WEBVTT - Ep. 214: Gobbling Your Ass Off 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.320 This is me eat podcast coming at you shirtless severely 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:18.319 bug bitten in my case underwear listening Hunt podcast, you 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:22.600 can't predict anything presented by on X. Hunt creators are 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.160 the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.440 Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play store, nor 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:36.640 where you stand with on X real quick before people 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:38.920 listen to the show, I want to make it feel 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.760 like they're being super constructive. And how would we do that? Well, 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.479 we would have your honest tell this story. You like that? 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:50.479 I set that up? I did, Um, which story do 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:52.760 you want me to tell about the I've got a 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:57.320 couple of them guy getting shot? Okay, what do you 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:58.959 mean you got a couple of them? Well, we were 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:02.200 just earlier talking about the weasel in your yard. Yeah, 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.200 but how does that make people feel constructive? That's just 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.039 something in your yard. They don't own your yard. When 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:09.280 I'm talking about the shot they getting shot. Thing would 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:13.759 show like how this how this program saves lives? Okay, 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.080 I'm reading up though right now? How much does anybody 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:21.800 in this room know? How much one unit of blood is? Point? 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:29.120 I don't know, yes, roughly the equivalent of one point 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:35.000 about five million leaders. Good job. So we had a 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:41.880 podcasts a while back which was number Brody You Were Here, 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.160 I Was Not Here? Episode one two called Bleeding Out 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:54.320 and uh a fella rode in um Joey. Joey wrote 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:58.200 in to say that this podcast saved his father's life. 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.760 Now this podcast you here or not You do you 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.400 want to give a quick rundown of what went down 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.960 on that podcast? Well, we had our buddy Dr Alan Lazar, 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:13.720 who's an emergency room doctor and uh that's correct, also 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.360 a hunter in Detroit and Detroit. He had been helping 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:22.120 us out with various research questions and uh so Steve 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:24.840 decided to have him out because he's an interesting dude. 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:29.320 And uh one of his main points was that all 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:33.440 hunters and fisherman too probably should be carrying around a 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.160 tourniquet in the woods because if you get cut bad, 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.000 that's really the only thing that's going to save your life. Yeah, 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:43.480 and he go ahead, Well he had mentioned everybody thinks like, well, 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.400 I'll just jury rig one, right, do you know that 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.840 it's okay to say Jerry Rigg and jury Rigg. No. 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.600 I looked it up. People think, wow, does jury rig one? 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.839 He's like by the time you jury rig one, you're dead. 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:02.079 Your buddy's dead. How's it okay to say Jerry rig am? 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.720 I not thinking that it's the same like kind of 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:07.160 like it's a negative like, isn't it doesn't it come 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:11.400 from Jerry's kids and doing it the wrong way? That's 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.760 what I always understood. If that's the case, I'm not 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:17.679 I don't say it anyway. Is If that's the case, 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:19.240 I definitely wouldn't say it. But you think it has 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:26.919 to do with Jerry Lewis telephone? Uh? Yeah, Where does 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.160 Jerry Rick come from? I just thought it was people. 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:35.760 Just Jerry can come from? Jerry can. It's a good one. 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.600 I don't know. It's not a jury can No jury 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:46.200 rig who seth you know the type he's just sitting 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:48.120 over there watching this. Well you were the one that 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.120 says that you found out that it's okay to say 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.680 about so I want to know why that isn't And 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:56.840 then it's we should just I don't mean okay, like 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:03.440 socially okay that that that that the source I looked 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:07.560 at accepts both. Now it wasn't making a moral it 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.800 wasn't anyways, you're dead by the time, like if you're 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:13.840 gonna go, like run back to your truck and get 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.560 whatever you come back. Your buddy's dead, that's right. And 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.360 he's got like a national campaign going on. Uh right, 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.880 it's called Stop the Bleed. A bunch of e R 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.919 doctors going around and uh educating people about how to 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.120 stop bleeding better. Right. Yeah. Yeah, And he convinced all 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.960 of us to start packing tourniquets. Yeah, I had never 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:37.560 done mine. Finally made it from my desk, the tourniquets 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:39.920 they left me or you gave them to me too, 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.479 into my back my daily backpack, which I guess is 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.000 better than at my desk. But now I'm gonna take 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:45.839 one and put one of my turkeys. He was trying 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:51.080 to fancy new turniquet out yesterday. It's a belt that 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:56.479 you wear. It's pretty aggressive, but yeah, you'd have a belt. 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:00.200 Your belt is a tourniquet. Your belt can be deployed aid, 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.760 so you would always just have it on. Well, just 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.480 so happens that in this story Joey writes in about 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:09.599 he used his belt as a tourniquet. They were out 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:15.840 pheasant hunting. I believe in uh Colorado, Kansas, maybe some 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:18.400 some place that has a lot of pheasants and uh, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.000 to cut this story a little bit shorter, they get 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:23.880 to a spot where they're giving their dogs some water 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:29.440 and uh, Joey's dad is in front of one of 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.600 the other hunters guns and the hunter's guns gun goes off. 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.520 It's a twelve gauge and approximately eight yards and catches 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:42.760 him in the ribs, abdomen and uh, one of his 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:48.080 arms pretty bad bleeding. Um. They immediately realized it's bad. 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:52.039 They call UH. It takes fifty minutes for them to 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.760 get for help to get there. I think Joey did 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:57.760 a good job with his story. I like the way 0:05:57.800 --> 0:05:59.760 that he explained this part right here. He said when 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.359 he was looking at the blood, he's a big deer hunter, 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:04.919 and he said, if I was tracking a deer and 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.520 saw this much blood, I'd be expecting that deer to 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.960 be dead or just around the corner. He said, it 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.360 was like spurting right. Yes, that's a great detail. Yeah, 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:19.040 great detail like that. And they're on snow to which 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.360 always makes it makes it look like there's more blood. 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:27.520 It makes you think you're gonna find deer that you don't. Yeah. Um. 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.839 So anyways, he's saying that they had started a tourniquet 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.159 with some ripped clothing shreads. One of the other hunters 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.400 had well, he had just recently two weeks prior, listened 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:42.119 to episode one two leading out, and he remembered three 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.480 key points. One, nobody ties a tourniquets tight enough. Two, 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:49.880 tying a tourniquet does not necessarily mean that the limb 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.400 will be lost. And three, when tying the tourniquet, it's 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.960 necessary to go as far up the limb as possible. 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.240 So he took off his belt, put it way up 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:04.840 his dad's arm, and cranked on it. Um. He made 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.159 it to the hospital. He received fourteen units of blood, 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.800 which we now know is uh roughly fourteen points and 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:15.760 how many doesn't could that possibly be true? How many 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:20.800 points does a human body hold? Seth come on eight 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.840 eight to twelve, So they might it might have been 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:30.320 more blood than his in your body losing they was 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:36.000 pumping it in. I think I'm not calling the brother liar. 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.320 This is hard to fathom. Okay, Well, let's just say 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:43.920 it was tanned and not fourteen. Um. Yeah, it doesn't 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:49.480 say like a pipe and an out pipe. The hospital 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:55.040 complimented him many times on the quality and application of 0:07:55.080 --> 0:08:00.760 his tourniquet all principles uh that he learned on a podcast. 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:05.920 So there you go, man, good job. Listen to the 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:12.520 media podcast might save someone's life, especially episode one nine. Yep, now, 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.840 uh real quick, Johnny, tell about the wheel quick. So 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:20.680 I'm gonna get a little background, okay, Uh, well, just 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:23.840 telling about the weasels. I was gonna talk about how 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:29.240 I can't get permission on your property and whatnot. Yeah, well, 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.800 my gal just loves loves the wildlife more alive than dead. 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:37.360 Sometimes she loves them more in a way. In a 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.920 way because there's a long list of things on your 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.360 property that are on the goal list or they are 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.880 on the okay list. Listen, Yeah, as soon as they 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.800 took out a chicken or two and the ermine long 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:53.400 tail weasel, it'd be game on. You know, Like we 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:57.319 had some squirrels attack in the house. This winner, she's 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:03.120 out there with the hunting them. You know, she said 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.760 a babe pile for those squirrels, but she didn't. I 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.160 think she got a shot off but she missed. But 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.080 later I think one day I had come home, you know, 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:13.600 you know, you pulping my driveway. You can kind of 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:15.719 see past the back of the house. I look down there, 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:17.640 I'm like, oh, what is that wondering what that squirrels 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:19.520 doing there? I get a little closer and he just 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.439 sitting there, munching away on whatever she'd put out, some seeds. 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:24.520 So I went inside, I got the twenty two and 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:31.000 dispatched him. She uh even almost declared war on a fox. 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.720 What she did? She killed the fox. Okay, so don't 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:42.280 give me the whole wildlife thing. Uh So it's pretty 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:44.640 cool on these ermans around because you get to see 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.280 him hunting every now and then, maybe once or twice 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:51.240 a winter. And we have a decent, contentent population that 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:54.720 lives in and around the house, and the erman's usually hunting. 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.319 I've never seen anything besides the cotton tail. Anyways. The 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:00.600 other morning i'm up, must have been this this weekend. 