Bperry
Six Pointer
I went to the SC NWTF State Board meeting at Edisto Island last week and saw a presentation from the SCDNR Turkey Biologist Charles Ruth. Great Guy
They are in the process of a new turkey study. I must say it was amazing. They have placed GPS transmitters on about 21 birds.
There were several slides showing the transmitted date that were unbelievable. They are in the process of putting transmitters on more birds.
Though a small sample size of the 12 hens they have transmitting data only 6 attempted nesting and of those 6 only 3 were successful. The later they nested the lower the survival.
The gobblers which were tagged many times travelled over 2 miles in a day. Some days they hardly moved but it really wasn’t related to the weather.
The other cool slide showed an approximately 40 acre tract of land in the middle of several of the gobblers home range. There were thousands of GPS tracking dots on the areal map around the tract and not a single one in this 40 acres block. It was so dramatic Charles said they thought it was an error. Why do you ask-Habitat. The tract was a thick pine desert.
They gave hunters GPS trackers and then overlaid the hunters track with the birds they were hunting. It’s unbelievable how the birds reacted.
They are in the process of a new turkey study. I must say it was amazing. They have placed GPS transmitters on about 21 birds.
There were several slides showing the transmitted date that were unbelievable. They are in the process of putting transmitters on more birds.
Though a small sample size of the 12 hens they have transmitting data only 6 attempted nesting and of those 6 only 3 were successful. The later they nested the lower the survival.
The gobblers which were tagged many times travelled over 2 miles in a day. Some days they hardly moved but it really wasn’t related to the weather.
The other cool slide showed an approximately 40 acre tract of land in the middle of several of the gobblers home range. There were thousands of GPS tracking dots on the areal map around the tract and not a single one in this 40 acres block. It was so dramatic Charles said they thought it was an error. Why do you ask-Habitat. The tract was a thick pine desert.
They gave hunters GPS trackers and then overlaid the hunters track with the birds they were hunting. It’s unbelievable how the birds reacted.