Wildlife Commission hears update on wild turkey research

BARTLESVILLE — A coordinator for Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation’s current research project looking at wild turkey population declines across Oklahoma presented a progress report at the Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission’s regular October meeting which took place earlier this month.

Colter Chitwood, an assistant professor in the Oklahoma State University Department of Natural Resources Ecology and Management, shared some of the data collected after research over two nesting seasons in southeastern Oklahoma and over one nesting season in southwestern Oklahoma.

Wild turkey genetics, nesting success and brood survival are among the research topics in the 4.5-year, $2 million study launched in 2022 by ODWC, the Oklahoma Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and partnering with National Wild Turkey Federation, Turkeys For Tomorrow, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Cherokee Nation, Choctaw Nation and private landowners.

Preliminary data (from southwest/ southeast study areas) at nest sites studied suggest hen mortality due to predators was 60/80 percent, nest success was 9/22 percent, predator-related nest loss was 13/77 percent and poultry survival was 14/0 percent. The genetics part of the research has collected about 300 tissue samples from 62 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties, along with several provided from Texas and New Mexico to serve as reference samples.

At the project’s outset, researchers said leading hypotheses to explain wild turkey declines were predation, weather, land use changes and loss of genetic diversity.

Objectives are to provide ODWC with data to better manage wild turkey populations; provide recommendations to private landowners, land managers and hunters regarding wild turkey management and aid in understanding regional declines in wild turkey populations.