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.839 It's snow and there's like three or four inches of 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.360 fresh snow, and I see a bunny rabbit hopping around 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:10.000 our plow truck. Watch him for a minute, go away, 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.520 come back, he's hopping around. And then next thing I 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:15.920 see is I see like the tumble the bunny sort 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.880 of tumbling erratically down our driveway, which immediately because I've 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.200 seen it before. Means that he and the ermine are 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.960 locked together and the ermins trying to grab by the 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.520 neck and suffocate it, and they're tumbling away. Now I've 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.280 seen this two or three other times. The bunny rabbit 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.920 always gets away, so they kind of go out of 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:36.560 view over kind of the crest of the hill, and 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.319 I wait for a bit, don't see him come back. 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:41.320 Maybe five or ten minutes later, and a little farther 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.160 down the driveway, I can just see a dark spot 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.920 and I can see a magpie like five ft away. 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.120 So I grab the grab the buyos and I look 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:53.160 down there and like it's actually two dark spots because 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:58.200 the white ermine is bisecting the cotton tail rabbit. And 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.840 now he's just sitting there. Then a rabbit was still 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.319 alive a little bit. He was sort of the ermine 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.880 was finishing off. But it's amazing how fast and magpies were. 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:08.600 They're sort of like, all right, we're gonna get our 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.360 peace too. Well, as long as I watched, he fended 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:17.200 off the magpies and eventually drug the bunny rabbit into 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.400 the sort of hawthorn and thicket, and I couldn't see 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:21.800 him I didn't. I don't want to go. I wanted 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:23.920 to go investigate, but I didn't want to go disturb 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:26.960 his you know, peace and his kill. So I didn't know. 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.280 I don't know if the magpies eventually end up getting 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.640 a chunk or not. But uh, he drug him out 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:36.600 of the road and into the Hawthorne the Erman. Yeah, 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.040 I mean, I don't know. Fourteen inch really, that's a 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.240 good one. I just had to throw a number at it. Well, 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.200 we wanted one because we wanted we want one to 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:50.600 get tanned. We want one big exemplary specimen to get tanned. Um, 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:53.640 we want to collect up addition to stuff, we want 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:58.240 to collect up one of all furbears. Uh as a 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:03.319 little project. We're out. We got our big one because 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.520 we were out that. I don't think I told this story. 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:08.319 Me and my kid walk out of my friend's ranch 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.640 house and he's like, there's a coyote. There's a coyote, 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.520 And I look, I don't see an kyote. So now 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:15.960 I'm a little bit annoyed. I'm like, dude, you know, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.560 don't just be like crying out that you see stuff. Yeah, 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.319 but your boy usually doesn't. He's got a good game. Out, Well, 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.280 check this out, So I mean, not thirty seconds goes by. 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.920 He turns and looks the other way and yells, there's 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:31.679 a weasel. Now you can go like a long time 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:36.240 without seeing a weasel. So then I lay into him. 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:42.320 I'm like, James, you gotta and I'm like yelling at him. 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.600 This weasel runs back across the road the other direction, 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:47.719 and he runs over there. It's a little for ten 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:49.480 and the reason went down in the hole and I 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.520 started doing one of those like making mouse noises with 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:56.520 your hand. He popped his head right back out of 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:01.480 the hole and Jimmy got him nice tanker. But then 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.880 in skinning it, I broke The whole thing is in 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.800 skinning the tail. I have a tail stripper that's used 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.240 for like getting the tailbone out of tails. Um, but 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:13.319 it didn't have a fine enough it doesn't have like 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:18.280 a weasel setting, and I tried to flub it and 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.280 broke the end of the damn tail off a little tip. 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:27.680 So I'm My wife's annoyed because she doesn't like it, 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:32.680 this whole thing. Um. I was like, we just need one, 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:35.480 and she's like, well, here's your one. I'm like yeah, 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:37.160 but the tail is broken now, so I might just 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:41.800 stitch the tailback on Winners, kind of winding down. Michael 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:46.319 Chamberlain special guest here today. Oh one last thing? Are you? Um? 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.960 Are you doctor Michael Chamberlain. Okay? I like that that 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.000 kind of adds, that kind of builds that resume here. 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.120 Just call me Mike on the show. You just want 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.000 to go by Mike. Yeah, only my wife and my 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:02.040 mother called me Michael. Dr Michael chamber Uh. Wild turkey researcher. Yep. 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:03.720 But I got one last point I want to before 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:09.640 we get into that. We're good on weasels great. Um, 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:11.360 one last thing I want to mention, and this has 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.000 to do with turkeys. You know, when you're hunting turkeys, 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:16.679 you don't use a blind. It's called running and gunning. Uh. 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.160 A guy we're talking about on social media. We had 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:22.160 a thing up about like when you guys don't where 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:26.400 you're from, you don't ice fish and ice fishing. There's 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:27.960 a thing now and then where you just strike off 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:35.440 across the lake drilling thousand holes. Right. Um, it's the 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.720 ice fish and equivalent of like walking along the bank, 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.440 casting all over the damn place, and you call it 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:45.560 hole hopping. Prospecting. Um what else you call it? Taking 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:48.040 a poke, taking a few pokes whatever, You just like 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:50.600 leave your area to start drilling holes all over the 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:52.760 damn place and see what's going on. And a guy 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.560 in Canada said, in Canada, that's called running and gunning, 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.800 which I thought was because it's the gun. Um. Okay, 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:07.800 how to turkey researcher? You're affiliated with the university University 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:12.040 of Georgia. How does lay out? How that happens? Did 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.920 you become a official turkey researcher hard work and good luck? 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:19.440 Did you grow up hunting turkeys? I did? I did. 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:21.960 I grew up in Virginia as a suburban kid that 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.400 got to hunt on saturdays with his dad. Uh. We 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.400 had a fall season that was actually as popular as 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:32.120 the spring season then, so we actually learned the turkey 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:36.120 hunt during the fall, calling them. Yeah, you'd you'd actually 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.400 go and bust the flocks up, just walk until you 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:40.720 run across the flock. Did you use a dog to 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.720 scour him up? Sometimes? And as soon as the dog 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:45.840 would flush or you would flush the birds, you just 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.040 sat down where they flushed from and start calling. And 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.360 usually the juvenile birds were the first ones to come 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:54.200 back off in Jake's So you bust them up and 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:55.680 they all fly in different directions. I want to know 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:57.960 about the busting them up because I keep thinking I'm 0:15:58.040 --> 0:15:59.600 gonna gonna go out and do that. Some want to 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:02.800 know you see them up like fifty year a hundred 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.880 yards out right, we would actually like running and yelling 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.320 at them. Well, what we would do is get up 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.320 on high ground on ridges and call well you would, yeah, 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:13.520 and as soon as you could get a response, you 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.440 just start moving towards them until you could see them, 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.560 and then you take off running. Now I didn't know 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.200 there was like a locating components. So you're like really 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:25.200 deliberately heading out to do this. Yes, yes, it's not 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.400 like opportunistic and it's it's a bit on the redneck 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:31.760 side because there you are running through the eastern hardwood forest, 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.040 you know, wide open, trying to bust these birds just 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:40.120 a shooting, no, just just just running and they would 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:43.160 usually they would flush like quail. A lot of them 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.920 would go in one direction, but the ones that did not, 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:48.840 they were money. How close would you have to get 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.040 to flush them just to really break it just depended. 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.520 We used to do the same thing in Pennsylvania. Yeah, 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:56.920 that was popular in a popular way to I can 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:58.840 thought when you opened your mouth next it would be 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:03.560 to tell us about jewelry. Agin No, just find anything out. Yeah, 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.320 it's had two research projects. Well yahni covered the one. 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:14.520 Um jury rigged means something was assembled quickly with materials 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:19.399 on hand and jerry built this says, or jerry rigged 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.720 means it was cheap or poorly built. But what does 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:28.439 it say that does it give the etymology? Free folks 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.520 at home. The etymology of a word is sort of 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:33.679 how it came to. What am I trying to say? 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:41.639 There was? It's the words history origin. Yeah, the Wikipedia 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:46.760 says it's origin lies in such efforts done on boats 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:53.480 and ships, sail powered boats. M hmm, Kenny, how what 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.560 were you saying? Seth um, No, I I cut my 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:58.560 teeth on Turkey hunting in the fall of the same 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:02.000 exact way. Just walking. We used to like get a 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:05.200 group of guys, just walk until you find them. That's 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.680 how we did it too. Spring hunting was not. Fall 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:11.560 hunting was way more popular in Pennsylvania than sing hunting. 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:16.800 Really before the world. That's true when I was a 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:21.200 kid before that. Turkey population blew up. There's really only 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:23.800 turkeys in the mountains, like down by where Seth lived, 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.240 and fall hunting was the way people hunted him Seth 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:30.199 from the mountains. Yeah, man, yeah, that's exactly how I 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.720 grew up. Yeah, it was people like it just was 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.840 not as popular the spring hunting where the spring is limited, 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.760 and that's why it was just gaining popularity at that time. 