Virginia Reports Fourth-Highest Spring Turkey Harvest in 2025

Virginia’s wild turkey population continues to support strong hunting opportunities, according to the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR), which has reported a spring harvest of 20,565 birds for 2025. While this figure marks a 6% decrease from 2024, it still stands as the fourth-highest spring turkey harvest ever recorded in the Commonwealth.

Executive Director Ryan Brown noted that the population remains resilient. While factors like hatch success, weather, and food availability can cause fluctuations, turkeys continue to provide excellent recreational opportunities for hunters across Virginia.

Numbers Reflect Natural Trends

The recent drop in harvest numbers comes after back-to-back record-setting seasons in 2023 and 2024, when hunters harvested 24,447 and 21,988 turkeys, respectively. Those peak seasons were largely attributed to strong brood success in 2021 when favorable nesting conditions helped young turkeys—known as poults—survive in larger numbers.

In contrast, DWR’s brood surveys from 2022 and 2023 showed below-average recruitment, meaning fewer poults survived into adulthood. This helps explain the 2025 decline, along with a notable uptick in the number of juvenile males, or “jakes,” making up the harvest. Jakes accounted for 11% of this year’s take, compared to 7% in 2024.

The rest of the harvest was made up primarily of adult gobblers—mature male turkeys with beards at least 7 inches in length—who made up 89% of the total.

East of the Blue Ridge Leads Again

Geographically, once again, the majority of the harvest came from the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where 69% of birds were taken. The western side accounted for the remaining 31%. Harvest patterns also showed that most turkeys were taken on private land, with 93% of birds harvested on non-public property. Public land hunters, including those on state and federal lands like National Forests, made up the other 7%.

Hunting activity was also heavily skewed toward the mornings, with 93% of all harvests recorded before noon.

Management Plan Guides the Future

The spring season’s success highlights the effectiveness—and ongoing challenges—of Virginia’s Wild Turkey Management Plan, a statewide strategy developed by DWR with input from hunters, farmers, landowners, and conservationists. The plan, shaped through meetings with a Stakeholder Advisory Committee and guided by technical input from DWR’s Turkey Technical Committee, lays out a comprehensive framework for managing wild turkeys through habitat improvement, regulated hunting, public education, and conflict resolution.

One of the plan’s top concerns is maintaining balanced turkey populations—not just for hunters but also to avoid problems like crop damage, road hazards, and nuisance complaints in populated areas. While wild turkeys were once close to extinction, conservation efforts have made them a national wildlife success story, and Virginia’s current challenge is to maintain healthy numbers without tipping the scale too far in either direction.

A Blueprint Through 2022—and Beyond

The Virginia Wild Turkey Management Plan is divided into two major parts: a technical section covering biology, history, and population data and a values-based section that outlines seven major goal areas. These include:

• Sustaining healthy turkey populations

• Supporting ethical and safe hunting traditions

• Providing recreational opportunities for hunters and non-hunters

• Addressing human-wild turkey conflicts

• Ensuring public involvement in decision-making

With objectives and strategies assigned to each goal, the plan serves as a long-term roadmap for the Department and the public alike. Although the original plan was extended through 2022, its structure continues to inform turkey management policies today.

For hunters and wildlife enthusiasts alike, the 2025 season reminds them that smart management and public involvement remain essential to keeping turkey populations strong for future generations. Hunters are encouraged to stay informed, support habitat conservation, and report their harvests to assist in monitoring efforts.

To learn more about turkey management and view the full Wild Turkey Management Plan, visit dwr.virginia.gov/wildlife/turkey.