Influence of Hunting Regulations on Virginia Wild Turkey Populations

Abstract

The 1975 fall population of wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) in 4 western Virginia counties was estimated. Kill records indicated that the fall, either-sex, hunting season removed a 4-county average of 14% of the adjusted fall population and 3.2% were taken in the following spring gobbler season: a total of 17.2%. Examination of the influence of the various legal restrictions on the fall hunting harvest in 2 game ranges representative of 2 major physiographic regions indicated that (1) restricting the fall season to bearded-only turkeys east of the Blue Ridge reduced the fall harvest by about two-thirds; (2) adjustments of the length of season and daily/season bag limits apparently were not correlated with the size of the fall harvest; (3) the productive population west of the Blue Ridge seemed capable of sustaining at least a 20% annual harvest; (4) the population east of the Blue Ridge continued to decline even under fall bearded-turkey restrictions; and (5) at least 5 years should be the minimum period used to assess the influence of identical hunting regulations. J. WILDL. MANAGE. 43(1):128-135 Hunting regulations and their manipulation have received more attention perhaps than any other single game management tool. However, we found little factual information in the literature on the impact of various legal hunting restrictions on game populations. Virginia data for 26 years (1951-76) offered an opportunity to examine case history information on the influence of several hunting regulations, individually and collectively, on the wild turkey. These records included compulsory kill reports required of all successful turkey hunters, a wide array of physiographic conditions and hunting regulations adapted to meet these ecological differences, periodic estimates of the wild turkey made for each county, and information that the status of the wild turkey in the several sections of Virginia has changed measurably. We wished to determine the following: (1) the percentage of the estimated fall population removed by (a) fall either-sex, (b) fall gobbler-only, (c) spring gobbler hunting, and (d) bearded (gobbler)-only fall and spring seasons; (2) the annual variations above and below long-term average turkey kills in sections of the state having the same hunting regulations for mor than 5 years, and (3) the long-range impact of hunting regulations on the numerical status of the wild turkey. Due to widely differing ecological conditions, Virginia hunting regulations recognized 2 major areas of the Commonwealth: (a) east of the Blue Ridge and (b) west of the Blue Ridge, or the mountainous western one-third of the state. For wildlife management purposes, Virginia is divided into 7 game ranges, 4 east of the Blue Ridge and 3 west of the Blue Ridge. Records for the period 1951-76 for 1 game range east of the Blue Ridge (East Piedmont Game Range) and 1 west of the Blue Ridge (Central Mountains) are presented as examples (Fig. 1). Similar records for the other game ranges have been presented elsewhere (Weaver 1977). Coggin and Peery (1975) published wild turkey data on a county basis for Virginia. Changes in the status of the wild turkey in the several sections of Virginia between 1930 and 1977 resulted in hunting regulation adjustments to deal with these shifts in status. In the 1930's, Virginia's primary wild turkey habitat and popula128 J. Wildl. Manage. 43(1):1979 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.158 on Wed, 16 Nov 2016 04:27:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms VIRGINIA WILD TURKEY POPULATIONS *Weaver and Mosby 129 tions occurred in the central Piedmont, with smaller and less productive populations in the northwestern mountains and a limited population in the Tidewater. Turkeys were extirpated from southwestern Virginia by the 1920's (Mosby and Handley 1943). In the late 1920's and early 1930's, populations in the mountainous northwest were not thriving as indicated by the fact that in 1940 the bag limit was 2 per day/2 per season in western Virginia as compared to 2 per day/4 per season east of the Blue Ridge. By 1950, the bag limit was 1 per day/1 per season west of the Blue Ridge and 1 per day/2 per season east of the Blue Ridge. In the ensuing 25 years, turkeys east of the Blue Ridge (Piedmont and Tidewater provinces) remained stable or declined whereas west of the Blue Ridge, populations increased dramatically. In the mid-1960's, the turkey was restored to huntable numbers in most of southwestern Virginia, from which they had been extirpated, under a highly successful trap-transplant program. These shifts in distribution and abundance within the several regions of the state resulted in a number of hunting regulation changes. We examined the influence of these regulatory changes to assess their impact on Virginia's wild turkey management pro-