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:43.240 I mean, yeah, but you grew up where there always 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:46.960 were turkeys. Yeah, it was just not as popular. It 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.560 wasn't it as the thing that it is now. And 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.160 now you know, of course it's done a complete script 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:56.960 flip if you will, and spring hunting is it's hugely popular, 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:00.280 and fall huntings declining and you know most of the state. Yeah, 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.240 I'm so, we're like basically the same age. My grandfather 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.040 still to this day will take fall turkey hunting over 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:10.960 anything else. It's like his favorite thing to do. Well, 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:12.320 you don't have to figure out if it's a male 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:16.840 or female in most places. Okay, so you guys are 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:21.200 systematic though, Climp on the ridge, located group the flock, 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:26.200 take off running, and then just talk about the use 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:28.840 of the dogs. Because I got a a friend of 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.000 mine from back home from high school. He's got a 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.840 turkey dog trained up to bust him. You just probably 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:37.199 get a more effective bust with something as fast as 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.399 a dog. Absolutely, So the dog would run into the flock, 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.920 scatter the birds in all directions, and then you sit down, 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:45.960 put a coat over the dog, or put the dog 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:50.000 behind you, and and start yelping. And usually, like I said, 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.920 the birds that scattered by themselves, they would immediately come 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.880 back to you. And you're so the call you're making 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.359 is called a kiki. Yeah, just a ki ki and 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.199 a you a real raspy yelp. Anything that would make 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:06.280 you think, make those birds think it was mom, because 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:08.360 most of those birds that scattered were I mean, they 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.400 were juveniles, got you. So anything that would bring those 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.960 birds back to you, Well, what what? What is the difference? 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.760 I never understood this. There's a kiki and a kiki run? 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.880 Is that not true? You hear people refer to them 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.840 as it's basically just this this you know kiki ki 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.680 ki call that that birds make when they're younger. Oh 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.040 so just different words from the same thing. I think 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.359 it's the same thing. I didn't know if it was 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:36.040 a difference in kikikiki run, And that kind of originates 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.480 from you know, when you when you scatter poults in 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.639 the summer, you'll hear the poults start whistling that kiki 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:45.080 ki ki ki, and you know, and mom will start putting, clucking, trying, 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.479 you know, so she doesn't they do it, but she 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:49.919 doesn't do it. She can do it, she can't do 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:53.159 the whistle. Turkeys have all sorts of vocalizations. Show me 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:55.680 the sound, like if you let's hear you are you're 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.560 hunting the fall, you you bust up a group of turkeys, 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:00.359 Show me a sound that would be like sound that 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:15.600 would be effective? Huh, But you'd call a bird in 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.879 the spring like that. Yeah, it's basically. I mean, all 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:21.040 you're trying to do is say, hey, here I am. 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:24.040 That's them collecting up. Yeah, come back over here. Everything's 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:26.760 good when it's not. I got a buddy that used 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.880 to get Hans that way. Really, he would bust Hans up. 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.240 He lived not far from here. He would bust Hans up. 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.720 And I don't know what vocalization they have. Um, I've 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:39.040 probably heard it, but then it's a whistle. If memory 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:41.400 stirs and that's spent several years. He would bust them 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:43.520 up and hide and start doing that, and eventually you'd 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:48.800 start drawing him back in mhm. Yeah, because they make 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.320 that raspy kind of cackling. Yeah, it's like, get on 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:53.280 the ground and start running. Yeah, there's a bunch of 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:55.840 my neighborhood and I hear it all the time. If 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.159 you bust them up, they you'll hear him all in 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:02.560 different directions making that noise. So you guys did that 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.680 growing up? Absolutely? Did you know? Were you like? Man? 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:10.720 When I get old, I'm gonna be a turkey biologist. No. Now. 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.359 I went to Virginia Tech just wanted to be a 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.840 you know, a game ward and wildlife biologist, wildlife manager. 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:19.680 And next thing you know, I ended up in grad 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:25.000 school at Mississippi State and realized research was was kind 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.439 of my thing and got the opportunity to stay on 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:31.280 and do a PhD. And the project that I studied 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:33.480 when I was a master student was a turkey project. 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:37.400 I was basically I didn't play in the study turkeys. 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:41.080 I just ended up in this project and became infactuated 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:43.760 with the bird and their biology. What was the project? 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:46.960 It was just studying turkeys in the Mississippi Delta, just 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:50.359 flood prone areas, didn't know a lot about the birds 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:54.960 in that area. Um, I got to get my you know, 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:58.560 feetwet if you will. And then my PhD program was 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:01.240 actually looking at predation on turkeys. So I was studying 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.719 turkeys using radio telemetry, but then I also put collars 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:10.560 on coyodes, bobcats, gray foxes, raccoons and studied how all 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:15.080 those species interact with turkeys. And then I landed in Academia, 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:18.320 which was just fortuitous. What year was was that going 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:22.480 on that you were doing that that initial research, uh 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:26.720 through Do you feel that at that time there was 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:29.840 a lot of low hanging fruit from turkey research because 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:34.720 the country had gone so long without that many turkeys around. Yeah, that, man, 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:37.560 that was the heyday. I mean, turkeys were exploding everywhere. 0:23:37.960 --> 0:23:40.959 They were being restored throughout their range and beyond, as 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:45.600 you know, and the research that was ongoing was grabbing 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:49.960 low hanging fruit, partially because we could answer those questions 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:52.760 with the technology we had at the time. And there 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:55.800 were studies everywhere. There were there were research projects and 0:23:56.080 --> 0:23:59.040 all sorts of states, you know, you know, multiple universities 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:02.840 had work on going. And then all of a sudden 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:06.120 around two thousand to two thousand three, it just kind 0:24:06.119 --> 0:24:10.400 of started stagnating. And I think part of that was complacency. 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:13.399 You know, there were birds everywhere, they seem to be 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:16.800 doing well. People harvest was increasing, and at least in 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:20.760 most of the Eastern United States, and agencies stopped putting 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:22.919 research money into turkeys at that point. And then you 0:24:23.000 --> 0:24:26.359 kind of saw this lull until the late you know, 0:24:26.440 --> 0:24:29.440 two thousand nine, two thousand ten period, when I think 0:24:29.480 --> 0:24:32.320 a lot of people in the East and Southeast realized 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:35.040 there was there was an issue, and you've kind of 0:24:35.080 --> 0:24:38.280 seen a resurrection of turkey research in my eyes, and 0:24:38.520 --> 0:24:42.440 people stopped taking turkeys for granted. Yeah, absolutely, humans got 0:24:42.440 --> 0:24:47.200 short memories, man, we do. We do shortsighted and short 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:50.800 memory in some cases. When you were doing that work, 0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:53.680 that initial work, you did a lot of predator work 0:24:53.840 --> 0:24:57.760 I did. What if you look at that, but also 0:24:57.840 --> 0:24:59.760 all the things you've learned since then. And I want 0:24:59.760 --> 0:25:01.640 to get back into in a minute, I get back 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:06.600 into your sort of like professional biography. But what kills 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:09.360 turkeys in your mind? Not in your mind? I mean, 0:25:09.480 --> 0:25:12.000 it's not you got to guess, you know, as a 0:25:12.040 --> 0:25:13.920 matter of fact that you look at like a national 0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:20.040 sort of picture. Um, what kills turkeys? All of your 0:25:20.119 --> 0:25:26.280 larger mammals, coach, bobcats, foxes, horned owls. Great horned owls 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:28.840 are an efficient predator of turkeys because they kill him 0:25:28.840 --> 0:25:31.520 in the tree. Oh, they do, they do. Someone was 0:25:31.560 --> 0:25:34.200 telling me that just the other day, the dude we're 0:25:34.240 --> 0:25:37.960 driving around. Yeah, they are really efficient. And they kill 0:25:38.000 --> 0:25:41.320 adult tom's too. And we find that they do that 0:25:42.480 --> 0:25:44.920 early in the morning while the birds are gobbling. They 0:25:45.280 --> 0:25:47.320 single land on birds on you know, in the tree, 0:25:48.280 --> 0:25:50.000 and then it is to get him on the ground. 0:25:50.040 --> 0:25:52.520 And they actually hit them in the tree and you 0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:55.560 can see a plume of feathers that goes away from 0:25:55.560 --> 0:25:57.480 the tree in the direction that they carry the bird 0:25:57.560 --> 0:26:00.280 down to the ground. And then they kill the bird 0:26:00.320 --> 0:26:03.639 on the ground, consume what they want and leave and 0:26:03.680 --> 0:26:07.359 they you know, horned owls are bad man. They is 0:26:07.400 --> 0:26:12.440 a big thing to hit. Yeah, horned owls when they're 0:26:12.440 --> 0:26:14.960 in breeding pairs. They I used to call at the 0:26:14.960 --> 0:26:19.320 Bermuda triangle I had really when I was doing my 0:26:19.400 --> 0:26:26.119 PhD work, I had four raccoons. There were collared a skunk, um, 0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:28.920 a gray fox and two turkey hens in the same 0:26:29.080 --> 0:26:31.640 kind of general area, and this pair of horned owls 0:26:31.680 --> 0:26:36.800 killed all of them. Back up, give me the list again. 0:26:36.880 --> 0:26:39.320 It was four raccoons, a gray fox, a skunk and 0:26:39.359 --> 0:26:42.760 two turkeys, and that that parah you kill a raccoon 0:26:43.320 --> 0:26:46.000 rad cougar put the fight and almost seen a raccoon 0:26:46.080 --> 0:26:48.920 kill a dog one time. Remember that horned owls are 0:26:49.040 --> 0:26:52.119 vicious and they're so if you think about it, the 0:26:52.200 --> 0:26:54.639 way they hit their prey with the force that they 0:26:54.720 --> 0:26:57.199 hit their prey and they blindside you. You don't know 0:26:57.240 --> 0:27:00.680 what's coming. They have the element of surprise on their 0:27:00.720 --> 0:27:04.760 side and they're they're incredible. But what's the actual like 0:27:05.640 --> 0:27:09.239 the method of killing, like what dispatches the animals, not 0:27:09.280 --> 0:27:14.600 just the hit because you it's the talents. They strategically 0:27:14.600 --> 0:27:17.320 put the talents like around the neck I'm guessing neck, 0:27:17.480 --> 0:27:20.760 vertebrae back, anything that disabled them, and you hit it 0:27:20.800 --> 0:27:23.280 like a peregrine hits like they hit it. It's like 0:27:23.320 --> 0:27:26.439 a it's like a baseball bat. So they'll blow a 0:27:26.520 --> 0:27:30.240 gobbler out of a tree. Yes, yes, I wonder why 0:27:30.280 --> 0:27:37.120 they responds, well, yeah, it's in their frequency band that 0:27:37.119 --> 0:27:40.159 that owl hoot is in the same frequency band that 0:27:40.240 --> 0:27:43.680 a gobbles in. So some of the gobbling work we do, 0:27:43.800 --> 0:27:47.760 it's very the technology we use to tease out the gobbles. 0:27:48.720 --> 0:27:51.080 It's in the same frequency band as an owl hoot, 0:27:51.080 --> 0:27:54.119 as a crow call, as a coyote, how a gunshot, 0:27:54.720 --> 0:27:57.880 a cow moving, they're all within on the sonogram, they're 0:27:57.920 --> 0:28:00.320 all within that same frequency band. So it makes sense 0:28:00.400 --> 0:28:02.200 we need to give him one of our t shirts 0:28:02.240 --> 0:28:04.159 that shows all the things that make a turkey gobble. 