Final 12 months, we sat down with Drs. Mike Chamberlain and Patrick H. Wightman on the annual NWTF Nationwide Conference with some urgent questions on wild turkeys: Had been chook numbers nonetheless declining? Did bag limits want to alter? Was reaping impacting turkey inhabitants? A full 12 months and one other spring gobbler season have handed since that interview, and since the state of affairs round these birds is at all times altering, we wished to convey Dr. Chamberlain, extensively referred to as the Turkey Physician, again for an replace on the state of the wild turkey. Chamberlain was simply coming off of his searching season with contemporary observations on the place turkeys have been and the place they’re headed. Right here is our Q&A, together with his general outlook for 2024 and past.
F&S: So, how was your turkey season?
Chamberlain: It’s been good, however I I’m drained. I journey fairly a bit. I wish to go to totally different locations, and I truly didn’t hunt in my dwelling state of Georgia a single day this season. I hunted in locations I’ve been to for plenty of years. In a few of these locations, the turkey inhabitants regarded secure—just about the identical variety of birds I encountered in earlier years. In others, it was apparent that the chook numbers have been persevering with to go down. I additionally noticed a whole lot of searching stress, which is form of what I’ve been listening to from different folks on social media and from speaking to associates. I believe what you noticed was an enormous spike in exercise throughout Covid, and whereas a few of that has waned, turkey searching remains to be a preferred pursuit.
F&S: What are key adjustments you seen this season in comparison with final?
Chamberlain: I believe it actually relies on the place you’re. The tendencies over the previous couple of a long time within the Southeast are nonetheless there, and there haven’t been any dramatic experiences of inhabitants will increase. However there are some good indicators in some locations. In Arkansas, for example, turkey populations seem to have began to extend just a little in the previous couple of years. Harvest has trended up, and productiveness has trended upward as nicely. However throughout the areas the place declines have been most documented—the South and the Midwest—we’re not out of the woods but.
F&S: Final 12 months you have been cautiously optimistic that populations is likely to be stabilizing. Do you continue to really feel that method?
Chamberlain: It took us some time to nail down the declines we spoke about final 12 months as a result of there’s no dramatic sign within the knowledge from one 12 months to the subsequent to offer us any clues. It takes taking a look at some knowledge units throughout a decade to comprehend that one thing’s amiss. Since final 12 months, I don’t assume something has popped on our radar display screen that tells us we’re trending in a single course or the opposite.
Proper now, there’s extra analysis being finished on wild turkeys than there was at some other time in my profession, and that speaks volumes concerning the curiosity and the priority in what’s happening. However analysis takes time. It takes time to get the information, collate the information, summarize the information, and make sense of it. I do know as human beings, we don’t wish to wait. We wish solutions yesterday. However that’s simply not the way in which science works.
So far as that analysis goes, what are you enthusiastic about?
Chamberlain: What provides me hope is that there are such a lot of ongoing analysis initiatives targeted on the identical targets. In lots of circumstances, [researchers are] utilizing the identical expertise and the identical methodology, which ends up in the power to match knowledge from one examine to the subsequent. There’s an incredible quantity of collaboration that I’m seeing now that I didn’t see 20 years in the past.
You’ve got massive research being carried out in a number of states with the entire work being standardized, and that provides companies actually highly effective knowledge units. There’s analysis ongoing proper now on each doable subject you may think about, whether or not it’s replica, making an attempt to determine what number of birds are on the market, potential illness points, and the way harvest could also be influencing turkeys. That provides me optimism that we’re going to seek out the sorts of solutions we want within the upcoming years.
Final 12 months, we spoke particularly about utilizing turkey egg DNA to see what number of hens are literally contributing to hatches. You thought it might be as few as 10% of the inhabitants elevating profitable clutches. Has the information on that analysis are available but?
Chamberlain: We’re clearly seeing that a lot of the poults are produced by a really small share of hens. We don’t know precisely why that’s but. It seems hens are taking two totally different methods: There are some that prioritize their very own survival, and there’s a a lot smaller phase that prioritizes reproductive success, and people are the hens which might be making a lot of the poults.
Is it the identical hens making a lot of the poults year-after-year, or does that change?
Chamberlain: It’s the identical hens. We’ve established that clearly in articles we’ve revealed. I don’t bear in mind the exact determine, however its one thing like, if a hen hatches poults this 12 months, it’s greater than 60 % extra more likely to hatch them once more subsequent 12 months. If a hen doesn’t hatch this 12 months, it’s lower than 10 % more likely to hatch the subsequent.
Avian influenza is again within the information. How is that this illness affecting turkeys?
Chamberlain: So far, the proof suggests there have been very minimal impacts to turkeys outdoors of some very localized outbreaks that affected a selected flock on a selected farm. However at this level, it doesn’t seem like one thing that’s negatively affecting the inhabitants.
You’ve been engaged on educating all of us on turkeys for a very long time. Do you assume the typical hunter is best knowledgeable than they was once?
Chamberlain: Completely. I don’t assume there’s any query that the typical turkey hunter is extra educated concerning the chook on the whole, and extra in control with what the taking part in area is with turkeys. And I don’t assume there’s any query that’s at the very least partially linked to our potential to speak with one another now in ways in which we couldn’t earlier than.
So, what can common hunters do proper now to help turkeys as we wait to see how populations and replica prove?
Chamberlain: One vital factor is to only be keen to proceed supporting the useful resource. Buy searching licenses and preserve placing assets into the state companies. All of us have to be conscious that in some areas, turkeys is likely to be doing nicely, however there are various areas the place they aren’t. The state of affairs is advanced, and it requires that all of us be keen to have interaction one another and assume outdoors the field. However I believe that is for sure: Each turkey hunter needs the identical factor. All of us need to have the ability to pursue this chook sooner or later, and all of us need to have the ability to know that we left the useful resource higher than we discovered it.
Learn Subsequent: 2024 Turkey Season in Overview: Jap Gobbler Rebound, Bearded Hens, Late Gobbling, and Vienna Sausages
