COLUMBUS, Ohio – It’s turkey counting time again. Many states are asking the public to report wild turkey sightings. These counts help researchers keep an eye on turkey numbers and to look for any population swings. Both Ohio and Indiana Departments of Natural Resources (DNR) are looking for help from residents.

“Observations of wild turkeys have been an important index of wild turkey reproduction or recruitment of individuals into the young turkey population for many decades not only in Ohio but also in other states,” said Mark Wiley, Ohio DNR forest game bird biologist. “We use those observations from not only agency staff but from the public to generate an index of the number of poults per hen observed during that summer.”

The agency uses public sighting reports of wild turkeys observed in July and August to estimate population statuses and reproductive success, Wiley said. Female turkeys and their young are most active during the summer.

The number of turkeys and poults fluctuates from year to year, he explained. That number is impacted by nesting success, or by poult survival after they hatch from the nest.

“The million-dollar question as to why we see such fluctuation in turkey reproduction year to year,” Wiley said. “Studies show it could be several factors, everything from the weather during the nesting season. We know that inclement weather during the nesting season is problematic with nesting birds including wild turkeys.”

Predation is also a factor and the kinds of predators that will prey on young or even adult turkeys have changed over the decades in Ohio, Wiley explained. In the approximately 30 years that the DNR has been doing this type of survey, coyotes and raccoons have become more abundant, as have bobcats.

Raccoons would be considered more of a nest predator that might take eggs from the nest or even take young poults, whereas a coyote and bobcats can prey on nests and young poults and also adult turkeys. Then there are avian predators such as hawks, owls, and American crows.

“The turkey population grew from the late 50s till the early 60s to around the year 2000 when we believe they reached their peak in the state,” Wiley said. “Since that time the numbers have fluctuated. They are no longer growing but they are not in a decline.”

The researchers see these variations year to year. They believe they are largely due to the fluctuation in recruitment or reproductive success and are trying to understand it better.

Wild turkey brood surveys in 2021, 2022, and 2023 showed above average nest productivity that benefitted turkey populations after several years of below average results. The statewide average poults per hen in 2023 was 2.8, in 2022 it was 3.0, and in 2021 it was 3.1. The long-term average is 2.7 poults per hen. In 2023, turkey poult production varied slightly by region. In northeast and northwest Ohio, the index was 3.0 poults per hen. It was 2.8 in southeast Ohio and 2.4 poults per hen in central and southwest Ohio.

The Ohio DNR also asks for people to report grouse sightings. As grouse numbers have declined considerably, they receive fewer reports of ruffed grouse, an insufficient number to do any sort of reproductive estimates as are done with turkeys, Wiley said. But with grouse, it is good to know where they are being observed and it gives researchers an idea of the extent of the grouse range, which has contracted considerably in recent decades.

In Ohio, community scientists are asked to report turkey or grouse observations on the Ohio DNR’s Wildlife Reporting System webpage at wildohio.gov or on the HuntFishOH mobile app.

Indiana DNR is also asking people in July and August to submit observations of wild turkey hens both with and without young, said Andy Byers, furbearer and turkey research biologist for Indiana DNR.

“It has been open to the public since 2016,” Byers said. “Before that, we had internal staff at several of our properties to count. We opened it up to the public in 2016 just to get a lot more eyes out in the landscape to help us with those observations to get a better idea of population trends across the state.

“We are closely interested in the hens and the young and we use that information to assess recruitment or reproduction. That gives us a good indication of what our annual reproduction looks like in any given year. We use it as a benchmark.”

The DNR also does other projects during the year to assess turkey populations, Byers said. They do a gobbling count in the spring, which is an internal DNR project. And they look at observations during the fall from archery hunters, plus using the annual hunter harvest to assess populations.

Across Indiana, turkey populations have been stable, he explained. Many states are seeing steady declines in turkey population, but Indiana tends to have a fairly stable population.

“This year we had our second highest reported harvest of any year since the 1990s so we had a lot of birds out in the landscape this spring,” he said. “With this count, we wanted to get 3,000 usable observations each year. Last year, once we cleaned up our data, we ended up with about 2,000 observations. We are always trying to push for a little more but we get a lot of good response from it.”

Anyone in Indiana who observes wild turkey hens with poults or hens without poults is encouraged to report their observations online at DNR’s turkey brood reporting webpage, on.IN.gov/turkeybrood. Observations take only a few minutes to report, and no login is required.