This wasn’t a good spring to be a wild turkey. A lot of the bearded birds ended up on dining room tables as opposed to finding the hens of their dreams. Recent reports from the Game Department announced a near record harvest. The summary is below.
A total of 18,860 turkeys were harvested in Virginia during the 2017 spring gobbler season – 9% higher than the 2016 harvest. This year’s harvest was the third highest in modern times. The record occurred in 2015 with 20,580 birds.
This near-record setting season harvest supports data showing that wild turkey populations are at record levels for modern times. Virginia’s wild turkey population has increased 2.7% annually over the past 10 years. However, with moderate reproduction over the past 5 years, the turkey population has plateaued. Estimates put Virginia’s turkey population between 185,000 –195,000 birds.
Although the spring harvest increased 9%, annual changes in spring harvest must be viewed carefully because of the influence of unpredictable environmental and biotic factors. Hunters encountered unusually warm conditions in the early and middle weeks of the 2017 season. In contrast, spring hunters faced cold, windy, and wet weather in the early weeks of the 2016 season. Both unseasonably warm and cold conditions may serve to suppress hunting success rates.
Two-year-old birds typically make up an important component of the harvest, as these young adults are believed to gobble more frequently and respond to hunters’ calls more than other age classes. Therefore, good reproduction two years prior to the spring season is believed to be an important foundation for harvests and gobbling activity. Recruitment in 2015 was near the survey average so little change in the 2017 harvest was expected.