Statewide results tell partial story about overall Ohio turkey numbers, hunter enthusiasm

Turkey hunters need wild turkeys, and the Ohio Division of Wildlife needs both to help maintain a functional livelihood derived from the sale of licenses and permits.

As far as it goes, then, the end of the 2024 spring turkey season last Sunday suggests results could’ve been worse. They have been. Results could also be better. They have been.

While only the present actually matters, the turkey timeline stretches into a tangled past of cause, effect and numbers.

Hunters might not be as concerned with the statewide take as much as is each with his or her personal success, that being measured in the effort required to carry home one bearded bird in the spring. If one gets carried home.

Statewide results at season’s end additionally tell a partial story about overall turkey numbers and hunter enthusiasm.

Figuring totals from the April youth hunt, the South Zone season and the North Zone hunt, 15,535 turkeys officially were removed from the Ohio landscape during the season just passed.

That’s down a few from the 15,673 checked in 2023, but up considerably more than a few from the 2022 total of 11,872 birds and the 2021 count of 14,546.

All the counting invites comment from the field biologist who tracks these things for the wildlife division.

“The 2024 harvest fell in line with expectations,” turkey specialist Mark Wiley wrote in an email last week. “The poult indices from 2021 and 2022 were similar, which suggested 2-year-old gobbler numbers would be comparable in 2023 and 2024. The spring permit and harvest totals were similar across those years.”

Poults are spring-hatched turkeys whose numbers and survival form the basis of the future population. While chills and rain during the hatch is thought to cause high poult mortality, this year’s hatchlings enjoyed mostly favorable spring weather, Wylie said.

The take this year and last pushed past the 2021 spring total of 14,546, a 21-year low during a period of two-turkey spring limits and higher harvest averages. The limit was reduced to one in 2022.

One variable is the number of turkeys. Another is the number of turkey hunters.

Permit sales plunged from 61,135 in 2021 to 48,815 in 2022 when the one-bird spring limit was inaugurated. The number of sold permits rebounded to 50,174 in 2023 and to a slightly higher 51,530 this spring.

“The exact cause of the increase has not yet been determined, but it is possible we are seeing the return of spring hunters who may have taken a hiatus when turkey numbers dipped a few years ago,” Wiley noted.

What’s likely coming in 2025 rhymes with results in 2023 and this year rather than with either recent lows or past highs.

“The summer poult index was down slightly in 2023, so I expect spring harvest rates and totals to follow suit in 2025,” Wiley wrote. “I expect this will be a minor shift, with spring harvest rates falling only a percentage point or two.”

Probably unknowable is whether the annual spring turkey take has hit some new and more moderate normal at around 15,000 birds instead of the 20,000 or so averaged in the not-distant past.

A project involving Ohio State University that started last year is ongoing, although preliminary data from 2023 suggests hen survival is not an issue except for increased vulnerability during the period when they are incubating eggs.

When the dust settles,” Wylie said, “we may find that a focus on improved nesting habitat could improve rates of hen and nest survival.”

Ashtabula led Ohio counties with 470 turkeys checked.

outdoors@dispatch.com