Ok gang,, I figured this would be pretty cut and dry..but what would the raccoon population be in Colorado vs Illinois or pretty much any midwestern state?
There was a joker who was claiming that predator numbers have absolutely nothing to do with nest mortality,, he was saying that Colorado turkey numbers are doing well, and that it’s a habitat problem. Trappers just want to make excuses to inflict pain.
Illinois had a recent infrared survey that concluded with a count of a population density of 30-50 raccoon per square mile.

He just laughed at me when I asked him if Colorado had a population density study done recently.
Am I correct in my assumption?
That raccoon doesn’t have nearly the impact in Colorado as they do elsewhere because of a lower population??

I would suspect the coon population in CO per sq mi is lower than ILL.
In either coons or turkeys or any animal as far as that is concerned its habitat first and foremost.
Why doesn't ILL have Pine Martens? Too many predators? Nope, no habitat.

I would agree with the joker that Habitat is more important than depredation.
Without habitat you have nothing, with or without predators.

There has been and will always be depredation on nests. To what effect it has on the population depends upon how healthy the population is to begin with. Good habitat=healthy populations.

Turkeys were reintroduced into alot of the US after they were eliminated.
In WI it started with 29 turkeys in 1976 in one county. Now they are populations in all 72 counties.
With all those predators and so few turkeys released its amazing that turkey populations rebounded and they expanded.
Just to show that because of the habitat turkeys are all over the state inspite of predators.

CO has coons. Not a lot in the mountains but they are there. Not up high but in creek and other bottoms. Eastern plains has some farming. A few more but nothing like many other states.

Habitat effects depredation. Delta Waterfowl figured out that in large grass blocks ducks have a higher hatch rate then in small grass. Blocks of grass a mile square or larger had a higher hatch rate with out being trapped then small chunks of grass. The more and bigger the habitat the better. I was working for Delta Waterfowl when that was figured out. Some of the trappers figured it out comparing notes.

ducks are different than turkeys.
Ducks concentrate nesting in a smaller area yielding a bonanza for predators. Or a big food dish if you will.
Turkeys spread out when nesting, making the job of preying on nests much harder.

Ducks spread out nesting too, but only if there is nesting habitat. There are also a hundred times more ducks to share the same habitat. Where I live there is over 100 nesting pair per square mile.

Tall Timbers Plantation in N Florida, the premier bobwhite quail research facility in the U S - figured out long ago - even in the best habitat, predator control may be required.

Besides the number of predators, the availability of prime food source is also a big factor in predation rates. If you dont have many coons - but also dont have much prime coon food - your coons will spend more time foraging and more likely to find nests. At tall timbers plantation, they manage for cotton rats through supplemental feeding. High density of cotton rats equals decreased predation on quail. There are a lot of factors to consider.

By far the bulk of recent and past research indicates coons are the number one predator on turkey nests - by far. But most of that research is done in the SE. I have done some hunting and fishing in colorado - they have no where near the number of coons we have in Arkansas. They have no where near the number of possums we have in AR. They have no where near the number of skunks. They have no where near the number of egg eating snakes.

I have owned my 400 acres for over twenty years. We didnt have a consistent turkey population until the last five or six years. I am retired and spend sometime of almost every day managing my habitat. It was not until I started spring and summer trapping did I have turkeys.

If you lived in the 70’s and 80’s, you will understand quail lived almost everywhere. It did not have to be good habitat. Quail lived in mediocre habitat - as did turkeys and rabbits. Five years after the crash of the fur market in 1988, quail and rabbits became hard to find. Turkeys were different because many G&F departments were actively re-introducing turkeys all across the county and they flourished in their new found homes. Turkeys are now declining all across central and southern US. While they may hang on in excellent habitat, they no longer flourish in mediocre habitat - like they did 20 years ago. Nest predation, primarily by coons, is the number one reason - as study after study proves out. CO does not have a fraction of the nest predators that AR has - and I doubt they have anywhere close to what IL has.

If you want some interesting info on turkey nest depredation give a listen, I know 1 1/2 hours long so some won't bother.

[img]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZuaoWIvtSY[/img]

Podcast on Turkey nest predators.

For those that don't want to bother I'll sum it up.

