With
a statewide harvest in excess of five percent over that encountered
2017, Ohio’s spring wild turkey hunters enjoyed the third best-ever
gobbler kill on record.
For
the just-concluded spring season Ohio’s hunters shot 22,571 bearded
birds, a jump of 1,529 birds taken during the 2017 spring season. The
highest ever spring turkey kill in Ohio occurred in 2001 when 26,156
bearded wild turkeys – almost exclusively males, or gobbler/toms -
were killed. The second highest kill on record was the 23,421 birds
shot during the 2010 spring season.
However,
as giddy as Ohio’s spring turkey hunters may be, the cold, hard
reality is that even the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s biologists
acknowledge that this past spring’s turkey harvest was an anomaly;
a factor brought about by an enormous emergence in 2017 of
protein-rich cicadas in much of southern-southeast Ohio. That metric
saw tremendous turkey poult abundance and survival as the young
feasted on the insects, a localized condition that happens only once
every 17 years.
More
than likely, Wildlife Division biologists are saying, beginning in
2019 Ohio’s spring wild turkey hunters should see the harvest
gyroscope tilt back to a more stable level – a kind of harvest
plateau as experienced during the 2016 spring season when 17,793
birds were shot.
“Yes,
we’re more likely to see after three years a more more normal and
typical harvest of around 18,000 birds,” said Mark Wiley, the
Wildlife Division’s lead game biologist on the state’s wild
turkey management program.
Of
course, trying to guess next spring’s turkey harvest is every bit
the black art along with it being an exacting science. Many variables
enter the picture from the impact of cold or wet weather (or both),
to actual production of young turkeys, called poults, says Wiley.
Ideally,
the hoped for projections is for a hen-to-poult ratio in excess of
one to 2.5 birds. Less than two poults per hen is “low” and thus
undesirable, a matrix seen in 2016 in northwest and northeast Ohio
and which became manifested in this spring’s harvest, says Wiley.
Not
lost is whether a hen turkey can pull of a hatch or if a flood or
heavy rain storm washes out a nest full of eggs. Some hens to renest
but generally such factors favor an early-in-the-clutch-laying
process, Wiley says.
And
for April the Ohio Division of Geological Survey states that for all
but extreme northwest Ohio the precipitation was above to well above
the monthly average. As much as 8.15 inches of rain fell in Coshocton
County.
May’s
precipitation figures won’t be known until late June. However, the
National Weather Service reports that rainfall as measured at
Cleveland by May 30th was more than 2 inches above average
for the month, rainfall at Columbus was only slightly above the
month’s average, while Cincinnati saw rainfall that was 1.21 inches
below the month’s long-term average and Dayton’s rainfall was
nearly 1 ½ inches below the month’s long-term average.
Other
potential issues that can impinge turkey production and survival
include either an abundance or a lack of acorns (called mast), a
condition of greater importance in southern and southeast Ohio. The
reason being is because turkeys in this region are more dependent on
forest-produced mast than are their relations in more agriculturally
driven counties, Wiley says.
In
terms of whether any spring 2018 harvest surprises leaped out at
Wiley when he saw the final figures the biologist says he still needs
more time to study and crunch the numbers. At first blush, though,
Wiley says he was expecting better results in several of the state’s
western counties, though – again – more detailed study is needed
before arriving at any biologically or sociologically driven
conclusions, says Wiley.
Perhaps
most importantly of all when wild turkeys first began occupying via
migration and human-induced the state’s transplanting woodlots,
forests, farm shelter belts and the like they were pioneers in a
strange and alien land that had not seen their kind in manifold
generations, Wiley says.
“Certainly
when a species’ population over-achieves the carrying capacity to
support it we often see a leveling off of that population,” Wiley
says.
Then
too when turkeys were introducing themselves or else being introduced
they likewise represented what Wiley said were something of a
“novelty prey” to predatory species. Yet once these predators
honed their turkey-hunting techniques and passed these skills on to
their predatory offspring, a resulting bird population impact almost
assuredly was experienced, Wiley said.
Nor
can hunters forget that their very own refined and mastered
competence is a factor in how many birds are heard, called to and
seen, says Wiley.
“For
mature gobblers, 30 to 40 percent are taken annually by hunters –
that’s the highest percentage of any mortality means for adult
toms,” Wiley says.
