Turkey Forecast

Pennsylvania

Current report cards received from the fall 2003 wild turkey season are down 24 percent from the same time last year. Final report card figures will be available in March. Harvests were expected to be down this fall for several reasons. Turkey flock sizes were smaller this fall because fall recruitment was down. Small flocks were difficult to locate, especially in areas where turkeys were mainly eating soft mast, such as grapes, and thus, not leaving much sign like scratchings in the leaves. Also, hard mast production (for example, acorns and beech nuts) was spotty, causing turkey flocks to travel away from traditional areas and move large distances. The statewide index of turkeys seen by Wildlife Conservation Officers for 2003 (12.2 turkeys seen per 1,000 kilometers) was significantly less than those seen in 2002 (18.3/1,000). Cold rainy weather toward the end of May might have negatively impacted poult survival for the first peak hatch. Also, many hens may not have had the energy reserves to renest due to the cold, snowy winter and limited winter mast food supply. However, sightings did increase in August and many WCOs reported mixed sized flocks, indicating some successful renesting. Therefore, this index may be conservative. Compared to the baseline year of 1995 with an index of 13.9/1,000 turkeys seen, the 2003 index was 12 percent lower.

Wild turkey populations in Pennsylvania increased substantially from 1999-2002. Fall wild turkey seasons were liberalized in accordance with this growth. However, last winter's persistent snow cover and poor mast crop meant wild turkey hens entered last spring's breeding season with less energy reserves for nesting and, we speculate, many hens that lost their first nests to the cold and rainy spring did not have the energy reserves to renest. This was evidenced by the turkey summer sightings that were substantially lower than the previous five-year average.

Fall 2003 season lengths were three weeks in 16 of the 22 Wildlife Management Units. With poor recruitment, the fall turkey harvest most likely contained a large percentage of adult birds that normally would have survived this winter. Also, the fall 2003 mast crop was spotty and weather predictions are calling for another cold, snowy winter. Therefore, spring 2004 turkey populations are expected to be down. If we have another poor nesting season with little renesting, we could see further reductions in turkey populations. Because we cannot predict with certainty the outcome of next spring's nesting season and fall either-sex turkey seasons can negatively impact future population levels if the harvest is too high, the Game Commission staff has recommended decreasing fall 2004 turkey seasons by one week in WMUs 2C, 2E, 4A, 4B and 4D.

West Virginia

Because of poor breeding success for 2002-2003 season, Assistant Chief of game management for the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources, Paul Johanson, said he expects the harvest this year in the mountaineer state to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 12000 birds.

That is the exact number recorded in the year 2002 and 2003 in area counties respectively:

Barbour, 2002-254, 2003-221,

Brooke 2002-159, 2003-140, Hancock 2002-120, 2003-128, Harrison 2002-419, 2003-312, Marion 2002-320, 2003-255, Marshall 2002-418, 2003-361, Monongalia 2002-394,2003-350, Ohio 2002-162, 2003-147, Preston 2002-499, 2003-454, Taylor 2002-161, 2003-155 and Tucker 2002-108,

Wetzel 2002-324, 2003-235.

Poor nesting in 2002 and 2003 was named as the main cause. Paul points out that there are flocks to hunt in all the counties in the state of West Virginia, but they feel turkey populations will fluxuate from year to year based on conditions and winters.

When ask about the past winter, Mr. Johanson stated he didn’t feel there were any great numbers or any great amounts of turkey mortality, but the population statewide is somewhere in the neighborhood of 120,000 birds.

Once again, the conditions in West Virgina, much like in Ohio, are forecast to be similar to last year's, with approximately the same amount of birds harvested.

Ohio

This year's Turkey Forecast for the Eastern portion of Ohio, according to Dave Swanson, wildlife research biologist with the Waterloo

Research Facility (Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife) is as follows:

If you had turkeys last year in your area , you are going to have them again this year.

Dave stated in an interview with OVO hat basically the reproduction of turkeys for the year of 2002 and 2003 were fairly identical.

When asked about turkey mortality due to the long periods of ice and snow last winter, Dave said to date he had received no information from any of the officers about finding any turkeys dead.

However, he stated that if the nutrition availability to the turkeys were bad during the winter, even those turkeys that survived would likely have lower reproduction numbers going into 2004.

Dave said if you find turkeys in the area it is likely you will find a large number of turkeys, since the amount of mass crops going into the winter was particularly localized.

You either had a lot of mass or none at all, and turkeys certainly will move to where the most food sources are.

Once again, the forecast from Dave was for essentially the same conditions and amounts of turkeys, and the same hunting opportunities as the

2003 Turkey Season

Ashtabula 2002-1,179, 2003-1,127, Belmont 2002-657, 2003-611, Carroll 2002-513, 2003-489, Columbiana 2002-408, 2003- 571, Geauga 2002-414, 2003-380, Guernsey 2002-897, 2003- 618, Harrison 2002-681, 2003- 516, Holmes 2002-384, 2003- 333, Jefferson 2002-564, 2003-610, Mahoning 2002-118, 2003-169, Muskingum 2002-891, 2003-655, Portage 2002-136, 2003-127,

Stark 2002-108, 2003-151,

Summit 2002-15, 2003-15,

Trumbull 2002-597, 2003-572