hunter survey

Understanding hunter satisfaction and behavior under normal and abnormal situations is important for effective management of game species by state wildlife agencies. SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) created a global pandemic that coincided with the 2020 spring wild turkey hunting season. Concern was expressed by some wild turkey researchers and biologists that COVID-19 lockdown protocols could result in increased hunting effort and unsustainable harvests because of people having more free time. We assessed how COVID-19 and associated lockdown protocols affected hunter satisfaction and behavior during...

Many states throughout the range of wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) have delayed their spring wild turkey hunting seasons to allow reproductively active males more time to breed before being harvested and to potentially increase population fecundity rates. Six states in the Southeast recently delayed their spring hunting season by 7 to 14 days. However, there are no published data indicating their previous season frameworks had a deleterious effect on wild turkey reproduction or that delaying the season increased fecundity. In addition to potentially affecting turkey...