Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless,
Speaker 1: severely bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening. Don't
Speaker 1: eat podcast. You can't predict anything presented by first Light.
Speaker 1: Go farther, stay longer, All right, Becky Humphries, UM, thanks
Speaker 1: for coming on and talking to us, my pleasure. Can
Speaker 1: you can you in a in a super quick fashion
Speaker 1: or take as long as you want explain to people
Speaker 1: what the National Wild Turkey Federation is? UM? And also
Speaker 1: you know you can also throw in there how you are.
Speaker 1: Is it still fair to say new? I hope? So yeah,
Speaker 1: less than a year or so. I mean I started
Speaker 1: in April at you. Yeah, so I talked about the
Speaker 1: I talked about the n WTF people all the time. UM,
Speaker 1: and people listen to the show. I've heard about it
Speaker 1: a fair bit. But just yeah, give give what sort
Speaker 1: of like your standard breakdown? Okay? Well, the National Wild
Speaker 1: Turkey Federation was formed back in nine. It was formed
Speaker 1: to restore the wild Turkey and has grown to conserve
Speaker 1: our hunting heritage. So we are a nationwide nonprofit conservation
Speaker 1: organization with volunteers and chapters in every state. UM, and
Speaker 1: we we worked real hard on making sure there's really
Speaker 1: good active habitat management across the country, and also that
Speaker 1: we are bringing in the next generation a hunter, that
Speaker 1: we're maintaining that continuity in our hunting public and and
Speaker 1: growing the hunting sport. So for this last ten years,
Speaker 1: well the last five years, on a ten year initiative,
Speaker 1: we've been working on save the Habitat, Save the Hunt.
Speaker 1: We're we put together some pretty lofty goals of restoring
Speaker 1: and conserving four million acres a habitat, creating a million
Speaker 1: and a half hunters, and opening up a half million
Speaker 1: acres the hunting access, opening up a half million acres
Speaker 1: tony access. So there's not public access now would become
Speaker 1: public access according to the goal. Yep, that's correct. I
Speaker 1: want to get into that. UM. But first back, like,
Speaker 1: are you from Michigan. I am from Michigan, Okay, where well,
Speaker 1: I lived all over the Lower Peninsula UM, spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time in the up also, but might still
Speaker 1: have a home north the Grand Rapids. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was born in Moskeeton County, YEP, so it's just a
Speaker 1: little further north. I went to regular college in in
Speaker 1: in in Grand Valley, but lived in Grand Rapids for
Speaker 1: a while yeah, well it's not very far. My home
Speaker 1: is north of Lowell, Michigan, on the Flat River, and
Speaker 1: I still have a home there, and I get back
Speaker 1: there on a regular basis, and I have some of
Speaker 1: my kids that still lived there. And you were, I
Speaker 1: think in the years that I was trapesing around Michigan,
Speaker 1: you were involved in Michigan's Department of Natural Resources or
Speaker 1: the the Michigan Fishing Game equivalent, right, I was. I was.
Speaker 1: I had a thirty two year career there. I started
Speaker 1: off as a field biologist, worked my way up was
Speaker 1: Wildlife Division chief and and retired as the director of
Speaker 1: both the d n R and um d e Q,
Speaker 1: the environmental regulation as well as the Natural Resources Agency.
Speaker 1: They were coming journey. It was like, when you started
Speaker 1: out as a field biologist, what was the first thing
Speaker 1: you were doing. I was managing waterfall areas. I managed
Speaker 1: hiawassee um Maple River and grassh at Sagna in the
Speaker 1: center part of the state. So I was very much
Speaker 1: about active management on those managed wetland areas and grass
Speaker 1: at Saginaw was the headwaters um you know, to the
Speaker 1: Saginaw River and also Downlooking Glass into the Grand River
Speaker 1: and So it was um doing grouse management, timber management
Speaker 1: on those lands, writing management plans, working with private landowners,
Speaker 1: setting hunting regulations and UM. I like challenge. So I
Speaker 1: worked at a Grand Rapid size the district supervisor including
Speaker 1: Muski and County for ten years. I had no idea
Speaker 1: how what you were influencing my life? Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: And so I was out of Grand Rapids off and
Speaker 1: on for ten years. It kept pulling me into Lansing,
Speaker 1: trying to get me to run statewide programs. And I
Speaker 1: kept pushing back out and going out in the field
Speaker 1: because I really liked the connection with the landowners and
Speaker 1: in the sporting public out there. UM. And then what
Speaker 1: was the biggest challenge about all that? I mean about
Speaker 1: about working at the you know, the state level, because
Speaker 1: we're joking about this last night that you know, you
Speaker 1: hear some you hear somebody like ill informed criticisms all
Speaker 1: the time of of state agencies. In fact, it's like
Speaker 1: like growing up in Michigan, the only thing you would
Speaker 1: hear about then was like crazy theories and criticism. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: when I get a NonStop right, oh yeah, the conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1: I mean we had when I started I remember hearing
Speaker 1: people swear they saw green bands unloading coyotes in southern Michigan.
Speaker 1: I mean they would swear up and down we would
Speaker 1: drive in at night and unload kaya. That's the kind
Speaker 1: of resemble and you'd be like, no, you guys, you
Speaker 1: know it's it's these animals are adaptable and they're moving
Speaker 1: back in, just like we're seeing changes and having black Bear,
Speaker 1: you know, moved down into southern Michigan and more bobcat
Speaker 1: down there. It's related to habitat change and animals are adaptable.
Speaker 1: They moved back in. But people don't want to hear it,
Speaker 1: you know, they if they haven't seen it, um, they
Speaker 1: suspect that we have helped create it. Sometimes we have.
Speaker 1: I mean the wild turkey is a great example. I
Speaker 1: worked on live trapping wild turkey. And were you dumping
Speaker 1: them out of green vans? No, we weren't jumping them
Speaker 1: out a green vance. Know, they were cardboard boxes. They
Speaker 1: had National Wild Turkey Federation on the side, and we
Speaker 1: did them. Went press, you know, we invited the press
Speaker 1: out there, and we invited the public. No. No, in fact,
Speaker 1: we tried real hard not to have it be secret. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, but you had that, you had everything
Speaker 1: from that to over abundance issues. You know, at the
Speaker 1: time when I was Wildlife Division getting criticism about overabundance,
Speaker 1: where we had again we had deer, you know, throughout
Speaker 1: Diego County. You know, that area tremendous pine plantation, but
Speaker 1: there's not a you know, there's not anything for deer
Speaker 1: to eat, and a lot of that that red pine
Speaker 1: plantation that used to be in Oego County and a
Speaker 1: deer had to pack a lunch and bring it with them.
Speaker 1: But with real high deer numbers and with the prevalence
Speaker 1: of baiting that was going on there, people could have
Speaker 1: a little ten acre track and a red pine plantation
Speaker 1: and throughout some sugar beets and carrots and and have
Speaker 1: a reasonable chance of seeing some deer. And as we
Speaker 1: had more and more car deer accidents, it was costing
Speaker 1: insurance companies and people with insurance a lot more money.
Speaker 1: We started have disease issues with bovine tuberculosis and the
Speaker 1: deer herd um. We started to bring that population down
Speaker 1: to what we thought was sustainable on the landscape, and
Speaker 1: that was tough for folks, tough that had gotten used
Speaker 1: to really high deer numbers when uh, I don't want
Speaker 1: to I don't want to indulge it, but I just
Speaker 1: want to know. Now obviously brought it up. I'm curious
Speaker 1: about it. People like when people feel that, Okay, someone
Speaker 1: is dumping like predators out, did you ever get like,
Speaker 1: what what what the idea is that they're after? Um? Like?
Speaker 1: What the what? Like? What the perceived motivation for it was? No? UM,
Speaker 1: I think I think they just thought was government, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to mess with their life to Yeah, and inconvenience.
Speaker 1: They didn't. They clearly didn't like those predators on the
Speaker 1: landscape and they had to blame somebody for it, and
Speaker 1: not just that they would just drift in on their own. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when you were like when you were with Michigan UM,
Speaker 1: with the Department Natural Resources of Michigan, you were probably
Speaker 1: aware of National Wild Turkey federations because you would have
Speaker 1: been through all the turkey. Oh yeah, yeah, I I
Speaker 1: mean I remember Dr James Earl Kinnemer came to Michigan
Speaker 1: to talk to us about UM bringing in wild stock
Speaker 1: from other states. We populations at that time down an
Speaker 1: elegant up in Baldwin, A few birds up in Um
Speaker 1: the Alpina area that came from Pennsylvania game farm stock,
Speaker 1: and they were they were a little focused populations. They
Speaker 1: weren't growing. We haunted them, but they you know, they
Speaker 1: weren't doing much, to be honest with you. Those are
Speaker 1: the ones that the Baldwin ones are the ones that
Speaker 1: I remember. And it was that you know, you could
Speaker 1: apply for tags. Remember one of my brother like drew
Speaker 1: one of those tags and went up with his body
Speaker 1: and they kind of messed around and never got a
Speaker 1: bird brown trou But then all of a sudden, it
Speaker 1: was just like I left the state and and moved
Speaker 1: out west. Then all of a sudden was just like
Speaker 1: someone through the light switch man and my dad was
Speaker 1: hunting turkeys a mile from our house. And that ever year,
Speaker 1: it seemed to happen just like overnight, it did. It
Speaker 1: happened very quickly. Um. We brought in birds from Iowa
Speaker 1: and UM a few other states. We released those in
Speaker 1: some areas that we thought had really good turkey habitat
Speaker 1: in it. They took off. They just went gang busters.
Speaker 1: And then we would go in and trap some of
Speaker 1: those birds after they were established and relocate them to
Speaker 1: other areas and then continue to do that across um
Speaker 1: historical turkey range in Michigan and then started opening it
Speaker 1: up to turkey hunting. And then we continue to do
Speaker 1: trap and transfer as we opened it up to hunting,
Speaker 1: to get people used to the concept that you don't
Speaker 1: you know, you can hunt, especially you can hunt in
Speaker 1: the spring where you're hunting those males and um, and
Speaker 1: still restore that population into remaining habitat simultaneous. How do
Speaker 1: you get like, when you say identified turkey habitat, how
Speaker 1: do you guys define turkey habitat? Well, you know, in
Speaker 1: the early days, I remember, UM, we thought you needed
Speaker 1: to have much more extensive blocks of wooded habitat because
Speaker 1: in Michigan, a lot of the presettlement observations, you know,
Speaker 1: when as early settlers came in and talked about the
Speaker 1: abundant turkey populations, it was in the big woods. And
Speaker 1: I think that really those observations came because in that
Speaker 1: mixed agricultural land of southern Michigan, people had hunted him out,
Speaker 1: you know, UM or poached him out or whatever was
Speaker 1: going on at the time. They weren't regulated and so
Speaker 1: because of that, people thought they probably took much more
Speaker 1: extensive wooded habitat than they than they do take. And
Speaker 1: so when we first started on it, we asked that
Speaker 1: same question to Dr James Earl Kennemer, and his comment was,
Speaker 1: you know, this looks like habitat where we find birds
Speaker 1: in the southern United States. Put them out here and
Speaker 1: try it. And we found that they were highly adaptable.
Speaker 1: But they did better in some of those areas where
Speaker 1: you had open glades and you had not real thick
Speaker 1: um young forests. They would use some of the habitat
Speaker 1: at times, but where we could open it up, and
Speaker 1: southern Michigan used to have what we call a lot
Speaker 1: of oaks savannah. It's much like pine savannah that you
Speaker 1: find in the South, where it was a low stocking
Speaker 1: of oaks and then a lot of grasses and forbes
Speaker 1: on the forest floor. Now on a lot of like
Speaker 1: early successional shrubs and heavy cover where a bird can't
Speaker 1: see but or it gets enough daylight, get a lot
Speaker 1: of insect life, You get a lot of variety in there.
