Record numbers of turkeys await area hunters.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Turkey hunters in southwest Oregon should not have to tax themselves too hard to find birds when the 2002 spring gobbler season opens Monday.

State biologists say a bumper crop of yearling birds awaits hunters in the Umpqua and Coos River watersheds, thanks to excellent production and survival rates last year.

As is traditional in Oregon, the spring turkey season opens on the date income tax returns are due - regardless of what day of the week April 15 happens to fall upon. The six-week season ends May 31.

"We should have an excellent season this year," said Terry Farrell, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's district wildlife biologist in Roseburg. "We've got turkeys coming out our ears."

Upland game bird surveys last fall found an average of 4.3 poults per hen, Farrell said, compared with a count of 2.9 poults per hen in a normal year.

"That means we have another 1.4 poults per hen, so we should have plenty of turkeys available," Farrell said.

In fact, there are so many turkeys in the area that biologists are planning to recommend the harvest in this fall's either-sex turkey season be liberalized. "Instead of 1,000 tags being available, we're talking about making 2,000 to 3,000 tags available," Farrell said.

Turkey numbers in this area are at an all-time high, even though 280 birds were trapped in the Umpqua watershed over the winter and transferred to other areas of the state, he said.

Turkey hunting in Oregon requires a valid hunting license ($17.50 for resident adults) and a turkey tag ($11.50). Hunters may purchase up to two spring "statewide" turkey tags, plus one "bonus" tag that is good only in certain counties. Spring tags allow the harvest of one male turkey with a visible beard.

Wild turkeys are found in 34 of Oregon's 36 counties, but Douglas County is consistently the leading producer.

"For some reason, we've got the right conditions for turkeys," Farrell said. "Not too much rain, not too dry. We've got a lot of that oak savannah country that makes perfect turkey habitat."

Farrell said the unusually high survival rates of chicks born last spring stems from the fact that weather conditions were ideal during the hatching season. "If we get a lot of rain during the first three to five days after they hatch out, many of the chicks get pneumonia and die."