Hunters reported harvesting 567 wild turkeys during Delaware’s month-long spring turkey season — 7.4% lower than the 2021 hunting season, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control announced Monday.

While the 2022 harvest was slightly lower, it was generally consistent with and in the range of annual turkey harvests over the past decade, during which time the wild turkey came into focus as one of the state’s greatest conservation management stories after a restoration effort in the mid-1980s returned this iconic native gamebird to Delaware for the first time since the late 1800s.

Turkeys were harvested in 17 of 18 Delaware wildlife management zones. A wild turkey harvest “hot spot” occurred along a corridor of nine management zones, consisting of and stretching from zones 4, 6, 7 and 8 in western Kent County through zones 9, 11, 12, 14 and 16 in Sussex County, which accounted for 73.4% of the total harvest in the state. Zone 1A, which is in New Castle County north of I-95/I-295, was the only zone where turkeys were not harvested.

For hunters planning ahead, the 2023 wild turkey hunting season will open Saturday, April 8 and run through Saturday, May 6, with the special day for youth and non-ambulatory hunters set for Saturday, April 1. Hunters planning to hunt public lands should submit a public lands turkey lottery application, with information available in the 2022/2023 Delaware Hunting & Trapping Guide. Hunters are required to successfully complete a turkey hunter education class before hunting wild turkeys in Delaware and before applying for a permit to hunt on public lands, with additional information available at Delaware Hunter Education Courses.