Speaker 1: You get those early forbes that come up in the springtime.
Speaker 1: They love that. And so as we got birds and
Speaker 1: learn more about what they were using, we actually went
Speaker 1: into some of the game areas that were really heavily
Speaker 1: stocked forest management areas and heavily um real dense forests.
Speaker 1: So by stock I mean just a stocking of trees
Speaker 1: UM and we opened some of those up, we thinned
Speaker 1: them out. We put fire on that landscape where in
Speaker 1: the spring, usually during the beginning of the growing season,
Speaker 1: we'd run cool fires, low fires through that forest floor,
Speaker 1: so it would take out a lot of the old
Speaker 1: you know, the snags and the dead vegetation, put nutrients
Speaker 1: back in the soil, and really increase that grassy forb
Speaker 1: cover that was on the forest floor. And they loved it.
Speaker 1: I mean they just took off. Some of those areas
Speaker 1: are just prime hunting at this point. Yeah, everything loves it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean deer did really well in it, Turkeys have
Speaker 1: done well in it. I mean it just is um
Speaker 1: and even their insects. I mean, we have um some
Speaker 1: of the corner blue and Mitchell saeder butterflies that are
Speaker 1: really heavily dependent on loop and nectar sources, and that
Speaker 1: loop and seed bank was out there. It was just
Speaker 1: being um because we were not providing enough daylight and
Speaker 1: running fire through the system. We really had not re
Speaker 1: established what had been native vegetation there, So it's kind
Speaker 1: of what's good for the bird scenario. Yeah, and to me,
Speaker 1: there's no more beautiful landscape out there than those savannahs.
Speaker 1: You know, I love like big cottonwood savannas and uh
Speaker 1: you have those big oak savannahs where you can see
Speaker 1: away and see him. It's going to say, that's a
Speaker 1: nice part of it. You can really get some visibility,
Speaker 1: you can see, they're they're very aesthetic and we've lost
Speaker 1: a lot of those. So it's been nice that not
Speaker 1: only in Michigan, but you know throughout the South we're
Speaker 1: restoring a lot of the pine savannah's down there and
Speaker 1: getting those historical long leaf you know, um savannah's out
Speaker 1: on the landscape and running fire through them and they're
Speaker 1: very um, they're very special places. Yeah, you might be
Speaker 1: familiar with the Crotan in North Carolina. My in laws
Speaker 1: living not far from there, so we go when we're there,
Speaker 1: we go for walks and borgeous area, just gorgeous. Do
Speaker 1: you understand the history, I'm sure you do of how
Speaker 1: early on when people are trying to re establish turkeys
Speaker 1: they would use domestic birds, not domestic birds but they'd
Speaker 1: use like, uh, you know, wild birds raised in captivity,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't it wasn't very effective. No, you breed
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't take very long in a breeding
Speaker 1: program that you breed out a lot of the characteristics
Speaker 1: that make wild birds successful um meaning paranoia, paranoia and
Speaker 1: flightiness and the pens birds that that tend to do
Speaker 1: well and activity, um and and have the genetic makeup
Speaker 1: there calm and behavior and the rest of it, they
Speaker 1: just don't do that well in the wild. I mean
Speaker 1: there what would be the things that would happen when
Speaker 1: you cut them loose? They just wouldn't reproduce the population.
Speaker 1: They you'd have young, but you just didn't get above
Speaker 1: that critical threshold where the population was filling the capacity
Speaker 1: of the landscape. So they you know, they'd be there
Speaker 1: and you'd have them, but they just didn't ever get
Speaker 1: the kind of brood size you wanted. They didn't know
Speaker 1: the survival and they didn't ever expand their range. So
Speaker 1: initially they yeah, I guess I wouldn't call it lazy.
Speaker 1: They just were not competitive against other species that were
Speaker 1: out there, um And so as a result of that,
Speaker 1: they got picked off by a number of predators. They
Speaker 1: just didn't have the survival capability bread in them to
Speaker 1: really do really well. So what like, how did the
Speaker 1: breakthrough play out where people realize if you go and
Speaker 1: just capture wild birds and then very quickly move them
Speaker 1: to a location, that those birds do good. Well, there's
Speaker 1: a there was technology that made that available and the
Speaker 1: pure wild birds. If you try and live trap birds
Speaker 1: wild birds using a drop net or some of the
Speaker 1: other early methods of trapping, you're unsuccessful. I mean, your
Speaker 1: ability to catch those birds as they are so weary
Speaker 1: trying to walk, have them walk under a net is impossible.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just really really Oh yeah, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: just like no way. And so they recognize. So as
Speaker 1: we we got to the point where we started using
Speaker 1: some rocket net techniques early on to capture um. Actually
Speaker 1: they were first developed to do some of the waterfall trapping,
Speaker 1: and when we brought that on land, concealed the net,
Speaker 1: used rocket nets propellants to shoot a net over top
Speaker 1: of those birds. That's when we were able to start
Speaker 1: going and really capturing some of those pure wild stock
Speaker 1: that we're still found in remnant populations throughout this southeastern
Speaker 1: and central part of the United States, and so that
Speaker 1: technology allowed us then to go in and capture those
Speaker 1: birds and begin that relocation program. Before that, I mean,
Speaker 1: you couldn't get enough birds captured to really jump start
Speaker 1: those populations and then move them around. So that's what
Speaker 1: really kicked it in the high gear bringing the turkey back,
Speaker 1: that's right. And so, and we had to train all
Speaker 1: of our folks, you know, on how to use those
Speaker 1: explosive devices. We had to get you know, certified, we
Speaker 1: had to have placards. In the early days, we were
Speaker 1: doing it all, you know, unregulated. There really weren't regulations
Speaker 1: again for wildlife biologists use explosives and the rest of it, um,
Speaker 1: like anything in society. After you do it for a while,
Speaker 1: we have more and more regulations. So now how we
Speaker 1: store those explosives, how we carry them on placard vehicles,
Speaker 1: getting people certified, all the rest of it as part
Speaker 1: of the daily life of a wildlife biologists, those kind
Speaker 1: of the wild West. At first, that's well, yeah, it
Speaker 1: wasn't it for the good old days. The good old days,
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't. Um, you're pretty careful with it.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you're dealing with explosives like that. Um,
Speaker 1: you've got to be pretty careful, and you want to
Speaker 1: work with people that were also careful so that as
Speaker 1: you're setting up those nets, that you're not inadvertently in
Speaker 1: front of that net, because you those nets have weights
Speaker 1: on the front of them, and that's what they shoot,
Speaker 1: that weight out and you can, I mean, you can
Speaker 1: hurt somebody pretty badly or kill them if they're out
Speaker 1: front of it. And you don't want to be around
Speaker 1: anybody had an itchy trigger finger, because you get a
Speaker 1: few birds in under the net, you're waiting for the
Speaker 1: rest of the flock to come in. If you set
Speaker 1: it off too soon or too late, you're going to
Speaker 1: have an empty net or one or two birds underneath
Speaker 1: of it. So is they're like pretty high mortality on
Speaker 1: the birds and you're shooting the rocket nets. Um. Not
Speaker 1: if you do it right. I mean occasionally you'll have
Speaker 1: some mortality, um. But but typically it's when a bird
Speaker 1: picks up and tries to fly and it get in
Speaker 1: the net the front of it, the weight catches it.
Speaker 1: But most of the time, if you if you can
Speaker 1: time it right and those birds are in there and
Speaker 1: you've baited long enough, I mean, typically we do the
Speaker 1: trapping in the winter months, when those birds are pretty stressed,
Speaker 1: we put out bait. We get them to the point
Speaker 1: where they're comfortable coming in debate and they start to
Speaker 1: relax a little bit, and then go ahead and trap them.
Speaker 1: But if you get itchy or you know, a little
Speaker 1: trigger itchy or a little um hurried in the whole proposition,
Speaker 1: you're most likely going to be unsuccessful or not as
Speaker 1: successful as you would have liked. So when they when
Speaker 1: you fire that thing, what's a good catch? Like? How?
Speaker 1: What like? What's it like? It depends on how many
Speaker 1: birds do you have in there? UM, You know there
Speaker 1: there are times that you might just get four or
Speaker 1: five birds. There are other times you might get um, fifteen,
Speaker 1: sixteen birds in there. UM. Rarely do you get more
Speaker 1: than two dozen birds in there, but you know a
Speaker 1: dozen or or less UM is more typical. And so
Speaker 1: it's about where those birds are they typically UM And
Speaker 1: depends on parts of the country too. In some areas
Speaker 1: birds really flock up bigger, bigger groups. In other places
Speaker 1: you don't get big fly in the winter months. Really,
Speaker 1: when you you can like tailor this to two experiences
Speaker 1: you had in Michigan or wherever else. That makes sense
Speaker 1: that you kind of know the timeline. But if you
Speaker 1: go into an area that has no turkey. So so
Speaker 1: when when the Nationale Turkey Federation was involved in in
Speaker 1: UM in bringing birds into new locations where there were
Speaker 1: no turkeys on the ground at all, and you bring
Speaker 1: in a population and establish a population, what's the timeline
Speaker 1: before you can start tapping that population to expand in
Speaker 1: other directions. We usually by the second year we were
Speaker 1: in there, we're trapping a few birds out of it,
Speaker 1: and some of those areas depending on how UM in
Speaker 1: the early years, I'm trying to remember how many years
Speaker 1: it was before we opened up hunting, but really it
Speaker 1: was within the first five years UM that you could
Speaker 1: be hunting within five years, Yeah, it was pretty amazing,
Speaker 1: but we had pretty extensive trapping going on to relocate,
Speaker 1: trying and fill all the available habitat. We continue to
Speaker 1: bring in some additional birds from out of state, so
Speaker 1: we were doing pretty extensive management with that, and right
Speaker 1: alongside it at that time, UM, we grew the sport
Speaker 1: of turkey hunting too. I mean there were always a
Speaker 1: few folks that went because we had turkeys to Michigan.
Speaker 1: They would go hunting, but we didn't have anywhere near
Speaker 1: the number of turkey hunters at that point in time
Speaker 1: as we do today. It's the turkey hunting is one
Speaker 1: of the entry points for hunters um in many parts
Speaker 1: of the country, including Michigan, deer in Turkey, or the
Speaker 1: two entry points where it used to be small game.
Speaker 1: You know, through the forties, fifties, and sixties, it was
Speaker 1: usually pheasant hunting, squirrel and rabbit. Now it's moved over
Speaker 1: to deer in Turkey or the points of entry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like the Turkey even though
Speaker 1: it's a spring activity, I feel like it's siphoned off
Speaker 1: a lot of small game interests somehow, like traditional small game,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean like I feel like, like growing
Speaker 1: up pretty Turkey, there's so much like squirrel and rabbit hunting.
Speaker 1: But then the deer hunting just got better and better
Speaker 1: and better better, and so all these like big things
Speaker 1: like turkeys around everywhere. Deer hunting got really good. I
Speaker 1: think I think it was also the demographic changes and
Speaker 1: the you know, we're now three generations off the farm
Speaker 1: or ranch, and I think people that lived on the
Speaker 1: farm did small game hunting on a more regular activity.
Speaker 1: They go out back to the woodlot and kill a
Speaker 1: few squirrel and and have use it for food. They
Speaker 1: go rabbit hunting through the winter months and use it
Speaker 1: for food. And now people have to make it. Most
Speaker 1: people do not live on the land where they hunt,
Speaker 1: and so you have to be pretty directed and also
Speaker 1: with their time involved with it. They tend to go
Speaker 1: out for the big seasons and shorter windows of time
Speaker 1: and with it, I think there has been a decline
Speaker 1: in small game hunting, which is too bad because I
Speaker 1: think it still is a wonderful way. I think turkey
Speaker 1: hunting is a wonderful way to start hunting, but I
Speaker 1: also think small game hunting is awesome way to start. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I found that turkey hunting is a great way to
Speaker 1: introduce people. Oh yeah, it's because it's just like fun.