Turkeys have about 40 days they are on the nest. This time they confine themselves to about 5 acres. This is the most critical time for turkey nesting.
The early nesters that are older and more mature are 4-5x more successful at raising broods than later nesters.(later starting turkey season would benefit these birds.)
about 80% of the nesting attempts fail.
there are 3 main ways they fail.
1) a predator find the sitting hen and eats her, main predator of vast majority nesting hens, Bobcat, coyote and owl (not coons)
2) a predator finds and attempts to catch the sitting hen but hen escapes abandoning nest. when turkeys are flushed from nest about 10-20% of the time they won't come back.Often these failed attempts at hen result in the predator (coyote, bobcat) eating the eggs.
3) a scavenger finds nest and eats eggs. Usually after abandonment. Snakes will target nest while turkey is sitting on the nest with little resistance from hen. These scavengers never kill the hen. These are possums, coons, skunks, crows, snakes, foxes, weasels, feral hogs and a whole host of other animals.

If the nest is abandoned it doesn't matter what finds and eats the eggs as the hen ain't coming back anyways.
If you want to try and improve turkey nesting success thru trapping target bobcats and coyotes, don't waste your time trapping coons or any other scavenger.




Guy is a hunter and trapper, so he understands a trappers prospective. But more importantly he studies turkeys as full time job.
Give it a listen, its entertaining, not very academic, lots of interesting stories.

How was it determined that coons are primary predator on nests?
Some studies have used making fake nests and putting chicken eggs in them and then watched what predated on the eggs.
This is much different than the reality of a coon trying to get the eggs from a sitting hen that will defend her nest and scare off the coon.
The podcast I mention above goes over this.
It also in the SE, primarily LA.



Your mention of cotton rats, in the end you say lots of factors to consider. I'll agree with that.


All the "predators" you mention, coons, skunks, possums are scavengers, not predators of turkeys, they'll eat eggs in an abandoned nest but will not push a hen off the nest.

Your mention of your land and not having turkeys for years seems to indicate you have very poor turkey habitat. I'm surprised you haven't had turkeys till the last 5-6 yrs. Are you trapping coyote and bobcat? Are there very few to no turkeys in the surrounding area?

If anything its opposite around here. Turkeys since reintroduced have been abundant around here and just in the last several years become less so. This over 1/2 the state.

I like you am retired and spend most of my time managing my land.
I have had typically dozens of turkeys on my land in the spring, this spring I saw only one hen all spring. But in the last 3 weeks or so I have seen a huge flock of 4-5 hens with maybe 30-40 young of different age brackets.
Anecdotal info at best I guess. Why no turkeys this spring? Why they showing up now? Lots of grasshoppers maybe. Lots of factors to consider.

I'd bet we have as many coon as ILL, maybe more in the southern 1/2 of WI. I don't think coon population is the controlling factor in turkey population around me. Lots of factors to consider.

I can't tell you anything about Colorado but , 10-15 miles north of the ILL line in WI we have easily 30-50 coons per square mile , with some nesting habitat I have pulled 60 off 5 acers and 20 off of a half acre.

I can tell you chicken and domestic turkey mortality is MUCH higher when you start trapping 2 weeks before putting them in the outdoor pens

you also get stragglers coming in from a ways off here and there so you have to go feed and water every day , check the traps at the same time. so you can absolutely effect mortality by removing predators. you can get the bulk of them in 10 days really had more than half of the total by 9 days in on the most recent project


I was only trapping withing about 200 yards of the poultry enclosure , there are motion cameras on the 4 sides of the poultry enclosure and no predators on camera at the enclosure.

1) Ducks are nothing like turkeys when to comes to nesting, one nests close to water the other nests in upland areas.
2) the density of duck nests is way way higher than turkeys. You claim 100/sq mile. The population of wild turkeys is around 10 or less per sq mile. So 5 nesting hens / sq mile.
3) coons are riparian animals, meaning at the waters edge, coons like water, they spend most of their time prowling around these areas.

Its obvious that coons interactions with nesting ducks is very different than nesting turkeys. Lots more ducks in a smaller area that coons frequent vs very few turkeys in areas that coons frequent less.

One other thing to consider, a mallard duck weighs what, about 3 pounds, a hen turkey about 10 pounds, 3 times bigger. Which bird do you think could better fend off a egg hunting coon?

Do you think coons are major predator of wild turkeys? Not the eggs but adults? Ever see a coon kill a wild turkey?
You have trapped prey in a small confined area. Prey that can't simple fly away. Do you think that is a equal comparison to wild turkeys?

Dirty D....thanks for the info...excellent stuff!

not saying domestic poults are equal to wild turkey , just using it as a numbers reference for the numbers I am seeing just north of the ILL boarder.

he asked about numbers of racoon in ILL , what they are seeing just across the boarder doesn't differ much , it's only a few miles.

eggs need to hatch and get to adult to have a turkey population.

we know coons will run ducks and geese off a nest then eat the eggs , I wouldn't be surprised if they were able to run a turkey off long enough to get a meal.

