This year's spring turkey season harvest was for the birds

This blog is running late, the result of a recent familiarization travel trip to northwest Nebraska to which I accepted on behalf of the newspaper (The News-Herald, Lake County, Ohio) associated with this electronic column.

Some turkey hunters and state wildlife officials are blaming the poor weather that dogged Ohio’s four-week-long spring wild turkey-hunting season for the precipitous decline in the birds’ harvest.

Other hunters – and maybe even an Ohio Division of Wildlife official or two if you twist their arms tight enough to say “uncle” – believe the drop is the new reality; that the days when gobblers seemingly gobbled from every roost tree and birds were seen at mid-day in every plowed field are now history.

Count me as being a waffler. Yes, I believe that the poor weather during the season played significant role in the sharp decline in the harvest. This was especially true in Northeast Ohio where during the first week in late April a few flakes of snow fluttered about.

That being said, I am even more convinced that turkey numbers have slipped across the species’ range in Ohio.

Ohio has experienced these phenomena before with other wildlife species. So have other states.

In simple terms, turkey numbers soared when the Wildlife Division began an intensive program of capturing brood stock in one part of the state and transplanting them in other locations where wild turkeys were either absent or in very short supply.

It did not take long for turkeys to adapt, filling in the habitat blanks that biologists figured the species would find accommodating. And surprising just about everyone by establishing strong leg holds in counties no one ever expected to see a viable population.

This was – and to a degree still is particularly true in Ohio’s highly urbanized counties. Today, gobblers are routinely legally harvested in places like Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Franklin County (Columbus) as well as other densely populated counties.

Over time nature rose to the occasion by adjusting the population to properly match available habitat and food sources. That, at least, is the argument that proponents of a smaller and more stable wild turkey flock promote.

Count me in that group, too though again I also believe weather played a factor in this year’s depressed turkey harvest figures.

In terms of numbers, this year’s preliminary statewide spring season wild turkey harvest was 16,556 birds. That is a marked decline from the 2013 spring season harvest of 18,391 turkeys. 

And an even greater drop from the 20,000 birds some Ohio Division of Wildlife biologists suggested would be harvested prior to the beginning of this year’s spring wild turkey-hunting season.

As for individual county success, here is a breakdown with their respective 2013 figures in parentheses:

Adams: 381 (418); Allen: 48 (43); Ashland: 223 (236); Ashtabula: 615 (766); Athens: 342 (331); Auglaize: 42 (31); Belmont: 444 (471); Brown: 340 (348); Butler: 155 (197); Carroll: 365 (373); Champaign: 91 (96); Clark: 13 (19); Clermont: 288 (339); Clinton: 62 (58); Columbiana: 395 (425); Coshocton: 484 (530); Crawford: 72 (93); Cuyahoga: 2 (5); Darke: 36 (44); Defiance: 208 (205); Delaware: 116 (104); Erie: 51 (62); Fairfield: 66 (92); Fayette: 10 (11); Franklin: 17 (24); Fulton: 99 (102); Gallia: 328 (360); Geauga: 264 (296); Greene: 17 (23); Guernsey: 466 (541); Hamilton: 86 (111); Hancock: 29 (34); Hardin: 76 (82); Harrison: 392 (479); Henry: 31 (51); Highland: 312 (332); Hocking: 267 (315); Holmes: 269 (266); Huron: 142 (186); Jackson: 277 (311); Jefferson: 347 (426); Knox: 415 (469); Lake: 74 (67); Lawrence: 163 (170); Licking: 337 (363); Logan: 146 (145); Lorain: 138 (149); Lucas: 50 (61); Madison: 5 (5); Mahoning: 247 (236); Marion: 28 (41); Medina: 122 (107); Meigs: 397 (398); Mercer: 19 (16); Miami: 16 (23); Monroe: 424 (486); Montgomery: 13 (14); Morgan: 277 (343); Morrow: 182 (208); Muskingum: 453 (530); Noble: 292 (320); Ottawa: 6 (5); Paulding: 87 (91); Perry: 255 (277); Pickaway: 23 (26); Pike: 257 (264); Portage: 247 (259); Preble: 95 (87); Putnam: 71 (61); Richland: 307 (375); Ross: 289 (328); Sandusky: 21 (25); Scioto: 199 (229); Seneca: 140 (154); Shelby: 54 (64); Stark: 261 (266); Summit: 40 (48); Trumbull: 417 (478); Tuscarawas: 493 (527); Union: 32 (36); Van Wert: 17 (17); Vinton: 242 (324); Warren: 89 (111); Washington: 394 (439); Wayne: 107 (116); Williams: 239 (253); Wood: 28 (30); Wyandot: 80 (114).
Totals: 16,556 (18,391)

Jeff Frischkorn retired as staff reporter for The News-Herald in March, 2013. He continues to maintain this outdoors blog as a service to the newspaper's readers. Frischkorn is also a columnist and feature correspondent for the Ohio Outdoor News, which is published every other week.

 - Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net