Wild turkey populations have been successfully restored across their historic range, and now populations are no longer increasing, but rather are decreasing or have stabilized. New York State has several long-term, state-wide, data sets which provided us a unique opportunity to examine the drivers of productivity, fall harvest, and spring abundance. Landscape-level habitat configuration is the most important factor in supporting levels of productivity. Land-cover proportions and landscape configurations affect mean levels of fall harvest, and higher spring rainfall decreases fall harvest leading to temporal fluctuations. Landscape-level spring population abundance is detrimentally affected by winter severity, is not mitigated by agricultural lands, but is unaffected by fall harvest.
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