Speaker 1: Well it's fun and you can you know, you can
Speaker 1: sit right behind him or right near them. Um, it's
Speaker 1: it doesn't require them trying to wing shoot a bird,
Speaker 1: you know, while they're walking through cover and the rest
Speaker 1: of it. So trying to get that coordination together and
Speaker 1: some of the skill sets as early shooters do is
Speaker 1: nice for it. Um, there's an anticipation, which I think
Speaker 1: is absolutely awesome. I mean, we've all we've all been
Speaker 1: there where you're calling a bird and you can hear
Speaker 1: it coming in, and you're waiting and waiting, and by
Speaker 1: the time that bird comes in, your heart's pounding between
Speaker 1: your ears and you're so excited, you know, to have
Speaker 1: it come in. And I think that hooks people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: being out, it's all warm, it's one. Yeah, that's not
Speaker 1: the fun part of it. But I got two questions.
Speaker 1: One I just want to lay out because I don't
Speaker 1: want to forget it, and the other one was gonna
Speaker 1: take a little of time. But so I'm saying both
Speaker 1: knocks and before I'm gonna forget it, I'll remember that one. Um.
Speaker 1: Someone once told me, I want to check if you
Speaker 1: if this is true to your to your understanding. Someone
Speaker 1: once told me that they're talking about just like the
Speaker 1: attrition of turkeys, right, and they're saying that that if
Speaker 1: a turkey lays eggs on the ground, right, the eggs
Speaker 1: bill the eggs that hit the ground roughly seventy percent
Speaker 1: never hatch of the eggs that hit the ground. Are
Speaker 1: they talking about all their predation and everything, predation and
Speaker 1: everything else and they're kind of like and then they
Speaker 1: extended out and they said, of the ones that hatch,
Speaker 1: this is a Turkey biologist told me this, of the
Speaker 1: ones that hatch, about seventy s won't make it to
Speaker 1: their first year. Well, that second figure is definitely true.
Speaker 1: The first figure. You know, we do have a lot
Speaker 1: of nest mortality and the rest of it, and you
Speaker 1: have young birds that are they're not putting their nests,
Speaker 1: and then the best locations sometimes and your marginal habitat.
Speaker 1: I'd have to look at the overall figures. That's probably
Speaker 1: a little high, but not too far off. But they'll
Speaker 1: drop multiple rounds of eggs though if they will, if
Speaker 1: they're unsuccessful, they'll go back in and renst And so
Speaker 1: here's no question get on the more of the sort
Speaker 1: of sort of the work to found dation does. But
Speaker 1: but when you if you that female only lays one
Speaker 1: egg a day, correct, so she goes does she need
Speaker 1: to does she need to breed for every egg? No,
Speaker 1: she can hold she can hold some of that breeding in. Okay,
Speaker 1: so she can be inseminated by one male, but then
Speaker 1: lay a dozen eggs twelve days in a row. That's right,
Speaker 1: But she's gonna probably breed within that time period of
Speaker 1: I see, okay, so she'll can like she'll continue to
Speaker 1: go out and court a male, but then keep laying
Speaker 1: these eggs and then if this is I think this
Speaker 1: is right, she'll get the whole nest down and she
Speaker 1: doesn't incubate until all the eggs are down because she
Speaker 1: wants to synchronize when they have and those eggs remain viable,
Speaker 1: just like they do for chickens anybody that raises chickens
Speaker 1: and stuff. The first egg that hits the ground is
Speaker 1: sitting there potentially ten eleven days. That's right before she starts,
Speaker 1: and it can be dropping down below freezing at night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean she'll but still it remains viable most of
Speaker 1: the times at that point it's not below freezing, and
Speaker 1: those eggs are covered and they usually have insulation underneath them. Um,
Speaker 1: but they are vulnerable because she's out there doing breeding
Speaker 1: and feeding and all the rest of it. She's not
Speaker 1: on that nest really incubating those eggs, so there's higher risk.
Speaker 1: That's why you're seeing that loss. At one time was
Speaker 1: calling a turkey and had a black bear sneak up
Speaker 1: right behind me to why I could hear exhale, and
Speaker 1: I'm convinced that that bear hunts bird nests could have Yeah,
Speaker 1: like everything has to eat the eggs, they're tasty, everything
Speaker 1: from snakes on. Uh. Yeah, it's it's not a kind life,
Speaker 1: is not a kind life. I'm having a hard time
Speaker 1: kind of reading Becky's demeanor right now, like when she's
Speaker 1: when you brought up the black bear, kind of kind
Speaker 1: of changed a little bit, like weird animals show up
Speaker 1: when you're calling turkeys. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I've called
Speaker 1: him bears, bobcats, and coyotes. Yeah. This past season, I
Speaker 1: was out with my grandson and we called into coyotes
Speaker 1: and I thought he was going to he was just
Speaker 1: so excited. I could see him just kind of start
Speaker 1: to quiver, you know, because those those coyotes snuck up
Speaker 1: on the decoy and we're sure that it was a turkey,
Speaker 1: and one of them pounced right by it, and then
Speaker 1: you could see the reaction like, oh, my goodness, isn't
Speaker 1: that really a turkey? And the coyote jumped up and
Speaker 1: then went down and then kicked up this young buck
Speaker 1: that was bedded down further, and it was just one
Speaker 1: of these you know, it was just kind of a mess.
Speaker 1: It was a circus out there, and I started laughing
Speaker 1: because it was you know, you couldn't help but laugh
Speaker 1: at all this activity going on with these animals that
Speaker 1: were just being spooked and and um and tricked, I
Speaker 1: guess the best way to describe it. So it's fun though,
Speaker 1: But when you I did change my behavior when you
Speaker 1: said you could feel the bare exhale, that's when I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, I've been there where you have an
Speaker 1: animal like right behind you, like if you turn around,
Speaker 1: you could practically hit it. And it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's amazing to me when you're out hunting, how
Speaker 1: something's just crashed through the woods and then they vanish.
Speaker 1: You know, we always had property in northern Michigan, and
Speaker 1: elk were one of those species where there were times
Speaker 1: when it sounded like a flight freight train coming through
Speaker 1: the woods and then the next thing you know that
Speaker 1: animals gone and you never heard it go. You didn't
Speaker 1: see it go, and it's like, oh my good, did
Speaker 1: they turn it on? And yeah, well they want to go.
Speaker 1: They can make more noise than you'd ever be able
Speaker 1: to make, and then they can be quieter than that's right,
Speaker 1: that's right. When you can check my facts on this too,
Speaker 1: But I think this is correct that it's time of
Speaker 1: European contact. There were turkeys and maybe thirty nine states,
Speaker 1: it's about right, and that shrunk like a lot of
Speaker 1: states lost them out right, they did so when when
Speaker 1: groups so so state agencies just focused on their own state.
Speaker 1: But eventually the National wal Turkey Federation, National Turkey Foundation
Speaker 1: comes in and they're gonna kind of oversee and implement
Speaker 1: these reintroduction efforts. Yeah, we coordinated it, and it is federation,
Speaker 1: not foundation, so that's all right. So and that's why
Speaker 1: we have these chapters in all the states. But we
Speaker 1: really coordinated that the states were one they needed. Um.
Speaker 1: We stepped in and helped broker deals so that states
Speaker 1: would would give up their birds to start populations and
Speaker 1: other states. And then it came with the expectation. For instance,
Speaker 1: in Michigan, we took birds from Missouri and Iowa and
Speaker 1: other states and then when we restored our populations, we
Speaker 1: live trapped birds and moved them to other states. So
Speaker 1: we helped broker those deals. And under the Lacy Act,
Speaker 1: you cannot um, you can not pay money for wildlife,
Speaker 1: for live wildlife between the states, so all kinds of
Speaker 1: deals were brokeren. Was that why it's done like that?
Speaker 1: Why the barter of barter system came about. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: we wanted to stay within the federal law system and
Speaker 1: yet provide that equity so that states could help barter
Speaker 1: various wildlife species. So I mean in my tenure, we
Speaker 1: we wound up trading otters, we wound up trading elk
Speaker 1: at times, um rough grouse that we trapped for some
Speaker 1: of the other states, turkeys, pheasants we had such one
Speaker 1: pheasants we brought over from China. We trapped those. So
Speaker 1: the Turkey Federation helped also become the bartering agent between
Speaker 1: the states where we would help allow that that trade
Speaker 1: system to go on and make sure that we stay
Speaker 1: sting at themselves in trouble with federal law. In terms,
Speaker 1: can you explain that comes up a lot when it
Speaker 1: comes to wildlife because it winds up being the tool
Speaker 1: you often use to really go after hardcore poets and
Speaker 1: wildlife traffickers. The Lacey Act was really the act that
Speaker 1: was put in place that shut down market hunting up
Speaker 1: until that time. States wound up passing individual state laws
Speaker 1: that precluded market hunting. But what would happen is they
Speaker 1: would move that product right across the state lines and
Speaker 1: then they'd um, they'd sneak it out, and then because
Speaker 1: of that, they couldn't catch them in another state. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, to use Michigan again as an example, UM
Speaker 1: at one time that you know, they'd take um saddles
Speaker 1: of venison during the lumbering era. They'd go out and
Speaker 1: they shoot deer and and take those saddles of venison
Speaker 1: down the saddle and they'd and they'd move it across
Speaker 1: and take it down to Chicago to feed people in
Speaker 1: the restaurants down there. And it would you know, they
Speaker 1: might be taking more than the limit, they might be
Speaker 1: taking them out of season. Whatever the market hunters were
Speaker 1: doing that particular area. Maybe it was just they were
Speaker 1: it was closed all together. They would ship them out
Speaker 1: and once they got across that state line, there's nothing
Speaker 1: that could be done about it. So the Lacey Act
Speaker 1: was a federal a that made it illegal to move
Speaker 1: that if it was against the law in that state,
Speaker 1: and made it illegal if you moved across state lines also,
Speaker 1: so it really interconnected the state authorities through federal authorities,
Speaker 1: federal enforcement. But it's funny when like the motivation of
Speaker 1: that right is to curtail the eradication of American wildlife,
Speaker 1: but then to later have it be a hindrance to
Speaker 1: wildlife recovery by prohibiting someone from buying turkeys from someone
Speaker 1: who had more than they needed. Well, you know, it
Speaker 1: really goes to the North American model wildlife conservation. Um.
Speaker 1: In our country, wildlife belonged to the people. So um,
Speaker 1: it's about a premise that those those species are not
Speaker 1: private commodity that you can move and breed. Now we
Speaker 1: have some private wildlife and some of some of its
Speaker 1: native wildlife, but it's still pretty contentious. It's about keeping
Speaker 1: that pure wild stock so that it belongs to the
Speaker 1: people and it's treated as belonging to the people, and
Speaker 1: that we are not putting a praise on it and
Speaker 1: selling it between states or then could move into private ownership,
Speaker 1: that it stays a wildlife resource. So that's why the
Speaker 1: Bowder system was put in place. And like I say,
Speaker 1: you know, it's about playing by the rules. Also, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's not like I'm sure that anyone who ever
Speaker 1: wanted to get turkeys probably found a way to get turkeys.
Speaker 1: They probably did. I mean, that was one of our
Speaker 1: biggest problems when we were restoring the wild turkey in Michigan.
