WDNR measures winter; Winter conditions are considered mild if the station accumulates less than 50 points, moderate if between 51 and 80 points, severe if between 81 and100, and very severe if over 100. Many northern stations have already exceeded severe.
The main concern is the stress on the deer herd. However, turkeys experience the same stresses in some areas the turkeys are worse off than the deer. Because turkey hunting is a fringe activity compared to deer hunting in WI the vast majority of resources go to the deer side of the equation. I don't expect to hear much about winter conditions effects turkeys from the DNR. What does it matter? We can't do anything to help the turkeys now.
Last night I put up a long post on www.charlieelk.com
explaining the index and the WDNR manager's take on it and the feeding of wildlife.
Is anyone else been out looking around to see how the turkeys are faring?
In unit 4 I've found evidence of dead turkeys. No way to tell how many because unlike a deer carcass turkey carcasses disappear quickly. All manner of predators and scavengers devour them. (crows, fox, coyote, wolves, cougars, heck even chickadees and nuthatches.) Perhaps a spot of good news is the predator population takes a bigger hit during conditions like this than the prey does. That is nature's way of "speeding up" the prey's recovery.
We could see a lot fewer turkeys come spring. Namely fewer young hens, jakes and the most senior gobs.