Eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) use a polygynous-promiscuous mating system, wherein males compete for mating opportunities and communicate with females via courtship behaviors. One courtship behavior is vocalization (gobbling), which attracts females and signals dominance to other males. However, temporal variation in gobbling activity may be influenced by external stimuli, environmental variation, and hunter activity. Gobbling activity is a key determinant of hunter satisfaction, and gobbling chronology is often used by state agencies to inform regulatory processes. To identify factors influencing gobbling activity, we evaluated daily gobbling chronology on 3 sites in South Carolina, USA (Webb Wildlife Management Area [WMA] Complex, Savannah River Site, Crackerneck WMA) with different levels of hunter activity. We used autonomous recording units (ARUs; n ¼ 45) across 8,280 days to collect 53,937 hours of ambient sound recordings and identified 68,426 gobbles. Gobbling activity varied daily and site interacting with minutes since sunrise best predicted daily gobbling activity. We noted distinct differences in predicted numbers of gobbles between hunted sites and an unhunted site, suggesting that hunting may be an important determinant of gobbling activity. Across our study sites, we observed that !72% of gobbling activity occurred between 30 minutes before and 60 minutes after sunrise. We found no clear evidence of well-defined unimodal or bimodal peaks in daily or weekly gobbling activity. Across sites, <44% of gobbling activity occurred during legal hunting seasons in South Carolina, with between 30% and 48% of gobbling activity occurring after legal hunting seasons. Because hunter satisfaction is primarily influenced by gobbling activity, wildlife managers in South Carolina may consider adjusting dates of turkey hunting seasons to correspond hunting with periods when most gobbling occurs. Ó 2018 The Wildlife Society.

Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo spp., hereafter turkey) are the second most pursued big game species in the United States. Turkey hunting occurs primarily during spring, and on publicly owned lands managers often monitor hunter numbers and harvest as components of managing hunter opportunity and satisfaction. Contemporary research has shown that hunting activity on public lands can influence male turkey behavior; hence, research detailing hunter behaviors is needed to better support informed management. We allocated 1,500 Global Positioning System units to hunters pursuing male turkeys during the spring hunting seasons of 2014–2018 on the Webb Wildlife Management Area Complex in South Carolina, USA. Mean number of unique hunting bouts per hunter per day was 2 (SE = 0.03, range = 1–8), whereas average time spent hunting was 230.1 minutes (SE = 4.6, range = 11.3–872.6)/hunter/day. Hunting effort was focused during the first half of hunting season, with 70.2% of the total time spent hunting occurring during the first 2 weeks of the season (~1–15 Apr). Mean distance a hunter traveled was 2,171 m (SE = 38.1, range = 10–20,685)/hunting bout. Almost 90% of hunting activity occurred between 0500 and 1200, 76% occurred before 1000. Access to roads appeared to be the primary driver of hunter movements, with 40.1% of all hunter locations <25 m from the nearest main or secondary road. On average, hunters were 480 m (SE = 0.5, range = 0–2,132) from main roads that allowed vehicle traffic, but only 123 m (SE = 0.3, range = 0–1,990) from secondary roads allowing only foot traffic. Hunters spent 54.3% of hunting bouts actively hunting and 45.7% stationary. The amount of time spent active decreased as the hunting season progressed. Hunter effort decreased significantly as the hunting season progressed, indicated by a decline in numbers of hunters and total time spent hunting. Understanding how and when turkey hunters move about the landscape is important for effectively managing hunting access and opportunity on public hunting lands. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

Environmental disturbances driven by global climate variability continue to increase in both frequency and intensity.Recent studies on wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) have documented both direct and indirect demographic effects of short-term, climatically driven events; however, only limited information is available on the effects of extreme environmental disturbance events on turkey demography. Thus, we evaluated space use and movements of eastern wild turkeys (M. g. silvestris; n = 20) and Rio Grande wild turkeys (M. g. intermedia; n = 22) during hurricane events in South Carolina and Texas, respectively. Hurricane Matthew occurred over a 3-day period in October 2016 impacting ongoing turkey research on the Webb Wildlife Management Area Complex in South Carolina, whereas Hurricane Harvey occurred over a 5-day period in August 2017 impacting an ongoing 6county study region in Texas. We documented 1 and 2 direct mortalities during Hurricanes Matthew and Harvey, respectively. Mean core area size used by turkeys decreased by 75% during both hurricane events. We did not document evidence of changes in roost fidelity or distance between daily roost clusters after either hurricane. We documented

Wild pigs (Sus scrofa), which are invasive in many regions globally, can alter ecosystems and compete with native species through interference competition and resource exploitation. Wild pig impacts on other species may increase with greater niche overlap, which could vary over time based on environmental conditions, resource availability, or biological traits like diet, especially as seasonal variation in wild pig diet has been widely documented. A limited number of studies have assessed spatial or temporal overlap between native species and invasive wild pigs, with only a handful simultaneously assessing overlap in these niche dimensions. We investigated the potential for interspecific interactions involving invasive wild pigs in the Piedmont region of South Carolina, USA, by examining seasonal spatiotemporal overlap with other wildlife using N‐mixture models and diel activity overlap analyses. Site use by white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and coyote (Canis latrans) was negatively associated with wild pig activity in the fall, when the species had high diel activity overlap, indicating spatial partitioning could reduce interference competition with wild pigs in this season. Conversely, white‐tailed deer site use was positively associated with wild pig activity in the winter, suggesting higher spatial overlap may be necessary if resources are limited. Site use by bobcat (Lynx rufus) and nine‐banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) in the spring, along with raccoon (Procyon lotor) and wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) site use in the summer, was positively associated with wild pig activity. With the exception of diurnal wild turkey, diel activity overlap between these species and wild pigs was high, although temporal partitioning could have occurred at finer spatiotemporal scales than we examined. Our results collectively emphasize the importance of accounting for seasonal spatial and temporal responses by individual species to invasive wild pigs, with special consideration given to species in seasons where high niche overlap with wild pigs is anticipated.

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