0:28:04.320 --> 0:28:06.239 Have you ever seen this shirt? No, but I'd love 0:28:06.280 --> 0:28:09.240 to happen. Do we gotta run? We got a running 0:28:09.280 --> 0:28:13.119 list that includes some incredible things. Oh, they'll they'll gobbled 0:28:13.160 --> 0:28:18.000 all sorts of things. It's crazy. Sonic booms, thunderclaps. Yeah, 0:28:18.320 --> 0:28:20.720 absolutely so a guy, a guy hawking rock to the 0:28:20.760 --> 0:28:24.560 stop signs in our list. That was me. When you 0:28:24.640 --> 0:28:27.560 say like the same frequency band, it's almost like they 0:28:27.600 --> 0:28:31.040 can't help themselves, like they just yeah you hear of 0:28:31.080 --> 0:28:34.920 shot gobbling? Ye Oh, I want to get I want 0:28:34.920 --> 0:28:38.200 to talk about this in like detail first ime on top. 0:28:38.240 --> 0:28:39.800 I want to finish up in the Great Horned Owls. 0:28:40.720 --> 0:28:43.800 So hold that thought about shot gobl exactly, Like what 0:28:43.920 --> 0:28:50.560 is he thinking, um, the great horned owls they ride 0:28:50.560 --> 0:28:55.640 it to the earth. Yes, so they hit. We lose, 0:28:56.520 --> 0:29:00.360 routinely lose. If we let's just for number or sake, 0:29:00.480 --> 0:29:04.680 let's just say we put fift GPS units on Tom's 0:29:04.960 --> 0:29:08.080 and on this site, we'll lose at least one or 0:29:08.080 --> 0:29:12.760 two before the turkey season starts to horned owls at 0:29:12.840 --> 0:29:17.560 least every year, and it always occurs from about right now, 0:29:18.440 --> 0:29:21.000 you know, late February early marks when they first start 0:29:21.040 --> 0:29:24.000 gobbling in the tree, until right before the turkey season 0:29:24.320 --> 0:29:27.000 when when we see gobbling really is starting to ramp up. 0:29:27.400 --> 0:29:30.200 That's when those horned owls hit. Those times, we had 0:29:30.200 --> 0:29:34.000 a gentleman the are day explained to me and Seth 0:29:34.840 --> 0:29:39.520 that he believes that his bobcats go up into the 0:29:39.600 --> 0:29:42.720 roost tree and kill the turkey's off the roost. Cats 0:29:42.760 --> 0:29:47.680 can obviously climb out. I can't really discount that. But 0:29:47.880 --> 0:29:52.080 I doesn't speak to you. It does not, because when 0:29:52.080 --> 0:29:55.120 you get under a turkey roost, they know exactly I mean, 0:29:55.120 --> 0:29:58.360 they know you're there. They know you're there long before 0:29:58.440 --> 0:30:01.280 you ever get there. And yes, cats are much more 0:30:01.320 --> 0:30:05.160 stealthy than we are. But but bobcats are are primarily 0:30:05.760 --> 0:30:09.400 stalk and sit hunters. They sit and wait on things 0:30:09.440 --> 0:30:12.560 to walk by them. They're lazy like our housecatch and 0:30:12.600 --> 0:30:15.200 your housecats sits on your refrigerator and smashing ahead when 0:30:15.240 --> 0:30:21.000 you walk by. Bobcats typically kill birds. We see they 0:30:21.080 --> 0:30:23.880 kill birds while birds are out forging. So it's you know, 0:30:23.960 --> 0:30:27.360 the kills made during the day sometime or early morning, 0:30:27.440 --> 0:30:30.280 late afternoon when birds are kind of strolling along roads 0:30:30.520 --> 0:30:33.520 or rights of way or whatever, and all of a sudden, boom, 0:30:33.560 --> 0:30:35.880 there's the kill. I'm not saying they couldn't climb a 0:30:35.880 --> 0:30:38.560 tree and kill a bird, but man, if you think 0:30:38.600 --> 0:30:40.760 about it, that would be It's hard to imagine them 0:30:40.800 --> 0:30:45.640 wrestling a turkey off on a tree branch. Yeah, yeah, 0:30:45.680 --> 0:30:48.680 I guess it could happen, but it could be a 0:30:48.720 --> 0:30:50.800 hack of a fall. You're putting putting yourself into a 0:30:50.880 --> 0:30:56.680 dangerous position to take at fall. Yeah with yeah, yeah, 0:30:56.760 --> 0:30:58.880 he seemed to think that he would get up there 0:30:58.920 --> 0:31:03.120 when they're still sleeping and surprise him, isn't that what 0:31:03.160 --> 0:31:07.720 he was saying, and get a whole bunch of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:31:07.840 --> 0:31:12.240 I would say the whole bunch probably. Yeah, I'm gonna 0:31:12.280 --> 0:31:18.600 have to call bs on the whole bunch. Maybe one 0:31:18.640 --> 0:31:20.480 of the time, I was just sharing a perspective with us. 0:31:21.560 --> 0:31:24.760 Uh okay, So you did all that, and that was 0:31:24.880 --> 0:31:27.520 in your your PhD project was in the Mississippi Delta, 0:31:27.880 --> 0:31:30.360 Well it was in Mississippi. My master's work was in 0:31:30.400 --> 0:31:32.480 the Delta, and my PhD work was in the kind 0:31:32.480 --> 0:31:35.120 of upland piney woods. And what was that work because 0:31:35.240 --> 0:31:37.720 PDHD work is very specific though, right, Yeah, that was 0:31:37.760 --> 0:31:40.600 the predation. That was where we went in and we marked. 0:31:40.960 --> 0:31:46.000 We radio turkeys, hens and all those predators. And basically 0:31:46.080 --> 0:31:49.440 what I did was I recreated GPS data, but I 0:31:49.480 --> 0:31:52.239 did it manually tracking there there was no GPS at 0:31:52.240 --> 0:31:56.120 that time, so I would track these animals simultaneously. So 0:31:56.160 --> 0:32:00.520 I may have three or four cats, a kaya, two boxes, 0:32:00.640 --> 0:32:03.480 five hens, two raccoons, whatever. How are you getting all 0:32:03.520 --> 0:32:07.840 that stuff colored up? We trapped our butts off live trapping. Yes, 0:32:08.080 --> 0:32:11.640 we foothold trapped for the cats, coyotes and foxes, and 0:32:11.840 --> 0:32:15.560 used cage traps for the raccoons, and of course you 0:32:15.640 --> 0:32:18.000 used rocket nets for the for the turkeys. And I 0:32:18.040 --> 0:32:21.360 did all that simultaneously. So there were several students working 0:32:21.360 --> 0:32:25.200 with me that Let's say student A he was studying 0:32:25.280 --> 0:32:28.920 raccoons and student B was studying bobcats. And then I 0:32:29.000 --> 0:32:32.040 was kind of overseeing all of it, trapping birds, trapping this, 0:32:32.200 --> 0:32:34.400 trapping that, making sure you didn't get a collar on. 0:32:35.040 --> 0:32:39.000 We we both years of that project. I tracked about 0:32:39.040 --> 0:32:41.800 a hundred and fifty animals simultaneously. How are you catching 0:32:41.800 --> 0:32:44.560 the bobcats foothold traps? I mean, what kind of sets 0:32:44.600 --> 0:32:47.680 did you make? We could trap with bait because we 0:32:47.680 --> 0:32:51.160 were permitted under the state mean visible like visible bits. 0:32:51.480 --> 0:32:54.400 We used um. It was funny based on your story 0:32:54.440 --> 0:32:57.959 this morning before we started. We used beaver because the 0:32:58.000 --> 0:33:00.040 caster has such a strong odor, and we had a 0:33:00.080 --> 0:33:04.560 local trapper that provided beaver carcss and we would uh, 0:33:04.600 --> 0:33:07.760 we would use the liver. We would use deer liver, 0:33:07.920 --> 0:33:11.000 deer ribs, anything we could get our hands on that 0:33:11.000 --> 0:33:13.800 that had a sight to it. We would hang feathers, 0:33:13.840 --> 0:33:16.960 you know, anything. Because cats are such visual hunters. The 0:33:17.000 --> 0:33:19.840 cats were pretty easy. The kyotes were more were more difficult. 0:33:19.920 --> 0:33:23.719 But but but because we could use meat, we were 0:33:23.720 --> 0:33:27.800 pretty successful. And then you had to have used um 0:33:27.880 --> 0:33:31.120 like rubber jaws, laminated jaws because you had these things, 0:33:31.200 --> 0:33:33.160 you couldn't cripple them up right. Yeah. Yeah, So we 0:33:33.320 --> 0:33:37.800 used either offset jaws, but most of them were padded Yeah. 0:33:37.960 --> 0:33:41.040 Soft catchy, soft catch. So we would, you know, we 0:33:41.040 --> 0:33:43.280 would catch the animals. We were in traps every morning, 0:33:43.360 --> 0:33:46.680 every afternoon, pulled animals out of the trap. Uh. We 0:33:46.760 --> 0:33:51.360 didn't drug foxes or coyotes, but we would immobilize bobcats 0:33:51.360 --> 0:33:54.000 and raccoons because they were vicious. Obviously. Oh, it was 0:33:54.040 --> 0:33:57.280 harder to wrestle bobcat than a coyote. Coyotes are so 0:33:57.360 --> 0:34:02.720 docile they with few exceptions. When you catch a kayat, 0:34:03.400 --> 0:34:07.480 they know they've been beat They you you can take 0:34:07.520 --> 0:34:12.840 a bath towel and sedata kayak truthfully, yeah, they even 0:34:12.960 --> 0:34:16.000 you know, we use catch poles or the dog catchers nets. 0:34:16.400 --> 0:34:18.520 As soon as the net would go over them, they 0:34:18.600 --> 0:34:20.919 kind of lay down because and they would just lay there, 0:34:21.400 --> 0:34:24.000 and of course we would hobble them, you know, with 0:34:24.000 --> 0:34:26.920 with leg hobbles, and we would put a muzzle around 0:34:26.920 --> 0:34:30.719 their mouth. But I can only remember too that ever 0:34:30.760 --> 0:34:34.479 tried to nip at me. The cats, on the other hand, 0:34:36.000 --> 0:34:38.200 when you try to throw a net or something over them, 0:34:38.440 --> 0:34:40.840 it is like hell on wheels. When you put a 0:34:40.880 --> 0:34:43.920 catchpole around a bobcat, it's like an explosion. It is. 0:34:44.200 --> 0:34:46.640 It is a lot of times will kill themselves. We'll 0:34:46.680 --> 0:34:48.680 fight the cat. So when we're talking about a catchpole 0:34:48.719 --> 0:34:49.920 like I used to have on that may, it just 0:34:49.920 --> 0:34:52.360 took a piece of cond to it. It took like 0:34:52.400 --> 0:34:57.000 a it must have been maybe three eight cable, three 0:34:57.239 --> 0:35:00.239 diameter cable, and imagine that you're run. You take like 0:35:00.400 --> 0:35:03.520 four ft con to it, let's say, and run both 0:35:03.520 --> 0:35:05.560 of the ends of the cable through it, so that 0:35:05.719 --> 0:35:07.640 on one end you got coming out the two ends 0:35:07.640 --> 0:35:09.239 of the cable, and then you just got like the 0:35:09.239 --> 0:35:12.800 loop and you can pass that loop over its neck 0:35:13.600 --> 0:35:16.680 pull tight with the other hand. And they make more 0:35:16.719 --> 0:35:18.719 sophisticated versions. But that when we're talking about a catch 0:35:18.760 --> 0:35:20.440 pulls like a catchpole and you can kind of control 0:35:20.480 --> 0:35:21.800 it and you got it where you want it. You 0:35:21.800 --> 0:35:23.399 can get it out of a trap or whatever. Yeah, 0:35:23.400 --> 0:35:25.200 you just have to be careful with cats because if 0:35:25.239 --> 0:35:26.759 you put a lot of pressure on them, you can 0:35:26.880 --> 0:35:30.160 because they're a lot of times um we would try 0:35:30.200 --> 0:35:32.680 to get one leg in the catchpole to like get 0:35:32.760 --> 0:35:35.799 them around under the armpit end around the neck that 0:35:35.840 --> 0:35:38.600 way when they freaked out, you know, you weren't snapping 0:35:38.600 --> 0:35:42.160 their neck. Yeah. We we used mostly dog catchers nets 0:35:42.239 --> 0:35:45.160 and they because they were big enough to cover the 0:35:45.360 --> 0:35:48.440 entire cat. I found those to be a lot quicker. 0:35:48.480 --> 0:35:51.920 And you know, as you know south, they start hitting 0:35:51.960 --> 0:35:55.000 the catchpole, you know, swat at it constantly, but that 0:35:55.040 --> 0:35:57.759 big net, they would grab it and chew on it. 0:35:57.800 --> 0:35:59.520 But most of the time you could kind of wrestle 0:35:59.560 --> 0:36:02.600 it over and then just take up. Believe it or not, 0:36:02.680 --> 0:36:06.320 we would just find beaver sticks, chew sticks from beaver 0:36:06.440 --> 0:36:09.799 huts that had all the bark chewed off that were 0:36:09.920 --> 0:36:11.840 water logs so they were having and we would just 0:36:11.840 --> 0:36:14.960 pin the cat down, draw them in the butt with 0:36:14.960 --> 0:36:18.160 with a mobilizing drug, and then remove them from the trout. 0:36:19.080 --> 0:36:21.239 And then did you guys have pretty good luck when 0:36:21.239 --> 0:36:23.600 you're doing that type of work? Do you have pretty 0:36:23.640 --> 0:36:28.600 good luck with with turning them out and there? Oh? Yeah, fine, yeah, 0:36:29.040 --> 0:36:33.879 very very seldom would we have any issues. Um cats 0:36:33.880 --> 0:36:36.759 are pretty sensitive to their feet obviously, that's their that's 0:36:36.800 --> 0:36:38.400 their gun, so to speak, So you have to be 0:36:38.440 --> 0:36:41.360 careful foot hole trapping with bobcats to try not to 0:36:41.400 --> 0:36:43.480 injure their you know, their digits. If you do that, 0:36:44.080 --> 0:36:47.080 you could lose them. Kays are a little more resistant 0:36:47.120 --> 0:36:50.120 to foot damage. But we you know, we trapped again 0:36:50.160 --> 0:36:52.320 with the padded foot hold traps, so we very rarely 0:36:52.360 --> 0:36:54.719 had any issues. So when you did this, when you 0:36:54.760 --> 0:36:59.000 did your pH d work, what was sort of um like, 0:36:59.040 --> 0:37:03.280 what was the biggest take away from it? Everything likes turkeys. 0:37:03.480 --> 0:37:08.319 Everything likes turkeys, and this bird share space with a 0:37:08.360 --> 0:37:11.759 lot of things that kill it, whether it be adults 0:37:11.880 --> 0:37:14.640 or nest. And this now, granted, this was back in 0:37:14.680 --> 0:37:17.719 the mid to late nineties, and it was kind of 0:37:17.760 --> 0:37:21.240 startling to me how many animals were within a turkey's 0:37:21.239 --> 0:37:24.759 home range that would eat it or its nest. And 0:37:24.840 --> 0:37:29.240 since then, as most folks in the Southeast and East 0:37:29.239 --> 0:37:33.680 can attest to, predator populations have exploded since then, Yes, 0:37:33.840 --> 0:37:39.160 I mean all all science points to higher raccoon populations, 0:37:39.239 --> 0:37:44.280 higher meso mammals in general, all of the smaller mammals raccoons, opossum, skunks. 0:37:44.400 --> 0:37:48.279 Explaining the term meso mammals just a mid size just 0:37:48.320 --> 0:37:51.759 a mid sized mammal. You know, coyotes were common in 0:37:51.800 --> 0:37:54.360 Mississippi at that time, but they were just starting to 0:37:54.440 --> 0:38:01.080 invade the Eastern Atlantic States and they're still not at saturation. 0:38:01.160 --> 0:38:04.120 And a lot of the work I do cay at 0:38:04.120 --> 0:38:06.880 work as well, and we still see that their territories 0:38:06.920 --> 0:38:10.640 are not completely like puzzle pieces on the landscape. Yet 0:38:10.640 --> 0:38:14.560 there's still are voids out there where coyotes are backfilling, 0:38:15.239 --> 0:38:18.800 so we're not we're not at saturation with that predator yet. 0:38:19.239 --> 0:38:23.719 And to your question, it startled me back then how 0:38:23.719 --> 0:38:27.080 many animals were within a turkey's range that could eat 0:38:27.120 --> 0:38:30.160 it or its nest. And now the predation that we 0:38:30.200 --> 0:38:33.959 see on nest, which is about of all our nest 0:38:34.040 --> 0:38:38.520 or loss. It's crazy. That's what the thing I want 0:38:38.520 --> 0:38:40.160 to ask you about because I had heard this and 0:38:40.200 --> 0:38:43.000 I heard a ball this this is the ballpark thing 0:38:43.520 --> 0:38:48.320 that someone telling me, like as a general rule of thumb, 0:38:50.280 --> 0:38:53.719 of the eggs to hit the ground, never hatch yep 0:38:56.320 --> 0:38:59.680 of the hatchlings don't hit their first birthday. Ye of 0:38:59.719 --> 0:39:02.920 the words that hit their first birthday won't see their 0:39:02.960 --> 0:39:07.240 second birthday. Just saying a ballpark. Yeah, what we see 0:39:07.880 --> 0:39:12.360 is about twenty ish percent nest success. Now my work 0:39:12.440 --> 0:39:16.759 right now, nest success, that success, my work right now is. 0:39:17.040 --> 0:39:20.200 I do work on a lot of Eastern populations. The 0:39:20.200 --> 0:39:23.840 eastern subspecies. Rio's are a different ball game. I have 0:39:23.960 --> 0:39:26.759 some work on Rio's, but Rio's are precipitation driven, so 0:39:26.800 --> 0:39:29.799 when it's really wet, the hatch is better. But just 0:39:29.840 --> 0:39:37.040 talking about Easterns, we see about success. What what classifies success. 0:39:37.719 --> 0:39:40.960 It hatches one or more eggs, that's the success, no 0:39:41.000 --> 0:39:43.160 matter what the hell happens to him. Yes, and then 0:39:43.200 --> 0:39:47.640 it then it gets more bleak, so you have success. 0:39:47.719 --> 0:39:50.839 And then we see about a third of our broods 0:39:51.040 --> 0:39:54.280 have at least one pul that that survives the first 0:39:54.320 --> 0:39:57.840 month of life, because we tracked broods that first month. 0:39:57.960 --> 0:40:00.720 The assumption is once they get about twenty days old, 0:40:01.080 --> 0:40:03.400 they're pretty safe and that that's a good assumption for 0:40:03.440 --> 0:40:06.520 the most part. Once they start roosting off the ground 0:40:06.560 --> 0:40:10.360 when they're two weeks old, they can they can evade predators. 0:40:10.360 --> 0:40:13.000 And by the time they're you know, bannam rooster size 0:40:13.200 --> 0:40:16.759 chickens at twenty eight days, they're they're pretty hearty, little 0:40:16.880 --> 0:40:18.680 you know, little things. So it takes them two weeks 0:40:18.719 --> 0:40:21.200 where they can sleep in a tree. Yeah, they'll climb 0:40:21.280 --> 0:40:23.719 up shrubbery and things to get off the ground, but 0:40:23.760 --> 0:40:27.480 it usually takes and there's some debate. You know, turkeys 0:40:27.480 --> 0:40:30.120 are like people in some ways. Some grow a little 0:40:30.160 --> 0:40:33.160 faster than others, and that depends on how much forwards 0:40:33.200 --> 0:40:36.200 they have and the quality of that forwards. But some 0:40:36.320 --> 0:40:39.040 early researchers, like love Att Williams, who was a famous 0:40:39.040 --> 0:40:41.960 turkey researcher in South Florida, he saw that some of 0:40:41.960 --> 0:40:45.040 those Osceola's actually would start roosting off the ground eight 0:40:45.120 --> 0:40:48.040 or nine days after they were hatched. But they're in 0:40:48.080 --> 0:40:51.560 a you know, really southern latitude, lots of bugs everywhere. 