Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 2, 1995                   TAG: 9507040018
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DESPITE SPRING KILL, STATE SAYS NEW SEASON NO TURKEY

A few weeks before the announcement, the department had sold the idea of cutting back on fall turkey hunting because research had shown Virginia's turkey population was stable or growing modestly at best. Wildlife biologists said the density of the big bird in Virginia was falling behind that of other states, and the spring and fall seasons were being impacted.

Then came the record 11,694 spring kill, a 30.2 percent increase over the previous high set in 1994. All this before the new regulations designed to boost the turkey population had taken effect.

Gary Norman, the department's upland game birds research biologist, is undaunted by the turn of events. He says he sees no contradiction between a record spring kill and the need to trim weeks off the fall hunting season in an effort to boost turkey populations.

``I think that one year's increase of 30 percent looks phenomenal, but it is not uncommon for other states that have growing and expanding turkey populations to have a 30 percent increase annually in the spring harvest,'' he said.

You need look no further than West Virginia to find a state that has been outpacing Virginia as a producer of wild turkeys, Norman said.

``In 1989, we were killing more birds than West Virginia was in the spring season,'' he said. ``This spring, West Virginia hunters tagged almost 17,000 birds.''

It was the 18th consecutive record kill by West Virginia gobbler hunters. Six counties had kills that surpassed 500 birds. Preston, the top county, fell six birds short of 700. Virginia's top county, Franklin, had a reported kill of 295. Bedford placed second, with 275.

As for Virginia's 30 percent jump, ``We have had two good years of hatches back-to-back; we have had two good mast crops back-to-back,'' Norman said. ``Survival and recruitment has been above average for the past two years, and we generally had good hunting weather this spring. All of those combined to produce the record year.''

Next spring's season should be above average, too, thanks to the same strong hatches that impacted this spring's kill. But when you look at the past five springs seasons, the kill increase has been 6 to 7 percent, Norman said. He believes Virginia can do better.

``Missouri is a state that we point to that is killing 30,000 birds in the fall and 30,000 in the spring,'' Norman said. ``I don't see why Virginia can't be up there with it.''

So Norman has no second thoughts about the agency's recent shortening of the 1995 fall season by as much as four weeks in some areas. In May, he predicted the cutback would result in higher turkey densities. The result would be a 74 percent increase in the fall kill and 292 percent increase in the spring kill in 10 years.

The 30 percent increase in this spring's kill makes those figures more challenging, but Norman says he isn't shaken.

``I don't have any reason to suspect that we can't meet those objectives, otherwise we would have put some qualifiers in there,'' he said. ``Everything that we did was based on science.''

Much of the increase in the spring kill came from counties where the fall season already had been shortened, Norman said.

``I think that is bearing out that turkeys are increasing at a better rate where there are shorter seasons,'' he said. ``They have the higher densities. There are some exceptions.''

Norman is concerned about this year's nesting success. Cold, wet weather can be fatal to young chicks and make hens more vulnerable to predation, especially the first couple of weeks in June, he said.

``We had more rain than we would have liked,'' Norman said.