I quit counting at fifty.

Thanks.

I see so few turkeys now that I stopped buying a license

I'm one that could care less if I ever see one again!.
Nothing but a pest around here.
Rate them right up there with red squirrels.

I remember years ago , pheasant and quail were everywhere in the 50's and early 60's .
That's about the same time hunt clubs started raising birds , and turning them loose on rented game lands they hunted.
Read that the birds they raised needed medication because of crowding , (SAME AS RAISING LARGE FLOCKS OF CHICKENS ).
Turning the pen raised birds loose spread a disease the wild birds weren't immune to.
Killed off the wild stock.
Same as they tried raising rabbits to turn loose to hunt.
Problem was rabbits needed medication also , the rabbit raising for hunting went bust.
I remember many places that had good flocks of wild turkey , and then they just disappeared.
Found out later pen raised quail were turned loose in that area.
There's weren't quail or turkeys around there for years.
Saw flocks of around a 100 + before the new landowner turned loose pen raised quail.
I don't know , but it seems to have something to do with it.
The last time I hunted turkey , there were white ones mixed in , then a couple years later , didn't see turkeys anywhere .
Don't know but it could be something to think about.
Same with pen raised deer , that's where all the CWD comes from in many areas today. Always pen raised deer that get loose.
Just food for thought.
Same as people buying wild hogs and turning them loose where they aren't !

I'm gonna read this again and study it. For right now, I call BS.

I have been saying for years that something is going on and population decline is an unknown. The dominant bird idea is interesting but the rest I don't put stock in. Yes predators are a problem but the turkey population around here built up, flourished, and was at its peak during low fur prices and high predator numbers. During the recent higher fur market I, and several others throughout my area trapped a lot and hit the predators hard. Turkey population kept declining. Our peak was about 1997-2010. Flocks of 50-100 now 15-30. Places that had turkeys now have none. Habitat did not change and did not change fast. Habitat is an easy excuse. Area exceeded it's carrying capacity? So for some reason a farm could hold a flock of 15-20 birds for 5-10 years but shouldn't have? How did they survive? and now the farm holds zero? There is an unknown out there that has dropped the numbers. I don't know it as does no one else but it is out there.

You can have em, we are over run with turkeys. 2 of em roosting in my woodshed last night. Worse than rats. Ruin most of my peaceful bow hunting days, always in my yard like a flock of domestic turkeys. I think they should have no bag limits and be part of your small game license here, even if you limited the weapon to one solid stick you would limit out everyday on an unlimited bag

In my part of the South I blame it on the deer hunters feeding corn in the winter. Some feed it year round here. There is something in the corn that hurts turkeys, we had plenty of turkeys here until the made it legal to feed corn to deer. That is when the decline started.

I think DNR's are failing, not for anything else but an agenda across the board. You don't have zero, then great hunting numbers, then back to zero without mismanagement, period. But like I said, I'll read the article over and over. At this point, it really is BS.

Biologist from - told so that skunks destroy a lot of turkey nests.

There is a correlation between Declining Wild Turkeys and the keeping of Backyard Chickens. Commercial Poultry barns do not want wild Turkeys around, I'm guessing diseases flow both ways.

There is probably not a single issue causing declines, likely a combination of things.

We're trending higher numbers here

Catch22,
Not quite sure how DNR is causing turkey numbers to drop or increase.

There is no public land here within an hours drive and numbers are half of what they were 15 years ago. All private land and many of the tracts are huge (some over 10 thousand contiguous acres) with no public roads. There has historically been very little to no turkey hunting on a lot of these properties, yet the birds have slowly decreased.

We've never had legal hen harvest.

Our DNR Game Mgmt section has no idea what shape the wildlife in this area of Ga is in.

The last time there was any kind of population here was back in the late 80's.

My $.02. I know in my area of NW Missouri farmers are ripping out all the trees they can along stream banks to make more room for crop's. Also we have so many predators now. Coyotes, Hawks, Owls and Eagles are everywhere along with Raccoons, Skunks and Opossum. The MDC extended the trapping season but as usual the Government is behind the power curve when it comes to management. They created two more Deer seasons that we don't need but they'll get more license money. The Turkeys are losing habitat. Farming has practices changed. Grass land for cattle is the priority. Biologists in a lot of states now aren't Hunters or Fisherman. Getting Turkey Poulet's to survive all the attacks is slim. You don't have to listen to someone with a PhD to know what's going on.

I wonder if some areas that were late to restocking aren't still on the upward tick?

It's not within the DNR control to manage habitat across the board.

Example, my family homeplace in South Alabama.

This was the heart of the last remnants of turkey in the state. All birds caught for relocation were captured within twenty miles of the place.

1970s, the land was mostly played out farms reverted back to natural regeneration hardwoods, some scattered ag land mostly pastureland
1980s, the hardwoods get clear-cut to make way for plantation pine the ag land struggles on
1990s, everything within sight is planted to pine including the pastureland
2000s, pine as far as the eye can see.

BTW, pine prices peaked in the 90s and declined since.

What do you credit higher number too???

Could be a little truth to the areas late to the party still trending up. We were late and we have quite a few turkeys around. But we are also starting to get some pheasants showing back up which had disappeared for quite a few years. I much prefer the pheasants.

One of the farms here had to get damage permits a number of years ago when we had a tough winter (deep snow and cold). Turkeys were coming right in the barnyard and roosting in the barn with the cattle. Over 250 before we knocked them back. We get another tough winter, it will be the same situation.