If they are not being conceived how did we have record hatches not only here throughout the South east in 2022? Remember that was with no delay. How have we killed on average 30k a year since 2000?
Did we? I haven't see a great turnaround since 2022, even if we did one good year isn't gonna replace a decade and a half of decline. The fact is we don't have the turkey numbers we had 15 years ago. We kill 30k cause we have guns/shells that will do it at 70yds, we reap them, decoy them, bait them, blind hunt them and on and on. We've created the implements and methods to kill them and there is an army of hunters now out there doing it that didn't exist in the past. Now it's deer, turkeys and ducks that account for probably 90% of the hunting effort and most of the duck hunters and deer hunters are turkey hunters too.
I hear "aw it's predators", do you see 4 hawks sitting on powerlines now where in the past you saw on1? I' don't. Do you see coons, coyotes, bobcats flattened on the roads year around in mass? I' don't. If the predator numbers were so high, you would.
No game agency can or will say it's hunting pressure cause that blows there reasoning and finances for having a season out of the water.
Turkeys are not deer, the numbers are not even close, turkeys are a much smaller population and can't reproduce like deer can, they can't sustain heavy harvests year after year. I'll ask again, what has changes so drastically in the turkeys world all over is varied range in the last 15 years other than the growth in popularity of turkey hunting?