Future seasons hurt gobblers, turkey hunters TOM VENESKY OUTDOORS

Not everybody benefited from the sweeping changes the Pennsylvania Game Commission board made at its meeting last month when it set the seasons and bag limits for the upcoming hunting season.

For all the positive strides made to reduce the pressure on the deer herd in areas and give hunters more time and opportunity to hunt the state’s strong black bear population, there is one group of hunters – and one species of wildlife – that lost more than it gained: turkeys and turkey hunters.

To make room for the new Saturday opener for bear season (Nov. 20), fall turkey hunters lost one of their weekend days in the woods plus a lot more.

In the Wildlife Management Units comprising the northeast region (WMUs 3B, 3C, 3D, 4C and 4E), the fall turkey season this year will open on Nov. 6 and continue to Nov. 19. After the three-day bear season is complete, fall turkey hunters can hit the woods again from Nov. 25-27. Add it all up and that’s a total of 15 days, four less than last year. Included in the 15-day fall season are three Saturdays. Last season turkey hunters had four Saturdays to hunt.

Hunters in the southwest and south-central parts of the state were dealt an even worse hand. Their fall turkey season went from 13 days to a mere nine.

Simply put, it’s less time and less opportunity for the state’s fall turkey hunters.

The PGC board made the change to avoid overlapping the fall turkey season with the new dates for the bear season. Traditionally, the three-day bear season opened after the fall turkey season ended.

While I can understand the move from a safety standpoint, I can’t understand why turkey hunters had to lose out. If this year’s fall season opened when it had in the past – the last Saturday in October – turkey hunters would still have four Saturdays to hunt in addition to another week; and bear hunters could still have the woods to themselves for the three-day season.

Supporters of the change in seasons could argue that the number of fall turkey hunters has declined each year since 1999, from 244,638 to 152,294 in 2008.

Still, cutting the season length and the number of Saturdays available to hunt certainly isn’t the best way to rekindle interest in fall turkey hunting.

The other questionable move regarding turkeys has to do with the spring season. Traditionally, the spring gobbler season concluded at noon every day to reduce the chances of hunters inadvertently disturbing hens on their nests.

For the 2011 gobbler season, however, hunters can be in the woods until noon for the first two weeks (April 30 to May 14) and then hunt the entire day (one-half hour before sunrise until one-half hour after sunset) for the final two weeks.

By having the season end at noon for the first two weeks indicates to me that the agency wants to limit nest disturbances during that time. Why is it less important to limit disturbances for the final two weeks?

It’s true that by mid-May hens will enter the nesting stages, but a disturbance at any time could have a huge impact. Whenever a hen is kicked off its nest, the eggs are vulnerable to predation no matter what time of year or time of day it is. Allowing hunters a full day to hunt gobblers just increases those chances.

It’s a chance that, when it comes to the best interest of our wildlife resource, doesn’t need to be taken.

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