North Carolina Had Good Spring Wild Turkey Hatch
This Spring's wild turkey hatch will surely have North Carolina hunters' interest piqued. This story may be printed for FREE in any publication. The tagline must be printed along with the story.
(PRWEB) December 2, 2004 -- Mike Seamster can breathe a sigh of relief - for
a little while, at least. Seamster, the N.C. Wildlife Commission's upland
game-bird biologist, recently released the results of the 2004 wild turkey
summer brood survey report, and there was good news - especially after the
general failure of the 2003 hatch.
“The news is good, really good,” he
said. “I guess I'd anticipated it being a little better than what it really was,
but it was a good hatch. We needed it after last year.“ Seamster said
approximately 1,200 participants reported their observations of summer turkey
movements, and more than 5,000 turkeys were seen, with hens averaging around
three poults each.
“Anytime you can get above 2 1/2 and close to three
poults per hen, that’s a good hatch,” Seamster said. “If we can get two like
that in a row, that puts in pretty good shape.” The survey indicated nearly 70
percent of all hens observed had poults, with an average of around four poults
per hen. But the 30 percent of hens that didn’t have poults - many of them
juvenile hens - lowered the overall per-hen total of 2.8 for the state. The best
hatch was in the Piedmont, with 3.0 poults per hen, compared to 2.8 in the
coastal region and 2.7 in the mountains.
“It was absolutely important for
us to have a good year this year because of the bad hatch last year,” Seamster
said. “We’ll have fewer 2-year-old birds in the woods next spring - not as many
as normal - but the thing that would tend to make up for that is having a good
crop of jakes coming along. That may take up the slack. “If you have two or
three poor hatches in a row, that’s when you really see a real decline in the
harvest. South Carolina had that happen a few years ago.”
Seamster said
having 70 percent of all hens observed raising poults was an excellent
percentage. “Last year, it was in the 50s, and a lot of years we’re between 60
and 65 percent,” he said. “Above that, that’s real good because a lot of
juvenile hens will not have poults. They’re not experienced nesters, and they
aren’t as good at taking care of their poults. Most studies show that adult hens
are much more successful at nesting and raising poults than
juveniles.”
Observations in the three areas of the state were similar,
although a higher percentage of hens had poults in the coastal plane (76), but
those same hens had a lower percentage of poults (3.7 per brood). Sixty-nine
percent of hens in the Piedmont had poults, an average of 4.3 per brood.
Sixty-eight percent of mountain hens had poults, an average of four per
birds.
Contributors observed a total of 5,552 poults, 1,938 hens and
another 904 gobblers
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/12/prweb184350.htm