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<br /> <br />2023 Spring Turkey Hun?ng Season Review <br />By Richard Hoeflinger <br /> <br />The 45-day-long Hawaii Island Spring Turkey Hun?ng Season commenced on <br />March 1 and closed April 15. It is a tagged hunt, i.e., a purchased turkey tag must <br />be in possession while hun?ng and said tag must be affixed to any bird taken. A <br />maximum of (3) non-transferable tags may be purchased seasonally at a cost of $5 <br />each for Hawaii residents and $20 each for non-resident hunters. <br />The current seasonal hun?ng results compiled from hunter harvest reports <br />submi?ed at Mauna Kea and Puu Waa Waa are shown in Figure 1, along with <br />compara?ve values for the preceding 8 years. Seasonal hunter harvest success can <br />be expressed as the average number of birds taken per hun?ng trip made, or since <br />that value is frac?onal, as its reciprocal, the average number of hun?ng trips <br />required to harvest a bird. As indicated in Figure 1, 2023 turkey hunters had an <br />average harvest success rate of 15 %, or alternately expressed, it took an average <br />of 6 ½ hun?ng trips to bag a bird. <br /> <br />Figure 1 - Spring Turkey Hunt Data, 2015-2023 <br /> <br /> <br /> Year Birds Taken Hunter Trips Birds/Trip Trips/Bird <br />2015 51 279 0.18 5.47 <br />2016 47 229 0.21 4.87 <br />2017 43 258 0.17 6.00 <br />2018 42 347 0.12 8.26 <br />2019 35 438 0.08 12.51 <br />2020 55 341 0.16 6.20 <br />2021 41 369 0.11 9.00 <br />2022 44 407 0.11 9.25 <br />2023 54 351 0.15 6.50 <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Annual variances in turkey hun?ng sta?s?cs are be?er visualized in the graphical <br />presenta?on of Figure 2, which indicates the 23 % upward ?ck in the number of <br />birds taken over the previous year, in 14 % fewer hunter trips made. It will be <br /> <br />