It is summer and that means it's time for the Nebraska Games and Parks annual turkey brood survey that is open to public participation. Officials know that the public sees turkeys frequently during the summer and those observations are important to the turkey management.
Why count turkeys?
Turkey brood surveys provide useful estimates about annual production by wild turkey hens and the survival of poults, or young turkeys, through the summer brood-rearing period. Nest success and summer brood survival is generally the primary factor influencing wild turkey population trends. Information on summer brood information is essential for sound turkey management. Information gathered through the brood survey includes:
- Average brood sizes (poults per documented brood).
- Percentage of adult hens with poults.
- Percentage of males in the adult portion of the population.
- Annual Production Index (PI) = total number of poults/total number of adult hens.
These indices are looked at on an annual basis and can be compared. Wild turkey production is an important driver of wild turkey populations, these survey results and comparisons between years help managers to understand if and why populations are succeeding or not.
Survey instructions:
- Bookmark the link in your phone for easy access during the survey period.
- Record ALL wild turkeys (hens with and without broods, poults and toms) seen in only JULY and AUGUST.
- Enter your email address.
- Enter the county where birds were observed.
- Record all wild turkeys seen that you are able to identify by age (juvenile or adult) and sex. Classifications include hens; poults (juveniles); males, (jakes and gobblers); and unknown turkeys, or those you could not identify by the other classifications. Please attempt to identify birds as unclassified turkey groups provide little to no information for the purpose of this research. For information on identifying hens and poults, please see Indiana DNR's Introduction to Documenting Turkey Broods.
- Record hens with and without broods, as both are equally important.
- Record each observation in a single entry, and do not combine multiple sightings together. For example, don't group separate observations of 1 hen with 3 poults and 2 hens with 4 poults into one observation of 3 hens and 7 poults.
- Check the "Seen Before" box if you believe you have recorded the group of turkey(s) before.
If you would prefer to use a hard copy to record and submit observations, please print the following data form. To be included in the dataset, data forms must be returned by Sept. 9 following the survey period.
For survey forms and more information, go to https://bit.ly/3pfSOSm.
Categories: Nebraska, Rural Lifestyle