Wild turkey populations are gradually declining in many parts of the United States, and nest-raiding predators play a significant part in the problem. Fur trappers, hunters and conservation groups like Turkeys For Tomorrow are working to reverse that trend as much as humanly possible.
While firm scientific evidence is still short on the subject, a convincing bounty of anecdotal evidence does not lack. Science was never meant to usurp sound common sense. TFT’s work applies an anecdotal remedy to the problem. Each egg-eating critter removed is one that will never eat another egg.
Turkey population surveys and a variety of other scientific studies are being supported by TFT and other groups, the better to decide what and how much to do about it. At the same time, preliminary reports from the studies, as well as thousands of hours of field observation, indicate fur-bearing nest predators like opossums, raccoons and skunks are tremendous contributors to the cause. To that end, TFT is creating several options to help land managers get trapping done as well.
Studies from Iowa and many other states tracking the life cycles of turkeys have found huge percentages of turkey nests destroyed every spring, either before eggs could hatch or before newly-hatched turkeys were large enough to effectively flee.
Dr. Grant Woods, a biologist, hunter and major proponent for fur trapping to support turkey conservation, shares his experiences on his own farm near Branson, Missouri, a tract he likes to call “the proving grounds.”
“There are a lot of studies that show, in any given group of birds being studied, 70 percent of turkey nests are impacted by predation,” Woods said.
Some years ago, despite abundant habitat that was being ever improved on his property, Woods noted a sharp decline in turkey numbers on the land under his direct control.
“We had good nesting cover,” he said. “We do prescribed burns. We cut hundreds of acres of cedars, but our turkey population was getting really low. So, we started conducting more concentrated trapping efforts.”
Over the past decade, Woods and his crew have worked to trap and remove predators every winter. This past year was their most productive yet, with 115 critters taken out.
“You know what?” Woods says. “Our turkeys started coming back.”
Woods points to a decline in fur trapping’s appeal as a directly-correlating cause of the predators’ boom and the birds’ bust.
Raising fur
“Twenty years ago, Missouri had the best turkey population in America,” Woods said. “Everyone who loved turkey hunting wanted to come to Missouri to hunt because of the abundant opportunity that existed. Not coincidentally, at that same time, we were selling 200,000 trapping permits per year.
“Last year, the state of Missouri sold 6,000 trapping permits. There is no value in the fur market right now. Consequently, the number of people trapping is much lower and the population of nest predators reflects that.”
At the same time motivation to trap raccoons, skunks and opossums declined, habitat practices that inadvertently make life easier for these critters increased.
“When logging companies cut timber, they leave streamside management zones around rivers and creeks to protect the water quality,” Woods said. “That’s great for erosion prevention and for everything that lies downstream, but it creates a predator food plot at the same time. Turkeys will nest in those zones, almost to the exclusion of everywhere else. Any time a fox, bobcat, coyote or raccoon walks along the creek on the downwind side of a turkey nest, especially during the wet spring, it’s over.”
Woods counsels the value of making a concentrated effort to trap out nest predators just ahead of turkeys’ nesting season in the spring.
“Predators are very territorial,” Woods said. “We will trap around 100 raccoons and opossums per year off of our 1,500-acre property. We’ve been doing that for years. As soon as we began doing it, our turkey populations rebounded right away.”
Answering needs
On average, a turkey hen will lay 10 eggs over the course of 10 days. Once that’s done, they’ll sit on the nest and incubate the eggs for 28 days. Once they’re hatched, poults usually need to be 14 days old before they can fly well enough to get off the ground and into a tree to roost overnight. That adds up to an average of 52 nights on the ground in total helplessness for every new turkey.
“We’ve found that if we can remove raccoons and opossums during that timeframe, we can really help turkey poults,” Woods said. “This concept is nothing new to duck people. Delta Waterfowl has found the same thing, removing skunks and foxes right before ducks nest in the prairie pothole region of northern Canada. They’ve found a direct correlation between how many nest predators they remove for that key period of time and how many duck eggs successfully hatch and, ultimately, how many new ducks eventually fly away.”
The permanence of the predators’ removal is not at issue. By their very territorial nature, their sudden absence just in a nest and hatchling’s few weeks is where the difference is made.
Even in scenarios where the results are only anecdotal, it’s only logical to see the direction nest predator removal helps turkey populations take. Each nest predator removed is one more that won’t be eating another single turkey egg anytime, anywhere.
Turkeys For Tomorrow is supporting scientific studies that are documenting this in a way that will supply hard data from which hunters, land managers and state wildlife officials may make informed decisions about season dates, bag limits and predator reduction programs.
“We’re not trying to exterminate raccoons or any population,” Woods said. “We only want to achieve a balance of populations that let both predator and prey species thrive.”
Management trapping is simply a matter of reducing predator numbers at strategic times of the year. For turkey hunters, that means trapping as close to the nesting season as possible.
Most predators are born in the late spring or early summer, and the young-of-the-year disperse in the fall. In February, most of the predators on the landscape are mature adults, and many have established territories. The goal is to remove enough of them to create a temporary void in the areas where turkeys normally nest, long enough for a few extra nests to survive.
In Mississippi, a trapping license is required for anyone 16 or older to trap on land they do not own., The season for doing so opens each November 1 and concludes the following March 15, with no bag limit. This matches the ideal window for trapping nest predators to make a positive impact on turkey populations.
To learn about management trapping and what’s being done to help turkey numbers recover, visit turkeysfortomorrow.org.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