10 years ago turkey population around me was mediocre. Raccoon prices weren’t great but I still trapped them. Then hunting leases came in. Couldn’t trap same areas and turkey populations dropped. 4 years ago I was able to trap
these areas for raccoon. I have been catching 20 to 25 raccoons the last couple of years.there hasn’t been any development so habitat loss wasn’t the issue. The results are that this past January there were 42 turkeys across from my house, hens, Jake’s and Jenny’s! The Tom’s are behind the house as I see them grouped together. In conclusion, lowering predator numbers greatly benefits the ground nesting bird populations.

I live in western Colorado, thousands of acres of Sweet corn, farm stand gardens, orchards, and vineyards. huge population of coon, we are on the edge of the desert to 10,000 feet in 30 minutes. lots of turkeys as well as most sporting birds. Chicken and turkey farms abound. Are coons hard on our turkeys? no! they are devastating to the quail, ducks, geese, and crops. I started with 3 nesting hens on the place that hatched out 26 chicks, today 3 hens 8 chicks. Bobcats, coyotes, and lions took the rest. the coon population here is large enough that even with all methods of trapping you could dent it but not get it under control. As for adaptability we catch coons along the rivers and streams like the rest of the country, but also catch them miles from running water in cat sets along the cliffs and at 10,000 destroying cabins on top of the mountain. Doing ADC work here my main call is coon followed by beaver. most of the coon work comes from chicken depredation on farms/ranches. Not sure if this answers the question but yes Colorado has an extreme coon population as well as a healthy turkey population but neither has mush to do with the other!

I am glad Monster Toms answered, having lived in Colorado for a few years there are high numbers of coon probably not like back east. As stated coon are a opportunist like other predators and will eat what they can! They are a great nest raider! From the streets of cities to the sage brush!

video of a hen running off multiple coon attempts to ultimately hatch 9 poults.

coon attacks

does it happen, I'm sure it does, but on the other hand I'm also sure that a hen will fight off coons.

80% of nests fail. Thats alot. whats the biggest predator of wild turkeys, it isn't coon. Its coyote, bobcat and owls. If a coon find a nest and eats the eggs, it is not as consequential to the overall population compared to a nesting hen getting killed. That hen could lay a 2nd clutch and she has a chance to be around to nest again next year.

Poults have a very high mortality rate. Again with the early nesting, the early hatching poults have a much higher survival rate due to the fact that they get out and get a start on growing before predators see a peak in them as available prey.

Again, in the podcast they talk about the most successful turkeys at rearing young, its the early nesters that are older more experienced birds that year after year produce the most young.
These hens are more successful at a rate of 4-5 times others.

Another factor we haven't mentioned is health of the turkey, in great habitat where health is good hens will lay more eggs, poor or marginal habitat they will lay less eggs.
Another point that lays out habitat is the most important thing, predators are secondary.

So lots of factors, lots of differences in where we are talking about, North or south, local predators.
Coyotes are one of the main predators of coons, studies on quail and pheasant have shown that higher coyote populations don't hurt and sometimes help these birds.
Is there a balancing point where too many coyotes are depressing coons but the amount taken by the coyotes is worse than the coons?

Taking out a dominate pair of coyotes that defends its territory against others opens it up to others, so remove 2 and get 4, that doesn't sound good.


Being a wild turkey ain't easy, lots of mortality, adults, eggs, poults, they all get hammered by predators, but still they survive and even thrive in good habitat.
If one could wave a magic wand and eliminate all predators populations would boom, but what would happen then, disease outbreaks? lack of food, smaller clutches, smaller less healthy birds?

All this to say it ain't black and white.

I live in Ohio. 30 years ago I'd had a hard time showing you a Turkey in my state let alone county. If I had to put you on a turkey this weekend I'm guessing I could. Coon have been gang busters here all along. Same with yotes. Habitat has only gotten worse / less. You can't drive anywhere without seeing a fencerow being bulldozed or a big burn pile of some kind. 50 years ago there was pheasant and quail. No till farming and all the spraying is what did us in here. High corn prices in early 2000 was one of the final blows...

Turkey and Fox are on an upswing here. Deer and rabbits are down. Hawks are gangbusters and you never used to see one. Its hard to make sense out of sometimes.

Point being, I got tons of coon and Turkeys are far and few in between and seem to be gaining ground even though having that many coon and even less habitat. If coon were that hard on them I don't see how I'd ever have a Turkey at all. I'm pretty sure I could trap 12 coon in one night without working too hard and Ive seen poults behind their mother the last three springs.

Ten years ago I was told the urban Illinois coon population was 100 per square mile