TWRA encouraging residents to report on wild turkeys they see across the Upper Cumberland as part of the 2025 Summer Wild Turkey Observation.
TWRA Wild Turkey Programming Coordinator Roger Shields said the surveys are used to monitor the population of wild turkeys. Shields said that TWRA has been doing observations since the 1980s, but in recent years has needed the help of the public.
“We just don’t have staff in every location of the state,” Shields said. “So we have always had little pockets where we didn’t get observations, and so we, a few years ago, decided if we invite the public to take part in the survey, maybe we can get more data and fill in those gaps.”
Shields said newborn turkeys usually hatch in June. Shields said TWRA is mostly interested in observations that are completed from July to the end of August, as poults tend to have a low chance of survival.
“If they can survive two or three weeks, they get a little bit bigger in size, they start to be able to fly, and once they meet that kind of age stage, then their survival goes up quite a bit,” Shields said. “So observations that happen early in June, a lot of times, they are just of these very newly hatched poult, and so we are still gonna lose a lot of those, but by the time you get into July and into August, if those poults are still around there’s a good chance they are going to survive and make it into adulthood.”
Shields said that with the help of the surveys, the state’s wild turkey population has been on a slight decline. Shields said normally the East part of the state has been stable, while the West part has had decreasing numbers. Shields said recent surveys have shown that things are changing.
“The west side of the state has really seen some good reproduction,” Shields said. “I think numbers have bounced back a little bit on the west, and now, we are starting to see some numbers starting to decline a little bit on the east. Then the middle part of the state has seen some decline. Hopefully it’s stabilized. The decline or the decrease has maybe stopped, but you really haven’t seen a large regrowth here in the middle part of the state, but hopefully that will happen over the next few years.”
Shields said some great spots in the Upper Cumberland for people to observe wild turkeys are in the state parks. TWRA’s 2025 Summer Wild Turkey Observation continues through the end of August.
