Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 17, 1994 TAG: 9410200036
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Turkeys appear to be everywhere, thanks to favorable nesting conditions in the spring.
But are they going to be easy prey when the turkey season opens?
Gary Norman doesn't believe so. He is the upland game bird research biologist for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Along with the abundance of turkeys, Mother Nature has spread a banquet table of food in the form of hard and soft mast. That is going to have the big birds scattered, Norman said. They can fill their crop most anywhere they stand, which means hunters will have more difficulty patterning their movements.
It is the kind of season that will favor the hunter willing to park his pickup and spend time in the woods.
"I think that for avid turkey hunters who really want to get out there and find turkeys, the season offers a good opportunity for them to do that," Norman said.
He predicts that the kill will hit about 10,000 to 12,000 birds, which is close to the 11,194 killed last year and the 11,460 the previous season.
"I don't expect, though, that the harvest will set a record, mainly because of the good mast crop," Norman said.
The fall record was set in 1990, when the kill hit 16,861, which is not a figure game officials look back on with pride.
"That was a real troublesome year," Norman said. "I think we probably overshot turkeys. It was a year when we didn't have a particularly good mast crop and at the same time we had a poor hatch."
In search of food, turkeys moved into farm fields where they proved to be vulnerable to hunters and predators.
This fall, with its good hatch and abundant mast, conditions are nearly opposite those in 1990.
"I would expect the harvest would be a lot more if we had a mast failure," Norman said.
With nature favoring the birds, Virginia's turkey population should continue to ease upward.
"I think by and large we have been moving steadily at an average of a 7 percent increase in the turkey population as a whole," Norman said. "Some regions are doing better than others."
The champion-growth county is Buchanan, where the turkey population is enjoying a 60 percent annual increase, Norman said. Buchanan does not have a fall season.
The top fall counties last year, in order, were Bedford, Botetourt, Franklin, Pittsylvania, Halifax, Giles, Grayson, Floyd, Bath and Shenandoah. This means a turkey hunter living in the Roanoke Valley can find good sport in nearly any direction he heads.
Looking back to the nestings season, Norman believes turkeys came through the winter in good condition and were favored by dry weather during the spring nesting period.
Wildlife biologists have long believed that the weather plays an important role when young chicks are hatching. A cold, rainy period can lead to mortality when a hen has difficulty keeping her young warm and dry.
More recent research shows that weather also is a factor in hatching success during the period a hen is incubating eggs.
"If the hens are rain-soaked and drenched they emit a lot more smells and predators may be more successful in keying in on hens," Norman said. "The eggs are safe, but there is the threat of increased predation."
If a cold winter precedes a dry spring, nesting success is enhanced even more, Norman said. Biologists aren't certain what a cold winter has to do with the reproduction process.
On the average, only about one-third of the hens are successful at raising a clutch that survives into the fall, Norman said. He believes survival is on the high side this year.
Both white oak and red oak mast is plentiful this fall, and so is soft mast, such as grapes and berries.
"I have talked to people across the state and it appears to be fairly uniform east and west, with the exception of the northeast where the gypsy moth is," Norman said. The gypsy moth can destroy the ability of oak trees to produce acorns.
When the mast crop is poor, turkeys have to spend more time feeding, and they are likely to be found in open and agricultural areas, Norman said. That means they make more noise, leave more signs and are active for longer periods, conditions that favor them being spotted more readily. Such factors favor hunters.
"When there is mast available to them, they prefer to be under a canopy of trees, feeding there," Norman said. "Hunters and predators are more likely to be around the openings."
The turkey season is open Nov. 7-Jan. 7 in the southwest section of the state. In the central mountains and Piedmont, the season has the same dates, but is closed the first week of the firearms deer season, which begins Nov.21.
by CNB