0:40:52.200 --> 0:40:55.400 They grow fast, but we typically see about twelve to 0:40:55.480 --> 0:40:58.879 fourteen days they'll start roosting off the ground with mom. 0:40:58.880 --> 0:41:01.440 And at that point they're in pretty good shape, so 0:41:01.520 --> 0:41:03.839 she leaves him on the ground at night when she 0:41:03.920 --> 0:41:07.319 stays with them, she stays with them and broods them 0:41:07.440 --> 0:41:11.360 under her at night, and then once she can get 0:41:11.560 --> 0:41:14.799 off the ground, she roost with them. But again they're 0:41:15.239 --> 0:41:18.239 they're right beside her and right under her, particularly during 0:41:18.320 --> 0:41:21.359 inclement weather, they're tucked up under her. And then as 0:41:21.400 --> 0:41:23.440 they get bigger, obviously they can't do that, so they 0:41:23.480 --> 0:41:28.000 just kind of assimilate themselves and in the tree around her, 0:41:28.960 --> 0:41:31.000 and then as they get bigger and bigger and bigger, 0:41:31.040 --> 0:41:33.319 that's when they start kind of moving out on their 0:41:33.320 --> 0:41:36.680 own and you'll flush them. You know. Let's just say 0:41:36.680 --> 0:41:40.040 we walk in on my brood that's twenty five days old. 0:41:40.040 --> 0:41:42.799 There may be two or three in this tree and 0:41:42.880 --> 0:41:45.000 one in the tree beside it, and three that are 0:41:45.040 --> 0:41:47.479 on the branch under her, and so they're kind of 0:41:47.600 --> 0:41:50.400 you know, in the area around her. When when mom's 0:41:50.440 --> 0:41:54.680 on the ground with the with the clutch, do you 0:41:54.719 --> 0:41:58.799 find that like hands are getting killed more when they're 0:41:58.800 --> 0:42:01.960 on the ground with the absolutely yeah. When you know, 0:42:02.000 --> 0:42:04.840 if you think about it from mom's perspective, she needs 0:42:04.880 --> 0:42:06.920 to be off the ground as well. I mean, that's 0:42:06.920 --> 0:42:09.560 why that's why a ten pound bird sleeps in a tree. 0:42:09.680 --> 0:42:14.560 It's because of predators, so that fourteen days she's much 0:42:14.600 --> 0:42:19.200 more vulnerable to being killed while she's brooding. So it 0:42:19.200 --> 0:42:23.960 it behooves a turkey to grow fast, quick and get 0:42:23.960 --> 0:42:27.719 off the ground. So from a brood habitat perspective, they 0:42:27.760 --> 0:42:30.200 need lights and lots of fords so they can grow 0:42:30.320 --> 0:42:33.799 quickly and start roosting off the ground for sure. But 0:42:34.120 --> 0:42:37.280 of those this is the you ever heard the analogy 0:42:37.320 --> 0:42:40.839 about the golden egg. You know, the probability that one 0:42:40.840 --> 0:42:44.560 of those eggs becomes a gobbler. So take eight of 0:42:44.600 --> 0:42:49.520 your nest and they're gone. Of those, only a third 0:42:49.840 --> 0:42:53.880 of those that hatch produce one pole or more that 0:42:54.000 --> 0:42:58.319 survives the first month. So if you do the math there, 0:42:58.360 --> 0:43:00.919 what we see from about East Exis all the way 0:43:00.960 --> 0:43:06.000 over to South Carolina is that about seven of nest 0:43:06.680 --> 0:43:11.520 produced one or more poults that survive. Yes, And then 0:43:11.600 --> 0:43:14.479 you start thinking about the probability that one of those 0:43:14.520 --> 0:43:17.200 birds is going to end up being an adult tom 0:43:17.280 --> 0:43:19.920 that you hunt in the spring. The odds are stacked 0:43:20.320 --> 0:43:25.160 really steep against that that happening. It's pretty remarkable for 0:43:25.239 --> 0:43:32.759 every for every leg rope dragon, mature bird out there, 0:43:34.680 --> 0:43:38.560 hundreds have died yes, yes, and hundred of died or whatever. 0:43:38.640 --> 0:43:45.040 And that those issues are what has driven research particularly 0:43:45.080 --> 0:43:48.759 the past decade, because back in the nineties, if you 0:43:48.840 --> 0:43:52.000 picked up literature on turkeys, you would see nest success 0:43:52.080 --> 0:43:58.200 of thirty times were good turkeys were hatching everywhere. That's 0:43:58.239 --> 0:44:00.480 the whole But that's that you believe that those are 0:44:00.480 --> 0:44:04.280 true numbers. It wasn't because the research was bad. Uh. 0:44:04.320 --> 0:44:07.439 I think no, not bad. I think what we ended 0:44:07.520 --> 0:44:12.000 up doing years ago is we we weren't able to 0:44:12.080 --> 0:44:15.200 track nesting as well as we can now. We missed 0:44:15.239 --> 0:44:19.200 birds that would incubate because the GPS that we have 0:44:19.280 --> 0:44:21.920 now is so clear. I mean, we can see with 0:44:22.320 --> 0:44:25.880 utmost clarity when she starts incubating. So we missed some 0:44:26.000 --> 0:44:29.880 nests back twenty years ago because they would start incubating 0:44:29.920 --> 0:44:33.359 and we wouldn't know it. But so what you you 0:44:33.440 --> 0:44:37.240 tended to overestimate nest success because you missed some nests 0:44:37.280 --> 0:44:40.360 that we're failed, you know that failed. But but but 0:44:40.520 --> 0:44:44.200 still the numbers were better then and you consistently saw 0:44:44.200 --> 0:44:46.960 it across studies. It wasn't like one or two studies, 0:44:47.440 --> 0:44:51.440 you know, would say, oh it's most studies were showing 0:44:52.080 --> 0:44:55.239 much better nest success than we see now. And that's 0:44:55.320 --> 0:45:00.120 kind of that's one of the things that prompted the 0:45:00.120 --> 0:45:04.040 Eastern Southeastern slash states to say we have an issue 0:45:04.160 --> 0:45:09.439 because we started noticing declines in in next success and 0:45:09.440 --> 0:45:14.160 and that popped up from brood surveys. Basically all the 0:45:14.200 --> 0:45:17.279 states in the in the Southeast have brood surveys that 0:45:17.320 --> 0:45:21.680 they conduct where agency personnel and the public record how 0:45:21.719 --> 0:45:24.080 many hens they see in the summer that have poults 0:45:24.120 --> 0:45:28.560 with them, And if you look across the last twenty years, 0:45:28.600 --> 0:45:32.839 it's been declining every year without exception. So this has 0:45:32.880 --> 0:45:35.680 been a problem that's actually been ongoing, and it was 0:45:35.760 --> 0:45:37.960 right under our nose, and we didn't see it because, 0:45:38.400 --> 0:45:40.800 like we've talked about, there were turkeys everywhere and harvest 0:45:40.920 --> 0:45:43.960 was really good. And and then about the late two thousands, 0:45:44.120 --> 0:45:47.840 you know, two thousand nine, two thousand ten, the Southeast States, 0:45:47.920 --> 0:45:49.759 and then about a year or two later, the kind 0:45:49.760 --> 0:45:52.880 of the Northeast States and the Midwestern states kind of 0:45:52.880 --> 0:45:55.200 put their heads together and said, you know what, we're 0:45:55.280 --> 0:45:58.400 kind of all in this together. We're seeing fewer poults 0:45:58.520 --> 0:46:03.320 per hen or fewer hens that have poults in the summer, 0:46:03.600 --> 0:46:08.440 which the only possible scenarios there is fewer are hatching 0:46:09.760 --> 0:46:12.879 and or more broods are dying. That's the only thing 0:46:12.920 --> 0:46:16.279 that could translate to fewer birds being observed that have 0:46:16.560 --> 0:46:21.479 poults with them. And that kick started some research that 0:46:21.760 --> 0:46:26.200 I think has really opened people's eyes to the fact 0:46:26.239 --> 0:46:31.399 that this bird is is suffering in areas and it's 0:46:31.400 --> 0:46:34.120 not obviously not uniform. I mean, turkeys are doing really 0:46:34.160 --> 0:46:37.880 well in some places, particularly urban kind of suburban areas. 0:46:37.920 --> 0:46:49.640 You hear about exactly, do you think there's a lot 0:46:49.640 --> 0:46:51.600 more predators on the ground because we've had lower fur 0:46:51.760 --> 0:46:55.200 prices for thirty years. There's no question, there's no question. 0:46:55.280 --> 0:46:57.480 I mean you if you if you go back and 0:46:57.520 --> 0:47:01.839 look at you know, pelp prices. People actually trapped raccoons 0:47:02.120 --> 0:47:05.560 and made money off of them, and you can't give raccoons. Yeah. 0:47:05.719 --> 0:47:08.040 Used to be like if you find like a coon 0:47:08.200 --> 0:47:12.279 dentry in the mid eighties, it was a big damn 0:47:12.320 --> 0:47:14.880 deal and you had to you know, get there on 0:47:14.960 --> 0:47:16.759 opening day because someone else is going to get there 0:47:16.760 --> 0:47:20.320 ahead of you. There was a big raccoon nighttime raccoon 0:47:20.600 --> 0:47:25.279 hound hunting culture in Pennsylvania. Know, the guys with the 0:47:25.320 --> 0:47:28.839 hounds would mop up more than trappers. But I mean, yeah, 0:47:28.880 --> 0:47:30.799 but you can sell a coon for forty bucks, yeah 0:47:31.000 --> 0:47:33.759 in those days. Yeah, and you can't. You can't give 0:47:33.840 --> 0:47:37.480 raccoons away at this point, so there's no motivation. And 0:47:37.680 --> 0:47:39.600 as you know, as we all sitting here and know that, 0:47:40.280 --> 0:47:43.440 you know that trade has declined. I mean, there aren't 0:47:43.440 --> 0:47:46.719 trappers being recruited into the ranks of people that would 0:47:46.760 --> 0:47:50.759 go catch for bears like there were years ago. You 0:47:50.880 --> 0:47:53.840 put all that together and and what we've learned about 0:47:53.880 --> 0:47:58.120 some of these predators, for instance raccoons, is you you 0:47:58.120 --> 0:48:02.360 will see uh five six males sharing the same home range. 0:48:03.040 --> 0:48:05.680 So this thought that well you just go trap one 0:48:05.719 --> 0:48:08.359 male and you got him. That's that's garbage. There could 0:48:08.360 --> 0:48:12.200 be half a dozen there. Um, they have all sorts 0:48:12.239 --> 0:48:16.440 of kind of unique breeding strategies. Males will den together, 0:48:17.600 --> 0:48:20.520 which is pretty interesting. Again, they share home ranges. You 0:48:20.560 --> 0:48:24.800 see females that have pretty high litter survival rates. Because 0:48:24.840 --> 0:48:28.239 what would eat a raccoon right other than a great one? Now, 0:48:28.920 --> 0:48:33.120 how does the raccoon kill a turkey? Um, we don't. 0:48:33.200 --> 0:48:35.880 We don't. See. The raccoons are a big predator of adults. 0:48:36.000 --> 0:48:40.200 They can't they can kill adults. They will kill poults 0:48:40.680 --> 0:48:43.960 basically if you think really young poults that they can 0:48:44.040 --> 0:48:46.759 kind of disrupt the brood and and get you get 0:48:46.760 --> 0:48:48.719 a polt off by themselves. But they like to hunt 0:48:48.719 --> 0:48:51.759 the nest down right, they do. But we found through 0:48:51.800 --> 0:48:54.720 some experimental work they don't actually go looking for nest. 0:48:55.400 --> 0:48:59.400 They just end up in areas where nests are and 0:48:59.480 --> 0:49:02.960 most of that is because raccoons in the spring and 0:49:02.960 --> 0:49:06.080 summer are looking for soft mast so like in the South, 0:49:06.160 --> 0:49:10.200 that would be blackberries, dewberries, you know, those types of things. 0:49:10.239 --> 0:49:15.000 They're looking for that invertebrates, um amphibians, anything that they 0:49:15.000 --> 0:49:17.000 can kind of get their hands on. And a lot 0:49:17.040 --> 0:49:21.000 of that ends up being in areas that are dense, shrubby, brushy, 0:49:21.160 --> 0:49:25.920 grassy sites. Well, turkeys end up nesting there and the 0:49:26.040 --> 0:49:30.560 raccoons stumble across the nest and and raccoons, once they 0:49:30.560 --> 0:49:33.640 find the nest, they'll they'll consume. Usually if they don't 0:49:33.680 --> 0:49:37.480 consume the entire clutch, they'll move eggs away from the 0:49:38.040 --> 0:49:41.319 nest bowl and consume them and then come back. So 0:49:41.440 --> 0:49:45.319 within short order the entire clutch is lost. Now here's 0:49:45.320 --> 0:49:47.719 a research question for you. How in the world you 0:49:48.280 --> 0:49:50.560 how can you say that you don't know that they're 0:49:50.600 --> 0:49:54.640 looking for turkeyness. We actually set up an experiment where 0:49:55.160 --> 0:50:03.200 we supplementally fed raccoons and we did this too. Look 0:50:03.239 --> 0:50:07.319 at how it's It's called area restricted searching. Basically, just 0:50:07.400 --> 0:50:10.640 think about it like this, So predators walking across the 0:50:10.760 --> 0:50:13.360 environment and all of a sudden queues in on something 0:50:13.400 --> 0:50:17.560 that hey, it's a smell, a site, a sound, something 0:50:17.600 --> 0:50:20.560 that I can eat. So they do. They start doing 0:50:20.600 --> 0:50:24.120 this kind of circuitous movements back and forth, back and 0:50:24.160 --> 0:50:26.839 forth through the same area, hunting for whatever it is 0:50:26.880 --> 0:50:29.480 that they detected. Well, we needed to figure out what 0:50:29.560 --> 0:50:32.320 that looks like in raccoons, so we set up this 0:50:32.320 --> 0:50:37.399 this experiment where we tracked raccoons and we stood there 0:50:37.440 --> 0:50:40.360 with them all night. Basically they were wild, but we 0:50:40.400 --> 0:50:43.560 stood out there with them and tracked them as they 0:50:43.600 --> 0:50:47.120 exhibited this behavior. And then we went back out on 0:50:47.160 --> 0:50:51.839 the landscape and had turkeys marked, had nesting place, you know, 0:50:51.840 --> 0:50:56.000 places where nest were located, and we tracked raccoons that 0:50:56.080 --> 0:51:01.120 we're not supplementally fed, and it clearly demonstrated that those 0:51:01.239 --> 0:51:05.080 raccoons are not going to areas where nests are and 0:51:05.120 --> 0:51:09.280 then start they don't start searching, they just start bebopping 0:51:09.320 --> 0:51:11.680 across the environment and all of a sudden they would 0:51:11.760 --> 0:51:14.600 end up in something that would look kind of like 0:51:14.680 --> 0:51:18.600 a turkey nesting area and they'd start foraging. But most 0:51:18.640 --> 0:51:22.279 of the time they ended up in areas that we're 0:51:22.320 --> 0:51:26.080 not nesting cover. They ended up in in areas that 0:51:26.160 --> 0:51:29.240 were more wet that a lot of our birds didn't 0:51:29.239 --> 0:51:32.360 nest in which led us to conclude that most of 0:51:32.400 --> 0:51:34.799 the time, when they bump into a nest, it's just 0:51:34.920 --> 0:51:37.879 them walking from one point to the next and they 0:51:37.960 --> 0:51:41.919 encounter something I suspect it smell, you know, they get 0:51:42.000 --> 0:51:44.320 some whiff of there's a bird over there on the ground. 0:51:44.360 --> 0:51:46.000 I'm going to go check it out. And of course 0:51:46.800 --> 0:51:49.560 when they when they flush a bird, I mean, turkeys 0:51:49.560 --> 0:51:52.400 are pretty they some turkeys can be pretty resilient to 0:51:52.440 --> 0:51:56.360 nest predators. They'll attack snakes, and we have pictures of 0:51:56.400 --> 0:52:00.239 Gould's birds that sit while foxes nose up on under 0:52:00.320 --> 0:52:04.960 them on the nest. Yeah, but that's not uniform. So 0:52:05.040 --> 0:52:06.480 a lot of times, you know, as you know, you 0:52:06.520 --> 0:52:08.680 flush a bird off the nest when you're hunting or something. 0:52:09.040 --> 0:52:12.040 That's what happens when a rackane approaches. They don't abandon 0:52:12.120 --> 0:52:14.399 that nest if they get bumped off of it. They 0:52:14.400 --> 0:52:17.600 will if it's We find that typically their abandonment is 0:52:17.680 --> 0:52:22.000 if it's early an incubation. If she's only tied some 0:52:22.160 --> 0:52:24.319 investment into that clutch for a few days and you 0:52:24.360 --> 0:52:27.080 flush her off, there's a pretty good chance she doesn't 0:52:27.120 --> 0:52:30.600 come back just getting flushed off, because I It's happened 0:52:30.600 --> 0:52:32.280 to me a couple of times where I've almost stepped 0:52:32.280 --> 0:52:34.960 on the nest and I'm always I've wondered, will she 0:52:35.080 --> 0:52:39.320 come back to that? Yeah? I had this a true story. 0:52:39.480 --> 0:52:41.799 I had a bird back in the nineties that had 0:52:42.400 --> 0:52:47.080 her UH radio telemetry unit was faulty, so I couldn't 0:52:47.120 --> 0:52:49.759 tell how close I was to her. And that's back 0:52:49.760 --> 0:52:51.960 in the day. We would approach to within a certain 0:52:52.000 --> 0:52:54.239 distance and kind of put a flag so that when 0:52:54.280 --> 0:52:58.160 she hatched, we could go find the nest, and inevitably 0:52:58.200 --> 0:53:00.880 I would try to this bird. I went into her 0:53:00.920 --> 0:53:04.560 her nest five days after she she started incubating, and 0:53:04.600 --> 0:53:06.279 I went to put the flag in the tree and 0:53:06.360 --> 0:53:08.080 she got up right under me, and I was like, 0:53:08.120 --> 0:53:11.319 a damn, you know, well she's not coming back. Well 0:53:11.360 --> 0:53:16.520 she came back. So one day, about twenty days in, 0:53:16.920 --> 0:53:19.080 I drive down the road, I get out of the truck, 0:53:19.120 --> 0:53:21.640 I check her. She's she's standing there and she flushed 0:53:21.680 --> 0:53:24.040 from the road. I have no idea why she's like 0:53:24.080 --> 0:53:27.239 thirty meters from the road and she flushed off the nest. 0:53:27.280 --> 0:53:30.680 And you gotta be kidding me. She did that every 0:53:30.800 --> 0:53:34.200 day from day twenty until she hatched. Every day I'd 0:53:34.200 --> 0:53:36.840 pull up there, she'd flush off the nest, or she 0:53:37.040 --> 0:53:39.840 if she didn't flush, she would run. Like I actually 0:53:40.040 --> 0:53:42.239 listened to the signal and think that bird just got 0:53:42.320 --> 0:53:46.200 up again and started walking off of that clutch and 0:53:46.239 --> 0:53:48.840 I'm thirty meters away from her. No idea why she 0:53:48.880 --> 0:53:52.279 did that. Usually, once you start flushing the bird that 0:53:52.440 --> 0:53:54.879 it's over. You know, they don't. And that makes sense 0:53:54.880 --> 0:53:56.880 if you think about it. If you're early an incubation, 0:53:57.040 --> 0:54:01.200 something flushes you, that's not a good spot. Yeah, you 0:54:01.200 --> 0:54:03.720 don't have a lot invested in it. Yeah, you know better. 