Speaker 1: Is um people want to even sporting clubs really want
Speaker 1: to jump on the bandwagon and help out. And they
Speaker 1: go out and buy, you know, broad bronze, broad breasted
Speaker 1: turkeys that looked much like the eastern wild turkey. They'd
Speaker 1: raise them and they put them out there, and they'd
Speaker 1: be like, no, no, no, no, We're going to all
Speaker 1: this effort to bring in wild stock. We want great
Speaker 1: genetic variability with these animals. We want animals are truly wild.
Speaker 1: Do not to loose the jenet pool by throwing out
Speaker 1: domesticated birds that look like wild birds that will interbreed
Speaker 1: with wild birds, and it's gonna it's gonna reduce the
Speaker 1: genet viability of that wild stock out there. I gotta
Speaker 1: ask you way far afield question you don't need to answer.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can tell me how I find the answer.
Speaker 1: Since you now have state and asked it's not I'll
Speaker 1: ask so, since you now have deer like white tailed
Speaker 1: deer that are privately owned, how was the initial moment
Speaker 1: of someone taking possession of one of those deer. However
Speaker 1: it began, how is the initial moment of that legal?
Speaker 1: Some states actually sold dear to private individuals. So that's
Speaker 1: how some of that because I was look back like
Speaker 1: to the day one Eden moment, someone had to have
Speaker 1: taken a wild deer and made it, but there used
Speaker 1: to be a mechanism in place for that to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and um my state, unfortunately, Michigan was one of
Speaker 1: those states that did that. We used to individuals that
Speaker 1: want to defense our property to have a captive herd,
Speaker 1: which was still legal in Michigan. We would require them
Speaker 1: to try and drive those deer off the property, but
Speaker 1: if they were unsuccessful and they still had deer on
Speaker 1: the property, we would have them write a check for
Speaker 1: those remaining deer that they were fencing it. And the
Speaker 1: intent was we didn't want we didn't want them fencing
Speaker 1: the state's deer with no um, no restitution to the
Speaker 1: hunters of the state, of the public of the state
Speaker 1: for those animals. So I mean it was the best
Speaker 1: of intentions, but it essentially took pure wild stock and
Speaker 1: made it under private ownership. And I mean the captive
Speaker 1: industry has grown considerably and um, they're considered livestock under
Speaker 1: federal authority and many state authorities. Now, uh, do you
Speaker 1: remember what a deer was worse? I don't. I I
Speaker 1: do know, Um, after we had done it for a while.
Speaker 1: They're about thousand dollars apiece. But you know, we tried
Speaker 1: to make it comparable to what um restitution would be
Speaker 1: for somebody took a deer out of state or out
Speaker 1: of season. Now back up to the like the gradual
Speaker 1: recovery of the bird once it got to be that
Speaker 1: like for instance, now earlier I said, like, so you
Speaker 1: agree that it sounds a reasonable number that there are
Speaker 1: wild turkeys, maybe about thirty nine states. Um. The ones
Speaker 1: that didn't would be like the sort of the north
Speaker 1: the states in the northwest quadrant of the country, primarily
Speaker 1: in the western part of the United States, but the
Speaker 1: Southwest had birds, they had some birds. Um. Really the
Speaker 1: holdout for a lot of the populations, though we're in
Speaker 1: really remote areas. So in the eastern United States you
Speaker 1: wound up having places, um, you know, in Tennessee, Kentucky
Speaker 1: and some of those really you know on Appellachians, some
Speaker 1: of those hilly areas, um, where you had some really
Speaker 1: good remnant populations where those birds held out and those
Speaker 1: really became um the breeding stock that moved out in
Speaker 1: for Eastern the Eastern birds throughout the same thing is
Speaker 1: true if some of the western populations and some of
Speaker 1: those really remote areas you wound up having birds where
Speaker 1: you had pretty isolated populations because there was vast areas
Speaker 1: of um, not good habitat and and really just no birds. UM,
Speaker 1: So they kept pretty isolated. So what was like, like,
Speaker 1: how did the thinking go to be that that reintroduction
Speaker 1: of turkeys would would would phase into introduction the turkeys
Speaker 1: would be brought into states where they had not historically
Speaker 1: historically had no turkeys. So Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming,
Speaker 1: all these places now have like thriving turkey populations. That
Speaker 1: that one that had to have been a very different conversation.
Speaker 1: Um it was and what then what rein production was? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but don't forget along with this. There was quite a
Speaker 1: bit of research done to look at what had happened
Speaker 1: just just because we didn't see it in early documentation.
Speaker 1: If you look back through in some of the Aboriginal populations,
Speaker 1: the native populations that were there, we found turkeys in
Speaker 1: many areas that folks didn't didn't find it when European
Speaker 1: settlers were here, But they were there prior to that,
Speaker 1: whether you know, whether they were extirpated for um, because
Speaker 1: of humans or whether it was habitat change or whatever
Speaker 1: it was, there were birds and most of those areas
Speaker 1: at one time. Okay, So so there's like like faunel
Speaker 1: remains in middens and whatever archaeological sites are just in
Speaker 1: general that didn't match up necessarily to where people documented
Speaker 1: seeing that birds. That's right. Ask just what is um
Speaker 1: the ability for a wild you know, a wild turkey
Speaker 1: to travel and establish a new group. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: it depends on the habitat, To be honest with you,
Speaker 1: it varies greatly, um so bird in terms of birds
Speaker 1: movements and all the rest of it. You know, it
Speaker 1: might just be um depending on how much that flock
Speaker 1: is expanding. If it's an expansion for relocation, those birds
Speaker 1: might just move a few miles. In other areas they
Speaker 1: might move, um, you know, eight or ten miles. And
Speaker 1: do they disperse because of pecking order situation or primarily
Speaker 1: breeding habitat, nesting habitat of those hens um To really
Speaker 1: get really good nesting habitat and having nesting territory and
Speaker 1: a breeding territory there just about all your wildlife will
Speaker 1: will set up some territories and that really goes to expansion.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times it's the younger hens that
Speaker 1: put their territory immediately adjoining where there their hen, their
Speaker 1: mom's territory was. And you see the same thing with deer.
Speaker 1: So with that you see this expansion that goes out.
Speaker 1: Um with the female part of the population expanding out
Speaker 1: through that breeding, the males will travel further because they
Speaker 1: want to breed where there are females and they're much
Speaker 1: more mobile. What's the furnest you've ever seen a female
Speaker 1: and or a male turkey travel from from from where?
Speaker 1: You know? What's like home range was? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: at the time we are doing a lot of trap
Speaker 1: and transfer. We were not doing a lot of transmitter work. Um,
Speaker 1: it just was not one of those studies that we
Speaker 1: we were investing our time and efforts and trying and
Speaker 1: re establish and get those populations. So I can't give
Speaker 1: you good information like I can some of the other
Speaker 1: species on the maximum amount of travel. Now we have
Speaker 1: colored birds down on our facility down in Edgefield, South
Speaker 1: Carolina or headquarters facility, and we've done movement patterns and
Speaker 1: we know daily travels or you know, um several miles
Speaker 1: as far as how those birds move. We've actually put
Speaker 1: transmitters and birds and we've it transmitters on hunters and
Speaker 1: then we've watched those the dance as we call it,
Speaker 1: and it's it's pretty amazing. You know, where hunters will
Speaker 1: go into a piece of property and they either don't
Speaker 1: think there are turkeys there or they don't see turkeys,
Speaker 1: and there's actually pretty good turkey populations and those those
Speaker 1: birds are masters and avoiding human detection. And you can
Speaker 1: you can see it in real time with as the
Speaker 1: hunter comes in and most hunters um hunt fairly close
Speaker 1: to the roads. That's the other part of it is
Speaker 1: a is you get a chance to look at transmitter
Speaker 1: activity of hunters. You realize that sometimes some of us
Speaker 1: were that get back in are the anomaly. A lot
Speaker 1: of folks are within a couple hundred yards of a
Speaker 1: roadway and they never get back in very far. And
Speaker 1: those birds just moved back into more remote areas and
Speaker 1: they dance as the hunter moves in the bird moves
Speaker 1: for their back in and as they come back out,
Speaker 1: it comes back out. Avoidance technique that is so person
Speaker 1: knowing it's going. That's right. They might hear a bird
Speaker 1: and stuff, but they don't see a bird. Yeah, have
Speaker 1: you identified any other tactics that they use, is like
Speaker 1: sort to avoid that you're you know, create that space
Speaker 1: other than just sort of being helped us kill them. Becky,
Speaker 1: I think we've all seen this. I mean, birds will
Speaker 1: go quiet if there's a lot of activity. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've all been there in the towards the end of
Speaker 1: the season where birds um are getting pushed pretty hard
Speaker 1: in areas and um, they just aren't calling. They'll come in.
Speaker 1: You might get a gobble off the roost. You might
Speaker 1: you know, if if a bird gets kicked up, you
Speaker 1: might have um, you know, a hand that pulls back in. Um.
Speaker 1: After they've nested, you'll hear some activity, but they'll go
Speaker 1: silent on you. And there are times when you wonder
Speaker 1: if they're really turkeys in the woods. And then the
Speaker 1: next thing you know, you you know, you kick up
Speaker 1: a bird when you're walking back out to the vehicle
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh my god. You know, I sat
Speaker 1: there all morning and Um, I just wasn't able to
Speaker 1: pull anything in. If they're moving around, I didn't see it.
Speaker 1: So there. I mean that they have incredible vision and
Speaker 1: they detect us and they know what's going on. They
Speaker 1: live in that territory and they know what's what's happening.
Speaker 1: I feel that people give them a lot of credit.
Speaker 1: Uh kind of like too much credit. Not enough credit
Speaker 1: for just how paranoid they are, but too much credit
Speaker 1: for that. They sort of build up a database of
Speaker 1: like experiences that they're drawing on. Oh, I think that's true.
Speaker 1: I think um birds have UM, well, their feathered reptiles,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're not um highly advanced. UM So
Speaker 1: I agree with you. There's not the reasoning, but they
Speaker 1: have really strong instincts and you can see it in
Speaker 1: some of their behavior and um you know it's when
Speaker 1: they key on on a on a bird that's fanning.
Speaker 1: You know, when a male displaying and another male comes in,
Speaker 1: it's an emotional response, UM that that bird is really
Speaker 1: keyed in on, and even if there's danger in that area,
Speaker 1: they're going to key in on that. And the same
Speaker 1: is true of other instincts that they as animals have.
Speaker 1: Those birds have so I agree. It's not a reasoning process,
Speaker 1: it's it's instinctual. Yeah. And the ones that are uh,
Speaker 1: most wary are the ones that as they get older,
Speaker 1: there's like fewer and fewer, and you're dealing with You're
Speaker 1: like trying to call in the one is presumably like
Speaker 1: the least gullible or the most wary, because the ones
Speaker 1: that didn't have that, that that constant sense of you know,
Speaker 1: impending doom, they get killed off. That's true. You don't
Speaker 1: agree with that, No, I agree, I agree, I think,
Speaker 1: And you'll see that both throughout the season. But you'll
Speaker 1: also see it in terms of populations, hounted populations versus
Speaker 1: non hunted populations, in terms of weariness. What what happens?
Speaker 1: Um like, like, how do you view view it? Sort
Speaker 1: of culturally when you wind up with these like problem
Speaker 1: Turkey Pope relations in in in in suburban and urban areas,
Speaker 1: do you do do you guys look at that, Do
Speaker 1: you guys look at that as being like something that
Speaker 1: you need to be involved in or does that wind
Speaker 1: up being just like a municipal issue, it usually belongs
Speaker 1: to the state and the municipality um to deal with.
