Tennessee Study

[Gut_Pile]

Been a lot of discussion on this study, so I wanted to post the actual study in it's on thread for people to review. There's a lot of information in there, and a lot of it is interesting. I am a simple guy, and to me, the delayed start looks to have had a positive impact on a lot of things. Here is the link to the full study

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.11390

On the treatment area:
Nesting rate was up by 19.1%
clutch size was up by 11.8%
hatchability increased by 3.5%
nest success rose by 19.5%
hen survival was up by 5%
and recruitment was up by 60%

the only decrease on the treatment area was poult survival and it was down by 2%

During this same time the control area saw an increase in:
nesting rate (13.8%)
clutch size (26.4%)
poult survival (135%). this one needs an asterisk beside it because the poult survival on the control before was horrible
and recruitment (113%) another large number bc recruitment was really bad on the control before.

The control area saw a decrease in:
hatchability (6.8%)
nest success (6.6%)
and hen survival (2.8%)

I know everyone has their opinion on these things. The way my mind works, it simply makes sense to me to allow gobblers time to breed the majority of hens before we shoot them. And to me with all the positives on the treatment area, it seems like a win. I'm no scientist, don't claim to be, but I do understand percentages and when everything goes up, that's a win.

I will also say that I know this one thing isn't the answer. But it does seem to, if anything, have an impact on nest success and recruitment and that is one part of the puzzle. The other part is the poult surviving and there wasn't an impact shown there. So if the later start date gets more poults hatched, what is it going to take to help them survive? I would be curious to know the trapping and habitat efforts on these locations.

 

[Huntinfool]

The link isn't to a study. Just a %diff calculator.

 

[cowhornedspike]

GP, Is there any evidence that any hens are not being bred and are laying infertile eggs? Please post that info here for us to see. If not then letting the gobblers have more time to breed is not the answer.

 

[Gut_Pile]

The link isn't to a study. Just a %diff calculator.

Whoops. Fixed it

 

[buckpasser]

Some people are committed to theories even in the face of common sense telling us the contrary before, during, and after the fact. I’m not saying that about you @Gut_Pile, just about the camps that have formed over this stuff.

The men (2 vetted scientists) conducting the posted research said they’re confident there are no gains to be seen here. That opinion was seconded and repeated again by Dr Lashley and Dr Gulsby, both well regarded scientists in this field. Not to mention, the results showed no gain on the experimental area in GA prior to us making a change, and “control” states like MS that did not fall for it (yet) have experienced the same turkey patterns without a change.

Combine what they just found with the fact that we know hens breed readily well ahead of nest creation, can store male material for extended periods of time, are now proven not to be as selective and committed as TD implied, and are not being killed by hunters pretty much sums it up for most of us.

Turkey Doc is a smart man. He knew if he pushed hard enough for change, any change, at the bottom of the curve, he’d have a chance at being credited with the rebound that was sure to come. He ALMOST succeeded!

 

[buckpasser]

Then, there’s this:

Our models for all reproductive rates examined did not support the later start date hypothesis and showed no evidence that the later start date for the Tennessee spring hunting season impacted seasonal productivity. We saw no change in productivity in delayed counties, whether the hunting season began just prior to peak nest initiation (before the season delay) or just prior to peak nest incubation initiation (after the season delay). Based on the later-start date hypothesis, the top two reproductive rates that we would have expected to change included the proportion of hens nesting (nesting rate), and hatchability (Table 1), neither of which were impacted by the start date of the spring hunting season. There was a weak relationship between nesting chronology and the season start date (pInteraction, 418 = .07), but this was represented by only 1 or 2 days in mean IID, which was well within the annual variation.

 

[poorcountrypreacher]

The MS study led by Adam Butler already had 5 years of data. I'm not sure if they have continued it, but I think this past season makes 6 if they did. Butler said in a TFT interview that he had expected some amount of gain in poult production from the delayed starting date, but they got nothing. The scope of this study was very impressive, involving a number of WMAs with a delayed date and a control group of WMAs that kept the 3/15 date.

MS was the only state to do this the right way - set up an experiment to see how much impact the delay would have, and plan to change the season after they had data supporting it. All the rest of the southeastern states made changes based on a flawed theory.