0:54:03.840 --> 0:54:06.879 Yet you need to live and turkeys are a long 0:54:06.960 --> 0:54:10.000 lived bird relatively speaking, so they need to live to 0:54:10.080 --> 0:54:12.279 the next year. So if you haven't invested much in 0:54:12.320 --> 0:54:16.360 that clutch, you know, the sage decision is to go 0:54:16.480 --> 0:54:18.880 somewhere else and either try again or just quit. For them, 0:54:19.840 --> 0:54:22.840 if it's early enough in the season, they'll just lay another. 0:54:23.160 --> 0:54:26.239 Yet they'll just redust. Yeah, and that that depends on 0:54:26.239 --> 0:54:29.520 a lot of different things. But but yeah, how many 0:54:30.440 --> 0:54:33.640 how many attempts can they make? We've in the spring, 0:54:33.800 --> 0:54:39.560 we've had four. The most are if they try more 0:54:39.640 --> 0:54:43.520 than once. It's it's just twice. You'll get the occasional 0:54:43.640 --> 0:54:47.520 bird that will try three times, and we've had one, 0:54:47.640 --> 0:54:51.160 you know, a few that did four, but most are 0:54:51.440 --> 0:54:54.640 one or two. A minute ago, you just said that 0:54:54.680 --> 0:54:58.319 they're a long lived bird. But then when you lay 0:54:58.320 --> 0:55:01.080 out all the ways they get killed, the frequency with 0:55:01.080 --> 0:55:03.680 which they get killed, it would feel that they're not 0:55:03.760 --> 0:55:06.719 along with bird and that and that's that's part of 0:55:07.400 --> 0:55:10.960 that's part of the conundrum here. If you will, this 0:55:11.000 --> 0:55:13.960 bird is supposed to live a long time. They're supposed 0:55:14.040 --> 0:55:17.560 to live. The hens anyway, are supposed to live through 0:55:17.640 --> 0:55:23.200 multiple breeding cycles. Otherwise you you don't have a shot 0:55:23.280 --> 0:55:27.320 at being successful. So this bird needs to live years, 0:55:27.680 --> 0:55:30.320 given their high predation rates on their on their nest, 0:55:30.440 --> 0:55:33.040 in order for it to replace itself, right, because if 0:55:33.080 --> 0:55:35.279 she doesn't produce, if you think about it, if she 0:55:35.320 --> 0:55:39.759 doesn't produce one or more hen polts that survived to 0:55:39.800 --> 0:55:44.560 be her age, then the flock declines through time. And 0:55:44.600 --> 0:55:48.839 from a male's perspective, you know, these tom's, their reproductive 0:55:48.880 --> 0:55:51.520 success is driven by how many times they can breed. 0:55:52.000 --> 0:55:54.120 I mean that's they need to breed with as many 0:55:54.160 --> 0:55:57.600 hens to be successful in their life as possible. So 0:55:57.640 --> 0:56:00.880 if he only lives two years, he's he doesn't have 0:56:01.000 --> 0:56:04.359 near the reproductive success if he lives five years. So 0:56:05.040 --> 0:56:08.640 this bird is supposed to live longer than say a 0:56:08.719 --> 0:56:10.680 lot of them. I mean they're a large body birden 0:56:10.680 --> 0:56:13.520 and large body birds are supposed to live longer. And 0:56:13.880 --> 0:56:16.440 what we see with these hens is a lot of 0:56:16.440 --> 0:56:20.399 these hens have the strategy during incubation of living, they 0:56:20.640 --> 0:56:23.320 spend more time away from their nest than other hens. 0:56:24.000 --> 0:56:26.120 They may be in areas that are more open where 0:56:26.120 --> 0:56:29.640 they can see. There appears to be a strategy within 0:56:29.719 --> 0:56:32.719 every population we study where some of these hens they 0:56:32.760 --> 0:56:35.759 want to live their Their strategy is nest where I 0:56:35.800 --> 0:56:39.160 can see, evade predation if it if it shows up, 0:56:39.360 --> 0:56:43.359 and try again next year, whereas other hens forego that, 0:56:43.440 --> 0:56:46.720 and they tend to be hens that die on the nest, 0:56:47.320 --> 0:56:49.839 but they're more successful. So there's there's kind of two 0:56:49.880 --> 0:56:54.160 different strategies in these populations. The strategy of live until 0:56:54.200 --> 0:56:58.760 next year. That works if the bird lives multiple years. 0:56:58.920 --> 0:57:02.839 Oh because all right, because her strategy have lived till 0:57:02.880 --> 0:57:08.440 next year decreases the likelihood like she's more playing her 0:57:08.440 --> 0:57:10.919 own game rather than protect him. The thing that's right, 0:57:11.760 --> 0:57:14.640 she's she's more invested in herself than she is the clutch, 0:57:15.280 --> 0:57:18.320 because you know we're talking about they're like your house 0:57:18.360 --> 0:57:20.200 catches on fire. You got the ones that go in 0:57:20.240 --> 0:57:22.440 and get her kids, and you got the ones that 0:57:22.520 --> 0:57:25.480 just book. Yeah, And what we see is the birds 0:57:25.600 --> 0:57:29.120 that are less invested in their nest, they when they 0:57:29.120 --> 0:57:32.080 take recesses, when they take breaks during the day, they 0:57:32.120 --> 0:57:34.960 go farther away. They spend more time away from the clutch. 0:57:35.000 --> 0:57:36.760 And that makes sense if you think about it, because 0:57:36.800 --> 0:57:40.200 when you're sitting there, you're vulnerable, but when you're off. 0:57:40.200 --> 0:57:43.360 Turkeys have a periscope head. When they're off standing around 0:57:43.400 --> 0:57:46.320 foraging there, they're hyper vigilant. They can see, they hear. 0:57:46.880 --> 0:57:50.240 And when she's stuck there on that clutch, she's at 0:57:50.240 --> 0:57:54.040 the mercy of you know, things around her, whereas she 0:57:54.200 --> 0:57:57.800 when she's away from the clutch, she's much safer. The 0:57:57.880 --> 0:58:02.120 birds that end up dying as an aside, almost all 0:58:02.200 --> 0:58:04.680 of the birds that we have to be killed during 0:58:04.760 --> 0:58:07.680 nesting or killed at the nest, almost all of them 0:58:07.680 --> 0:58:10.120 are killed at the clutch. So there's a predator that 0:58:10.280 --> 0:58:14.480 is detecting her on the ground. Approaching her and then 0:58:14.560 --> 0:58:17.600 killing her as she's trying to escape from the nest. 0:58:18.120 --> 0:58:23.200 Almost all of them. What's an what's an old hen? Well, 0:58:23.760 --> 0:58:26.200 one problem is in the wild we unless we have 0:58:26.360 --> 0:58:29.120 banded known age birds, we don't know how old they are. 0:58:29.200 --> 0:58:32.200 We just know that they're either juveniles so they were 0:58:32.240 --> 0:58:36.720 hatched this year, or they're not. Now we've had birds. 0:58:37.120 --> 0:58:41.640 I had a bird back years ago in in Mississippi 0:58:41.680 --> 0:58:44.720 actually that we know was nine years old based on 0:58:44.840 --> 0:58:47.560 we used to put wing tags on them. And she 0:58:47.760 --> 0:58:52.080 was nine there and those in a hunted population of birds. Yeah, 0:58:52.080 --> 0:58:55.920 and she was. She was pretty slick. Um. We we 0:58:56.040 --> 0:58:59.080 see routinely, you know, we'll get banned returns of Tom's 0:58:59.200 --> 0:59:02.480 that are six, seven, eight years old. We had one 0:59:02.520 --> 0:59:05.800 that was d populations. We had one the other last year, 0:59:05.920 --> 0:59:09.800 like Sneaky Pete that was that was eight. So yeah, 0:59:09.840 --> 0:59:12.320 we we get some older birds. But Buying he had 0:59:12.320 --> 0:59:15.680 a gobbler and a hundred population lived to be eight. Yeah, 0:59:15.760 --> 0:59:18.400 the hell's he doing. He's pretty slick. He doesn't make 0:59:18.440 --> 0:59:21.880 a lot of noise. No, No, he's probably not doing 0:59:21.920 --> 0:59:26.800 too much breeding. If he is, he's he's using an 0:59:26.800 --> 0:59:30.800 alternative strategy for sure. You know, he's one of those 0:59:30.800 --> 0:59:33.800 gobblers that gobbles and then catches his you know, sticks 0:59:33.840 --> 0:59:35.920 his his foot in his beak if you will, to 0:59:35.960 --> 0:59:38.600 shut himself up, you know, don't don't call too loud, 0:59:38.680 --> 0:59:44.320 don't call it too often. Uh. Yeah, he's got a question. Well, 0:59:44.400 --> 0:59:46.840 yeah we are. You have you know, I want to 0:59:46.880 --> 0:59:49.640 do the question you just wrote, but because I think 0:59:49.640 --> 0:59:51.960 it has to do with that how hunters think they 0:59:52.000 --> 0:59:55.080 can still reliably age males. Sure. Um, I was just 0:59:55.120 --> 1:00:01.720 gonna ask, like what environmental? Um, what's the word I'm 1:00:01.720 --> 1:00:04.760 looking for? Uh? What makes it? What makes a long 1:00:04.800 --> 1:00:10.600 turkey spur subspecies? For one thing that's a an overriding 1:00:10.680 --> 1:00:14.000 factor is you tend to see patterns across the different 1:00:14.000 --> 1:00:17.360 subspecies as elways have the longest by far, and then 1:00:17.400 --> 1:00:20.960 Easterns and then your western subspecies tend to be much shorter. 1:00:21.240 --> 1:00:24.680 Can I tell you why that is? Sure? In hunting 1:00:24.760 --> 1:00:28.400 lower it has to do how rocky the ground is. Yeah, 1:00:28.560 --> 1:00:30.960 is that legit? I think there's some truth to that. 1:00:31.120 --> 1:00:33.320 I also think it's some of it and telling people 1:00:33.320 --> 1:00:35.400 that for a long time. I think some of that 1:00:35.560 --> 1:00:39.840 is probably just lower you know, Um, you know, if 1:00:39.880 --> 1:00:43.720 you as far as aging goes. And and I may 1:00:43.800 --> 1:00:49.000 be crucified for saying this, but I'm right, Um, you 1:00:49.040 --> 1:00:52.200 don't want to. If you if you go back and 1:00:52.240 --> 1:00:54.280 look at texts from years ago, they would tell you 1:00:54.360 --> 1:00:58.000 spur length as a reliable age indicator and it is not. 1:00:58.920 --> 1:01:01.800 We Oh no, that not true. You can tell he's one, 1:01:01.840 --> 1:01:04.120 he's two, he's three, he's four. I can promise you. 1:01:04.120 --> 1:01:07.680 You can't. You cannot. We We have known aged birds 1:01:07.760 --> 1:01:12.600 that that we're banded as Jake's that end up at 1:01:12.600 --> 1:01:15.280 two years old with inch and a quarter spurs, some 1:01:15.360 --> 1:01:18.200 with seven eighths inch spurs. We see we had a 1:01:18.240 --> 1:01:22.040 five year old killed that had three quarter inch spurs. Yeah, 1:01:22.120 --> 1:01:25.080 but harmon now, because he ground him down on rocks 1:01:25.480 --> 1:01:27.720 he was he was an Eastern. He was an Eastern, 1:01:27.720 --> 1:01:29.880 so not many rocks. But is it true or not 1:01:30.000 --> 1:01:32.480 true that it takes him to be and I know 1:01:32.640 --> 1:01:37.680 this is gospel did when he gets a pointy spur 1:01:39.200 --> 1:01:42.160 that you can prick your finger with, that's because he's three. 1:01:42.960 --> 1:01:47.320 That is false. So what you're saying is it's kind 1:01:47.320 --> 1:01:50.880 of the same as guys looking at antlers and being 1:01:50.920 --> 1:01:54.120 like that buck's four. Yes, because he's a six point yes, 1:01:54.280 --> 1:01:56.040 and you and the other thing you have to think about. 1:01:56.160 --> 1:01:59.680 Just like you know with deer, you're dealing with genetic issues. 1:02:00.040 --> 1:02:04.640 You're dealing with body condition and things that that would 1:02:04.880 --> 1:02:09.080 facilitate one animal growing bigger faster than another. So the 1:02:09.120 --> 1:02:12.440 bottom line is spurs are not. I mean about the 1:02:12.480 --> 1:02:14.479 only thing a spur will tell you is you're looking 1:02:14.520 --> 1:02:17.800 at a really young bird or not. That's pretty much 1:02:17.800 --> 1:02:20.720 all I can tell you. What about beard, beard is 1:02:20.920 --> 1:02:24.760 useless about. The only thing beards will tell you in 1:02:24.840 --> 1:02:31.280 general is if you combine them with the primaries on 1:02:31.320 --> 1:02:35.400 their wings having bars and or their tail feathers, you 1:02:35.440 --> 1:02:38.120 can pretty much back your way into that's a jake 1:02:38.360 --> 1:02:42.120 and therefore his beard is quite short versus that's a 1:02:42.200 --> 1:02:45.439 tom and he has a longer beard. Because you see 1:02:45.480 --> 1:02:48.320 all sorts of issues with beards. You see freezing, you 1:02:48.360 --> 1:02:53.040 see might you see um birds that are in brushier 1:02:53.960 --> 1:02:57.600 climates tend to wear their beards off more than other 1:02:57.680 --> 1:03:01.439 populations of beards really don't tell you a whole lot 1:03:01.560 --> 1:03:04.840 beyond which you can get from their primaries and their 1:03:04.880 --> 1:03:07.439 their tail fans. Here's why a little bit that's a lie, 1:03:08.320 --> 1:03:10.880 Because have you ever seen a jake throw like a 1:03:10.960 --> 1:03:13.200 nine inch beard. No, And that's what I'm saying for 1:03:13.240 --> 1:03:16.120 in general. You look at that, you know, four or 1:03:16.120 --> 1:03:19.760 five inch beard, and you're probably looking at a jake 1:03:20.080 --> 1:03:22.920 just confirmed. Like that's what I teach students. Just always 1:03:22.960 --> 1:03:26.160 confirmed with their tail feathers and their primaries. If those 1:03:26.240 --> 1:03:29.200 last two primaries are barred, have have barring all the 1:03:29.200 --> 1:03:32.280 way to the end of those primaries, and they have 1:03:32.360 --> 1:03:36.080 a little tiny beard that's an adult that just has 1:03:36.080 --> 1:03:39.920 a short beat. When jake the center feathers too, it's 1:03:39.920 --> 1:03:43.400 a two centers out or two primaries of their wing 1:03:44.000 --> 1:03:47.000 are not barred. They have black in tips. You don't 1:03:47.000 --> 1:03:49.280 know that one. And then their tail fans. Is that 1:03:49.280 --> 1:03:52.560 true about the tail fans? Yeah, that because they mold 1:03:52.840 --> 1:03:56.360 beginning with the center feathers of the tail, so there's 1:03:56.400 --> 1:03:59.240 eighteen feathers there, so they begin molting from the center 1:03:59.280 --> 1:04:01.720 and then they mold out. So that's what causes that 1:04:01.840 --> 1:04:06.280 notched looking appearance. Two longer feathers. So the later you 1:04:06.360 --> 1:04:09.040 kill a jake in the spring, the more likely he 1:04:09.200 --> 1:04:12.200 is to have the notch is bigger. It's not just 1:04:12.320 --> 1:04:14.640 the center two feathers, it will be the four or six, 1:04:15.560 --> 1:04:19.400 and then by the summer he's replaced all eighteen of 1:04:19.480 --> 1:04:22.680 those feathers, and the notch gets more pronounced. As the 1:04:22.760 --> 1:04:26.320 spring goes on, it gets wider. The width of the 1:04:26.360 --> 1:04:30.480 notch gets wider because he's molding those outer most I 1:04:30.480 --> 1:04:32.520 wish we could feathers. I wish we could explain this 1:04:32.600 --> 1:04:35.000 to people. Uh, I wish we could explain this. I 1:04:35.000 --> 1:04:38.200 think he's doing a fine job. People who never even 1:04:38.200 --> 1:04:40.440 looked at a turkey's tail. I have a fan on 1:04:40.440 --> 1:04:42.520 my desk. Yeah, So just look if you if you 1:04:42.520 --> 1:04:44.840 want to kind of think about it visually, just look 1:04:44.880 --> 1:04:48.040 at the tail from the front when he's fanned out, 1:04:48.040 --> 1:04:50.040 when he's fanned out, and look at the center to 1:04:50.240 --> 1:04:53.480 that are directly over his back goes straight up from 1:04:53.480 --> 1:04:56.960 the base of his tail. That's the two that he starts. 1:04:57.280 --> 1:05:00.320 That's the first two hemlts. So, but that means they're 1:05:00.400 --> 1:05:03.840 longer short, they're longer. So he molts from a juvenile 1:05:03.840 --> 1:05:07.400 plumage into his adult plumage, and the adult plumage is 1:05:07.440 --> 1:05:11.600 the longer feathers. So he's replacing shorter feathers with longer feathers. 