Abstract
Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo; hereafter turkeys) are an important game animal whose popularity among hunters has increased in recent decades. Yet, the number of hunters pursuing turkeys appears to be in flux, patterns of hunter abundance have primarily been described at broad spatial scales, and the ability of management to impact hunter numbers in the post-restoration era of management through opportunity for quality hunting is unclear. We used county-scale estimates of turkey hunter numbers collected over a 14-year period (2001–2014) and time-series analyses to evaluate the spatial scales at which spring and fall turkey hunter populations fluctuate, and also used generalized linear mixed models to evaluate whether attributes related to quality turkey hunting explain recent patterns in hunter abundance. We found heterogeneity in turkey hunter population growth at finer spatial scales than has been previously described (i.e., counties and management units), and provide evidence for spatial structuring of hunter population dynamics among counties that did not always correspond with existing management units. Specifically, the directionality of hunter population change displays spatial structure along an east-west gradient in southern Michigan. We also found little evidence that factors providing opportunity for quality turkey hunting had meaningful impacts on recent spatial-temporal patterns of hunter numbers. Our results imply that providing quality turkey hunting opportunities alone may be insufficient for sustaining populations of turkey hunters in the future, and that modern determinants of hunter participation extend beyond the availability of abundant turkey populations. Moreover, our results demonstrate that interpretation of harvest data as indices of abundance for turkey populations is difficult in the absence of hunter effort data, as changes to turkey harvest are a function of potentially fine-scaled changes in populations of hunters, not simply changes to turkey populations.
Highlights
Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo; hereafter turkeys) are a prolific game animal for which hunting popularity has increased in recent decades
We studied the spatial-temporal dynamics of spring and fall turkey hunters within the region approximating the ancestral range of turkeys in southern Michigan (Fig 1), which includes the majority of turkey hunting activity within the state [19]
Our MARSS analyses suggested the scale of dynamics for turkey hunter populations operated at a county and management unit within southern Michigan (Table 2, Fig 2)
Summary
Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo; hereafter turkeys) are a prolific game animal for which hunting popularity has increased in recent decades. Spring hunter participation decreased by 2% within the U.S from 2009 to 2014, with state-level changes in hunter numbers as extreme as 57% losses (NV) and 77% gains (MN) over the same period [10]. Average turkey hunter effort (hunter days/year) for both spring and fall seasons decreased across the Midwestern U.S in the post-restoration time period, yet spatial variation in effort patterns was prevalent, with some states (e.g., MO) showing increased effort for one or both seasons [11]. Fall turkey hunter participation increased by 10% within the U.S from 2008 to 2013, with state-level changes in hunter numbers as extreme as 67% losses (NJ) and 159% gains (NM) over the same period [10]. Some states have shown differing trends in hunter effort between spring and fall hunting seasons in recent years (e.g., declining spring but increasing fall effort in MI) [11]
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