If you are a turkey hunter, you are no stranger to all the scuttlebutt in the turkey world right now. All over the Southeast, and I dare say among those folks who hear us up there in Pennsylvania as well, hunters have been discussing and bemoaning the shortage of turkeys.
We are just not seeing or hearing the amount of turkeys in most areas that we did 10 years ago. In hunting camps, barber shops, gun stores and, of course, the local Wally World, the question is the same: Why?
Please know that I am not the expert here. I am not a wildlife biologist and I don’t play one on TV. I do, however, occasionally talk to these people, and I do value their opinions on such things.
From different areas around the Southeast, I don’t think there is much disagreement that the turkey numbers are in decline. Sadly, to me at least, the thoughts of our trained wildlife personnel and our hunters out there do not always agree with each other on the why part. That may be another sermon for another day, but we can look at what some of what recent studies are saying around the region.
In short, and we cannot in the time and space allowed cover all the variables in this equation, the chief factors in our decline in turkey numbers may come down to a few key areas. Let’s take a closer look at each of those.