Saturday is youth mentored turkey hunting day across Pennsylvania, with the regular spring gobbler season starting April 27.
Spring turkey hunting remains open in Lehigh and Northampton counties, most of which are part of the Wildlife Management Unit 5C established by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
But when it comes to fall turkey hunting, there is no season in 5C or adjacent 5D to the south, closing off the entirety of southeastern Pennsylvania to the chance for fresh wild turkey on Thanksgiving.
Most of Lehigh and Northampton counties are in the Wildlife Management Unit 5C established by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.Courtesy Pennsylvania Game Commission
Parts of 5C are home to turkeys and good habitat that supports them, said Travis Lau, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Other areas are more urbanized. Despite this diversity of terrain across 5C, the fall hunting prohibition applies across the entire Wildlife Management Unit, based on the state’s wild turkey management plan.
"For the most part, a fall hunting season is dictated by population," said Mitchell Blake, district biologist in Pennsylvania for the National Wild Turkey Federation. "The population is definitely lower in a more urban setting."
The main difference between Pennsylvania's spring and fall turkey hunting seasons is that only bearded birds are fair game in spring. That protects hens and young turkeys -- jennies and jakes -- since it is the adult males that have beards. (Hens can also grow a beard, which is a modified type of feather, but only around 1 in 10 do so, the Game Commission says.) In fall, hunters can shoot any wild turkey.
"You're really taking the breeding stock out of the population," Blake said of the fall season. "If you have a low population to begin with, you really can impact how many birds are going into next year's breeding population, versus the spring when you're only taking males. The males are polygamous so one male can breed 10 females or more."
With the 2019-20 hunting seasons and bag limits approved last month by the state board of game commissioners, fall 2019 will remain closed to turkey hunting in 5C and 5D.
To the west, the adjacent Wildlife Management Unit 5B just had its first fall turkey season two years ago; that season is only three days this year, Nov. 5-7, while other parts of the state get two or three weeks, depending on the Wildlife Management Unit.
There might not be much hope for fall turkey hunting returning to southeastern Pennsylvania.
Efforts to reintroduce wild turkeys across Pennsylvania wrapped up in the early 2000s, according to Blake, from the National Wild Turkey Federation.
“Turkeys were basically everywhere they could go in the state,” he said. “And 20 years later, if they have shrunk, it’s either because the habitat doesn’t support them or predators or whatever it is is pulling down a turkey population.”
Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.