Relatively strong harvest numbers from the first week of spring turkey season are encouraging, but Resource Scientist Jason Isabelle says that harvest figures from the entire three weeks of spring turkey hunting will provide a more reliable indicator about the status of Missouri’s wild turkey population.
As leader of the Missouri Department of Conservation’s turkey management program, Isabelle pays close attention to indicators of how the state’s wild-turkey population is doing. The size of the spring turkey harvest is one such indicator.
Hunters checked 22,348 turkeys during the first week of the spring season. That is a 4-percent increase from 2013 and is 7 percent above the previous five-year average. It also is the largest first-week harvest since 2007. Isabelle is pleased with the early uptick in turkey harvest, but he also is a bit cautious about drawing conclusions just yet.
Top turkey-harvest counties in the first week of the season were Franklin with 504 birds checked, Texas with 451 and Callaway with 394. The season continues through May 11.
Six of eight first-week regional harvest totals were up compared to last year. Those were Central 3,503 (up 6 percent), Kansas City 2,559 (up 4 percent), Northeast 2,725 (up 5 percent), Northwest 2,537 (up 12 percent), Ozark 2,990 (up 6 percent), and Southwest 3,774 (up 13 percent).
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