You started it so I’ll add my uneducated opinion…
1. Predators, predators, predators! Just pick a WMA and walk the roads, firebreaks, etc. I walked one 300 yard stretch where turkeys were present within the past few years and not the first turkey track, not one! Not new, not old, none. But I did find 6 piles of cat scat with 3 still within a couple of hours old. Now one kitty cat ain’t taking a crap every 50 yards or so. Cat tracks and coon tracks were everywhere along this road. Another half mile stretch I filled up 3/4 of a gallon bag with coyote scat. I saw what y’all actually mean by predator trails. I believe even I could catch a coyote or 10 on that road alone.

2. Going to upset some folks with this one, but make decoys and fanning/reaping illegal. They’ve done it for ducks with spinning wing decoys in other states, so let’s do it with turkeys. Please don’t take this wrong, but I can take a person that’s never even seen or heard a turkey and set a couple decoys in front of them and all of a sudden they are turkey killers. I can give a turkey fan to anyone capable of holding one and kill 90% of any field turkeys you have. There’s no SKILL involved in any of this. It’s basically the same as baiting to me. Throw them out and they will come. Heck I saw a guy that needed a cart to get his “essentials” to the field. And he brags how he kills his limit every year. I don’t think he could make a turkey sound if he tried, I don’t even think he owns a call. He’ll tell you straight up he doesn’t need one. In the past the only way you was going to kill a bird was to either have the patience of Job or know how to call. Not any more.

3. Habitat. I will say this about my corner of GA, our DNR folks are really really improving our habitat on our WMA’s. They’ve adopted a quail management program and if you manage for quail, everything seems to prosper.
I’ve “heard” the northern WMA’s are pretty much screwed due to no timber management. If there’s no sunlight to the forest floor, there’s no food. No food means no turkeys. It’s finally coming, but limit your hunts on WMA’s and limit the amount of birds taken. Yeah, I’ve been guilty in the past of easily taking a limit of birds off one 20K acre WMA. About 6-7 years ago, I realized there’s no need to. I can take just one bird from 3 different WMA’s. Over the last few years I only take one public land bird and kill the rest on private. Even with private land we only take one bird each (3 hunters). Just this evening I was resetting a couple of traps and topped the hill on our “hopefully” dove field and there stood 3 very long bearded gobblers and 5 jakes. I knew about the gobblers already but opted not hunting them because if I shot one I would have felt obligated to put it on the wall, lol.

I’m passionate about turkeys and trap to make money to pay for turkey trips…plus it gives me views like I saw today. I truly believe by just implementing #2 above that our population down here would explode. Also, this is just my opinion, and we all know what are opinions are like.

Turkey populations are healthy in NC. We feed sunflower seeds to a gobbler at our door twice daily. He is a dandy too.

Lots of conspiracy theories without any common sense being used. Turkey numbers peaked 15-20 years ago, and there were the same seeds being planted then as now. Not to mention numbers are down all over the east, sometimes hundreds of miles from ag fields. So that video is nothing more than clickbait garbage. I doubt there’s one single reason for the decline, but I also doubt there are many areas that DON’T have an abundance of nest predators. I personally haven’t seen a poult for several years and I live where I can see about 100 acres of fields at any given time. I do see hens grouping back up every late May, which means they lost their nests. This has been repeating for years.

Warrior
Thanks for that.
There's lots of ignorant people out there most wouldn't care if they read the label or not. There's folks out there that can't wait to mix there next batch of poison up to kill a weed or two or a bug or two. This no till that Monsanto came up with is a joke and has poisoned our country.

X2.

Don’t forget hogs. Hogs numbers are probably up most everywhere. Hogs gunna suck up and root every nest they come to.

Had 3 hens with 16 poults wander through my backyard a few days ago. I've probably seen more this year than any other in the 6 years since I moved here.