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Wild turkey harvest in
S.C. increases slightly this spring
Over 40,000
turkey hunters take to the woods annually in
South Carolina
with hopes of harvesting a wily gobbler, and
the 2011 spring turkey season was no
exception.
With an estimated harvest of 17,085
birds, the spring turkey harvest was up
about one percent from 2010, the second
increase in as many years. Although the
harvest was up in 2011, it was still 33
percent below the record harvest established
in 2002, according to Charles Ruth, DNR Deer
and Wild Turkey Project supervisor. This
year's increase in harvest is likely due to
much better reproduction that occurred last
year.
South Carolina's spring wild turkey
season opens April 1 and closes May 1 in
most areas of the state and on all public
lands with turkey hunting. The season opens
March 15 on private lands in 12 Lowcountry
counties in the state. Annually, spring
turkey hunters contribute more than $30
million in direct expenditures to South
Carolina's economy. Results of the 2011
spring turkey season can be found on the DNR
website at the following address:
www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/turkey/2011TurkeyHarvest.html
Each summer
during July and August, DNR wildlife
biologists, technicians, conservation
officers, and private cooperators
participate in an annual turkey observation
survey. Reproduction in wild turkeys has
been poor seven of the last nine years and
the spring harvest following each year of
low recruitment has been down.
On the other hand, reproduction in
2010 was up substantially compared to
previous years resulting in more birds
available for harvest in 2011. As expected
however, the increase in harvest in 2011 was
related to the harvest of juvenile birds or
jakes rather than mature gobblers. In fact,
the harvest of jakes as a percent of the
total harvest in 2011 was the highest since
2005. The harvest of adult gobblers was
actually down in 2011, said Ruth, however,
based on the increase in jakes this year it
is anticipated that there will be more adult
birds available in 2012. This association
between subtle changes in reproduction and
its effects on harvest are rather remarkable
in South Carolina's turkey harvest and reproductive
data set. Information on the 2010 Summer
Turkey Survey can be found on the DNR
website at the following address:
www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/turkey/2010BroodSurvey.html
Top counties for
total turkey harvest were
Fairfield, Williamsburg, Newberry,
Orangeburg, and Berkeley. However, because
counties vary in size, a better method of
comparing harvests between counties is the
harvest per unit area, for example turkeys
harvested per square mile. Using this method
top counties were
Fairfield,
Cherokee, Newberry, Union, and Pickens.
With the elimination of the check-in
requirement for turkeys, hunters may wonder
how turkey harvest figures are derived now.
According to Ruth, "We are now using a
Turkey Hunter Survey to estimate the harvest
and the survey provides a more accurate
estimate of the actual total harvest of
birds in the state. Check stations worked
well in the early years of turkey hunting
but they only provided a minimum count of
harvested birds. The decision to eliminate
the check-in requirement was made due to
shortcomings of the system including
deterioration of compliance with the
check-in requirement, complaints from
hunters regarding the inconvenience of check
stations, and costs associated with the
check station system."
Prior to eliminating the check-in
requirement, DNR conducted surveys in order
to document the rate of noncompliance, as
well as, to determine the relationship
between harvest figures obtained from check
stations and those obtained from surveys. As
would be expected, harvest figures obtained
from surveys are higher than those from
check stations due to lack of compliance
with the check-in requirement."
Other statistics from this year's
survey indicate that there were
approximately 40,454 turkey hunters with the
average hunter spending about 6 days in the
field. Total effort expended by all hunters
was approximately 190,000 days in 2011. The
success rate was about 26 percent in
harvesting at least one gobbler and the week
of the season during which the most turkeys
were harvested was the first week in April.
For more information on wild turkeys
in South Carolina visit the DNR website at
the following address:
www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/turkey/index.html
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