NORTHWEST TERRITORY: Hunters wonder, where have all the turkeys gone?

— One of the few success stories of spring turkey season in Northwest Arkansas came from John Cross of Eureka Springs, who bagged his heaviest gobbler in almost 40 years of hunting.

"He weighed in at 26 pounds and had 1 1 a 10 /2-inch, very thick beard and 1/8-inch spurs," he said a few days before the season ended Saturday.

"I've killed birds with bigger spurs and bigger beards, but this is the heaviest I've ever taken. It was like picking up a box of rocks."

Despite taking the trophy, Cross reported tough hunting conditions in Carroll County.

"Turkeys are still scarce over here, and it looks like another bad year," he said.

Many other hunters in the region would likely agree, according to reports from wildlife officials and wildlife check stations.

The spring hunt at Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area in Benton County, for example, was a total bust.

For the first time, the steady decline of wild turkeys on the Hobbs led to spring hunts being restricted to limited permits - 10 for a two-day youth hunt and 10 for a five-day regular hunt.

"No turkeys were reported bagged," Park Interpreter Steve Chyrchel said Monday. "This is the first time I know of when we've had a turkey hunt wherenobody got one."

A scarcity of gobblers wasn't the problem for local hunters, says Luther Hungate, the Eureka Springs-based regional law enforcement supervisor with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

Privy to reports from wildlife officers around the region, Hungate reported last Thursday, "One reason the hunting has not been good is because the gobblers haven't been gobbling much. They would gobble from the roost and then get with a hen and not gobble anymore."

Among stores acting as wildlife check stations in the area, Larry Aggus at Southtown Sporting Goods in Fayetteville reported seeing very few local gobblers brought in and hearing only reports of slow hunting in the immediate area.

However, he mentioned a notable exception.

"I've been hearing the turkey hunting has been pretty good as you go east from our area toward north-central Arkansas," Aggus said. "A lot of our serious hunters have been going that way because there seems to be a lot more birds than we have around here."

Several months ago, Cross wrote a letter bemoaning the decline of turkeys in Northwest Arkansas and blaming it primarily on predation of nests by coyotes, bobcats, foxes, raccoons and other predators largely uncontrolled by either hunting or trapping.

More recently, he's wondering if something else is getting the adult turkeys.

"Just two or three years ago, we had a lot of flocks of grown turkeys out at Blue Springs and other places that have been reported to me where said flocks numbered 20-30 birds and could be seen inpastures feeding," Cross said. "These flocks have just disappeared, almost magically.

"It's hard for predators to catch a grown turkey, so in addition to several years of bad hatches and the tremendous predator problem, I'm wondering if there may be something else at work here, like a bird flu or something similar that is wiping out our birds," Cross speculated.

He added that he has forwarded his concerns to members of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

SWANS MAKE MINOR MIGRATION

The young trumpeter swans transported from Iowa and released at the Mill Pond in Boxley in January have recently moved on, but they remain a long way from the nesting grounds in northern Iowa, where they were hatched and grew to flight stage.

In fact, the swans have made only a short, northwesterly migration from Newton County to Madison County, where they've been seen lingering on private property along War Eagle Creek, says Karen Rowe, nongame migratory bird coordinator with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

"A wildlife officer has confirmed the location of the swans on the War Eagle Creek property," Rowe reported last week.

She also said the 13 young trumpeters released at Holla Bend National Wildlife Refugenear Dardanelle were still hanging out in that area. The birds apparently are doing well but showing little indication of migrating urges.

When the juvenile swans were brought to Arkansas, it was hoped they would return to Iowa in March or April to form the nucleus of a migrating flock that would return to Arkansas each winter.

Wildlife biologist Ron Andrews, who oversaw the transport of the swans on behalf of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, wasn't ready to give up hope last Thursday.

"I just attended a meeting of swan experts last week, and they told me to relax," Andrews said. "They said young swans without adults often develop the migrating urge later in the spring, so I'm still optimistic we will see some movement."

He admitted, however, that if the swan migration doesn't occur by the first of June, it probably won't happen.

With the swan experiment scheduled to run for three years, Andrews said, a different batch will be tried next winter if the current group of young swans doesn't leave Arkansas.

"We may try to capture entire family groups so the young birds can be released with adults that could have stronger migrating instincts and better compass bearings to find their way back to Iowa," Andrews said.

In the meantime, Rowe encourages birdwatchers to report swan sightings, especially if the birds start moving north. She can be contacted toll-free at (877) 873-4651.

Outdoors, Pages 39, 40 on 05/08/2008

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