Turkey season is in full swing
Published 1:52 pm Thursday, March 27, 2014
The spring turkey season in Georgia began this past Saturday and runs through May 15 statewide. The surrounding area is in the piedmont region of the state and the prospects for bagging an old tom turkey are not as good as in past years.
“Due to both low reproduction numbers and a good harvest of gobblers for the past two years, 2014 might be a challenging year for turkey hunters, especially in the piedmont region,” said Kevin Lowrey, Wildlife Resources Division wild turkey coordinator. “Overall statewide reproduction declined by 30 percent in 2012 and hunters may notice the effects during the 2014 season.”
When the first settlers arrived on the shores of the United States, it is now estimated that more than 10 million birds roamed the eastern United States. Early reports from those first settlers talked of huge flocks of turkeys that unlike today’s wild turkeys were easily approached. The wild turkey was considered for the official seal of the United States but the bald eagle eventually won that honor.
The wild turkey was hunted and trapped almost into extension and only 30,000 birds remained in the entire United States in 1920. In 1973 when the National Wildlife Turkey Federation (NWTF) was founded, there were only 1.5 million wild turkeys in North America and only 17,000 wild turkeys in Georgia.
Georgia’s current turkey population is estimated at 335,000 and Georgia has one of the longest turkey seasons nationwide. However, in recent years national turkey populations have been declining and that decline includes the state of Georgia.
The NWTF says that declining turkey populations is just one of the challenges the turkey hunting community faces today. The national number of wild turkeys has declined by 30 percent from the historic high and the decline has been primarily caused by habitat loss. In some location like Mississippi, the turkey population has declined more than 40 percent.
The NWTF estimates that nationwide, 6,000 acres of wildlife habitat are lost every single day. The slide in hunter numbers has finally stopped but that number is not keeping pace with population growth. Many hunters are struggling to find a place to hunt and that is the primary reason why people quit hunting. Hunters are very important since they pay for conservation when they purchase hunting license, guns, ammunition and other hunting gear.
The NWTF recently launched a new initiative called “Save the Habitat, Save the Hunt,” an aggressive project to mobilize science, fundraising and volunteers to keep NWTF vibrant but also to give the organization more purpose than ever.
The NWTF is now committed through this initiative to raise $1.2 billion to conserve and enhance more than 4 million acres of essential upland wildlife habitat, create at least 1.5 million new hunters and open access to 500,000 new acres for hunting, shooting and outdoor enjoyment.
There are only two species of turkeys in the world and five subspecies are found in North America. These five subspecies include the Eastern subspecies which is the most widespread turkey (more than 5 million) in North America and is also the subspecies found in Georgia, the Osceola subspecies which is only found in South Florida, the Merriam’s subspecies which populate the western U.S., the Rio Grande, which can primarily be found in Texas and the south central plains and the Gould’s subspecies, which can be found in the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona.
If you decide to take up that challenge and set aside everything else to do your best vocalization of the wild turkey, I wish you good hunting throughout the turkey season. I guess I will once again pass up the spring turkey season to do battle with some of the fish that populate area lakes.
Spring is a beautiful time to be either in the woods attempting to harvest a turkey or on the lake trying to outwit a largemouth bass or a finicky crappie.
Good hunting and/or fishing and see you next week.
