POULT SURVIVAL RATES
seem way up this summer
I
t was Sept. 1 when I was taking my daughters to daycare before work, and I noticed a huge flock of wild turkeys just off the road a few hundred yards up. The birds had a whole sea of vegetation to disappear into, but they hung tight in the road ditch long enough for me to get my camera and snap a bunch of photos. This group was a mixed bag of toms, hens and poults that look old enough now to do a good job avoiding predators. Two hours later, I was again behind the wheel of my truck a few miles down a different road from my house when I spotted another big group of birds. This one was a flock of about 20 that has frequented this same general area all summer.
In late July, there was a trip back to our hunting land in southern Minnesota, and I saw the same thing -- hens bunched up together to help avoid predators with poults jumping up all around me as I walked along a standing corn field with the river and tree cover to my left. It’s not an exact science, but I have seen more young turkeys this summer than I remember seeing in the last five, six summers combined. I wanted to hear what someone from the Glenwood Area DNR has witnessed in their field work as it pertains to production of wild turkeys around this whole Douglas and Pope County area. “I’m going to have to speak on that from what I’m hearing from other people in the DNR.
This group of hens and poults was a part of a flock of about 20 birds that the author photographed a mile west of his house near Alexandria on Sept. 1. (Eric Morken / Echo Press)
Eric Morken
OUTDOORS EDITOR
I’ve been working a bunch out west with water control projects, and I haven’t seen the production from Kensington west over to Donnelly, Morris, Wheaton,” area wildlife assistant manager Jason Strege said. “But a coworker of mine, John Maile, he’s been working more east and south and he’s been seeing the production you’re seeing. When I have gone east into the more traditional turkey area, I have seen more poults. John has been seeing a lot of production.”
The western part of the Glenwood DNR’s work zone tends to have some more open terrain, so it’s not surprising that bird sightings would go down that direction with a lack of ideal habitat for turkeys. If indeed poult survival numbers are up in the more timbered regions of this area and across the state, that should bode well for hunting seasons in the near future. High turkey numbers are not something anyone should take for granted. Reaching adulthood for turkeys is incredibly difficult. Studies from across the country have shown time and again that survival rates for young birds are pretty dismal.
POULTS page 17
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