas in an attempt to restore a stable, huntable population. Although current populations are stable in some areas and a spring male-only hunting season was opened in 1995, turkey density in the region remains low and large areas of apparently suitable habitat are not occupied. The long-term effects of the extensive translocations and current levels of connectivity among various populations are unknown. We used microsatellite DNA analysis to assess the influence of translocations on current genetic structure and gene flow in eastern wild turkeys. The influence of translocations was clearly evident and reflected historical contributions from the Midwest and southeastern United States. The east Texas population consisted of 3 distinct genetic clusters. Despite a lack of clear geographic barriers and nearly contiguous forest cover in much of the east Texas landscape, regional gene flow among clusters appeared to be limited. Diversity in the regional population remains high, but we recommend that regulations reflect the current population structure and that long-term efforts should be made to increase connectivity among wild turkeys in the region. © 2013 The Wildlife Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spring harvest rates of male wild turkeys ( Meleagris gallapavo) influence the number and proportion of adult males in the population and turkey population models have treated harvest as additive to other sources of mortality. Therefore, hunting regulations and their effect on spring harvest rates have direct implications for hunter satisfaction. We used tag recovery models to estimate survival rates, investigate spatial, temporal, and demographic variability in harvest rates, and assess how harvest rates may be related to management strategies and landscape characteristics. We banded 3,266 male wild turkeys throughout New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania during 2006-2009. We found little evidence that harvest rates varied by year or management zone. The proportion of the landscape that was forested within 6.5 km of the capture location was negatively related to harvest rates; however, even though the proportion forested ranged from 0.008 to 0.96 across our study area, this corresponded to differences in harvest rates of only 2-5%. Annual survival was approximately twice as high for juveniles $({\hat {S}} = 0.64- 0.87)$ as adults $({\hat {S}} = 0.30- 0.41)$. In turn, spring harvest rates for adult turkeys were greater for adults $({\hat {H}} = 0.35- 0.39)$ than juveniles $({\hat {H}} = 0.17- 0.27)$. We estimated the population of male turkeys in New York and Pennsylvania ranged from 104,000 to 132,000 in all years and ranged from 63,000 to 75,000 in Ohio. Because of greater harvest rates for adult males, the proportion of adult males in the population was less than in the harvest and ranged from 0.40 to 0.81 among all states and years. The high harvest rates observed for adults may be offset by greater recruitment of juveniles into the adult age class the following year such that these states can sustain high harvest rates yet still maintain a relative high proportion of adult males in the harvest and population. © 2011 The Wildlife Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a cooperative research project to investigate impacts of autumn either-sex hunting on female wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris), we evaluated the effect of trapping period under different autumn hunting scenarios by capturing and radiomarking 1,544 birds from 1989 through 1994. We compared the effects of trapping before autumn hunting season to the more typical post-hunting winter trapping. Survival and causes of mortality showed a similar interaction between trapping period, age, and length of autumn hunting season. The primary effect was decreased survival of juveniles captured during autumn. Mean survival for juveniles captured during autumn (Ŝ = 0.50) was lower than for juveniles captured during winter (Ŝ = 0.73, P < 0.001), and adults captured during autumn (Ŝ = 0.64, P < 0.001) or winter (Ŝ = 0.61, P = 0.002). The negative effects on juvenile turkeys was greater for longer autumn hunting seasons. Survival differences were attributed to differential susceptibility to harvest; the largest difference in mortality resulted from legal harvest, which was 5.5 times greater for juveniles captured in the autumn before hunting season (18%) than for winter-captured juveniles (3% P < 0.004). Autumn-captured juveniles' age and inexperience compounded by flock disruption and stress of trapping increased their susceptibility to autumn harvest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the National Wild Turkey Federation, there has been a 450% increase in the number of licensed wild turkey hunters since 1973. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of research articles focusing specifically on turkey hunting. Most human dimensions of wildlife research have focused on either deer or waterfowl hunting. In this study, dimensions of hunting quality, days afield, and harvest were examined among a sample of 739 Virginia fall turkey hunters. Quality of a hunting season, rather than a specific hunt, was examined. Principal components analysis (PCA) revealed five domains of attributes of a high-quality turkey-hunting season: wildlife interaction, education, being away, social interaction, and hunting skills. The domains of hunting quality revealed by the PCA are similar to domains found previously for spring turkey hunters as well as other types of hunters. Also examined were hunter perceptions of overall hunting quality, the number of days spent hunting turkeys during the fall season, and harvest success. For comparative purposes and agency needs, hunters were segmented into three categories based on days spent hunting: low frequency (1 to 2 days), medium frequency (3 to 4 days), and high frequency (≥5 days). The influence of these variables to respondents’ perceptions of overall quality was examined using a series of regression models. Variables found to be significant predictors of quality were wildlife interaction and harvest success. Hunters who killed a turkey reported a significantly higher quality season than those who did not kill a turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and West Virginia Division of Natural Resources conducted a band-recovery study on male eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris)during 1989-1996. Our main objectives were to estimate survival and hand-reporting rates and to determine whether longer fall hunting seasons resulted in lower male tukey survival. Length of fall turkey hunting season varied from zero to 9 weeks at 3 study areas, while spring hunting season was relatively constant at 4 or 5 weeks. We attached reward leg bands to 47s male wild turkeys. Effects of different fall seasons were evaluated using survival and band-reporting rates. We used program MARK to construct a series of models including hunting-season structure, age (juvenile or adult), year, and period (fall or winter-summer) effects to estimate survival and bandreporting rates and to evaluate the effects of length of fall hunting on survival and band-reporting rates. Annual survival rates in our 3 study areas (range = 0.24-0.27) were lower than most studies. Survival estimates were significantly (P < 0.05) lower in the winter-summer (range = 0.16-0.18) than in the fall (range = 0.58-0.62). We found little difference in band-recovery estimates between age classes in the fall, but adults had significantly higher band-recovery estimates in the winter-summer. Male wild turkey mean annual survival did not decrease as fall hunting season length increased. In contrast, hand-recovery rates increased as the length of the fall season increased. If band-recovery estimates indexed hunting mortality, then hunting mortality increased as length of fall hunting season increased. Moreover, if band-recovery rates represented hunting mortality, then the constancy of survival estimates among areas with different lengths of fall hunting season, coupled with them, pattern of band-recovery rates, suggest that fall hunting mortality is not additive for male wild turkeys in Virginia and West... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Missouri Turkey Hunting Survey (MTHS) is a postseason mail survey conducted by the Missouri Department of Conservation. The 1996 MTHS provides information concerning the number of turkeys harvested by hunters on each day and the total number of trips made to the counties by these hunters on each day of the hunting season. The success rates are then found from this information. Small sample sizes produce large standard errors for the estimates at the county level. We use a Bayesian hierarchical generalized linear model to estimate daily hunting success rates at the county level. The model includes an autoregressive process for the days of the hunting season and spatially correlated random geographic effects. The computations are performed using Gibbs sampling and adaptive rejection sampling techniques. Results show that there are significant spatial corelations between counties and correlations between days of the hunting season. The estimates are close to the frequency estimates at the state level and much more stable at the county level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the development of a model that predicts the impact of hunting on wild turkey populations in Virginia and West Virginia. Description of the 2-sex Leslie-type matrix model; Evaluation of the effects of season length, season timing and 1-versus 2-sex kills on population growth and future harvests; Sensitivity of seasonal proportions of males to changes in male survival rates for eastern wild turkey populations.

Presents information on a study which examined the effect of fall hunting on survival of radiotagged female wild turkeys from 1989 to 1994 in Virginia and West Virginia. Study area and methods; Results and discussion; Management implications.