1:05:12.040 --> 1:05:15.040 And as he replaces the shorter feathers working out from 1:05:15.080 --> 1:05:18.520 the center. That's why that notch gets wider and wider 1:05:18.560 --> 1:05:21.400 and wider, because it's working. It's what the longer feathers 1:05:22.160 --> 1:05:25.040 are replacing the shorter feathers as you work to the 1:05:25.080 --> 1:05:29.760 outside of the fan as it's fanned out. Yeah so yeah, 1:05:29.960 --> 1:05:32.680 uh but well he ever, by the end of the season, 1:05:32.720 --> 1:05:36.320 he'll he'll never like the way most seasons work. He's 1:05:36.400 --> 1:05:39.080 always gonna have lopsided tail. Yes, as a jake. He 1:05:39.120 --> 1:05:41.320 won't get there during season. Yeah, they get there during 1:05:41.320 --> 1:05:44.200 the summer. They finished that molting of their tail during 1:05:44.200 --> 1:05:47.840 the summer. They also mold those primaries during the summer, 1:05:48.280 --> 1:05:51.000 so by the time they pop in as a two 1:05:51.080 --> 1:05:54.040 year old, they have the full fan that we know, 1:05:54.520 --> 1:05:59.240 and their primaries are all barred. Um. And that's diagnostic. Yes, 1:05:59.560 --> 1:06:02.000 that is old proof. That's the that's the two ways 1:06:03.160 --> 1:06:06.000 you know, I teach students. Don't worry about the spur, 1:06:06.280 --> 1:06:08.040 don't worry about the beard. If you want to look 1:06:08.080 --> 1:06:10.280 at them, great, But if you really want to age turkeys, 1:06:10.280 --> 1:06:12.480 you look at their primaries and their tail fan. And 1:06:12.560 --> 1:06:17.400 that's only the agent one year or more than one year. Ye, yep, 1:06:17.560 --> 1:06:20.360 because what turkeys do they You know, once they go 1:06:20.440 --> 1:06:23.600 through that first malt to become an adult, they then 1:06:23.640 --> 1:06:26.640 continuously molt a little bit of time, so they they're 1:06:26.680 --> 1:06:30.520 always going to look like an adult once they're about 1:06:30.560 --> 1:06:33.240 a year and a half old. So you can't tell. 1:06:33.840 --> 1:06:36.040 You can't tell a four year old from five year old. 1:06:37.240 --> 1:06:40.560 Yeah he's got big spurs. Yeah, big long beard, big 1:06:40.640 --> 1:06:43.880 big long beard, big long spurs or not maybe short beard, 1:06:43.880 --> 1:06:47.440 short spurs. It's a crap shoot. Hey, who pays for 1:06:47.480 --> 1:06:52.040 all the research? Mostly state agencies. Um, most of my 1:06:52.160 --> 1:06:57.560 work is is funded by Pittman Robertson funds that yeah, 1:06:57.720 --> 1:07:02.240 that that hunters are contributing to their state coffers. That 1:07:02.320 --> 1:07:06.400 money then goes to agencies which ear market for partially 1:07:06.480 --> 1:07:09.680 for research, and then I work under contracts with state 1:07:09.720 --> 1:07:12.600 agencies to do the work. Nonprofits like you know n 1:07:12.760 --> 1:07:15.960 WTF they also provide a little bit of money, but 1:07:16.080 --> 1:07:20.560 buying large We're talking these are hundreds and hundreds of 1:07:20.560 --> 1:07:23.560 thousands of dollars to do these studies and it's mostly 1:07:23.680 --> 1:07:28.880 almost entirely driven by agency funding. That's great. Yeah, uh, 1:07:29.760 --> 1:07:32.919 you've been doing a lot of work on gobbling. Yes, yes, 1:07:34.120 --> 1:07:36.800 there's a thing that a lot of times people will 1:07:36.840 --> 1:07:44.040 come like hunters, dudes like me will attribute low gobbling 1:07:45.600 --> 1:07:50.439 on some particular weekend, no one was gobbling because there's 1:07:50.480 --> 1:07:53.480 a lot of hunting pressure. But what brings that to, 1:07:53.840 --> 1:07:56.320 what makes me curious about that, is that I remember 1:07:56.360 --> 1:08:01.160 talking to uh former turkey researcher. No, no, no, he 1:08:01.200 --> 1:08:02.919 was a state agency guy who did a ton of work, 1:08:02.920 --> 1:08:04.760 but he had to do some turkey work. He was 1:08:04.800 --> 1:08:06.880 talking about they had they had collars one time on 1:08:06.960 --> 1:08:11.240 five gobblers or transmitted GPS units glued into the feathers 1:08:11.240 --> 1:08:15.120 I believe on five gobblers and they were fine. All 1:08:15.200 --> 1:08:21.519 winner spring came, they all got killed by bobcats. Um, 1:08:21.680 --> 1:08:26.040 you were just mentioned that great horned owls. We'll smack 1:08:26.120 --> 1:08:32.200 them more once they started goblin. So if all these predators, 1:08:32.200 --> 1:08:35.320 like native predators that the turkeys have always coexisted with, 1:08:36.120 --> 1:08:40.880 if all these predators are queuing in on gobbling and 1:08:40.960 --> 1:08:45.959 it makes the tom's more vulnerable, is the added pressure 1:08:45.960 --> 1:08:48.559 of humans queuing in on gobbling enough to like tip 1:08:48.600 --> 1:08:53.200 the scales. Yes, it is absolutely what we see. So 1:08:53.560 --> 1:08:56.880 we tried gobbling using these songmaters. They're called songmaters are 1:08:56.920 --> 1:09:00.200 just boxes that we put in a tree. We put 1:09:00.200 --> 1:09:03.040 a microphone thirty feet up to get above kind of 1:09:03.040 --> 1:09:06.920 the vegetation you know, on the ground, and that thing 1:09:07.080 --> 1:09:11.320 listens all all day and it records all ambient sound 1:09:11.880 --> 1:09:14.800 in an area of several hundred yards around it. And 1:09:14.840 --> 1:09:18.599 then we run that can detect like there's software that 1:09:18.640 --> 1:09:20.760 picks the gobbles out of that exactly. So we run 1:09:20.800 --> 1:09:24.400 the data through a software package. It extracts the gobbles out, 1:09:24.880 --> 1:09:27.120 and like we were talking talking about earlier, it also 1:09:27.160 --> 1:09:30.240 extracts crow calls and alcohols. And so we go through 1:09:30.280 --> 1:09:32.880 and we listen to verify that it's a gobble or not, 1:09:33.920 --> 1:09:38.360 and then we can track gobbling activity, you know, through 1:09:38.400 --> 1:09:42.200 time from weeks before the season starts to to the end, 1:09:42.200 --> 1:09:44.160 and we we do it all the way until the 1:09:44.280 --> 1:09:48.720 end of June. And what we see very clearly is 1:09:48.760 --> 1:09:53.160 that birds start gobbling in at least in the southeast, 1:09:53.160 --> 1:09:56.880 they start gobbling first of March. It really ramps up 1:09:56.920 --> 1:10:00.680 before the season starts, and then when hunting starts, it 1:10:00.760 --> 1:10:04.679 takes a nose dive and if it's heavily hunted sites, 1:10:05.240 --> 1:10:10.800 it may stop like entirely stopped. And if it's not 1:10:10.880 --> 1:10:14.000 a heavily hunted site entirely stopped. Yes. Yeah, we just 1:10:14.040 --> 1:10:18.000 published two papers. They're not even ripping one in the dark. No. 1:10:18.240 --> 1:10:22.559 In fact um two papers that we just published. Um, 1:10:22.640 --> 1:10:25.360 we showed the gobbling activity in there and it by 1:10:25.400 --> 1:10:28.800 April fift On that side, it was to study sites. 1:10:29.600 --> 1:10:31.679 With the exception of just a couple of days where 1:10:31.720 --> 1:10:34.759 we detected a dozen or so gobbles, it was zero, 1:10:35.200 --> 1:10:38.120 Like these birds stopped gobbling, And then you think it's 1:10:38.120 --> 1:10:41.040 because hunting. There's no question. Is it because the ones 1:10:41.080 --> 1:10:43.360 that like the gobble lot got killed or or one 1:10:43.439 --> 1:10:46.080 individual Turkey's like, man, I'm gonna chill out because every 1:10:46.080 --> 1:10:48.759 morning I got some dude standing below my tree. It's both. 1:10:49.439 --> 1:10:54.360 If you think about it, all times are not being killed, right, 1:10:54.520 --> 1:10:56.960 so even though we see from pretty high harvest rates, 1:10:57.400 --> 1:11:01.520 they're not all dying. What's happening is it's a combination 1:11:01.560 --> 1:11:05.280 of vocal birds are being shot, vocal birds are being 1:11:05.280 --> 1:11:10.040 disturbed and deciding okay, I'm I'm done, and other birds 1:11:10.040 --> 1:11:12.479 are just taking the strategy of you know what, it's 1:11:12.520 --> 1:11:16.559 not worth it. Every time I i'd start calling, I 1:11:16.640 --> 1:11:19.120 get a dude that walks under me and starts yelping, 1:11:19.400 --> 1:11:21.559 or I get a cat that chases me, or I 1:11:21.600 --> 1:11:23.759 get a coyote that comes into the pasture and runs 1:11:23.760 --> 1:11:26.479 me off, or I get an owl or whatever, and 1:11:26.520 --> 1:11:30.360 through time it just the bird. I think the bird 1:11:32.160 --> 1:11:36.400 see such a predation risk that they the adopt a 1:11:36.439 --> 1:11:41.000 different strategy, and that strategy is called less move about 1:11:41.000 --> 1:11:46.120 their range, I suspect strut more drum more, try to 1:11:46.240 --> 1:11:49.320 use more subtle cues and or go to places where 1:11:49.880 --> 1:11:52.720 they know they're going to interact with hens and just 1:11:52.800 --> 1:11:55.400 do it quietly. And that that's what we see. The 1:11:55.760 --> 1:11:59.000 interesting thing is on we also have gobbling data on 1:11:59.040 --> 1:12:03.120 a non hunted side the Savannah River site, which is 1:12:03.160 --> 1:12:05.200 one of the very few places in the South and 1:12:05.280 --> 1:12:08.960 Southeast that that there's no hunting and it is like 1:12:09.000 --> 1:12:13.639 a park or it's a UM, it's a nuclear plant. Basically, 1:12:13.640 --> 1:12:17.080 it's Department of Energy. So it's about two hundred thousand acres, 1:12:17.920 --> 1:12:20.080 very limited hunting on one little chunk of it and 1:12:20.120 --> 1:12:23.000 no hunting on the rest. And we see that gobbling 1:12:23.080 --> 1:12:25.600 does not do that. They got wall spring as you 1:12:25.600 --> 1:12:29.040 would expect. And we also have a wildlife management area 1:12:29.120 --> 1:12:33.000 where they're only allowed to hunt two days and I 1:12:33.040 --> 1:12:35.839 bet you you can predict before I say it what happens. 1:12:35.880 --> 1:12:38.200 They gobble their heads off during the week, and then 1:12:38.200 --> 1:12:41.120 when hunters show up on Friday and Saturday, gobbling tanks 1:12:41.520 --> 1:12:46.240 no way, really and just the increased activity. And then 1:12:46.280 --> 1:12:50.599 they picked back up around Tuesday and Tuesday, Thursday, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, 1:12:50.600 --> 1:12:52.800 Thursday is pretty good, and then Friday it tanks again. 1:12:52.840 --> 1:12:55.960 And you see this pattern through the season, just like that. 1:12:56.560 --> 1:13:00.960 There's there's no question this bird detects. It perceives the 1:13:01.080 --> 1:13:05.599 risk that we put on them on the landscape when 1:13:05.680 --> 1:13:08.639 hunting is at a heavy rate, you know, when there's 1:13:08.720 --> 1:13:10.880 lots of hunters out there. There's no question. The data 1:13:10.960 --> 1:13:13.479 clearly show that they perceive that as a risk and 1:13:13.520 --> 1:13:18.160 they behave accordingly. Are there are we part of the problem? 1:13:18.160 --> 1:13:20.479 I mean, of course probably problects. We kill turkeys, but 1:13:20.880 --> 1:13:24.519 do our activities I guess it would be this. Are 1:13:24.560 --> 1:13:27.680 there hens that don't get bred because we're interrupting their 1:13:27.720 --> 1:13:30.599 cycle too much during the breeding season. We don't see 1:13:31.760 --> 1:13:37.440 many hens that don't initiate clutches, so they're being bred. Um. 1:13:37.520 --> 1:13:41.440 What we do see is that there are some infertility 1:13:41.560 --> 1:13:45.000 rates and some populations where some of the eggs, you know, 1:13:45.360 --> 1:13:49.360 say one or so in every clutch is infertile. We 1:13:49.439 --> 1:13:54.000 also see which I think is more problematic that and 1:13:54.200 --> 1:13:56.880 some of these populations that are that are heavily hunted. 1:13:57.600 --> 1:14:01.360 The nesting season is taking six d five to eighty 1:14:01.479 --> 1:14:06.080 or ninety days, and meaning these hens are starting to breed, 1:14:07.200 --> 1:14:10.879 say late March, early April, and there are still clutches 1:14:10.960 --> 1:14:15.360 hitting the ground in July, which puts those hens in 1:14:15.360 --> 1:14:17.880 the bed, but it puts those poults in the bed spot, right. 1:14:18.080 --> 1:14:21.240 It puts the poults in a bad spot if dodn't 1:14:21.320 --> 1:14:22.920 end up time to get big. And if you think 1:14:22.960 --> 1:14:26.000 about it from a predator standpoint, it puts nest on 1:14:26.160 --> 1:14:30.240 the landscape scattered through time instead of a big pulse 1:14:30.320 --> 1:14:32.840 of nest out there at once predator. That's called the 1:14:32.880 --> 1:14:37.320 predator swamping. So there's no swamping in in our population. 1:14:37.400 --> 1:14:39.760 So what happens is you have for instance, I just 1:14:39.800 --> 1:14:43.280 showed I just gave a talk at the in Arkansas 1:14:43.320 --> 1:14:47.400 to their commission, and I showed a figure where we 1:14:47.479 --> 1:14:50.719 tracked the same group of hens throughout the nesting season. 1:14:50.760 --> 1:14:53.120 There's one bunch of hens that were one social group. 1:14:53.160 --> 1:14:55.160 They were all caught together, so they're all kind of 1:14:55.160 --> 1:14:59.920 one group. And the first hen starts and she loses 1:15:00.000 --> 1:15:02.920 he clutch, and she tries again a few weeks later 1:15:02.960 --> 1:15:05.200 and she loses that clutch, and she tries again a 1:15:05.280 --> 1:15:09.400 third time. It was sixty five days across that period. Well, 1:15:09.439 --> 1:15:12.759 she didn't start until the I think it was April. 1:15:12.800 --> 1:15:15.720 The third or fourth was the first day. So if 1:15:15.760 --> 1:15:18.880 you think about it, she's on into June before she's 1:15:19.080 --> 1:15:22.639 trying a third clutch, and even if that hatches, those 1:15:22.680 --> 1:15:25.559 birds are behind the eight ball compared to a clutch 1:15:25.600 --> 1:15:30.280 that hatches April. Yeah, I've got a question related to 1:15:30.320 --> 1:15:35.719 that breeding disruption regarding like how seasons are structured, because 1:15:35.720 --> 1:15:38.799 you'll hear people say in many states the season starts 1:15:38.840 --> 1:15:42.840 too early, like in Pennsylvania doesn't open until May one, 1:15:43.160 --> 1:15:45.439 so they've got all of April to do their thing. 1:15:45.880 --> 1:15:47.760 And I think they do that to give them time 1:15:48.600 --> 1:15:51.600 to breathe. Yes, but here in Montana it starts, what 1:15:51.720 --> 1:15:56.599 you honest like April, and granted it's you know, a 1:15:56.600 --> 1:15:59.280 different climate, but do you do you think that those 1:15:59.360 --> 1:16:05.240 early stufs or could be a problem. Yeah, how much 1:16:05.280 --> 1:16:10.520 time do you um yeah, so I think some historical 1:16:10.560 --> 1:16:16.400 perspectives would be good. So back thirty years ago, there 1:16:16.439 --> 1:16:19.200 was a guy named Bill Heally, who's who's retired now. 1:16:19.320 --> 1:16:22.840 He he was a famous turkey researcher and he's a 1:16:22.880 --> 1:16:27.720 great guy. And he this was seventies eighties nineties. He 1:16:27.800 --> 1:16:31.439 was asked by the Northeast States to write a set 1:16:31.439 --> 1:16:37.000 of recommendations for timing hunting seasons. And he very clearly 1:16:37.080 --> 1:16:40.200 noted in this document that is widely used and sighted 1:16:41.200 --> 1:16:44.040 that you do not shoot this bird in the spring. 1:16:44.360 --> 1:16:48.880 You do not shoot Tom's until most and he left 1:16:48.880 --> 1:16:53.400 out a bit vague most breeding has occurred. And he 1:16:53.439 --> 1:16:56.080 goes on to say, to make sure you've you've hit 1:16:56.160 --> 1:16:59.360 the sweet spot just time it went incubations, you know, 1:16:59.400 --> 1:17:02.679 peaks and inkubation. So the bottom line is start removing 1:17:02.760 --> 1:17:05.599 Tom's when a lot of your hens are already bred 1:17:05.720 --> 1:17:08.920 and on the nest. That reduces a legal kill of 1:17:08.960 --> 1:17:13.280 hens because their secondary and those toms have already bred 1:17:13.320 --> 1:17:15.840 those hens. So there are some that are expendable at 1:17:15.840 --> 1:17:20.520 that point. And by and large the Northeast States accepted 1:17:20.520 --> 1:17:23.960 those recommendations. If you just mentioned Pennsylvania, Michigan, a lot 1:17:23.960 --> 1:17:28.000 of the Northeast states. There their seasons don't start until May, 1:17:28.320 --> 1:17:35.040 and the Southeast states have largely entirely ignored that. If 1:17:35.080 --> 1:17:39.519 you look across the South, seasons open three to four 1:17:39.680 --> 1:17:43.439 weeks before peaks and incubation, and that's uniform across states, 1:17:43.479 --> 1:17:46.599 with very few exceptions. Louisiana has a little later opening date, 1:17:47.720 --> 1:17:50.160 Arkansas has a later opening date, but by and large 1:17:50.760 --> 1:17:54.320 you have states opening weeks and weeks before incubation peaks. 1:17:55.120 --> 1:17:59.479 And what that does the research. We're just trying to 1:17:59.640 --> 1:18:02.920 grow kind of put our heads around this. But here's 1:18:02.960 --> 1:18:06.880 my thinking. So and and Bill pointed to this in 1:18:07.240 --> 1:18:09.920 his writing. So, you have these dominant toms, and we 1:18:09.960 --> 1:18:12.240 don't know who they are. We don't know who the 1:18:12.280 --> 1:18:15.400 dominant toms are in the population, but what we clearly 1:18:15.439 --> 1:18:18.639 do understand is that you have these groups of tom's 1:18:19.280 --> 1:18:23.320 that breed a group of hens. Right, So you um, 1:18:23.400 --> 1:18:26.360 so turkeys use a mating strategy that's like a leck. 1:18:26.880 --> 1:18:29.519 So you know what sage grouse do, right, Okay, So 1:18:29.640 --> 1:18:32.360 sage grouse are all out displaying for each other and 1:18:32.400 --> 1:18:34.280 all the males are there together so they can see 1:18:34.280 --> 1:18:36.519 each other. But what turkeys do is more of an 1:18:36.520 --> 1:18:39.600 exploded leck. And all that means is you take that 1:18:39.720 --> 1:18:41.519 sage grouse leck and kind of blow it up on 1:18:41.560 --> 1:18:44.760 the landscape where you've got pockets of turkeys across the 1:18:44.880 --> 1:18:48.759 landscape and they maintain contact with each other through gobbling. 1:18:49.120 --> 1:18:51.360 They don't see each other like a sage grouse, they 1:18:51.400 --> 1:18:55.479 hear each other and that gobbling activity maintains those legs. 1:18:56.000 --> 1:18:57.920 So if you go out and you hunt Miriam's or 1:18:57.960 --> 1:19:00.960 Rio's and even Eastern's, if if there's a lot of birds, 1:19:00.960 --> 1:19:04.040 you'll hear this. Gob will over here, Goble over there, 1:19:04.120 --> 1:19:07.719 goble over there. That's those exploded legs that are calling 1:19:07.760 --> 1:19:10.000 to each other saying I'm still here, I'm still here. 1:19:10.200 --> 1:19:12.639 So each one's kind of got his zone and telling 1:19:12.640 --> 1:19:15.360 each other, yes, don't come here. I'm here, and I 1:19:15.439 --> 1:19:18.280 have my hands with me, and I'm going to breed them. 1:19:18.320 --> 1:19:20.519 Within that group of Tom's that are that are in 1:19:20.560 --> 1:19:24.040 that little exploded leg, there's one breeder. There's a dominant breeder, 1:19:24.800 --> 1:19:28.080 and the others are not always breeders, and in some 1:19:28.160 --> 1:19:32.160 cases are not breeders. So you have one Tom and 1:19:32.280 --> 1:19:35.280 he is the breeder. He's breeding with those hens that 1:19:35.320 --> 1:19:40.879 are around him and his brothers, his siblings or Tom's 1:19:40.920 --> 1:19:43.920 that he grew up with as a poult. So he 1:19:44.000 --> 1:19:47.160 was hatched and and amalgamated into the same brood back 1:19:47.640 --> 1:19:50.960 years ago. He's been spending times with these, these other 1:19:51.040 --> 1:19:53.679 Toms since he was a pol. These are the groups 1:19:53.680 --> 1:19:56.160 of Jake's that you see on the landscape running around. 