I just want to see a definitive difference in the Turkey population from hatching to overall numbers. You would think 5 years of data would show a clear cut difference if it did something.
I can respect just wanting to see improvement. But to be fair, it's not 5 years worth of data concerning the delay. The delay went into effect in the study counties for '21 and '22. They didn't study it for '23 because all the counties were delayed (no "control group" counties to study). So it's only two years worth of data. During which, there was a significant improvement in nest success rate ("NS"). And seemingly, we had pretty good hatches those years (not all attributable to the delay, but the delay certainly didn't hurt, and likely helped). And I'm anxious to see the statewide estimates when the annual status report for 2023 comes out, compared to prior years before the delay.
Even if it the delay works as well as Mike Chamberlain could have ever hoped, it's not going to be like flipping a switch and seeing a bunch more turkeys the next year. Especially when you're starting with an already depleted population. The fewer turkeys you start with, the smaller the perceived difference a 20% improvement makes. But as populations grow, the bigger the difference.
For example:
In the study, average clutch size across all years and all counties was 9.9 eggs, and average "hatchability" (percentage of eggs in surviving nests that actually hatched) was .86. Meaning that, on average, each successful nest hatched ~ 8.5 poults.
So, if an area has 500 hens that nest, our pre-delay NS rate (.25 — average NS rate for all 5 counties combined before the delay) would give you 125 successful nests, producing 1062.5 poults. With the NS rate we had in the three delayed counties immediately
after the delay (.35), of those same 500 nests, 175 would succeed, hatching 1540 poults. That's 40% more successful nests and 45% more poults hatched.
Ideally, with a few more turkeys on the landscape, the next season, that same population will lay more nests. I don't know how many more (a lot of other variables at play), but lest say 20% more, so 600 nests the next year. If the NS and hatchability rates stay the same (hatchability is pretty constant and not impacted by the delay), 600 nests produce 1785 poults (with pre-delay NS rates, that number would be 1275). With more turkeys hatching, if you have a few more nests laid year-over-year, the population grows. But it doesn't grow fast, so it takes more than 2 years to "see a definitive difference in the turkey population."
Sorry for the long post, but my point is simply that the delay
appears to have made, or at least undeniably correlates with, a statistically significant improvement (>21% +) in nesting success. So maybe we should have some patience before complaining that the delay (which has only been in effect for 1 year in 85 out of TN's 95 counties) "didn't work." For most of the state, the population decline has happened gradually over 15-20 years. I don't think we should expect it to be fixed in one.
