Spring isn’t just for wildflowers and pollen—it’s also a time to listen to wild turkeys gobble up Georgia and much of the Southeast.
That revealing laugh is also a sign that turkey hunting season is about to begin, though changes in Georgia state regulations will keep hunters on their toes for another week or two this year.
But the changes, wildlife experts say, will hopefully benefit both turkeys and hunters.
Georgia’s turkey hunting season opened on private lands across the state on April 2 and hunting on public lands opens on April 9. This is a week or two later than previous seasons to give the females more time to breed with the males and then lay their eggs. A delay of just a couple of weeks could have a positive effect on turkey populations, which have declined in recent decades.
However, on the other hand, there are the hunters who hear the cats gobble and are itching to get out into the woods. The new regulations aim to strike a balance between listening to turkeys gobble and allowing more time for the birds to breed, which will hopefully help stabilize the population. “Agencies want to open seasons so hunters like me can go and enjoy gobbling, but that results in birds often being harvested early in the breeding season, which researchers have known for decades that can be problematic if harvest rates (percentage of males harvested) are high,” said Mike Chamberlain, Terrell Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management at the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.
Chamberlain’s research on wild turkeys has allowed state wildlife officials to identify when female turkeys start nesting and then compare it to gobbling trends. This moment is key: hunters usually want to go out into the woods when they can hear gobbling. But if hunting season starts too early, it could disrupt breeding.
“What we have been able to show, frankly, what we have known for decades, is that swallowing begins long before reproduction. Agencies have changed stations to schedule when gobbling increases, but not when nesting increases. So that resulted in seasons opening earlier than they should, biologically,” Chamberlain said. “And that didn’t matter 20 years ago, when turkey populations were skyrocketing. But now that they are declining, agencies are looking at what they can do to have some effect on the population. And the harvest is the only thing that the agencies can control at the state level.”
Turkeys gobble to help find a mate, as well as to assert dominance among other male turkeys. Turkeys have distinct social hierarchies, Chamberlain said, and gobbling is a key component of maintaining the status quo.
Their research, which is ongoing throughout the Southeast, tracks the movements of female turkeys during the breeding season using small backpack-like devices equipped with accelerometers and GPS devices. His research team also installs song meters, which are small boxes that record sounds made in the area to capture when turkeys gobble.
After just a few days of collecting data, the research team has thousands of hours of audio along with thousands of data points showing the turkeys’ movements. Using special computer software, they can analyze the sounds of just turkey calls, then overlay that information with maps showing females returning to the same spot over and over again, an indication that she has laid her nest.
Additional research also shows that once hunting activity begins, engulfment decreases. This also has the potential to affect breeding activity, although the magnitude remains unclear. The decreases in gobbling activity observed as hunting activities begin further inform agencies trying to ensure hunter satisfaction, driven by hearing gobbling, while maintaining sustainable turkey populations.
More recently, Chamberlain’s team is investigating gobbling activity at different latitudes, mapping large-scale data.
Emily Rushton, a turkey biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife Resources, said the spring turkey season typically focused on when the males gobbled while taking into account the maximum reproductive activity. The data now available from Chamberlain’s lab allowed the state agency to better pinpoint key parts of the turkey-raising season. “In particular, (Chamberlain’s) research prompted a deeper look at the factors influencing engulfment on our public lands and how pressure on these areas might be affecting breeding activities,” she said.
There may still be a number of other factors affecting the decline in wild turkey populations: habitat loss, landscape fragmentation and poor management practices being the main ones, Chamberlain said. But being more aware of when birds breed is one way to help the population while also ensuring better hunting trips in the future. “Agencies are trying to control the only thing they can control at the scale that they manage birds,” Chamberlain added. “That’s the timing and rate of harvest.”