What Hunting Pressure Does to Turkeys

EDITOR'S NOTE: For more than 43 years, Dr. Dan Speake has researched wildlife. He has studied turkeys for almost four decades, beginning his love affair with the wild turkey in 1966. Retired as the leader of the Cooperative Research Unit at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, he now teaches at Auburn University. A very knowledgeable researcher and turkey hunter, Speake tells us about some of his findings that have increased everyone's knowledge of wild turkeys and helped to expand the population of the wild turkey.

Our research project also discovered that hunting had very little adverse effect on turkey populations, perhaps due to the fact that turkeys learned how to dodge hunters very effectively. In one interesting study, we attempted to determine where the turkeys on a state wildlife-management area went on opening day of deer season when hundreds of sportsmen invaded the turkeys' habitat. Even though the turkeys weren't being hunted, they were harassed.

We learned that when extreme deer-hunting pressure was applied to an area, rather than leave their home range, the turkeys' number-one defense mechanism was to fly up in the trees, stay there for two or three days and be silent. These turkeys were on the hunted land but were rarely seen by deer hunters.

Although our study hasn't had a chance to measure this phenomenon as it relates to spring turkey hunting, I think we can assume that when hunting pressure builds up on a certain section of land, the turkeys will stay in the trees, waiting for the hunting pressure to subside, rather than leave their home range. Also when turkeys are harassed by coyotes or dogs, they'll fly into the trees and be silent in them for a day or two. This characteristic may explain why an area will have plenty of turkeys, and then the birds will seem to vanish after one or two days of hunting.

To learn more about hunting turkeys, go back to Night Hawk's home page, and click on books. You'll find information there on three turkey-hunting books written by John E. Phillips that contain interviews with some of the nation's top turkey hunters. Then call (800) 627-4295 to receive a brochure or to order a book.

TOMORROW: How Fast Turkey Populations Grow