Jensen Afield: Spring turkey kill continues to decline

For the second consecutive year, the town of Springfield led all Vermont towns in number of turkeys taken.

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Published March 13, 2016 in the Rutland Herald Jensen Afield: Spring turkey kill continues to decline By Dennis Jensen The thermometer outside my kitchen window reads 63 degrees and it is still early March. This might be a good time to think about the spring or, better yet, the spring turkey hunting season. But before we can talk about what might happen when the season opens on May 1, it might make better sense to focus on the spring season of 2015. The release last week of the “2015 Vermont Wildlife Harvest Report — Wild Turkey,” brought to you by the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, is a good place to start. One thing that stands out in the report is the continuing decline in the spring turkey kill over the past seven years. The spring kill exceeded 6,000 birds as recently as 2008, but every year, with the exception of 2013, the kill has dropped significantly. “The reasons for these declines are unknown at this time but could be related to stabilizing population levels after reintroduction, shifts in climate, disease or other unknown causes,” the report says. One reason that turkey numbers have declined in Vermont could be that their numbers have reached a saturation point following the initial re-introduction of the big birds back in 1969 and 1970, according to Mark Scott, director of wildlife for Fish & Wildlife and an avid turkey hunter. “In those places where they have been in the longest, like in southern Vermont, they may have peaked out. They have probably fallen into a stable state where their numbers are less than what hunters witnessed a decade or two ago,” he said. “The population has reached the carrying capacity of its environment. Only so many birds can occupy the landscape.” Scott’s theory would also explain why the turkey populations — and the turkey kill — have gone up tremendously in the northeastern portions of the state. The wild turkey population in that part of the state is made up of birds that, for lack of a better term, are relative newcomers. While the numbers have dropped off since 2008, that all could change this May, according to Scott. “The birds are in very good shape right now,” he said. “After two tough winters in a row, it appears we lost some of those birds. I can remember in the 1960s, we had some really tough winters and in the ’70s as well.” The winter of 1994-95 was so severe that biologists estimated that about half of the wild turkey population in Vermont was lost. In spring 1995, the regular bag limit of two bearded birds was reduced to just one bird. But the population came back in a huge fashion in just a few years. This winter was been nothing short of a blessing for wild turkeys, Scott said. “I’m getting reports of huge flocks of birds, flocks of 40 and 60 birds together, at least in central Vermont,” he said. The winter severity index — the formula used by Fish & Wildlife that looks at the number of days when temperatures fall below zero and the number of days with 18 inches of snow on the ground — will probably be in the record books for the winter of 2015-16, Scott said. This is by far the mildest winter on record since the winter severity index was used to measure the impact on wildlife, particularly deer, Scott said. “I think we’re going to see a tremendous spring (turkey) harvest this year,” Scott said. “It all shows how big a factor winter can play.” But back to the numbers. Hunters tagged 4,460 birds during the May 1-31 season in 2015, a slight drop in the 4,613 birds tagged in 2014. The two-day youth hunt, held the weekend before the spring opener, also saw a decline in the kill. Young hunters tagged 510 birds last year while taking home 547 turkeys in 2014. Windsor County again led the state with the highest number of kills, topping the list with 619 birds, followed by Orange County (524), Franklin County (468), Rutland County (457) and Addison County (424). Windham County (387) was sixth and Washington County (385) finished in seventh place. Adult toms accounted for 3,033 birds taken by hunters, while immature toms (jakes) showed a total of 1,928 birds. Every county showed more adult birds taken than jakes, with the strange exception of Addison County, where more jakes (216) fell to hunters than mature birds (208). For the second consecutive year, the town of Springfield (Windsor County) led all Vermont towns with 68 birds taken. Highgate (Franklin County) was second, with 68 birds, with Newbury and Williamstown (both Orange County) tied for third with 55 birds. Rounding out in fifth was Weathersfield (Windsor County) with 50 birds. Personally, I saw an abundance of young birds travelling with flocks of adults last fall. With the help of a winter that saw more snow in New Jersey than in Vermont and temperatures that rarely fell below zero, it could be a great spring for turkey hunters.