Sunday, July 09, 2006
Spring turkey kill numbers up
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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After two tough seasons, Virginia's spring gobbler hunters had more to be happy about this April and May.
According to the figures compiled by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, hunters killed 17,195 turkeys this past season.
The total represented a statewide jump of 20 percent over the 2005 spring kill and fulfilled the expectations of biologists who were predicting a comeback.
"It bounced back," a somewhat relieved Gary Norman, who oversees the state's turkey program, said Friday. "We had a pretty good year."
The kill was the fourth-best on record, trailing only the three banner seasons from 2001 through 2003.
Things went well for a couple of reasons.
First and foremost was a good spring hatch in 2004, which led to the availability of a good number of vocal, responsive 2-year-old gobblers.
The weather also was generally cooperative, with few of the rainy mornings that keep hunters home.
Hunters in the eastern part of the state enjoyed the biggest jump. They killed 11,069 birds, a gain of 26 percent from 2005.
The increase west of the Blue Ridge was a more moderate 10 percent, to 6,126.
One part of the state actually had a decline.
The kill in the South Mountain zone was 4,147, down just less than 1 percent.
The zone starts with Botetourt County and heads south, encompassing counties west of the Blue Ridge.
While a slight drop in that region's kill might seem troubling, especially in light of increases elsewhere, it's not as worrisome as it might appear.
According to game department statistics, the turkey kill per square mile of forested land was .75 in 2006. It's better in only one other region in the state, hitting an impressive .91 in the Tidewater region.
The kill in the North Mountain region, on the other hand, was .57 per square mile of forest.
Interestingly, while the annual kill has varied significantly across many regions the past few years, the take in the South Mountain region has been amazingly consistent.
In 2002, when the spring kill record of 18,345 was set, the region's total was 4,464.
In 2004, when the statewide kill fell to 14,338, the lowest since 1999, South Mountain hunters checked in a respectable 3,949 gobblers, just a hair less than the five-year average.
The steady trend would tend to indicate that the population has been fairly stable in the South Mountain region.
Another steady trend is the number of hunters participating in the spring season.
In 1993, Virginia had just 43,000 spring turkey hunters. After a period of booming growth, the number has leveled off at about 73,000.
The top county this spring was Bedford, where hunters checked in 627 birds. The kill rate was an impressive 1.4 birds per square mile of forest, one of the best rates in the state and more than double the rate of other counties east of the Blue Ridge.
Franklin County, last year's top county, was second-best with a kill of 539. That was actually a slight drop from the 2005 kill, but the kill rate was still a solid 1.2 birds per square mile of forest.
Bland and Giles counties both experienced significant drops, with their totals falling 20 and 15 percent, respectively.
Smyth County also experienced a big drop, with the kill falling 26 percent from 2005 to 2006.
The statewide numbers seems to indicate a disconnect between the annual fall and spring kills.
Last fall's kill barely topped 4,000 birds, the lowest recorded total in decades.
With the solid spring of 2006 in the books, turkey hunters are already thinking about the future.
The 2007 season may have a tough time matching this past spring. The hatch in 2005 was poor so there probably won't be as many 2-year-old birds around. But there should be a good number of 3-year-olds, so the season should still be solid.
Many hunters are already thinking ahead to 2008 as they try to gauge how this spring's hatch went. Norman said he's getting decent brood reports.
Heavy prolonged rain can cause high poult mortality. But Virginia didn't have much rain until the end of June, when many poults should have been old enough to handle it.
Yet the extremely dry weather of late spring and early summer wasn't ideal, either. Drought conditions can reduce populations of insects and important forage food for growing poults.
"That can have as big an impact as rainy weather," Norman said.
Even though we can speculate, we probably won't have a solid indication of this spring's hatch success until the 2008 spring hunting season.
If the kill is high, we'll know it was good. If the kill is low, we'll know it wasn't.
