The Rio Grande Turkey: Conservation Win, Warning Sign

Woooo doggie. Welcome back to Texas Fish and Game Unfiltered with Kevin Burke.

Turkey season is here. And before you grab your calls and head for the brush, I want to talk to you about something most hunters aren't paying attention to — the actual state of the bird you're chasing.

Here's the thing. Texas has more wild turkeys than any other state in the country. We're talking around 500,000 birds. That sounds great. And for the Rio Grande turkey — our turkey — it is a genuine conservation success story.

But nationally? Wild turkeys are down 39% since 2019. That's not a typo. Thirty-nine percent in five years.

Today we're going to talk about where Texas stands, where the Rio Grande turkey came from, what's happening to turkey populations across the country, and what it means for the hunter heading out this spring. I'll also give you a quick, honest breakdown on calling and gear — not the sponsored content version. The real version.

Let's get into it.

The Rio Grande Turkey — A Texas Comeback Story

Let me give you some history, because it matters. Real history — not the two-sentence version.

Texas supports three of the five wild turkey subspecies found in North America. The Rio Grande dominates the Rolling Plains, the Edwards Plateau, South Texas brush country, and the southern Post Oak Savanna. The Eastern turkey holds down the Piney Woods and bottomland hardwoods of East Texas. And the Merriam's turkey — the least common of the three — lives out in the ponderosa pines of the Trans-Pecos mountains in far West Texas.

Today we're focused on the Rio Grande, because it's the one most Texas hunters are chasing — and it has one of the most remarkable conservation stories in the history of this state.

By 1920, unregulated market hunting and habitat destruction had reduced the Rio Grande wild turkey population in Texas to around 100,000 birds. One of the toughest, most iconic game animals in Texas, nearly wiped out. And it didn't happen slowly — it happened in a few decades of unregulated take. Commercial hunters selling birds by the wagonload, habitat getting cleared for agriculture, nobody managing anything.

Texas actually tried to get ahead of it early. In 1881 — that's not a typo — Texas implemented a three-and-a-half month closure on turkey harvest. Bag limits came in 1903. Seasons got shorter. They started specifically protecting hens. Game warden staff expanded six-fold by 1923. All of that — and populations still barely moved. Because regulations alone don't rebuild a population. You need habitat. And in the early 1900s, nobody had figured that part out yet.

The real turning point came in 1937 when Congress passed the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act. If you're not familiar — this is the law that puts an excise tax on firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment and sends that money directly back to state wildlife agencies for conservation. Every time you buy a box of shells, a chunk of that money goes to wildlife habitat. It's one of the most successful conservation funding mechanisms ever created, and hunters funded it. Don't let anybody tell you hunters don't contribute to conservation.

That funding allowed Texas to launch a serious translocation program. Starting in 1938, working with private landowners and the National Wild Turkey Federation, TPWD began trapping wild birds from healthy populations and releasing them into suitable habitat across the state. Over roughly 60 years — from the late 1930s through the 1990s — 33,000 Rio Grande turkeys were trapped and relocated across Texas.

The results were remarkable. By 1963 the population had rebounded to 226,000 birds. By 1968 it had doubled again to over 500,000. Today TPWD considers 95% of suitable Rio Grande turkey range in Texas to be occupied by wild populations.

Five hundred thousand birds from 100,000 in 1920. A five-fold increase driven entirely by conservation effort, private landowner cooperation, and hunter dollars.

The Rio Grande turkey is legitimately the King of Texas — and that's not a nickname I made up. That's what the biologists at Texas A&M call it. They've earned that title.

One more detail worth mentioning because it's genuinely fascinating: out in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, where Rio Grande turkey range overlaps with isolated Merriam's populations, biologists are actually seeing hybridization between the two subspecies. They're interbreeding. That tells you the Rio Grande is thriving enough to push into territory it's sharing with another subspecies. That's not a bird in trouble — that's a bird doing exactly what a healthy, expanding population does.

