Turkey Biologist Offers Tips On Measuring Spurs by: Jim Low

Story by: Guest Contributor

First posted on 04-12-2007

In his classic book My Health is Better in November, Havilah Babcock wrote, “It is always disillusioning to weigh your fish and measure your golf drives. Smart men estimate them.” Babcock had a deep understanding of outdoor pursuits and human nature. However, he might have given different advice if, like Resource Scientist Jeff Beringer, he had been responsible for managing game animals.

Beringer is the Missouri Department of Conservation’s turkey biologist. To track the health of the state’s turkey flock, he relies on measurements of turkeys killed by hunters. Until 2005, hunters brought their turkeys to check stations, where experienced personnel measured the length of each bird’s spurs and beard. These data became part of a scientific management program.

“Spur measurements are particularly valuable,” said Beringer. “The correlation between spur length and a gobbler’s age is very strong. Knowing how many birds taken by hunters had spurs more than 1 inch long gave us reliable information about how many birds over two years old were being killed each spring.”

Notice that Beringer used the past tense when describing the usefulness of spur-length data. With full implementation of the automated Telecheck game checking system in 2006, hunters became the official measurers of spurs and beards. Alas, they seem to have taken Babcock’s advice.

“The year that Telecheck became mandatory, we saw a jump of almost 20 percent in the number of birds reported to have spurs longer than 1 inch,” said Beringer. “We had never seen that kind of increase before. I don’t think it reflected an actual increase in the age of turkeys checked last year.”

What did it reflect? Unbridled optimism? The triumph of hope over reality? A tendency to exaggerate?

Beringer has a more charitable interpretation, based on a mathematical device - rounding up.

“In grade school, you learn how to round off numbers,” he said. “If you want whole numbers, you round anything over half up to the next larger number. I think some hunters might be applying that to their turkeys’ spurs.”

Beringer has a request for turkey hunters. If both of a gobbler’s spurs fall short of the one-inch mark on a ruler - even a tiny bit short- report it as less than an inch. You can still tell your friends that spur was an inch, and the Conservation Department will have a better basis for turkey management.

Page 6 of the 2007 Spring Turkey Hunting Information booklet has directions and a diagram illustrating correct spur measurement. The booklet is available wherever hunting permits are sold.

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