An
eccentricity that really isn’t such a biological peculiarity, says
Wiley, is some hunters’ observations that they are seeing and
working fewer gobblers each year. Hunting times are just not the same
many spring turkey hunters experienced in the 1990s and the early
years of the 21st Century for some very well understood
reasons, Wiley says.
Perhaps
in the end therefore and when the 2019 and 2020 spring seasons roll
around and hunters puzzle over why they’re just not working the
number of birds they had back in 2018, their misty memory will kick
into overdrive, says Wiley.
“A
lot of things have changed since the 1990s,nand I think part of that
is because we all tend to remember the best of times,” Wiley said.
Here
are Ohio’s county-by-county harvest totals for the spring 2018
spring wild turkey-hunting season, followed by their respective 2017
spring season numbers in parentheses. Also, importantly, “Ohio
Outdoor News” has included the 2016 spring season numbers – also
in parentheses – as it is generally thought the respective numbers
will most likely reflect what will occur during the 2019 spring
season. The figures are: Adams: 398, (503), (432); Allen: 71, (91),
(89); Ashland: 294, (275), (202); Ashtabula: 573, (645), (569);
Athens: 573, (410), (363); Auglaize: 42, (60), (50); Belmont: 738,
(532), (491); Brown: 383, (425), (347); Butler: 207, (189), (166);
Carroll: 509, (448), (322); Champaign: 89, (also 89), (95); Clark:
21, (18), (15); Clermont: 347, (418), (396); Clinton: 6,3 (45), (40);
Columbiana: 350, (332), (361); Coshocton: 803, (649), (418);
Crawford: 62, (75), (74); Cuyahoga: 11, (10), (12); Darke: 49, (45),
(40); Defiance: 223, (291), (324); Delaware: 105, (102), (111);
Erie: 48, (57), (55); Fairfield: 128, (130), (102); Fayette: 14,
(15), (26); Franklin: 20, (23), (21); Fulton: 109, (140), (120);
Gallia: 455, (472), (418); Geauga: 260, (247), (264); Greene: 16,
(24), (16); Guernsey: 803, (564), (428); Hamilton: 93, (107), (117);
Hancock: 38, (52), (53); Hardin: 86, (87) (87); Harrison: 697, (550),
(425); Henry: 68, (58), (72); Highland: 377, (457), (387); Hocking:
443, (379), (309); Holmes: 398, (376), (217); Huron: 162, (170),
(113); Jackson: 492, (448), (347); Jefferson: 497, (403), (410);
Knox: 459, (436), (285); Lake: 65, (87), (54); Lawrence: 256, (293),
(274); Licking: 456, (419), (281); Logan: 118, (137), (141); Lorain:
145, (165), (141); Lucas: 75, (67), (60); Madison: 13, (6), (also
13); Mahoning: 218, (231), (228); Marion: 31, (37), (35); Medina:
169, (172), (138); Meigs: 673, (535), (419); Mercer: 19, (20), (21);
Miami: 14, (24), (20); Monroe: 808, (593), (508); Montgomery: 21,
(19), (18); Morgan: 546, (426), (308); Morrow: 160, (181), (174);
Muskingum: 793, (612), (462); Noble: 585, (482), (349); Ottawa: Zero,
(1), (3); Paulding: 71, (113), (126); Perry: 440, (390), (260);
Pickaway: 25, (19), (26); Pike: 261, (300), (278); Portage: 274,
(289), (205); Preble: 112, (93), (114); Putnam: 57, (66), (87);
Richland: 336, (347), (280); Ross: 364, (391), (350); Sandusky: 18,
(21), (25); Scioto: 289, (299), (270); Seneca: 151, (179), (141);
Shelby: 38, (46), (50); Stark: 326, (338), (281); Summit: 76, (57),
(65); Trumbull: 374, (408), (464); Tuscarawas: 810, (676), (429);
Union: 49, (59), (48); Van Wert: 23, (22), (27); Vinton: 467, (361),
(306); Warren: 115, (95), (101); Washington: 695, (544), (466);
Wayne: 123, (145), (106); Williams: 232, (283), (313); Wood: 19,
(24), (36); Wyandot: 87, (108), (103). Total: 22,571, (21,042),
(17,793).
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
No comments:
Post a Comment