East Texas is a different story. The Eastern turkey restoration has been slower and harder. The same trap-and-relocate strategy that worked brilliantly for the Rio Grande didn't produce the same results in East Texas. Researchers eventually developed what they called super stocking — releasing 70 to 80 birds at once into a site instead of the previous 15 to 20. That helped. But East Texas turkeys are still struggling relative to their Rio Grande cousins, and researchers are still working to understand exactly why.

So in Texas — specifically for the Rio Grande — the story is a good one. A real conservation win built by hunters, landowners, and TPWD working together over a hundred years.

But that's not the whole picture.

The National Picture — What's Actually Happening

Here's the data that should concern every turkey hunter in America.

According to a 2025 Wildlife Society Bulletin study — peer-reviewed, this is not somebody's opinion — total wild turkey populations in the United States are down 39% compared to 2019. We went from somewhere around 5 million birds to about 3 million in five years.

Texas is holding up better than most. TPWD's 2025 summer survey data shows overall turkey observations at 9.21 birds per thousand miles traveled, up from 8.47 in 2024. Recruitment — meaning poults per hen — came in at 2.19 in 2025, a slight decline from 2024's 2.66, but still above the 2.0 threshold TPWD uses to indicate a growing population.

For context: in 2022, during the drought, recruitment crashed to 0.68 poults per hen. That's devastation. The rebound since then is real — and Texas's 2024 spring harvest was up over 30% from 2023, so hunters are finding birds again after some tough years.

But the national decline is real. The Eastern wild turkey — the subspecies that dominates the Southeast and most of the country — is getting hammered. States like Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia are all reporting significant population drops. The culprits are changing forest structure, predation pressure, declining insect populations for poults, and weather patterns hammering nesting success.

Texas is a bright spot right now. But we are not immune to what's happening everywhere else. The drought years of 2022 proved exactly how fast things can turn.

Why Turkeys Decline — The Real Reasons

Turkey populations don't crash because of hunting pressure. They crash because of habitat.

A Rio Grande turkey needs a home range of at least 500 acres. A flock can easily use more than 5,000 acres. They need roosting cover, nesting cover, and brood cover — all dispersed across large, connected landscapes.

Here's what kills poults specifically, and this is the detail most hunters don't know: insects. Baby turkeys need insects — high protein, early on. Research out of Texas showed that areas with good insect abundance and a mix of grassy and shrubby cover had dramatically higher poult survival. Areas with declining turkeys almost always had poor brood habitat — too much bare ground, too little native grass, not enough insects.

Sound familiar? We're losing native grasses everywhere. We're spraying for insects. We're overgrazing pastures. We're clearing brush in ways that remove the understory turkeys need to nest and hide their poults.

You can do food plots, predator control, water development — and those things help on the margins. But the research is clear: none of it replaces proper habitat. If you want turkeys on your land, manage your habitat. Native grasses. Brush structure. Leave corridors. Let the understory grow.

Same lesson as deer. Same lesson as ducks. Habitat wins.

What You Can Actually Do

If you've got a lease or your own land in Texas, here's what the research says actually works. Not opinions — what biologists and land managers have found to move the needle.

Grazing management. Overgrazing is one of the biggest turkey killers in Texas and nobody talks about it enough. When cattle graze a pasture down to nothing, you lose the native grass structure hens use for nesting. A hen needs grass at least 18 inches tall with enough density to hide her nest and cover her poults. If your pastures look like a golf course, turkeys aren't nesting there. If you have any influence over grazing on your lease — rotational grazing, rest periods, keeping cattle out of certain areas during nesting season from March through June — use it.

Brush management the right way. In the Hill Country and South Texas the instinct is to clear brush — and for some species that's correct. But for turkeys, you need structure. A mix of open areas for foraging with nearby brush and tree cover for roosting and escape. Don't clear brush right up to your senderos and roads. Leave brushy edges. Leave corridors that connect open areas to roost trees. Turkeys move through landscapes — they need connected habitat, not isolated patches surrounded by bare ground.

