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RESTOCKING TURKEYS

7K views 73 replies 26 participants last post by  jackie53 
#1 ·
Arkansas Needs Hybrid Turkeys Restocked....on every WMA and Every County in Arkansas
 
#4 ·
Buy,Trade for Turkeys in a State they have become a Nusience... Wyoming northern states
Florida..to list a Few..
Stock them on state WMAS...build Pens(1500 Acreas) until they become comfortable to State Surrounding conditions...
Periodically as conditions are favorable.
Release as needed on WMAS and Public hunting Areas.. Ozarks, Ouachita mountains..
 
#69 ·
This is by far the greatest idea I have ever heard.
You obviously haven't done your homework. This has been attempted and it doesn't work. It works slightly with quail, but not all with turkeys or pheasants. If it did, every state would do it.
Your wrong. For 40 plus years AGFC has been buying quail to place on Camp Robinson SUA for field trials. This actually stopped about 5-6 years back, finally. Up to that point your tax dollars were spent buying 1/5 yes one/fifth wild quail so dog field trials can be had on the SUA. These birds were physically dumped off by a pile of food with one bird put in a bucket as a “call back” bird. You could literally pick these birds back up after dumping them out of boxes. Your tax dollars paid for this and 2 full time state employees dragging dog wagons and porta-potty’s. FOI from say 2001-2016, hell go back to 1970, if they still have records. I digress, quail become to stressed even 1-2 miles from being moved. Multiple states have fried and it always fails.
 
#5 ·
Turkey in Arkansas Need a Booster Shot..
When we have wet less favorable conditions..
They need A Nursery Release area..
Put and Take like on the Quail Farms....
Would be a big operation..means jobs
And local Turkey Farmer to help pay them to help grow and Restock..State Wide...
 
#21 ·
I just got done reading The Book of the Wild Turkey by Lovett Williams. I think it published in 1981. Somewhere in there he stated that releasing turkeys into habitat that already has wild turkeys never works. The issues that are suppressing the current population will suppress the planted birds.

Additionally, he mentions that pen raised turkeys can never work because wild turkeys cannot survive long term in captivity, and pen raised turkeys cannot survive in the wild. It only feeds wildcats, and spreads fowl diseases.

Jackie, admit it... You're just trying to get some dumber turkeys in state to make it easier for you to kill one.
 
#22 ·
This might be considered thread drift, but Texas has seen some success with “super stocking” - they call them - after years of no stocking success with conventional numbers. Most states stock a dozen or fifteen, wild birds, with a two to one hen to gobbler ratio. That has not worked in eastern Texas. They switched to the super stockings - eighty or so, wild turkeys, stocked in one area. I forget the composition ratios - but they claim to be having more success with that type stocking than the conventional stockings of the lesser numbers. Wild caught, relocated turkeys.
 
#23 ·
Wild captured Easterns transplanted would be the only option, but don’t see how that would even be remotely successful long term if you don’t address the habitat and predator issues. Kind of the same concept as relying on hunting season structures and regulations alone…. Might play a small role, but doesn’t produce more poults being born or reaching adulthood for population growth.
 
#29 ·
I think the real solution is to trade for turkeys from urban areas in the Northeast.

The problem with Arkansas turkeys is that they only exist in relatively wild areas, and the citizenry of these areas tends to lean toward shooting those turkeys out the window of their trailer any time the opportunity arises. It's well proven that this is the real limiting factor in Arkansas because you can drive across the state on I40, and most likely your census will include about 0-1 turkey sightings. Drive across the length of Missouri and Kentucky, and you'll see 10x more. Not only do we have less turkeys, the remaining ones dont regularly loiter in open areas in view of roads.

Meanwile, mail carriers in New Jersey, New York, and eastern Pennsylvania are routinely accosted by wild gobblers that have set up shop in the suburbs, even in inner cities. We trade for those turkeys, stock them in downtown Little Rock, Bentonville, Jonesboro... you name it. Anywhere with a good enough police force to keep Uncle Jackie from shooting up the city park because he saw a gobbler standing next to the swing set. Now you've converted all the major metropolitan areas in the state to a turkey production mill. Eventually some of those birds will wander out and populate wilder locales where we can effectively hunt them.
 
#37 ·
Thank you..7000 ? Wow..... Gotta do something Now....

Alot...of Private Land owners Didn't hunt..
Hunted but Didn't shoot..

In our Area Gota stop The Deer hunters feeding deer from shooting the corn Buzzards.... Don't know how..but gotta be done..
Leases Deer Leases for Turkeys leases...Only way..
 
#38 ·
my Dad literally has a live trap out 364 days a year on 42 acres

for several years, there has been a steady stream of possums, coons and skunks - never ending

he's killed dozens and dozens if not hundreds

and they never stop

there are THAT many varmints in the woods eating turkey eggs and chicks



Dad is 86. He remembers bounties on crow beaks, owl and hawk beaks, coyotes and foxes. He said after a snow, you couldn't track a rabbit because there were so many tracks. Quail abounded. Of course few deer/turkeys because people were stupid about killing them out but if we returned to 1/4 or 1/2 the bounties/varmint reductions imagine the boom to small game in Arkansas and .... turkeys too
 
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