Managers of the Harvest

Many factors can impact turkey populations, including suitable habitat, weather events, disease, harvest and predation. Of these factors, state wildlife agencies have the most control over how and when turkeys are harvested. A goal of many state wildlife agencies in managing turkey harvest is to maximize hunter opportunities for harvest while ensuring wild turkey populations can sustain that level of harvest through time. This requires balancing hunter opportunities, population trends and harvest metrics. An understanding of the hunting culture and traditions within a state and advances in the understanding of factors impacting wild turkey populations is essential in managing wild turkey harvest.

In Texas, where most property in the wild turkey range is in private ownership, seasons and bag limits are the primary tools available to manage harvest. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department believes in providing ample hunting opportunities across most of the state where robust wild turkey populations occur. In these high-density ecoregions, such as the Rolling Plains, Cross Timbers, Edwards Plateau and South Texas Brush Country, TPWD provides both a fall and spring wild turkey season, which offers several months of hunting opportunities. This liberal hunting season allows for the take of four birds annually.

Harvest rates are relatively low across most of Texas. While there is potential for high harvest rates on ranches, harvest is generally low at the county or ecoregion level. In fact, close to 70% of successful hunters only harvest one bird annually — despite the opportunity to harvest four. Additionally, hunter success averages about 45%. Another important fact, most hunting occurs on opening weekend of the spring turkey season, followed by nearly five weeks of reduced hunting pressure. During the 2022-23 hunting season, 65,992 Texas hunters pursued wild turkeys; however, they harvested just 24,946 wild turkeys. With an estimated 451,000 wild turkeys during the 2022-23 hunting season, harvest across most of the Rio Grande wild turkey core range in Texas is likely not having a detrimental impact on local populations.

Despite hosting robust wild turkey population across most of Texas, some areas of the state only host scattered, and often fragmented, populations. Harvest management in these more marginal areas, generally along the eastern and western edges of the state, is more conservative. Harvest in these areas is limited to one male and a three- or four-week spring-only season. While most assume a lack of suitable habitat is the primary limiting factor for turkey populations in these areas of Texas, seasons and bag limits remain the primary tool for managing harvest at the county and ecoregion scale.

Reproductive behavior is a key driver for establishing season dates. In south Texas, for example, TPWD opens the spring season the Saturday closest to March 18. This date falls early in the average initiation of egg laying and certainly earlier than the initiation of incubation. The state can justify this early season opener based on our knowledge of harvest rates, which are around 13% across the Rio Grande wild turkey range, and our knowledge of Texas hunting culture. This allows a portion of the state to address hunter satisfaction by timing the season to coincide with peaks in gobbling behavior with the knowledge that not enough males will be removed from the population to negatively influence nesting behavior, nest success or recruitment of young birds. Central and north Texas open the Saturday closest to April 1. This delay accounts for the size of Texas and the fact that breeding behavior occurs slightly later in the spring as one moves north through Texas.

A long-held assumption of spring season start dates is that if most of the male harvest occurs after the median incubation date of nesting hens, then most breeding will have already occurred, and removal of males will not negatively impact the population during that year. Recent and ongoing research across the country is being conducted to test this assumption. In Texas, weather is a key determining factor in nesting rates and timing of incubation. Early green-up following a mild winter with ample rainfall often results in earlier breeding behavior. Texas, though, is always just entering or just leaving the most recent drought cycle. During dry years, breeding behavior will often be delayed until adequate moisture arrives to promote herbaceous growth. A long season allows hunters the opportunity to pursue wild turkeys whenever the bird is ready to engage in breeding activities.

TPWD has delayed the opening day of the spring turkey season in east Texas to coincide with the initiation of incubation. This allows the timing of the opening day to occur at the peak of incubation, which assures most hens have been bred prior to removing adult males from the population. Also, hens incubating eggs regularly spend most of the day on their nest, making them less available for accidental or illegal harvest. This is a conservative approach for highly fragmented and relatively low numbers of birds in the Pineywoods and post oak habitats of east Texas. Considering a 28-day incubation period, this approach also assures hunting activities are complete prior to most poults hatching.

Finally, hunters can contribute to our collective understanding and management of turkey harvest is to complete hunter harvest surveys. In some states there are voluntary post-season surveys, while in others a mandatory system (for example, tele-check) may be in place. The more responses and information gained from hunters — whether they were successful in harvesting a turkey or not — the more informed state wildlife agencies will be in making management decisions.

Turkey hunters care deeply for the birds they pursue and want to ensure a healthy, sustainable population for the future. Understanding harvest rates, hunter effort and breeding behavior can help both the hunter and the state wildlife agency managing those populations at the statewide scale.

• For the past quarter century, many season start dates have been timed to occur earlier in the breeding season to capture gobbling activity, increasing hunter satisfaction.
• Hunter satisfaction is primarily impacted by amount of access to hunting areas, hearing turkeys gobble, and opportunities to harvest or interact with turkeys. An emphasis has historically been placed on these factors where populations have been robust.
• Recent trends, coinciding with declining populations, have been to delay the opening date to ensure most breeding takes place prior to hunting seasons.
• Caution against comparing different state approaches to turkey harvest management decisions due to: hunting culture and traditions differ regionally, amount of habitat and habitat type varies, difference in subspecies, and population densities and trends differ state to state.

Note: Jason Hardin is Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Wild Turkey Program leader and 2021 NWTF Henry S. Mosby Award winner for his role in the restoration of the Eastern wild turkey in Texas. Kent Fricke, previously with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, is the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission wildlife research supervisor.