Protect your roost trees. In the western two-thirds of Texas, roost trees are often the most limiting factor. Turkeys roost in trees every single night and they need large trees near water they can fly up into safely. If you've got mature live oaks, pecans, or cottonwoods along a creek — protect them. Don't clear them for a food plot. Those roost sites are worth more to a turkey flock than any amount of corn. TPWD and AgriLife Extension have also developed plans for artificial turkey roosts if you're in open country with limited natural trees.

Water development. Turkeys need water, especially in dry years. Nest sites are typically within a quarter mile of a water source. No water, no nesting. No nesting, no poults. No poults, no future birds. If you can develop water on your property — stock tanks, wildlife water structures — do it.

What doesn't work as well as you think. Food plots. I know that's not what you want to hear, but the research is consistent — food plots don't address the root cause of turkey decline. They might concentrate birds and make them easier to hunt. But if your habitat doesn't support nesting and poult survival, you're just feeding the predators that are going to eat the eggs and the chicks. Same with predator control — it can help short-term in specific situations, but you can't trap your way to a turkey population. You can only habitat your way there.

Calling and Gear — The Honest Version

I told you up front I'm not a hardcore turkey hunter. But here's what I know from talking to people who are and doing the research.

On calls — you need two. A box call and a slate call. That's it for most hunters. A box call is the easiest to use and produces great volume — good for locating birds from a distance or cutting through wind. A slate call gives you more control and produces softer, more realistic sounds — better for close work when a bird is in and you're trying to finesse him those last 50 yards.

Mouth calls are what the experts use because they're hands-free, but they take real practice. Don't buy one two days before season and expect to sound like anything but a sick crow.

Learn two sounds to start: the yelp and the cluck. That's enough to kill birds. The yelp is your basic communication call — three to five notes, how hens talk to each other and to toms. The cluck is a single soft note that says "I'm here, I'm calm, come check me out." Those two calls will handle 90% of your turkey hunting.

On gear — you don't need much. Camo that breaks up your outline, a comfortable seat because you're sitting still for a long time, and a shotgun or bow you're confident with.

If you're shooting a standard 12 gauge, you're fine. Choke tubes matter more than most hunters realize — a turkey-specific extra-full choke tightens your pattern significantly at distance. Shoot it at paper at 40 yards before season and know where your pattern is. Don't find out in the field. For loads, No. 4, 5, or 6 shot in a quality turkey load. TSS — Tungsten Super Shot — is expensive but it's a genuine game changer at distance if you're willing to spend the money.

Know your effective range. A wounded turkey that runs into thick brush and dies 200 yards away is a bad day. Keep shots inside 40 yards with a standard load.

One more thing: your hands and face are your biggest camouflage problems. Turkeys have exceptional eyesight. Gloves and a face mask or face paint — don't skip them.

Where I Land

Go hunt. The Rio Grande is in good shape right now. Numbers are up from the drought lows, recruitment is positive, and Texas is the best state in the country for this bird. We should be grateful for the work that hunters, TPWD, and private landowners put in to get it here.

But pay attention to what's happening nationally. A 39% decline in five years is not a blip — it's a trend. The drought of 2022 gave us a preview. When recruitment hits 0.68 poults per hen, you are one bad year from a serious population problem.

The answer — as always on this podcast — is habitat. Native grasses. Brush structure. Water. Give the hens somewhere to nest and somewhere to hide their poults and the birds will do the rest.

And if you kill one this spring, say thank you. Not to me, not to a sponsor — to the conservation system that brought this bird back from 100,000 in 1920 to half a million today. It didn't happen by accident.

That's the state of the Rio Grande turkey in Texas. You've got the history, the numbers, the habitat story, and enough calling knowledge to get started.

Now go find one.

Here's what I want to hear from you — where are you hunting this spring? Hill Country, Rolling Plains, South Texas? Are you seeing good numbers on your lease or has it been tough? And for the experienced turkey hunters out there — what's one calling tip you wish somebody had told you earlier?

Bring it all to the Texas Fish and Game Network at texasfishandgamenetwork.com. If you got something out of this episode, share it with somebody heading out this spring. Rate the show. And bring a buddy to the Network.

Thanks for listening to Texas Fish and Game Unfiltered. Until next time — get outdoors and find your peace.