March 15, 2019 at 4:26 p.m.
natural reaction
This winter is definitely not for the birds
natural reaction
By Jacob Friede-
Soon thousands of hunters across the state will take to the fields and woods in hopes of meeting a tom after fly down.
That is, if the birds decide to get out of bed.
People aren't the only ones tempted to stay in when they see three feet of snow on the ground.
According to Mark Witecha, an upland wildlife ecologist with the Wisconsin DNR, turkeys take the day off when conditions are miserable.
"The birds can stay in the roost for several days if conditions are real bad, and can lose 30 percent of their body weight and still survive," Witecha said.
And they're not likely to put much of that weight back on if they do get out of the trees into the deep snow.
Turkeys depend, almost exclusively, on food they can forage off the ground. When there is 36 inches of snow to get through, that search, and every movement associated with it, can be daunting.
"This typically results in turkeys grouping up into large flocks and congregating where food is abundant such as farm fields with standing crops, grasslands or shrubland with seed heads, nuts, and berries," Wisconsin DNR wildlife biologist Jaqi Christopher said.
Christopher also said turkeys stay on the lookout for the thin snow of south facing slopes.
The DNR uses a Winter Severity Index to gauge the winter. The index tallies a point for each day, from December through April, that is below zero and another point for each day when snow is 18 inches or deeper.
An index score of 50-79 is considered moderate. A score of 80 and above is considered severe. So far, at the Woodruff monitoring station, this winter already has a score of 48 and there are two months of monitoring to go.
February alone had 21 days of 18 plus inches of snow and 13 days of temperatures below zero.
But even after such a brutal month, Christopher said the turkey population should be fine because it was so healthy coming into the winter.
"Although there may be some mortality due to the deeper snow, we do not expect to see population level effects," she said. "Last summer we had ideal brood rearing conditions and the turkey population was very strong coming into this winter. Even if some winter mortality occurs, with good nesting and brood rearing conditions this spring, we likely will not see an effect on the population."
Vilas and most of Oneida county are in management zone seven. In 2018, 494 turkeys were harvested in zone seven, with a 14-percent success rate. That was the lowest harvest of all the zones. Period A was the most fruitful time in zone seven with 106 birds taken.
Zone one, in the southwestern corner of the state, harvested the most birds, 11,235, with a 19 percent success rate.
The state as a whole harvested 38,885 turkeys in the 2018 spring hunt with a 18 percent success rage.
The 2019 season begins with Period A on April 17, Period B begins April 24, Period C begins May 1, Period D starts May 8, Period E starts May 15, and Period F starts May 22.
From March 18-22, all remaining spring turkey permits not issued through the drawing will be available for sale beginning at 10 a.m. on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Licenses and permits are available at DNR service centers, online on the DNR website, and through licensed sales outlets.
Jacob Friede may be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].
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