Michael J. Chamberlain

Interest in hunting wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) continues to increase, and agencies are challenged with balancing hunter access and activity with management of sustainable turkey populations. Understanding turkey hunter behavior, particularly on public lands, would greatly assist agencies with achieving this balance. We used GPS to track the movements of wild turkey hunters during spring hunting seasons of 2012 and 2013. We used 151 hunter track logs on the 1440-ha southern tract of the Tunica Hills Wildlife Management Area (WMA) located in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, to...

Coyote (Canis latrans) depredation rates on white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) fawns are variable across the southeastern United States, perhaps due to varying dispersion of coyotes as related to social behavior and habitat preferences. To evaluate fawn predation risk related to coyote distribution, we studied home range patterns and habitat use of 15 female coyotes during the 2012-2013 fawning periods. Seasonal home range sizes varied but followed two general patterns. Small home range coyotes (SHR; likely breeding females) had a mean home range area of 7.4 km² (CL = 5....

Managing and restoring longleaf pine forests throughout the Southeast is a conservation priority. Prescribed fire is an integral part of these activities, as it is the primary means of controlling hardwood encroachment and maintaining native groundcover. Nest site and preflight brood ground- roost site selection of eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) has not been well studied in longleaf pine systems. Therefore, we determined habitat characteristics associated with wild turkey nests and ground-roosts in 2 longleaf pine forests in southwestern Georgia. We radio-tagged 45...

Land managers and researchers strive to understand factors influencing white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) populations and develop methods to improve habitat. Evaluating forage quality across variable habitat types and soil regions may assist land managers interested in improving habitat quality. We placed 570 plant sampling exclosures across nine primary habitat types in Louisiana and collected plant samples representing consumable forage from each exclosure during summer 2012. Each sample was dried and those with ≥ 10g of dry matter were analyzed for crude protein, total...

Harvest is an important mortality factor for male eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris). To effectively manage harvest and ensure quality hunting it is necessary to understand the relationship between annual survival and factors such as hunter access, season length, and bag limits. We banded 261 male wild turkeys from 2002 - 2009 and estimated survival and recovery parameters based on band recoveries from 2002 - 2012 on private lands in the pine-dominated landscape of north-central Louisiana. Hunting season length was 23 days from 2002 - 2006 and 30 days from 2007- 2012...

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are the most important game species in Louisiana and throughout the southeastern United States. Likewise, the forest products industry represents the most important agricultural commodity in Louisiana, and industrial landowners frequently lease their properties to sportsmen specifically for white-tailed deer hunting. We assessed survival, space use, and habitat selection of white-tailed deer on a 3885-ha industrial forest in Union Parish, Louisiana, 2009-2010. We radio-marked 47 (23M, 24F) mature deer and ear-tagged 13 (6M, 7F) fawns. Male...

Intensively managed loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) forests are common in the southeastern United States and critical to providing fiber for global wood supply needs. There are concerns regarding possible effects of stand establishment treatments on plant communities, particularly availability and quality of browse for white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). We quantified response of non-pine vegetation productivity at either narrow (4.3 m) or wide (6.1 m) row spacing combined with either piled or scattered woody debris following clearcut harvest in Louisiana. We examined total (kg/ha...

We investigated effects of growing-season prescribed fire on daily nest survival, nest success, and poult survival of eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) on two similar research sites in southwestern Georgia: the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center and Silver Lake Wildlife Management Area. We collected daily locations for radio-tagged females throughout the 2011-2012 nesting seasons. Females with nests or poults near or within an active growing-season fire were located hourly. We estimated poult survival using flush counts and incidental sightings until poults...

Space use and habitat selection of wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) has been well studied in various upland landscapes, but information within bottomland hardwood systems is lacking. Turkeys in bottomland systems face unique situations (e.g., flooding) and turkey behavior observed in upland systems may not directly apply to bottomland systems. Therefore, we evaluated seasonal (pre-incubation, incubation, brood rearing, and fall-winter) space use and multi-scale habitat selection of adult female wild turkeys in a bottomland hardwood forest in south-central Louisiana during 2002-2004 and...

Commercial pine (Pinus spp.) forests in the southeastern United States are critical to providing fiber for global wood supply needs. Intensive forest management techniques including row spacing and woody debris distribution can impact plant communities. Therefore, we quantified response of plant communities in replanted P. taeda stands to mechanical site preparation at two levels of row spacing (narrow and wide) and two methods of distributing woody debris (piling and scattering) following harvest in Louisiana. Sites were prepared with a combination of row spacing between planting beds (n...