Speaker 1: You wind up having um, Turkey Federation doesn't step in
Speaker 1: and try and help some of those problems situations. We
Speaker 1: really do not have the authority to handle live birds
Speaker 1: that belongs to the state agency. So we'll we'll assist
Speaker 1: where we can. But when you get into nuisance situations,
Speaker 1: you usually have human behaviors going on there that are
Speaker 1: prompting it. One, you might have domestic birds that are
Speaker 1: out running around and people think they're wild birds and
Speaker 1: they're not. They're well, that happens, Oh, that happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll have that. Um. The other thing is you might
Speaker 1: have birds that just get very hubituated. People wind up
Speaker 1: having um, you know, food out at their bird feeders,
Speaker 1: and they wind up living in a subdivision feeding off
Speaker 1: that or even a more urban environment. They get territorial
Speaker 1: at certain times and cause problems with it. Um. They'll
Speaker 1: roost over people's vehicles. I mean there it's a situation
Speaker 1: usually of over abundance of those problem birds and in
Speaker 1: areas where they're not hunting, so you're not like you're
Speaker 1: not actively out there trying to sort of um, sort
Speaker 1: of help smooth those relationships or kind of mitigate that.
Speaker 1: It's not something that we typically do in the National
Speaker 1: Wild Turkey Federation. Now we it seems like you hear
Speaker 1: more and more stories about places like that. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I think with social media we see some of those
Speaker 1: more frequently because they get picked up, they've been there.
Speaker 1: Um And whenever the public's attention is on wild turkeys,
Speaker 1: then you'll tend to hear more of those stories where
Speaker 1: there are problems with it. Also got fun example, my
Speaker 1: buddy Zack, another Michigander. UM, he's on the list for
Speaker 1: depredation tags in Idaho and got a call just three
Speaker 1: weeks ago, Um, go up to Challis, Idaho, which that
Speaker 1: unit is actually a draw unit if you want to
Speaker 1: hunt turkeys and uh for a turkey and the depredation
Speaker 1: turkey hun depredation turkey hunt and um, I can't remember
Speaker 1: who what the title of is of the person that
Speaker 1: called him. UM, but I want to be real clear
Speaker 1: with you. You're gonna show up to this lady's house
Speaker 1: and you're gonna be shooting a turkey underneath her swings.
Speaker 1: It was legit wild turkey though he's just like taking
Speaker 1: up like took up residents in her yard. Yes, is
Speaker 1: it a fall hunt there? I don't even know if
Speaker 1: Idaho has a fall Yes, Idaho does have fall hunts.
Speaker 1: This was a basically like a nuisance birth. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so yes, and every state treats it a little differently. UM.
Speaker 1: Up in you know, my home state, we had a
Speaker 1: fall hunt. In areas where we had some of those
Speaker 1: deprivation deprevation problems or over abundance issues, we would have
Speaker 1: a fall hunt. You can take either sex UM. The
Speaker 1: spring hunt was mail only and it was a limited
Speaker 1: entry system, so you can talk Can you talk about
Speaker 1: what is the UM because growing up in Montana you
Speaker 1: could you could kill hands in the fall with rifles. Yes, Now,
Speaker 1: how does that affect your population? Well, usually it's done
Speaker 1: to reduce the population. So your fall hunts are put
Speaker 1: in places they're usually just in areas where you want
Speaker 1: to maintain a population level that you think is a
Speaker 1: growing population. You want to contain that population, so you
Speaker 1: put in an either sex hunt and UM to do
Speaker 1: just that. So it just usually falls in geographic areas
Speaker 1: where you tend to have increasing populations, where you really
Speaker 1: don't feel like you have any more room or social
Speaker 1: tolerance to increase the population even higher. So that's a
Speaker 1: lowering device. Because spring hunts for males only probably doesn't
Speaker 1: have any real I mean, you're kind of mechanically removing
Speaker 1: some birds, but it probably doesn't have a real sale impact.
Speaker 1: That's why we could have hunting seasons, spring hunting seasons
Speaker 1: as we are trapping and moving birds and and growing
Speaker 1: that population, because all those females are still gonna live,
Speaker 1: and they're still gonna get fertilized, and that's right, they're
Speaker 1: gonna get bread. And that's usually not the limitation. I'd
Speaker 1: like to talk about the the big six habitats. So
Speaker 1: this is something that yeah, you do a better job explained,
Speaker 1: You do a better job explained. But this is a creation.
Speaker 1: This is the n w t F notion right, and
Speaker 1: it is it is. Although it was done in concert
Speaker 1: with our partners and state and federal agency partners UM.
Speaker 1: We we realized we really in order to be effective
Speaker 1: on the landscape, we needed to really focus are our
Speaker 1: habitat work and our conservation work on those habitats that
Speaker 1: were going to make the biggest difference to the wild
Speaker 1: turkey across the country. So we sat down with our
Speaker 1: state and federal agency partners and we mapped out where
Speaker 1: we thought those most important habitats were in each of
Speaker 1: the states, and then we we built those into focal
Speaker 1: landscapes and we combined them under America's Big Six. And
Speaker 1: America's Big Six is really just a combination of those
Speaker 1: focal landscapes over six broad areas of the country where
Speaker 1: we thought they had commonality, commonality and and some of
Speaker 1: the issues that we're facing those landscapes. Um it might
Speaker 1: be it might be a lack of forest management. It
Speaker 1: might be riperian zones where you have invasive species salt
Speaker 1: seat there they're moving in in the southwestern United States.
Speaker 1: It might be a lack of early successional habitat up
Speaker 1: in the northeastern part of the country. But we grouped
Speaker 1: those as America's Big Six, which I feel like it's
Speaker 1: confusing because people know the African Big Five. That's true,
Speaker 1: that's true, although quite off we're not dealing with the
Speaker 1: same hunter out there. But we did name it America's
Speaker 1: Big Six. But because we really wanted to try and
Speaker 1: tie people to that landscape and some of the issues
Speaker 1: that we were seeing on that landscape, so that as
Speaker 1: we bring in our donors and our members to raise
Speaker 1: money around helping us fond really good restoration and active
Speaker 1: management landscape. They would know why we were doing it.
Speaker 1: So for instance, UM, can you walk us through the
Speaker 1: six I can we have? We have America's Colonial Forest
Speaker 1: that is up in the northeastern United States, UM in
Speaker 1: the Great Lakes region and upper Midwest. We have UM
Speaker 1: America's Crossroads. We have America's Mid South Rebirth, which are
Speaker 1: really down in Appalachia and kind of the that oak
Speaker 1: that Southern Appalachian oak habitat that gets into it. We
Speaker 1: have UM Americans piney Woods, Southern piney Woods, which really
Speaker 1: goes on the historic long leaf that went along the
Speaker 1: coastal zones and all the rest of it. UM how
Speaker 1: many is that? For? UM? We have America's Bigger Great
Speaker 1: Open Spaces. We played with these names so much for
Speaker 1: great open Spaces that goes to the big the bread
Speaker 1: basket the United States. And then America's Western frontier, so
Speaker 1: we that really is a large one that will probably
Speaker 1: break down. It's over much of the western United States.
Speaker 1: But UM, so those were the focal landscapes, and we
Speaker 1: try to tie in some of the UM cultural parts
Speaker 1: of those parts of the country also into the name,
Speaker 1: so that that people really resonated so when you talk
Speaker 1: about America's colonial forests, they really think about that forest
Speaker 1: land that was found up in the upper New England States.
Speaker 1: It was there during colonial times. You know, we have
Speaker 1: at one time we support a huge um lumber era
Speaker 1: up in the in that area, and we went through
Speaker 1: having tremendous pulp mills and lumbering that took place in
Speaker 1: real active forest management. We've lost a lot of that
Speaker 1: in that part of the country these days, so lost
Speaker 1: to what um it's well, we've lost it in the
Speaker 1: fact that we don't have the mills up there to
Speaker 1: cut the timber anymore. So we don't have as much
Speaker 1: open management UM or an active management and really are
Speaker 1: our real critical feature young forest. A lot of that
Speaker 1: area were used to have tremendous gross and woodcock populations
Speaker 1: has really declined and it and it hurts areas where
Speaker 1: turkeys would go into those early successional areas. You know,
Speaker 1: those are great areas for broodcover to go in and
Speaker 1: feed and we just don't have much of that right now.
Speaker 1: So in a case like that, I think that's hard
Speaker 1: for people to to understand. People who look at this
Speaker 1: whole thing from the outside would be the idea that
Speaker 1: that forest management or you know which and sometimes serves
Speaker 1: as a euphemism for logging. The logging was in those
Speaker 1: areas beneficial to wildlife. It was, I mean, it created
Speaker 1: tremendous early successional habitat across a lot of that area,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the species that we like to
Speaker 1: hunt live in those earliest successional forests, those young forest
Speaker 1: um and we're just really create recreating through logging what
Speaker 1: had occurred through natural You know, you had wind throw
Speaker 1: in the Great Lakes. We have wind shear and wind
Speaker 1: throw that comes in and where the wind races across
Speaker 1: the Great Lakes, and you can actually see it on
Speaker 1: satellite imagery where it will blow down big swaths of
Speaker 1: timber up in the Upper Peninsula, in the northern part
Speaker 1: of Lower Peninsula along the shoreline. Well, that wind throw,
Speaker 1: you know, exposes root mass and all the rest of it.
Speaker 1: And you have and where you have aspen or other species,
Speaker 1: that's where you'll get sunlight coming into the forest floor,
Speaker 1: you'll disruption of that soil type and that will create
Speaker 1: that young forest coming back in. And then you also
Speaker 1: had the issue that we've largely kind of gotten rid
Speaker 1: of in a lot of parts of the countries. You
Speaker 1: had wildfire. That's right, you had wildfire that moved in
Speaker 1: and and would um, you know, it would it would
Speaker 1: kill off trees. It wasn't they weren't cool um fires
Speaker 1: that ran to just a forest floor. They would actually
Speaker 1: top out, crown out, and those fires would race across
Speaker 1: parts of the state. Um. And so with that you
Speaker 1: wind up having that forest set back and start as
Speaker 1: a young forest again and grow up older and older
Speaker 1: and older until you had another disturbance in place. So
Speaker 1: to give you a mixed habitat. Yeah, and you'd find that,
Speaker 1: I mean, we'd also see it with beaver ponds along
Speaker 1: river systems where they would you know, they'll go in
Speaker 1: and and cut down aspen um damn the stream kill
Speaker 1: off that timber maybe back through an upper valley area
Speaker 1: from that damned water, and then is that damn winds
Speaker 1: up blowing out. You know, then you're going to have
Speaker 1: that dead timber that has a lot of forests a
Speaker 1: lot of light down to what becomes the forest floor. Again,
Speaker 1: it'll create a new young forest there. So let's say
Speaker 1: you take the colonial forests there and you look at
Speaker 1: a system that that that once existed of yet presuming
Speaker 1: like a wildfire system and other things that would allow
Speaker 1: you to have like a mixed habitat. And then logging. Um,
Speaker 1: you know we we we began like fire suppression for
Speaker 1: human safety reasons or whatever, but logging still drove that.
Speaker 1: Now you can't be proposing like I don't imagine the
Speaker 1: solution is that we would somehow get the logging industry
Speaker 1: back up and running like like how like what would
Speaker 1: be a plausible solution. Well, in some of those areas, um,
Speaker 1: we still do have remnant populations of of a logging
Speaker 1: industry in those areas, um, but they're not as it's
Speaker 1: not as easy to get the timber cut as it
Speaker 1: once was. We are actually the Turkey Federation is actually
Speaker 1: the largest partner of the U. S. Forest Service to
Speaker 1: come in and do stewardship contracting, which is a tool
Speaker 1: where we can come in. We can actually buy out
Speaker 1: a timber sale that they can't seem to market or
Speaker 1: sell otherwise, use the proceeds of that sale then to
Speaker 1: resolve whatever issue needs to be done on the land
Speaker 1: for the Forest Service. So for instance, maybe there's an
Speaker 1: invasive species there, We'll cut the timber that needs to
Speaker 1: be cut as far as the forest management plan, and
Speaker 1: the Forest Service still does all the forest planning, all
Speaker 1: the NIPA, the environmental compliance review. Then we'll come in
Speaker 1: and we'll cut that, do that forest treatment as far
Speaker 1: as the cutting, will apply the proceeds to remove the
Speaker 1: invasive species, um close off the road, see them down,
Speaker 1: make them walking trails so that people can access it,
Speaker 1: but not have it be all torn up that causes
Speaker 1: soil erosion, and then move into another forest stewardship contractual arrangement.
