Turkey futures rising thanks to favorable weather

Be it from better weather or better data, turkey futures are looking strong in Arkansas.

Jeremy Wood, the turkey program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, issued a cautiously optimistic outlook for the commission Thursday during its monthly meeting at the J.B. and Johnelle Hunt Family Ozark Highlands Nature Center at Springdale.

Wood, who faced seemingly insurmountable odds when he became the commission’s turkey biologist in August 2018, presented good news through the 2022 Turkey Population Survey.

The commission established the survey in 1982 to track turkey reproduction and gobbler carryover. The key indicator for reproductive success is the number of poults per hen. Typically, you need 1.8 to 2.0 poults per hen to maintain a stable turkey population. More than two poults per hen indicates a growing turkey population. In the early days of the survey, when Arkansas was a national turkey hunting destination, observers counted 3.5 to 6.0 poults per hen.

Recently reestablished, wild turkeys were in a steep and rapid growth curve at that time. High quality habitat was plentiful, and turkeys faced few limitations.

“The population was taking off in a void environment,” Wood said. “It got to a point where things leveled out, and they continued to decline in the 2000s.”

Since 2018, the poultsper-hen graph on the Turkey Population Survey has taken a steep, steady climb. Unfortunately, it had to climb out of an abyss of decline to a maintenance level, but progress is undeniable.

“We’ve seen an uptick which is great to see, but I expect to see that with dry weather,” Wood said.

With a couple of exceptions, weather has been bad for turkey reproduction for nearly 20 years. Weather during the spring nesting and brood rearing seasons was usually wet and cold. Many poults died before they were big enough and robust enough to survive.

For the last few years, weather in spring and early summer was warm and dry.

“This year we have the highest poult-per-hen index we’ve seen in a decade,” Wood said. “In all of our eco-regions, we’re setting ourselves up for good times to come.”

The positive effect of good weather at crucial periods is documentable, but so also is the availability of more reliable data. All of the indices in the turkey population report is based on eyewitness observations. In 2018, Wood was alarmed to find that half of all turkey observations came from very localized areas in seven counties.

“We extrapolated data for the rest of the state based on that estimate,” Wood said. “Now, thirteen or fourteen counties are accounting for half the data.”

Of course, that only means that the data set is only about 50% larger than before, but it demonstrates progress.

Wood said he is concerned that the number of observations per observer is declining.

“They might not be reporting all the other observations they see,” Wood said.

In the Ozarks, observers counted 169 gobblers, 172 hens with poults, 377 hens without poults, 886 poults and 172 broods. That translates to 1.64 poults per hen and .31 gobblers per hen.

In the Ouachita Mountains, observers counted 73 gobblers, 95 hens with poults, 196 hens without poults, 507 poults and 95 broods. That translates to 1.46 poults per hen and .25 gobblers per hen.

In the Gulf Coastal Plain, observers counted 58 gobblers, 100 hens with poults, 149 hens without poults, 503 poults and 100 broods. That translates to 2.19 poults per hen and .23 gobblers per hen.

In the Delta, observers counted 77 gobblers, 52 hens with poults, 90 hens without poults, 303 poults and 52 broods. That translates to 2.21 poults per hen and .54 gobblers per hen.

Brad Carner, the commission’s deputy director, was quick to note that starting a short turkey season in late April contributed significantly to boosting turkey reproduction. A late-starting season allows gobblers to breed a maximum number of hens before hunters reduce the gobbler population, Carner said.

I’m glad Carner said it so assertively. The members of the commission are retailers. When they get a whiff of more inventory in the pipeline, their instinct is to hold a sale and move more inventory.

It’s way too soon for that, and Carner made that point firmly but gently.