NYS DEC seeking scouts to count wild turkeys to help set hunting season
A wild turkey peeks from behind a tree in Bellport in 2019. Credit: Newsday/ Steve Pfost
New York’s wildlife regulators are once again encouraging citizens to record their sightings of wild turkeys across the state this summer as part of an annual population survey, but nature lovers take note: The data is used to help set hunting seasons and limits.
In a release, the state Department of Environmental Conservation called this summer’s Wild Turkey Sighting Survey "a great opportunity for people to participate in wildlife science."
Surveys such as these "cultivate a collaborative partnership between the public and DEC while providing data that can be used to help manage the wildlife species," the agency said.
"Managing" the species includes setting annual hunting limits, including the number and type of wild turkeys individuals can kill each day during the spring and fall seasons, and the length of the season, the DEC said in responses to Newsday. Citizen surveys are among "several factors" used to set season length and kill limits.
The DEC also analyzes data such as habitat quality, turkey "abundance," survival and "harvest" pressure to set the limits. "Biologists also use social science methods to study what aspects of turkey hunting people value most and their overall satisfaction with their hunting experience," DEC spokeswoman Lori Severino said in an email.
The DEC on its website said hunters during the spring season can kill or "take" two bearded turkeys (all adult male turkeys, or toms, have beards, as do 10% of females, according to the National Audubon Society) and one in the fall season, with shooting hours starting one half-hour before sunrise and lasting to noon. In Suffolk, the fall season is Nov. 18 to Dec. 1; the spring season from May 1 to 31.
In 2022, the first year the DEC shifted to online reporting of summer turkey sightings, the agency received 2,268 reports of turkey flocks across the state, including 1,767 hen flocks. The average number of young reported that year was 2.65 poults per hen, an increase from the prior year’s 2.5 poults per hen, although the Long Island region’s results were "meaningfully lower" than the statewide average.
The DEC estimates there are between 160,000 and 180,000 wild turkeys in the state, a decline from their peak in 2001, the agency said.
Those wishing to report their turkey sightings can go to the Summer Wild Turkey Sighting Survey page.
Hunting limits for other birds are also set by the DEC. For instance, according to the DEC website, hunters can kill 25 snow geese a day during a Long Island season that runs Nov. 25 through March 10, with no limit on the number they possess. Hunters can take 15 coot per day and possess 45, and they can kill certain combinations of six ducks, sea ducks and mergansers per day during seasons that start Nov. 23 and end Dec. 1, then start again Dec. 7 and continue through Jan 26. (Possession limits are the "maximum number of birds that any person may possess in total in the field, at home, in transit, or in storage," the DEC says.)
As for Canada geese, central and eastern Long Island hunters can kill 15 a day from Sept. 1 through Sept. 25, with a reduction to two or three per day during varying seasons in late November and December through January and February. Western Suffolk has an eight-goose kill limit.
The DEC also has a crow season on Long Island, for which there is no bag limit, the agency said. The season starts Sept. 1 and ends March 31.
That means hunters with the proper license can kill as many crows as they’d like in designated hunting areas during the season, Severino said.
There's even a website that lists crow recipes.
The reason for the lack of a limit? Crows are "very abundant," the DEC said, with population estimates putting them at more than 30 million across the United States. The federally and state-managed crow population allows for the birds to be killed during no more than 124 hunting days per year, with prohibitions on hunting during their nesting season.
In New York, approximately 10,000 registered crow hunters kill around 30,000 crows a year, Severino said — or about three per hunter.
"At this time, the current harvest levels do not warrant a bag limit to protect crow populations," she wrote.
New York’s wildlife regulators are once again encouraging citizens to record their sightings of wild turkeys across the state this summer as part of an annual population survey, but nature lovers take note: The data is used to help set hunting seasons and limits.
In a release, the state Department of Environmental Conservation called this summer’s Wild Turkey Sighting Survey "a great opportunity for people to participate in wildlife science."
Surveys such as these "cultivate a collaborative partnership between the public and DEC while providing data that can be used to help manage the wildlife species," the agency said.
"Managing" the species includes setting annual hunting limits, including the number and type of wild turkeys individuals can kill each day during the spring and fall seasons, and the length of the season, the DEC said in responses to Newsday. Citizen surveys are among "several factors" used to set season length and kill limits.
WHAT TO KNOW
- New York’s wildlife regulators are again encouraging citizens to record their sightings of wild turkeys across the state this summer as part of an annual population survey.
- But nature lovers take note: The data is used to help set hunting seasons and limits.
- The DEC estimates there are between 160,000 and 180,000 wild turkeys in the state, a decline from their peak in 2001.
The DEC also analyzes data such as habitat quality, turkey "abundance," survival and "harvest" pressure to set the limits. "Biologists also use social science methods to study what aspects of turkey hunting people value most and their overall satisfaction with their hunting experience," DEC spokeswoman Lori Severino said in an email.
The DEC on its website said hunters during the spring season can kill or "take" two bearded turkeys (all adult male turkeys, or toms, have beards, as do 10% of females, according to the National Audubon Society) and one in the fall season, with shooting hours starting one half-hour before sunrise and lasting to noon. In Suffolk, the fall season is Nov. 18 to Dec. 1; the spring season from May 1 to 31.
In 2022, the first year the DEC shifted to online reporting of summer turkey sightings, the agency received 2,268 reports of turkey flocks across the state, including 1,767 hen flocks. The average number of young reported that year was 2.65 poults per hen, an increase from the prior year’s 2.5 poults per hen, although the Long Island region’s results were "meaningfully lower" than the statewide average.
The DEC estimates there are between 160,000 and 180,000 wild turkeys in the state, a decline from their peak in 2001, the agency said.
Those wishing to report their turkey sightings can go to the Summer Wild Turkey Sighting Survey page.
Hunting limits for other birds are also set by the DEC. For instance, according to the DEC website, hunters can kill 25 snow geese a day during a Long Island season that runs Nov. 25 through March 10, with no limit on the number they possess. Hunters can take 15 coot per day and possess 45, and they can kill certain combinations of six ducks, sea ducks and mergansers per day during seasons that start Nov. 23 and end Dec. 1, then start again Dec. 7 and continue through Jan 26. (Possession limits are the "maximum number of birds that any person may possess in total in the field, at home, in transit, or in storage," the DEC says.)
As for Canada geese, central and eastern Long Island hunters can kill 15 a day from Sept. 1 through Sept. 25, with a reduction to two or three per day during varying seasons in late November and December through January and February. Western Suffolk has an eight-goose kill limit.
The DEC also has a crow season on Long Island, for which there is no bag limit, the agency said. The season starts Sept. 1 and ends March 31.
That means hunters with the proper license can kill as many crows as they’d like in designated hunting areas during the season, Severino said.
There's even a website that lists crow recipes.
The reason for the lack of a limit? Crows are "very abundant," the DEC said, with population estimates putting them at more than 30 million across the United States. The federally and state-managed crow population allows for the birds to be killed during no more than 124 hunting days per year, with prohibitions on hunting during their nesting season.
In New York, approximately 10,000 registered crow hunters kill around 30,000 crows a year, Severino said — or about three per hunter.
"At this time, the current harvest levels do not warrant a bag limit to protect crow populations," she wrote.
Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.
'Need to step up regulations and testing' "Car fluff" is being deposited at Brookhaven landfill at a fast clip, but with little discussion. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie and Newsday investigative reporter Paul LaRocco have the story.
'Need to step up regulations and testing' "Car fluff" is being deposited at Brookhaven landfill at a fast clip, but with little discussion. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie and Newsday investigative reporter Paul LaRocco have the story.