Speaker 1: And because of that, I mean, Turkey Federation is a
Speaker 1: pretty big nonprofit. But to give you an idea, we
Speaker 1: do so much work. We're usually when the top ten
Speaker 1: timber buyers in the country for the US force there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'll tell you how much we really do across
Speaker 1: the landscape with that, and then we partner with a
Speaker 1: lot of state agencies also to make sure that we
Speaker 1: have help them get really good active forest management as
Speaker 1: well as other habitat management on the landscape that they
Speaker 1: need to get done. So over years, the model of
Speaker 1: conservation work being done strictly by agencies has broadened out,
Speaker 1: and we've been able to bring in hunters and through
Speaker 1: their membership dollars and their fundraising efforts and donor dollars.
Speaker 1: We can use that money and make agency money go
Speaker 1: much further in order to get some of that habitat
Speaker 1: management on the ground. Walk us through another one of
Speaker 1: the six habitat types. So like like a challenge and
Speaker 1: solution situation another one. Well, I'll do to um. You
Speaker 1: know I talked about UM the Midwest. We're seeing tremendous
Speaker 1: um stress on oak. I mean we've we've had a
Speaker 1: lot of mass producing trees, and we know, mass producing
Speaker 1: trees our prime wildlife food. I mean eggcorns or hickory
Speaker 1: nuts or chestnuts. When we had those, you know, they
Speaker 1: provide a lot of food energy to a wealth of
Speaker 1: wildlife species out there. And we lost our chestnuts UM,
Speaker 1: and we have lost to disease. And now we're seeing
Speaker 1: some real problems with oak UM with oak wilt disease
Speaker 1: and a number of other diseases, and also our oak
Speaker 1: populations UM. Because of the way we cleared our forest
Speaker 1: during the logging era and then the the hardwood regeneration
Speaker 1: came up, we are not seeing the kind of oak
Speaker 1: regeneration that we had seen fifty years ago. So our
Speaker 1: our forests are converting over to you know, um more beech,
Speaker 1: maple and some other forest types that are more mature,
Speaker 1: but not as a and as far as mass crop.
Speaker 1: So in those areas we are going in and working
Speaker 1: with um land managers to make sure that we have
Speaker 1: really good regeneration of some of those mass crop species
Speaker 1: that are so important to the midwestern part of the country.
Speaker 1: Another area would be down in Oklahoma and parts of
Speaker 1: Texas where we have river systems, riverine systems where salt
Speaker 1: cedar has moved in and grown up along those river corridors.
Speaker 1: It sucks up the moisture, it draws down the water table,
Speaker 1: but it you know, it's really really thick, it's not
Speaker 1: used by a lot of native wildlife, and it really
Speaker 1: changes the hydrology of that system. So in those situations,
Speaker 1: we're going in and manually and and using mechanical equipment
Speaker 1: removing that salt cedar, getting it cleared out of there
Speaker 1: so that we can get cotton woods and some of
Speaker 1: the trees that are much more well, they're native to
Speaker 1: that area, but they don't have the negative impacts on hydrology,
Speaker 1: and they're really also important for roost trees for wild turkeys,
Speaker 1: and those have a tat types. But I'm sure you
Speaker 1: can always go and tie all those turkeys, but it
Speaker 1: winds up going way beyond turkeys, way beyond, way beyond.
Speaker 1: It's a whole system out there, and and we we
Speaker 1: try and focus on the habitats that we think are
Speaker 1: the most important for turkeys. But it has huge benefits
Speaker 1: when you look at some of the other species. So
Speaker 1: in the East United States, the golden wing warbler as
Speaker 1: a species that is uses those young forests. As we
Speaker 1: do a lot of work on young forests to benefit turkeys,
Speaker 1: the golden wing warbler has been the real recipient of
Speaker 1: a lot of that benefit. Um in the southern piney woods,
Speaker 1: you know, the gopher, tortoise and indigo snakes and and
Speaker 1: you know the woodpeckers that thrive in those environments are
Speaker 1: other beneficiaries that might be there. In the Midwest, you
Speaker 1: might have deer populations that are really beneficial and bear
Speaker 1: populations on those masterrees where they use it as a
Speaker 1: tremendous food source and really thrive in those types of environments.
Speaker 1: So you know it does it benefits a lot more
Speaker 1: in the wild turkey. So how do you how do
Speaker 1: you want of explaining that to people, because I think
Speaker 1: they look at the name of the organization, they look
Speaker 1: at the work, right, and I think they probably not
Speaker 1: really understand sort of the broader magnitude of the kind
Speaker 1: of habitat work you're engaged in. Well. I think it's
Speaker 1: a constant um challenge for us to make sure people
Speaker 1: realize how much great work we really do and all
Speaker 1: the benefits of it. We came together and formed over
Speaker 1: the restoration of the wild turkey, but today it's about
Speaker 1: save the habitat, save the hunt, and it's about making
Speaker 1: sure that we're not only conserving the wild turkey and
Speaker 1: the host of other species that live in those those
Speaker 1: habitat types, but also that we're passing on the hunting
Speaker 1: heritage to the next generation so that we have folks
Speaker 1: that go out and use and recreate and enjoy, but
Speaker 1: also value that resource and really know it and understand
Speaker 1: it takes change in these habitat systems. You can't let
Speaker 1: them just grow up continuously and get overaged. That that
Speaker 1: change is good and that we need to actively manage
Speaker 1: those to have a good habitat for people and good
Speaker 1: habitat for wildlife. When we were emailed with some of
Speaker 1: your team. A figure that came o way was that
Speaker 1: that in this country, we're losing about six thousand acres
Speaker 1: of habitat a day to what to any number of things.
Speaker 1: It can be. Um, it can be to urban sprawl
Speaker 1: and suburban sprawl. It could be to golf courses. UM.
Speaker 1: In some cases, it can be to to industrialized farming,
Speaker 1: you know where we're clearing out farm fence rows. The
Speaker 1: agricultural community is usually a great partner with us, but
Speaker 1: agriculture today is far more intensive, um and extensive in
Speaker 1: some parts of the country than it once was. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's a whole range of things we and all
Speaker 1: I gotta do is go to space and look at
Speaker 1: pictures at night time to see how it has changed
Speaker 1: across this country. And I think that probably is is
Speaker 1: one of the most visual ways to really think about
Speaker 1: how much more landscape that we as people are tying up,
Speaker 1: you know in in um parking lots and strip malls
Speaker 1: and um, the things that we use every day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I understand, like economic growth, and I understand all that.
Speaker 1: I thought when I do when I see someone making
Speaker 1: a parking lot, I offered to think like that'll that
Speaker 1: will never again be habitat. That's tough. It really is tough.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a painful world to live in. Well
Speaker 1: it is. I mean, I'm Michigan. I've had that house
Speaker 1: now for twenty five years. And you you'll drive by someplace.
Speaker 1: I'll hear my daughter say, that's where I shot my
Speaker 1: first pheasant. And you know, it was heartbreaking to her
Speaker 1: when she saw the house that was built there. Now
Speaker 1: there's a subdivision there, and it's like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: you know, and and um, she's in her mid twenties now,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty quickly that it's happening. It's just tremendous
Speaker 1: growth that we're gobbling up landscape. And I think that's
Speaker 1: why we need to get people to recognize that we
Speaker 1: can still have really good habitat and good wildlife populations
Speaker 1: for a lot of species in those those suburban environments.
Speaker 1: It's about recognizing that we have to have working landscapes.
Speaker 1: Though define that I've for me personally, I view it
Speaker 1: as a working landscape is one where we we make
Speaker 1: room for wildlife within the area that's there. So in
Speaker 1: other words, we think about ways that we treat our
Speaker 1: watersheds and a lot of our urban environments we've put
Speaker 1: hardscaping in along riversides, you know, where we have retained cement,
Speaker 1: retaining walls. We don't have the saut shorelines where we um.
Speaker 1: A lot of our sewer systems in Michigan are underground
Speaker 1: pipe and drain system systems as opposed to putting it
Speaker 1: up on the surface and and having it filtrated through
Speaker 1: and using it as an actual wetland with um surrounding
Speaker 1: areas for grassy cover and trees. And so it's about
Speaker 1: thinking about ways that we that we can incorporate natural
Speaker 1: features into our landscape to still clean our waste water,
Speaker 1: to filtrate that water, to handle our waste, and to
Speaker 1: make sure that as we put in parking lots and
Speaker 1: facilities that were not unnecessarily um limiting all the cover
Speaker 1: around it. The turkey wise up being a good emblem
Speaker 1: for that. I feel like because the birds do so
Speaker 1: well along sort of the human wild interface. They do
Speaker 1: I mean in some areas they really do really well.
Speaker 1: And the other part of it is it is a
Speaker 1: it's a bird that people can get out and hunt
Speaker 1: in some of those suburban urban um wild interfaces UM
Speaker 1: and and that is remarkable that you can go out
Speaker 1: there and have a tremendous hunt, you know, right with
Speaker 1: people's homes that very far away. If we haven't I
Speaker 1: know how to put it figure to it. But when
Speaker 1: the National Wallle Turkey Federation was founded, is maybe a
Speaker 1: million and a half turkeys? Yeah, what we're early figures
Speaker 1: one million, one three millions, somewhere around seven million. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: do you feel that we're like, do you feel that
Speaker 1: we could have a false sense of security about the
Speaker 1: well being of the bird right now? Oh? I think so.
Speaker 1: You know, we've had a lot of talks about that
Speaker 1: within the National Wild Turkey Federation. In fact, the organization
Speaker 1: went through some periods where when we fulfilled our last
Speaker 1: trap in transfer. I mean, we still do some work
Speaker 1: with some states in terms of restoring populations and do
Speaker 1: some trapping, but the question was what comes next? And
Speaker 1: um then we started to see some decline in bird
Speaker 1: numbers and some parts of the country, and we we
Speaker 1: invested in research to better understand that, and then we
Speaker 1: started looking at some of the habitat changes that were
Speaker 1: going on and recognized now, because we restored the birds,
Speaker 1: we can't just rest on our laurels. We need to
Speaker 1: make sure that we maintain in those really good habitats
Speaker 1: that we can out on the landscape and make sure
Speaker 1: it's there so that we have birds known in the future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you don't let taking for grantedy, that's right, we can't.
