In a few weeks, turkey hunters will be distraught when the US Forest Service begins conducting controlled burns in the Ouachita National Forest.

Some of the burns will occur during nesting season, and many hunters believe the fires will destroy turkey nests and contribute to a perceived shortage of turkeys in the Ouachita National Forest. To abuse an overused phrase, the optics aren’t good, but the results benefit the turkeys immensely, even in the short term.

Although tree species are different in the South, the methodology for managing southern pine forests is universal. Fire is the most effective tool for improving existing turkey habitat and creating new turkey habitat. If done correctly, at an appropriate scale, burning during the nesting season is not known to have a negative effect on the nesting productivity of turkeys.

Warren Montague, a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Forest Service in Waldron, helped implement the Bluestem Pine Restoration Project in the western portion of the Ouachita National Forest in the mid-1990s. Each year he hears from turkey hunters convinced that late burning destroys turkey nests.

“Prescribed burning is one of the only forest management tools available to manage virtually huge landscapes of potentially productive turkey habitat, not just in Arkansas, but throughout the species’ range,” said wrote Montague in an email.

The results are inescapable. Western Ouachita National Forest supports the largest populations of wild bobwhite quail on southern public lands. It provides food for white-tailed deer and contains many foraging, nesting, and brood-rearing habitats for wild turkeys.

Prescribed burning is a major driver for wild turkey populations in southern forests in states that have much better turkey hunting than we do in Arkansas.

Once encompassing nearly 90 million acres from southern Virginia to east Texas, the longleaf pine forests are home to nearly 600 species of plants and animals, including 29 threatened and endangered species. Due to industrial conversion of wood species, only about 3% of the longleaf pine ecosystem remains. Due to generational fire suppression, much of the rest is in disrepair.

To maintain, enhance, and augment the remnant, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service created the Longleaf Pine Initiative in 2010 to facilitate private and public conservation partnerships.

The Longleaf Pine Initiative is also a key component of America’s Piney Woods, one of the National Wild Turkey Federation’s Big Six of Wildlife Conservation. The NWTF is a key partner in the Longleaf Pine Initiative, advocating for wild turkey management and representing the interests of turkey hunters within the context of the initiative’s overall conservation goals.

Florida NWTF biologist Ricky Lackey said swamp pine forests evolved with fire, as did shortleaf pine forests, which often overlap. We have shortleaf pines in Arkansas. It’s no coincidence, Lackey said, that these areas are home to healthy turkey populations.

“It’s incredibly important,” Lackey said. “A well-managed longleaf pine ecosystem is as good as it gets for wild turkeys. Without a good, consistent fire, you don’t have the understory and ground-story structure that is important for turkeys and turkeys. nesting cover. Without constant burning, they can become far too overgrown and wooded for birds to use properly.”

Lackey said wild turkeys and bobwhite quail are among a small category of birds that depend on fire to provide the structure they need to facilitate their life cycle.

“Any burned area can be used by a hen and her brood,” Lackey said, adding that turkeys use the phases of a burn rotation differently. An area that was burned last year is not as good for brood habitat, but it is improving for nesting habitat. This area will not be burned for at least two years. A hen will take her brood from the nesting habitat to a freshly burned area as soon as she is ready.

The size of the burns is important, of course. Burns of about 100 acres are better than burns of 1000 acres because large burns increase the distance between nesting areas and foraging areas. However, large burns do not immolate broods or nests. In the end, a big burn is better than no burn.

“If I am a public land hunter and see a fire that has been driven into the long leaf ecosystem, know that fire is a benefit in most cases and not detrimental,” Lackey said. “It’s necessary for this forest to thrive. We’re still talking about fire, but there’s been a slow, gradual decline in prescribed fires in the southeast. We need to burn more, not less.”