DRS
Well-known member
Killed a second gobbler last Sunday morning but it wasn't much of a hunt. After seeing a gobbler acting strange in a winter wheat field Sat. evening I ended up basically walking up on him the next morning in the same field. When I went to pick him up I saw he had growths/scabs/tumors all over his head and appeared to be blind in his right eye. Also, even though he had a 10.5 beard and 7/8" spurs he looked emaciated and was probably on 12 pounds max. I was afraid of eating the meat so I left the carcass in the woods. I called the state regional biologist Monday and he indicated that it sounded like either he had avian pox of LPDV. He would have needed the body to test to be sure. Either way he said it is not dangerous to humans and is not known to adversely affect the overall turkey population. He said I did the right thing to go ahead and kill it and offered to get me another tag, but I declined because I'm traveling out of state to hunt next week and between that, work, and family plans I probably won't have much time to hunt in NC before the season goes out anyway.
