With the opening day of Georgia's wild turkey hunting season just around the corner, sportsmen are gearing up for the hunt and searching for locations where they can maximize their chances of taking a gobbler. The Peach State's 2005 turkey season begins a half-hour before sunrise on Saturday, March 26, and extends through a half-hour after sunset on May 15. Biologists say there is good news and bad news for hunters eager to take their limit of wild turkeys this season.

The good news is that Georgia had an excellent mast crop last year. "Mast" is the term wildlife mangers use to describe the acorns, walnuts, hickory nuts and other nuts that turkeys, deer and other wildlife use as a primary food source. There was also an abundance of soft mass, such as dogwoods, persimmons, muscadines, sweet gum seeds, pine seeds, blueberries and blackberries. This high-quality forage allowed turkeys to weather the cold winter months in relatively good physical condition.

According to Haven Barnhill, a senior wildlife biologist and Turkey Program coordinator for the Georgia Wildlife Resources Division, good physical condition often translates into good gobbling activity, which is a good sign for hunters!

The bad news is that biologists anticipate a slight decline in the number of gobblers harvested this season. The 2003 brood survey yielded disappointing results. The WRD began conducting annual brood surveys to monitor turkey reproduction back in 1978. Basically, field personnel record all sightings of turkey hens, with or without poults, between the months of June and August. In 2003, only 448 broods were observed, which was a 31 percent decline from 2002.

"Last year was the lowest brood production we've ever recorded," Barnhill said. "We've had relatively poor reproduction since 1996, and the population is a little depressed."

One reason for the poor results was heavy rains during the nesting season that flooded river bottoms and other nesting areas. This wet period was followed by an extremely dry spell that also impacted turkeys. In addition, long-term habitat degradation caused by extensive development in certain areas of the state and intensive agricultural and forestry practices in other locales continued to challenge the state's turkey populations.

Georgia's turkey population is currently estimated at 350,000 birds statewide. Wild turkeys are present in all 159 Georgia counties, and they occupy over 39,609 square miles of forested habitat. Biologists estimate that there are 8.9 turkeys per square mile of the state's occupied, forested habitat. This is pretty amazing considering there were fewer than 17,000 birds as recently as 1973.

Wild turkeys were abundant in the Peach State until the early 1900s, when habitat changes and subsistence and market hunting basically extirpated them from the landscape. There were a few small populations in remote mountain areas and river swamps, as well as a few in southwest Georgia's plantation country, but wild turkeys were a rare sight in most of the Peach State.

The WRD recognized the problem in the 1950s and began releasing pen-reared birds in an effort to restore populations. According to Barnhill, this was a complete disaster. Like quail and other domestically raised birds, these turkeys lacked both the skills and the instincts necessary to survive in the wild. The pen-reared turkeys quickly became food for predators or just plain starved to death.

Beginning in 1973, the WRD began a serious stocking program. There was good turkey habitat statewide, and wildlife managers began trapping wild turkeys from the Piedmont area of the state and relocating them to other areas. Since 1973, more than 4,800 birds have been relocated to 400-plus spots around the state. The stocking program ended in 1996.

With wild turkey populations now well established throughout the state, wildlife managers spend the bulk of their time on habitat management and improvement to ensure the future success of the species. Most of their efforts are focused on managing turkeys on the state's extensive wildlife management area system, but biologists also provide technical assistance to farmers, hunters and other landowners seeking to maximize turkey populations on their lands.

A varied habitat is essential to turkey survival. Wild turkeys need access to open areas for feeding, mating and habitat. They use forested areas as cover to protect themselves from predators and they roost in trees at night. Turkey poults eat insects, berries and seeds, while adult birds eat anything from acorns and berries to insects and small reptiles.