Speaker 1: We absolutely have to make sure that we have great
Speaker 1: habitat when you uh, you do work a lot of
Speaker 1: work with government now, like like with government agencies, trying
Speaker 1: to move legislation, influence legislation in a way to be
Speaker 1: beneficial the habitat. That's right. Um, give me an example, right, well, Um,
Speaker 1: the Resilient Forest Act that's been trying to move through Congress. Now, Um,
Speaker 1: that's one that really is trying to tackle how we
Speaker 1: do active forest management in our national forest lands, so
Speaker 1: national forest lands across the country. We have gotten to
Speaker 1: the point where with with the regulation the processes in place,
Speaker 1: that we were spending the majority of our time and
Speaker 1: effort doing the planning process. But then we'd have these
Speaker 1: big forest fires and we'd borrow all the money from
Speaker 1: management in order to fight the fires. You'd never get
Speaker 1: the active management and as a result, then we're cutting less,
Speaker 1: we're having fuel loads build up and then we're having
Speaker 1: even more massive fires. So we've been working real hard
Speaker 1: with Congress to try and do some forest reform so
Speaker 1: that we can do more active management and use that
Speaker 1: product that fibers supply off the forest and UM and
Speaker 1: then also UM address the forest fire funding issue, because
Speaker 1: right now the Forest Service gets past a budget and
Speaker 1: they have to do both components of it, and they've
Speaker 1: had because of the increasing fires, they are staffing up,
Speaker 1: having to staff up and fire suppression staff and reduce
Speaker 1: their staff for foresters. They're doing active management on the ground,
Speaker 1: which is compounding the problem. So it's it's a really
Speaker 1: complex problem. And UM and with it, there have been
Speaker 1: some other components of it, putting in some pilot projects
Speaker 1: so that we look at UM ways to do arbitration
Speaker 1: and partnerships rather than gaining the legal battles for you know,
Speaker 1: their individuals and groups out there who really don't like
Speaker 1: timber cutting and they think it's ruining the forest, and
Speaker 1: and every citizen this country has the right to challenge
Speaker 1: some of those decisions and then actually challenge it in
Speaker 1: through the court system, and and we through the Equal
Speaker 1: Opportunity Justice to act, then wind up paying through government
Speaker 1: funds if they're successful in some of their their court challenges. Well,
Speaker 1: when you do that, sometimes we are we're spending more
Speaker 1: money net than it was really necessary to get good
Speaker 1: decision making on what we want on the ground. We
Speaker 1: strongly support really good comprehensive planning and developing good environmental
Speaker 1: assessments of those plans. But once the decision is made
Speaker 1: to cut, then let's go in and cut and get
Speaker 1: the treatment done. Let's not spend all of our money
Speaker 1: bickering about it in court. Let's let's make sure that
Speaker 1: we're using the funding that's intended to have to have
Speaker 1: health the forest. Do you find yourself making painful compromises
Speaker 1: down then where you just you realize you pushed something
Speaker 1: as far as you can get it, and uh, and
Speaker 1: you just gotta move on. Yeah, I mean that's part
Speaker 1: of the game with any sort of policy work. Public
Speaker 1: policy work is, Um, we live in a democracy, and
Speaker 1: there are people with different views and and members of
Speaker 1: Congress have to represent their constituents and have their respective
Speaker 1: opinions on it. So while we might want to see something,
Speaker 1: maybe we can only get a baby step to get there.
Speaker 1: This year, you take the baby step, you participate in
Speaker 1: the pilot projects that are out there, you'd be the
Speaker 1: good partner to the agencies, and then you come back
Speaker 1: down the road and try and make the additional changes
Speaker 1: that you need to get done in the future. So
Speaker 1: I imagine you probably found a way because you spent
Speaker 1: like coming up, you spent so much time in state
Speaker 1: government and probably dealt with federal government long time. You
Speaker 1: probably you must develop sort of way to not sabotage relationships.
Speaker 1: We'll still try to get a little bit of what
Speaker 1: you want out of the well. Yeah, I think it's um.
Speaker 1: I think first of all, it's a philosophy coming into it.
Speaker 1: I think most of our and if not all, our
Speaker 1: lawmakers run for office because they really want to make
Speaker 1: a difference in this country. And so it's about sharing
Speaker 1: your experience and your your insights on what can be
Speaker 1: done to make that difference out there and why we
Speaker 1: think there are changes that need to be done, And
Speaker 1: it's about showing them. You know. Sometimes I found that
Speaker 1: you can sit in someone's office and try and explain
Speaker 1: something they don't get it. But if you go out
Speaker 1: on the ground and you point to it and you
Speaker 1: kick the dirt, and then they can see what's really happening.
Speaker 1: It's about getting out on the ground sometimes and showing
Speaker 1: them what we're seeing as we go out and do
Speaker 1: our work, and that the light bulb goes on and
Speaker 1: the how moment occurs and they go, Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: agree with the solution, but I think we can come
Speaker 1: up with another solution that will still achieve this. And
Speaker 1: then that's where you get compromised and you get the
Speaker 1: ability to talk through what are ways that we can
Speaker 1: make policy change just will be effective in this country?
Speaker 1: What are what has been the impact of hunters and
Speaker 1: hunter dollars on all the habitat work that has gone on,
Speaker 1: and that that that your organization is involved in others
Speaker 1: like like how how impactful has that been compared to
Speaker 1: other sources of revenue that would be allocated state and
Speaker 1: federal level to do in similar habitat work. Well, I'd
Speaker 1: have to say that um hunters dollars and the excise
Speaker 1: tax that it matches is really the lions share of
Speaker 1: the money for all the state agencies. And you know
Speaker 1: there there are federal agencies to do fine habitat work
Speaker 1: on our national forests and our wildlife refuges and and
Speaker 1: BLM lands and the rest of it. But the lions
Speaker 1: share of the state efforts and they are the agency
Speaker 1: that's responsible for all the native wildlife in their state,
Speaker 1: UM except for those at full under Migratory Bird Redact
Speaker 1: and Threatened and Endangered Species Act those UM those efforts
Speaker 1: are all funded through hunter dollars and through licensed money
Speaker 1: and the matching excise tax. Can you um when you
Speaker 1: say excise to actually talking like LWCF or Pittman Robertson,
Speaker 1: Dingle Johns, I'm talking about Pittman Robertson, Dingle Johnson wallet
Speaker 1: row dollars primarily. Now there there are there's some other
Speaker 1: funding sources out there also, but the majority of that
Speaker 1: comes back to the states in a formula that's based
Speaker 1: on the land base of that state and the number
Speaker 1: of licensed hunters individual hunters in that state. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: in Michigan, we wound up taking federal Pittman Robertson dollars
Speaker 1: and Dingle Johnson from fishing UM. Pittman Robertson is a
Speaker 1: wildlife restoration component of it. So that's for wildlife and
Speaker 1: the and the fishy. We've explained the listeners of handful
Speaker 1: times just in case one hasn't caught. What we're talking
Speaker 1: about is that like Pittman Robertson money. When people talk
Speaker 1: about Pittman Robertson funds, there's an excise tax on guns
Speaker 1: and ammunition. So when you go down to buy a firearm,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if if it's someone buying a handgun
Speaker 1: to carry around in their purse for self defense, like
Speaker 1: anything like that winds up being rolled into Pittman Robertson fund.
Speaker 1: There's a thirteen or fourteen exercise tax on that item.
Speaker 1: So that's what funds the the Pittman Robertson Fund, which
Speaker 1: is established the Wildlife Restoration Act back in the thirties,
Speaker 1: and then Dingle Johnson came afterwards, and it's a little
Speaker 1: bit more far reaching in the in the items that includes,
Speaker 1: because Pitto Robertson is very specific to archery, to like bows, guns, ammunition, guns, ammunition, unfishing,
Speaker 1: Dingle Johnson even like like boat gas, so like fuel
Speaker 1: sold at Marina's. It's a little bit more reaches a
Speaker 1: little bit broader to try to establish its funds, but
Speaker 1: those all going to federal funds that are then moved
Speaker 1: along to states to do wildlife working habits at work.
Speaker 1: That's correct, and that form the backbone and most of
Speaker 1: the funding for the state agencies. So everything from wildlife
Speaker 1: research to trap and transfer efforts, to habitat management um
Speaker 1: to funding their biologists or conservation officers. There's some money
Speaker 1: that goes into hunter um, safety of course work and
Speaker 1: ranges out there. So all of that is funded through
Speaker 1: those funding sources. There is very little general funder tax
Speaker 1: payer support in most states. Now there are a few
Speaker 1: states they have earmark funding. Missouri, Arkansas are a few
Speaker 1: of those. Minnesota has that, but the majority of other
Speaker 1: states really do not have tax pay or dollars that
Speaker 1: support their conservation efforts. Do you find like in your
Speaker 1: dealings with government officials, do you find that people who
Speaker 1: that there are people who are coming into government through
Speaker 1: elected politics who don't have haven't had a lot of
Speaker 1: exposure to issues around wildlife inhabitant wildlife management who are
Speaker 1: just like who are kind of unaware of the funding structure. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and we used to see this Michigan hand term limits
Speaker 1: manut much of the country doesn't does at this point,
Speaker 1: but we're seeing more and more local elected officials that
Speaker 1: are moving up to being state officials. And that money
Speaker 1: isn't UM isn't part of the funding mix, you know,
Speaker 1: cities and townships and county level, So it isn't until
Speaker 1: they get at the state level they really realize where
Speaker 1: the funding is coming from. And and there has eye
Speaker 1: opening form in a way that would be like really
Speaker 1: like satisfying for me. It's like for them to see
Speaker 1: how this happens. It is UM. The hard part of
Speaker 1: it is sometimes they don't recognize some of the protections
Speaker 1: are in place. Every state that it gets wildlife Restoration
Speaker 1: funds or pr dollars has to have what they call
Speaker 1: assent legislation passed in their state, and that says that
Speaker 1: that funding source is going to stay with the agency
Speaker 1: that's charged with managing that wildlife, and it can't go
Speaker 1: to building bridges or highways, it can't go to pay
Speaker 1: the general funds shortfall. So you get elected officials that
Speaker 1: will come in and they'll see, you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of million bucks are going into conservation work and times
Speaker 1: are tight, We're just gonna take that money and we're
Speaker 1: gonna use it somewhere else. Well, they put all their
Speaker 1: federal dollars at risk when they do that, and so
Speaker 1: it's always an interesting opportunity to educate new legislators on it.
Speaker 1: And we're really fortunate because the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus is
Speaker 1: a large caucus. They're forming sportsmen's caucuses at the state
Speaker 1: level around the country, and as we do that, we're
Speaker 1: finding more and more legislators are becoming informed earlier in
Speaker 1: their careers and and really valuing that and building those partnerships.
Speaker 1: And they're bipartisan, bicameral, so you have you know, in
Speaker 1: those caucuses, you'll have both people from the House and
Speaker 1: the Senate the state level, both Republicans and Democrats. And
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty good, is it. I think it probably
Speaker 1: is fair to say that the majority of people in
Speaker 1: this country who enjoy turkey hunting, the majority of them
Speaker 1: are not n WTF members. That is true. That is true.
Speaker 1: And then would you like to say to those people,
Speaker 1: I'd like to say, step it up, step it up,
Speaker 1: come join us. Um. Yeah, It's like, if you'd like
Speaker 1: turkey hunting, you already gott to buy a license anyway,
Speaker 1: like you gotta buy a license, you gotta buy gear,
Speaker 1: You're gonna buy a shotgun. It's like, just add into
Speaker 1: the list of stuff you need to buy, you need
Speaker 1: to get a membership, that's right, and we'd love to
Speaker 1: have them come join us because we're doing so much
Speaker 1: great work and and it. You know, the thing is
Speaker 1: that it's relatively inexpensive. Our membership is thirty five dollars,
Speaker 1: but so many of our members give, you know, countless
Speaker 1: hours of their time, and they'll take new hunters and
Speaker 1: mentored hunts. They'll wind up doing all kinds of events
Speaker 1: for you know, individuals who wouldn't normally get a chance
Speaker 1: to go out and go turkey hunting or learn their
Speaker 1: hunter safety courses. They'll they'll put that funding towards great
Speaker 1: habitat projects and working with federal and state agencies to
Speaker 1: have good habitat out there. It's about piloting new projects
Speaker 1: to try new things for both habitat and hunting heritage
Speaker 1: and and quite frankly, it's a great group of people.
