Wildlife - Wild Turkeys

Spring Wild Turkey Season in S.C. Results in Near-Record Harvest

Nearly 50,000 turkey hunters take to the woods annually in South Carolina with hopes of harvesting a wily gobbler, and the recently completed 2005 spring turkey season was no exception.

With a harvest of 14,353 birds, spring turkey hunters in South Carolina bagged the second highest number of turkeys on record, only eclipsed by the 16,348 birds harvested in 2002. Harvest figures were up 10 percent compared to 2004, and this year's success is likely due to excellent reproduction by turkeys last summer.

South Carolina's spring wild turkey season opens April 1 and closes May 1 in most areas of the state and on all public lands with turkey hunting. The season opens March 15 on private lands in 12 Lowcountry counties in the state. Annually, spring turkey hunters contribute more than $16 million in direct expenditures to South Carolina's economy.

Each summer, S.C. Department of Natural Resources (DNR) wildlife biologists, technicians and private cooperators participate in an annual turkey brood survey. Results from last year's survey indicated the best wild turkey reproduction in more than five years. Going into this season, expectations were high because the success of spring hunters is typically linked to turkey reproductive success the previous year. In the Southeast, Mother Nature plays a much greater role in regulating turkey populations than in deer populations. Turkey reproduction and recruitment can be greatly affected by environmental conditions during the spring nesting and brood-rearing season with heavy rainfall or cool temperatures leading to poor reproductive success.

Good reproduction last year definitely showed up in the spring 2005 turkey harvest with the overall increase from 2004 being comprised primarily of young gobblers. Although many spring turkey hunters prefer to harvest only mature gobblers or long beards, biologists typically see an increase in the total turkey harvest following a year with good reproduction. This increase in harvest is generally the result of the availability of juvenile gobblers, also called jakes. The percentage of jakes in the harvest was 26 percent this year compared to only 19 percent in 2004, resulting in the increase in harvest.

Top counties for total turkey harvest were Williamsburg, Colleton, Union, Chester, and Berkeley. However, because counties vary in size, a better method of comparing harvests between counties is the harvest per unit area, for example turkeys harvested per square mile. Using this method top counties were Bamberg, Union, Chester, Anderson, and York,

The recovery of the wild turkey in South Carolina has been a great success story. The bird was rare throughout much of the 1900s, but through trapping and relocating more than 3,500 turkeys on some 200 sites statewide as part of a restoration program DNR began more than 30 years ago, turkeys are now present in all 46 South Carolina counties. The statewide population is estimated at more than 100,000.

Statewide wild turkey harvest in South Carolina in 2005.  Data from Turkey Check Station reports.

County Adults
Gobblers
Juvenile
Gobblers
Total
Harvest
Percent
Juvenile
Harvest
Ac/Turkey
County
Rank*
% Change
from 2004
Abbeville
222
125
347
36.0
643
9
-9.6
Aiken
131
54
185
29.2
2,706
43
-5.1
Allendale
272
30
302
9.9
717
14
1.7
Anderson
292
138
430
32.1
509
4
12.9
Bamberg
353
137
490
28.0
401
1
25.6
Barnwell
246
37
283
13.1
996
26
6.0
Beaufort
58
6
64
9.4
2,304
39
20.8
Berkeley
490
100
590
16.9
962
25
90.3
Calhoun
106
14
120
11.7
1,588
34
0.8
Charleston
157
37
194
19.1
1,488
33
12.1
Cherokee
122
132
254
52.0
617
7
17.6
Chester
442
162
604
26.8
498
3
6.9
Chesterfield
177
56
233
24.0
1,599
35
51.3
Clarendon
247
71
318
22.3
937
22
26.7
Colleton
565
121
686
17.6
733
16
6.7
Darlington
119
34
153
22.2
1,871
36
18.6
Dillon
72
15
87
17.2
2,461
41
19.2
Dorchester
256
61
317
19.2
955
24
8.9
Edgefield
205
70
275
25.5
897
20
-7.1
Fairfield
414
168
582
28.9
661
11
13.0
Florence
217
54
271
19.9
1,468
32
21.0
Georgetown
214
72
286
25.2
1,397
30
-4.3
Greenville
29
90
119
75.6
2,473
42
-3.3
Greenwood
211
97
308
31.5
664
12
14.1
Hampton
311
63
374
16.8
869
19
0.3
Horry
122
27
149
18.1
3,579
45
-32.0
Jasper
300
25
325
7.7
954
23
3.5
Kershaw
193
70
263
26.6
1,371
29
11.0
Lancaster
150
72
222
32.4
1,200
28
9.9
Laurens
282
177
459
38.6
693
13
-1.1
Lee
80
27
107
25.2
2,057
37
15.1
Lexington
15
4
19
21.1
14,776
46
90.0
McCormick
235
117
352
33.2
602
6
21.8
Marion
132
21
153
13.7
1,418
31
-18.2
Marlboro
100
17
117
14.5
2,404
40
-3.3
Newberry
284
209
493
42.4
645
10
23.6
Oconee
247
82
329
24.9
864
18
-19.8
Orangeburg
471
77
548
14.1
921
21
16.8
Pickens
168
106
274
38.7
803
17
2.6
Richland
94
18
112
16.1
3,037
44
-11.8
Saluda
136
131
267
49.1
720
15
43.5
Spartanburg
157
74
231
32.0
1,151
27
23.5
Sumter
117
44
161
27.3
2,105
38
3.2
Union
407
205
612
33.5
422
2
14.0
Williamsburg
731
79
810
9.8
634
8
11.6
York
300
178
478
37.2
579
5
60.9
Total 
10,649
3,704
14,353
25.8
977
NA
10.2

*Acres per turkey harvested.

The 2005 Turkey Harvest above is provided in Adobe® Acrobat® (PDF) format. Adobe® Reader® is required to open this file and is available as a free download from the Adobe® Web site.
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