The populations of wild turkey continue to increase across the state. That’s according to a recent survey from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. Each year, the WRC conducts their wild turkey observation survey where volunteer spotters record the number of turkeys they see during a two month period. Chris Kreh, the upland game bird biologist, says the summer observation survey takes place July 1st through August 31st.
“It consists of sending out a log, a data card that anybody that sees turkeys that anybody that’s interested in helping they record on there the observations that they have, and they break it down by whether it was a hen, a gobbler, or a polt. Then they send those cards in at the end of the survey period.”
The annual turkey surveys have been conducted since the late 1980s. This year, a total of 968 observers participated from all 100 counties in North Carolina. That’s a 55% decrease from the previous year where 2,100 people were involved. Kreh says he’s not surprised by the drop off.
“Right before the 2014 survey, we recruited a lot of new participants into the survey. And you know folks move, they go to places, maybe their interest wanes, so some of those people didn’t participate this following year. Even though the numbers fell off a little bit in terms of the number of participants, we still had nearly a thousand participants that reported turkey sightings to us.”
Fewer participants this year lead to a 23 percent decrease in the number of observations. Still, Kreh is satisfied with the results of the survey, and here’s why. The report tells wildlife biologist two things: productivity and population.
The results of the survey show there’s two hens for every gobbler, which has been the average for the past decade. The report recommends that additional hunting pressure should not be placed on the male wild turkey population.
Turkey productivity can be measured by counting the number of hens and polts.
“Basically, how many eggs hatch out into a polt, and how many of those polts survive to become adult turkeys in the fall. So the July and August time period is set to be after the nesting and hatching period occurred, so you have polts out there with the hens and they’re big enough to see, but they’re not so big that you can’t distinguish them from the adults birds that are already there.”
This year’s numbers are in line with the trend that’s occurred for the last decade of two polts per hen. At this level of productivity, Kreh says the state’s turkey population has grown by 115,000 turkeys since 2005.
“In the eastern part of the state, there’s been a lot of increase over the last five to ten years. And I think that will continue for a few more years before we see a lot of long term stability in the population numbers.”
Kreh says many places in eastern North Carolina, such as Craven, Duplin and Pender counties now support a thriving turkey population, but this wasn’t always the case. In the 60s and 70s, turkeys were only found in small pockets of North Carolina because of hunting pressure and habitat destruction. Kreh says at one time, there were only about 2,000 turkeys in the entire state.
“We went through a pretty extensive restoration program where we were trapping and moving wild birds to pockets of good habitat in the state that did not have turkeys in them.”
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission struggled to find turkeys to relocate during the early stages of their program. But as their populations grew, the restoration project gained momentum in the 1990s and since, Kreh says they’ve noticed a dramatic uptick in turkey observations.
Even though turkeys now occupy every county in the state, there are some places, Dare County for example, that will never be able to support a successful turkey population. In the recent survey, there was only one Dare County resident that participated, and they only saw one turkey.
“Yeah, and they probably did pretty good to see that one turkey actually. Dare County is a good example of a habitat condition that’s not real suitable for turkeys. Turkeys do really good in a place that has a mix of mature woodlands, and some ag fields, and grass fields and pastures mixed together.”
That type of environment describes most places in eastern North Carolina, which is why the turkey population has rebounded successfully here. Over the past several years, the annual turkey survey has yielded some surprising results as turkeys have made a comeback. But Kreh predicts the population won’t grow much more.
“I do expect that their population will level off somewhat and I expect that population, their numbers from year to year, will kind of bounce up and down as many species do who depend on habitat for food and cover.”
In eastern North Carolina, Craven County had the highest amount of participation in the survey, with 44 people. They reported 154 turkeys during the two month period. But Onslow County spotted the most wild turkeys, 204, during the survey.
The next Turkey Observation Survey won’t begin until next summer, but Kreh says you can sign up now to count turkeys.
“All they have to do is contact us and we can get them the materials to do so. And basically we send them a survey card in June and the card is pre-printed for them to record sightings of turkeys they may have between July and August.”
You can read the 2015 Wild Turkey Summer Observation Survey report in its entirety, go to http://www.ncwildlife.org/Portals/0/Hunting/Documents/2015-Summer-Observation-Survey-Summary.pdf