Speaker 1: And so quite often we say that people come because
Speaker 1: of the mission, but they stay because of the people,
Speaker 1: because you form tremendous relationships, and that that social network
Speaker 1: of other people that share your values the enjoy going
Speaker 1: out and doing the same things you do. Is a
Speaker 1: fun group of people to hang with too. Is that
Speaker 1: the normal pathway for for a hunter who's finding his
Speaker 1: way into the n w TF is just like getting
Speaker 1: a membership and then kind of staying up to speed
Speaker 1: on things. Yeah, it could be. I mean, we're finding
Speaker 1: we're with our our three efforts and our three stands
Speaker 1: for recruitment, retention, and reactivation of hunters, we're trying to
Speaker 1: branch out and and go after segments the population that
Speaker 1: might not have exposure to hunting otherwise. Traditionally, a lot
Speaker 1: of those what we would call one and done UM
Speaker 1: program in the past, where we take youth out hunting
Speaker 1: and we'd have a hunting day and and the rest
Speaker 1: of it. We're finding that it really takes more than
Speaker 1: that one touch in order for someone to go through
Speaker 1: the stages and learn how to be an accomplished hunter
Speaker 1: and and be comfortable to go out and do it
Speaker 1: on their own. UM, they need to have several opportunities
Speaker 1: to be with other hunters, to learn the skills and techniques,
Speaker 1: to build the confidence up, and eventually we want them
Speaker 1: to be mentors to new hunters, other new hunters out there.
Speaker 1: And so as we've we've reached into that, we've tried
Speaker 1: to reach into markets where we might not have been before.
Speaker 1: People who who might buy their food in a food
Speaker 1: co op and be really really interested in and going
Speaker 1: out and harvesting their own food with a low carbon
Speaker 1: footprint close to home. No, it's raised, you know, in
Speaker 1: a in a natural environment, and they want to try hunting,
Speaker 1: but they didn't grow up in a family that hunted.
Speaker 1: They don't have any friends that hunts hunt, and so
Speaker 1: it's about getting those people to come in and be comfortable,
Speaker 1: um where they don't have that social network around them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are the and I find because we talked to
Speaker 1: a lot of those people, I find that they feel
Speaker 1: that the barriers to entry are very high. And also
Speaker 1: it's the place to go because I feel like if
Speaker 1: you could take any one of those people and give
Speaker 1: them a three d acre farm and have exclusive access
Speaker 1: they hunt all the time. Well, that's it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's about learning how to get access to that land,
Speaker 1: learning where there is public land already available for you, um,
Speaker 1: finding someone that helps teach them the basic skills to
Speaker 1: get out there, and then doing it so they feel
Speaker 1: comfortable and confident that they can do it and they
Speaker 1: can do it on their own. That's where I feel
Speaker 1: that that, uh, your organization's access work is extremely important.
Speaker 1: I think that that, like just from my own you know,
Speaker 1: findings and and uh communications, I feel it's just like
Speaker 1: that access part of it one be education about how
Speaker 1: to learn about what's already available, but also increasing the
Speaker 1: availability places for people to go is it's I don't
Speaker 1: think you can. I don't think you can really overstay
Speaker 1: the importance of that. Well, it's interesting with some of
Speaker 1: our Learned to Hunt programs, more and more we're doing
Speaker 1: a lot of those on public lands and having them
Speaker 1: camp on public lands. So that's stuff that they can
Speaker 1: go out and do the next weekend on their own.
Speaker 1: They can get access to the very same lands they
Speaker 1: can they can go to that campground and do it.
Speaker 1: It's one of those situations where they don't need to
Speaker 1: go and um go into private lands and the least
Speaker 1: situation with a guide. It's one of those situations where
Speaker 1: it's about taking them out learning about what resources are
Speaker 1: available to them, actually available that's right that they can
Speaker 1: go out and recreate and do. That's that's that's a
Speaker 1: good way looking at it. Yeah, I never thought about
Speaker 1: that because my brother in law works in Tennessee with
Speaker 1: the Tennessee Wildlife Federation and they all their most there.
Speaker 1: I think learn to hunt programs with the kids. They're
Speaker 1: going to private ranches. They're not ranches, but you know,
Speaker 1: farms and whatnot. And so yeah, because once you added
Speaker 1: that program, right, you don't have that acces. That's right,
Speaker 1: you don't have it. And we're creating unrealistic expectations that
Speaker 1: they can't go and recreate it you know later on. Um.
Speaker 1: The other thing we're doing is trying to do more
Speaker 1: family based activities. You know, with two income families on
Speaker 1: time off on their weekends and the rest of it,
Speaker 1: a lot times they want to do things as a family.
Speaker 1: Where we once might have our widow program or women
Speaker 1: in the outdoors that were as all women that got together. Um,
Speaker 1: now we're doing it where it's women and their children. Um.
Speaker 1: Same thing with father and son or father and daughter.
Speaker 1: But families that can come out and we're finding where
Speaker 1: kids want to get out and hunt and the parents
Speaker 1: don't hunt want to hunt. It's about making sure that
Speaker 1: the parents enjoy it also and and know enough about
Speaker 1: it that they're comfortable that they can do it as
Speaker 1: a family activity. So it's it's changing in terms of
Speaker 1: because we've lost a couple of generations and getting involved
Speaker 1: in the outdoors and UM, we're gonna be sccessful. We're
Speaker 1: going to have to reach beyond folks that are just
Speaker 1: in our family and social circles. Yeah, people who are
Speaker 1: in just like the natural lineup of the class that
Speaker 1: like father to son progression of and we and we
Speaker 1: found by doing following back on some of our past programming,
Speaker 1: a lot of our youth programs were really all of
Speaker 1: our youth. UM. There were folks, they were kids that
Speaker 1: would have gotten involved in hunting otherwise some exposure. So
Speaker 1: we're taking far more care to get out there and
Speaker 1: expose UM youth and young adults who haven't been exposed before. UM.
Speaker 1: We have a program we have several universities down at
Speaker 1: our headquarters facility. We have Learned to Hunt curriculum with
Speaker 1: actually UM programs that we work with students, for instance
Speaker 1: from Clemson University where you'll have students some of them
Speaker 1: are even in wildlife profession UM that have never hunted,
Speaker 1: that really want to learn how to hunt, but they
Speaker 1: don't know how to get started in it. So we'll
Speaker 1: bring them down We'll give them hunter safety. We'll teach
Speaker 1: him that the fundamentals will get them out of a
Speaker 1: dove hunt. Then we'll go out and do a turkey hunt.
Speaker 1: We might do a deer hunt in the fall. Will
Speaker 1: partner with ducks Unlimited, try and get them out hunting
Speaker 1: with those folks or with pheasant quail forever and get
Speaker 1: out one of their hunts. But it takes those multiple
Speaker 1: touches and to make them feel comfortable that they know
Speaker 1: what they're doing and they can partake in hunting down
Speaker 1: the road. Uh, do you have any final things you
Speaker 1: want to add that we haven't that I haven't asked
Speaker 1: you about that you're dying to. No. We have our
Speaker 1: national convention coming up here in mid February in Nashville, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: and it is it is. Yeah, it's a great time.
Speaker 1: It's a great time for us to UM bring in
Speaker 1: a lot of our volunteers and success, celebrate their success
Speaker 1: and what all they do for the organization and for
Speaker 1: turkeys and conservation around the country. We bring in a
Speaker 1: lot of our agency partners UM. We usually have about
Speaker 1: thirty people from the U. S. Forest Service. There, people
Speaker 1: from BLM laws agencies, have people and the Turkey Federation
Speaker 1: formed a technical advisory committee long before even before Dr
Speaker 1: James Earl Kinnemer was the head conservation as the Turkey Federation,
Speaker 1: where those folks that where the technical experts amongst all
Speaker 1: the states come together and sit around a table and
Speaker 1: they share the latest and greatest and Turkey research and
Speaker 1: and talk about the concerns and problems are having in
Speaker 1: the opportunities and come together and make recommendations to us
Speaker 1: as well as helping each other maintain that population and
Speaker 1: good habitat out there. And the convention is open to
Speaker 1: the public. It is open the public. It's February fourteen,
Speaker 1: fifteen sixteen. Through the right and uh in Nashville, Yep,
Speaker 1: come on in and people can wander in off the streets.
Speaker 1: That's right. UM, we'll have you, will sell you a membership,
Speaker 1: will give you entrance to it. There's a great trade
Speaker 1: show if you are interested in turkey calling, if you're
Speaker 1: interested and seeing people that make decorative calls, that do
Speaker 1: calling um demonstrations as well as contest. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: Texadermy to take a look at. There's all kinds of
Speaker 1: cool stuff. Turkey calling competitions are pretty interesting. They are there,
Speaker 1: so it's fun. And then in the evenings we have
Speaker 1: celebrations just about every night where we get a chance
Speaker 1: to honor people that donate money to us, that give
Speaker 1: their time and energy to to raise money, that do
Speaker 1: partnerships and events, and so it's really really a good time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you got your final comments. What's the easiest way
Speaker 1: for someone to become a member if they're not going
Speaker 1: to the just go to the n w TF website.
Speaker 1: We have the right on the on the website front
Speaker 1: page you can sign up to be a member. It
Speaker 1: will take your credit card and issue a member number,
Speaker 1: and we'd love to have you join us. And then
Speaker 1: awesome if you on Turkey's Man, you really ought to
Speaker 1: be doing how you do. And then there's also events
Speaker 1: um listed there by your area that you can take
Speaker 1: a look at. If you want to go to a banquet,
Speaker 1: you can also buy a memberships as your banquet ticket.
Speaker 1: And Steve and I've talked about a lot of great
Speaker 1: benefit of being a members. You get to read is
Speaker 1: a Turkey Country. That's right, We're gonna We're gonta magazine.
Speaker 1: It's like I really appreciate because there is a lot
Speaker 1: of science in there, and I like reading the science
Speaker 1: and stuff that goes on in there. Yeah, we're trying
Speaker 1: to do a good mix of of UM telling people
Speaker 1: what they need to know about the latest and greatest
Speaker 1: UM everything from great products to use to the best
Speaker 1: science available out there. Yeh, we need a longer podcast
Speaker 1: on this. I have many many questions for you, Becky,
Speaker 1: but you're not, like you're not like a super huge
Speaker 1: turkey hunter. Well, growing up in Montana Turkey yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And now I approach it much much differently. But we've
Speaker 1: talked about this, like growing up in Montana and we
Speaker 1: were always like, why are why is every hunting TV
Speaker 1: show turkeys? What is? What is? It's fun? And we
Speaker 1: took our cow olke diaphragms and wear and calling turkey
Speaker 1: and if that didn't work out, we'd run around the
Speaker 1: hill and shoot him, you know. And it just took
Speaker 1: a while and then all of a sudden we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is l cunning in the springtime. It is, But yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't have enough time. But I absolutely agree with you,
Speaker 1: like we as hunters do a really poor job of
Speaker 1: uh being honest with ourselves on how intimidating this sport is,
Speaker 1: and we put up more barriers to entry than then
Speaker 1: we even think about because we want to feel like
Speaker 1: we're cool too. Um and yeah, I feel like you're
Speaker 1: a good egg. And I wish we had more more
Speaker 1: biologists in your position, a lot more nonprofits because yeah,
Speaker 1: still a few things I gotta ask you, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed the time. Thank you for letting me
Speaker 1: be you here and listen. Yeah, well, thank you. All right,
Speaker 1: it's been fun. And I'm going to the National Wild
Speaker 1: Turkey Federal I know that's awesome. We'll look for you
Speaker 1: down there were banquet. I'm going to the National Convention.
Speaker 1: Already booked my flights. Yeah, really, there you go. So
Speaker 1: if you go down there, look up, look for Callahan,
Speaker 1: say hi to him. All right, Becky, thank you very
Speaker 1: much for joining us. Thank you my pleasure.