1:19:56.720 --> 1:20:00.360 Those group of Jake's all hung around together, and then 1:20:00.360 --> 1:20:03.360 they get older together, and as they get older together, 1:20:03.680 --> 1:20:06.680 they have an established hierarchy. There's one guy that's at 1:20:06.720 --> 1:20:08.960 the top of this ladder and we've all seen this, 1:20:09.080 --> 1:20:12.600 I mean, and they fight constantly to maintain these these hierarchies. 1:20:13.240 --> 1:20:15.720 So you have this one breeder and you have this 1:20:15.800 --> 1:20:19.080 group of hens. And if we go in, say a 1:20:19.160 --> 1:20:23.400 month early, and we removed that dominant Tom, which we've 1:20:23.600 --> 1:20:26.559 we've clearly seen early in the season, dominant Tom's are 1:20:26.600 --> 1:20:29.840 more easily harvested than they are later in the season. 1:20:29.880 --> 1:20:33.000 There's been a number of studies showing that. So if 1:20:33.000 --> 1:20:35.840 we go in and we removed that dominant Tom, and 1:20:35.880 --> 1:20:38.080 I'll be honest, I'm guilty of this. I used to 1:20:38.080 --> 1:20:41.600 think years ago, well, hell, the next guy will just 1:20:41.640 --> 1:20:45.479 step up. That's not how it works. So this. This 1:20:45.560 --> 1:20:48.760 researcher Bill um I spent some time in his house 1:20:48.800 --> 1:20:51.160 with he and his wife. He used to imprint birds 1:20:51.160 --> 1:20:54.160 to himself, right, He imprinted them as polts, and then 1:20:54.160 --> 1:20:57.800 they moved around. He basically took these turkeys and he 1:20:57.840 --> 1:21:01.240 observed them. And what he told me was that these birds, you, 1:21:01.360 --> 1:21:04.120 they have their pecking orders like a ladder. There's a 1:21:04.120 --> 1:21:06.120 guy on the top step and then there's a bunch 1:21:06.120 --> 1:21:08.880 of steps under him. If you remove the top step, 1:21:09.320 --> 1:21:12.600 the second bird just doesn't step up. They tear the 1:21:12.640 --> 1:21:16.400 whole ladder apart, and they start over. And somebody figures 1:21:16.400 --> 1:21:20.160 out who's the dominant tom? No kid, And meanwhile, what 1:21:20.280 --> 1:21:23.599 is the hen doing? Okay, so you remove the dominant tom, 1:21:23.640 --> 1:21:27.439 that's the one through sexual selection, she's already picked that's 1:21:27.479 --> 1:21:30.360 the top guy. So if you remove him too early, 1:21:31.200 --> 1:21:33.760 you're expecting her to just say, well, okay, well hell 1:21:33.840 --> 1:21:35.920 he's good enough. Number two is fine. That's not the 1:21:35.920 --> 1:21:39.559 way sexual selection works. So you see this in prairie chickens, 1:21:39.560 --> 1:21:41.360 You see it in fallow deer, you see it in 1:21:41.400 --> 1:21:45.280 sage grouse species that use lecking strategies. If you just 1:21:45.360 --> 1:21:48.400 go in and remove a bunch of these males. The 1:21:48.479 --> 1:21:51.719 females don't just breed with the next guy standing there. 1:21:52.000 --> 1:21:54.920 They go evaluate everybody all over again, which they've been 1:21:54.960 --> 1:21:58.840 doing for weeks before we we shoot them, and all 1:21:58.840 --> 1:22:01.559 of a sudden he's gone. On, Well, if he's gone, 1:22:01.880 --> 1:22:04.240 I need to go back through my checks and balances 1:22:04.240 --> 1:22:07.920 and figure out who's the most fit tom standing here, 1:22:08.200 --> 1:22:10.120 and then I'm going to breed with him. It just 1:22:10.160 --> 1:22:13.439 doesn't happen the next day. What about our dear? Different 1:22:13.439 --> 1:22:16.240 than that, the work on fallow deer is shown. They 1:22:16.320 --> 1:22:19.400 do the exact same thing, so they re shuffled that 1:22:19.600 --> 1:22:22.639 they do. And the work on fallow deer is shown, 1:22:22.680 --> 1:22:25.200 which is kind of crazy, is that some of these 1:22:25.360 --> 1:22:30.639 females delay breeding so long that they actually some don't breed, 1:22:31.120 --> 1:22:35.360 like they just can't figure out who the best buck is, 1:22:35.960 --> 1:22:39.559 so they just stop and they move on. And again 1:22:39.600 --> 1:22:41.519 we don't see that in turkeys. We we see that 1:22:41.600 --> 1:22:44.599 most of them try. They lay a clutch of mostly 1:22:44.640 --> 1:22:48.640 fertile eggs, so they're being bred. But the thinking and 1:22:48.840 --> 1:22:50.880 there I'm not just I'm not the only one that's 1:22:50.920 --> 1:22:53.880 tuting this. There there are there are many managers in 1:22:53.920 --> 1:22:57.400 the South and East in particular that have discussed us 1:22:57.439 --> 1:23:00.559 over the past few years that that maybe what we're 1:23:00.560 --> 1:23:04.360 doing is we're disrupting breeding to the point where they're 1:23:04.479 --> 1:23:09.720 there are these subtle effects to populations that are contributing. 1:23:10.240 --> 1:23:12.840 They're not the cause, but are contributing to some of 1:23:12.880 --> 1:23:17.160 these declines we're seeing because we're taking these dominant toms 1:23:17.200 --> 1:23:20.559 out of these legs too early, and in so doing, 1:23:21.520 --> 1:23:26.080 we are compromising the hen's ability to pick the best tom, 1:23:26.160 --> 1:23:31.559 who theoretically also has the most fit sperm, and we're 1:23:31.560 --> 1:23:35.280 removing him because what she's supposed to do is she's 1:23:35.320 --> 1:23:37.800 supposed to breed with the dominant tom, and then she's 1:23:37.840 --> 1:23:41.360 supposed to be able to go find other dominant toms. 1:23:41.400 --> 1:23:45.559 So there's good evidence showing that these hens will visit 1:23:45.640 --> 1:23:48.360 multiple legs. They don't just stay there. Some of them 1:23:48.360 --> 1:23:52.440 will actually go and find other times and copulate with them. 1:23:52.520 --> 1:23:56.120 So what she's doing there is she's taking sperm and 1:23:56.200 --> 1:23:59.720 she's storing at which turkeys do they store sperm? And 1:24:00.080 --> 1:24:04.679 I basically liken it to tupperware containers they're putting storm. Yeah, 1:24:04.840 --> 1:24:08.200 they think about his turkey tupperware. You've got all these 1:24:08.200 --> 1:24:10.640 tubules inside of her body that are storing sperm, and 1:24:10.680 --> 1:24:12.799 when it's time to produce a clutch and laying eggs, 1:24:12.840 --> 1:24:16.880 she her body allows that sperm to be released. There 1:24:17.040 --> 1:24:21.439 is there is mate competition right there. The best sperm wins, right, 1:24:21.560 --> 1:24:24.519 the most viable because she's got sperm from multiple males, 1:24:24.560 --> 1:24:29.400 multiple maybe, and if she does, then that should confer 1:24:29.520 --> 1:24:33.040 her better fitness and her clutch better fitness. We see 1:24:33.040 --> 1:24:35.280 this in mallards, we see it in the waterfowl war 1:24:35.439 --> 1:24:38.760 is replete in science showing this. They're supposed to be 1:24:39.840 --> 1:24:44.040 multiple males and clutches, And there's some turkey work previously 1:24:44.120 --> 1:24:46.280 showing that a lot of clutches in a in a 1:24:46.320 --> 1:24:49.960 population of Rio's that wasn't hunted did have multiple times. 1:24:50.640 --> 1:24:53.519 We're collecting this data now in hunted populations and we 1:24:53.520 --> 1:24:55.840 don't have the results yet, but hopefully we will soon. 1:24:55.920 --> 1:24:58.080 But I kind of use the analogy if you were 1:24:58.120 --> 1:25:01.400 to ask a duck hunter, if I were to give 1:25:01.439 --> 1:25:04.519 you the opportunity to go to North Dakota and shoot 1:25:04.680 --> 1:25:08.800 mallards in May, what would you think? And then the 1:25:08.840 --> 1:25:11.439 analogy is, well, that's when they're in their courtship flights, right, 1:25:11.520 --> 1:25:13.759 So you have five or six drakes that are flying 1:25:13.800 --> 1:25:17.439 around harassing one hen, and she's supposed to be able 1:25:17.479 --> 1:25:20.479 to pick the best males out of that courtship flight, 1:25:20.960 --> 1:25:23.800 and she will breed with more than one male. You 1:25:23.840 --> 1:25:28.720 wouldn't even consider harvesting males out of courtship flights. You 1:25:28.840 --> 1:25:33.040 killed deer during their courtship different, different mating system. So 1:25:33.120 --> 1:25:35.360 if you if you look at turkeys, they're the only 1:25:35.800 --> 1:25:39.000 game bird in the conterminous United States that are hunted 1:25:39.000 --> 1:25:43.000 while they're breeding. They're the only one. So should we 1:25:43.040 --> 1:25:45.960 be hunting them in the summer. No, No, we just 1:25:46.040 --> 1:25:49.439 need to this. I think the science is going to 1:25:49.479 --> 1:25:52.160 demonstrate that we just need to be more thoughtful, which 1:25:52.160 --> 1:25:54.639 we were warned about years ago. Again, this is this 1:25:54.680 --> 1:25:57.720 is not new that we need to time our seasons 1:25:58.640 --> 1:26:02.640 more commensurate with the bird and not our own desires. 1:26:03.080 --> 1:26:04.240 I want to get out there as soon as the 1:26:04.280 --> 1:26:08.160 snow melts. Yes, yeah, and you know I've been there. 1:26:08.200 --> 1:26:11.160 It's like, well they're gobbled out, they're bread out, and 1:26:11.160 --> 1:26:16.840 and here, you know, like we're pretty extreme north. I 1:26:16.840 --> 1:26:20.640 mean we're you're dodging snow patches and being in snowstorms. 1:26:21.040 --> 1:26:23.840 They haven't even started breeding yet. But I've been out 1:26:23.880 --> 1:26:26.080 turkey homever. This is not a liquid well even down 1:26:26.120 --> 1:26:31.479 to Missouri, remember, not a liquid green. And I think 1:26:31.520 --> 1:26:35.240 it ultimately hinges on the harvest rate because if you 1:26:35.280 --> 1:26:37.360 go into a population up here and let's just say 1:26:37.439 --> 1:26:41.600 you kill two or three percent of all your tom's 1:26:41.640 --> 1:26:46.120 a month before breeding, who cares? Probably but at least 1:26:46.160 --> 1:26:49.920 higher now in these southern populations and Eastern populations. If 1:26:49.920 --> 1:26:53.760 you're going in and removing thirty, forty, even fifty of 1:26:53.800 --> 1:26:57.559 your tom's which we see on some areas prior to 1:26:57.640 --> 1:27:02.479 breeding or during the kind of the midst of breed eating. Frankly, 1:27:02.520 --> 1:27:05.559 to me, it's nonsensical to think it wouldn't have some effect. 1:27:05.600 --> 1:27:07.960 It's just what effect does it have? That's kind of 1:27:07.960 --> 1:27:09.800 what we're trying to put our hands around. You Know. 1:27:09.840 --> 1:27:12.160 What I think listening to you is important for people 1:27:13.040 --> 1:27:16.680 is because you're not a state agency person, right, but 1:27:16.880 --> 1:27:20.080 you're a turkey hunter I am, And because the state 1:27:20.120 --> 1:27:22.400 agency guys gotta be careful not to piss everybody off, 1:27:23.160 --> 1:27:25.519 and you can, you can afford to piss people off. 1:27:25.560 --> 1:27:27.719 I can, But then we know your motivations are pure 1:27:27.760 --> 1:27:30.080 because you like to hunt turkeys, That's why I give 1:27:30.120 --> 1:27:34.200 what you say extra validity. I appreciate that, and I 1:27:34.960 --> 1:27:37.519 that is true. I mean I kind of look and 1:27:37.600 --> 1:27:39.479 be the bearer of bad news. It's not gonna screw 1:27:39.520 --> 1:27:42.080 your your voicemail is not gonna blow up with irate 1:27:42.479 --> 1:27:45.080 it will customers. I mean, I have people that attack 1:27:45.120 --> 1:27:48.280 me on social media every week. I post every every Tuesday, 1:27:48.439 --> 1:27:51.840 Turkey Tuesday. I post, you know, science tidbits every Yeah. 1:27:51.880 --> 1:27:53.679 What are they? Yeah, I want to talk about Turkey Tuesday. 1:27:53.720 --> 1:27:55.599 But what are they? What's the what? They don't think 1:27:55.600 --> 1:27:59.120 you like to hunt turkeys? They I think, you know, honestly, Steve, 1:27:59.160 --> 1:28:02.400 I think there's people out there that look at biologists 1:28:02.400 --> 1:28:05.400 in general. And You've had I've listened, I've listened to 1:28:05.439 --> 1:28:08.759 some of your previous podcasts, and and I think people 1:28:08.840 --> 1:28:12.720 look at me or Jim Heffelfinger or some of these 1:28:12.720 --> 1:28:16.640 people that that are biologists and they think, well, they 1:28:16.680 --> 1:28:18.840 don't hunt. They're not hunters. They don't They're not in 1:28:18.840 --> 1:28:21.559 the trenches where we are. And like I said, I 1:28:21.560 --> 1:28:23.599 grew up hunting. I mean the reason I'm where I'm 1:28:23.640 --> 1:28:29.000 at is because I loved to hunt everything, and I 1:28:29.120 --> 1:28:31.360 was a steward of the outdoors, like I soaked up 1:28:31.400 --> 1:28:34.680 everything I could, and then I fast forward, you know, 1:28:34.800 --> 1:28:37.160 twenty five years and I look at my my eighteen 1:28:37.240 --> 1:28:40.519 year old I'm thinking, is he going to have the 1:28:40.600 --> 1:28:45.040 opportunities to hunt turkeys or any species that I had? 1:28:45.160 --> 1:28:47.519 And and if if I shake my head and say no, 1:28:47.800 --> 1:28:50.320 then it's a failure on my part. It's a failure 1:28:50.360 --> 1:28:55.599 on our part to grasp what effect we may be having. 1:28:56.360 --> 1:28:59.040 And I tell people, you know, we turkeys and other 1:28:59.080 --> 1:29:01.720 species are facing all sorts of problems. It's not just 1:29:01.840 --> 1:29:05.439 it's not a hunting issue. Habitat and predators and these 1:29:05.479 --> 1:29:08.840 things we've talked about. But to me, we have to 1:29:08.880 --> 1:29:12.839 do due diligence and understand what effect we might be having, 1:29:13.240 --> 1:29:16.400 and if there's something we can control, then we need 1:29:16.439 --> 1:29:19.600 to try. Because I really look at a lot of 1:29:19.600 --> 1:29:22.360 the species that we hunt and I think, if if 1:29:22.400 --> 1:29:24.840 they're not here when my grandkids come along, and the 1:29:24.920 --> 1:29:27.920 numbers that they are now or were, then it's been 1:29:27.960 --> 1:29:30.519 a failure on my watch. And that's that's tough to take. 1:29:30.760 --> 1:29:33.439 It's tough to stomach, especially I think when you're when 1:29:33.479 --> 1:29:36.800 you're pointing at when you're looking at a game management problem, 1:29:36.840 --> 1:29:42.960 and you're finding solutions that don't entail screwing ourselves over. Um, 1:29:43.240 --> 1:29:46.519 that's not that hard of a Pilba swallow, right, right right. 1:29:46.800 --> 1:29:48.439 Someone's not coming and saying like, listen, man, I'm not 1:29:48.439 --> 1:29:51.120 saying let's stop on Turkey's. I'm saying, let's think about 1:29:51.120 --> 1:29:53.040 our start dates. Yeah, let's be a little more smarter 1:29:53.080 --> 1:29:55.200 about season structure. I don't know why that should be 1:29:55.200 --> 1:29:57.559 met with a bunch of hostility, well, especially when the 1:29:57.640 --> 1:30:01.120 end result possibly it could be that instead of a 1:30:01.160 --> 1:30:04.120 two tricky bad bad limit, you might have four or 1:30:04.240 --> 1:30:06.640 you know, I think I think there's a number of 1:30:06.640 --> 1:30:09.720 issues there. One is just you know, we're greedy. I mean, 1:30:09.920 --> 1:30:13.320 human beings are greedy. It comes down to a lot 1:30:13.360 --> 1:30:15.559 of Yeah, it's a lot of what this is what 1:30:15.720 --> 1:30:19.519 I want, And what I hear from hunters is well, 1:30:19.560 --> 1:30:22.599 they're gobbled out. If we don't get to hunt them early, 1:30:22.760 --> 1:30:26.760 they I'm not going to get the opportunity. Well, okay, 1:30:26.800 --> 1:30:30.360 So I try to couch this to people, and I 1:30:30.360 --> 1:30:32.759 I think about it in my own as as a person. 1:30:32.840 --> 1:30:36.799 I think, okay, so in Georgia, I get about five 1:30:36.880 --> 1:30:40.679 or six weeks to hunt, and if you told me 1:30:40.920 --> 1:30:45.639 you only get four, but ten years from now. Instead 1:30:45.680 --> 1:30:49.320 of going and hearing one bird, which is about what 1:30:49.400 --> 1:30:54.000 I hear, or two that I could hear four, I 1:30:54.160 --> 1:30:57.400 personally would look at that and go, I'll take that 1:30:57.560 --> 1:31:02.720 all day long. Um. But the complaints I hear a 1:31:02.720 --> 1:31:07.280 lot are, well, you're taking my opportunity. I've been allowed 1:31:07.280 --> 1:31:09.760 to hunt turkeys for six or eight weeks, my entire 1:31:09.840 --> 1:31:13.800 life or whatever. And I get that. But in the 1:31:13.960 --> 1:31:15.320 at the end of the day, I look at it 1:31:15.320 --> 1:31:18.000 from the standpoint of the resource and I think, again, 1:31:18.680 --> 1:31:22.160 we have to do due diligence. And you know, turkey hunters, 1:31:22.240 --> 1:31:25.679 I'm biased, are one of the most cerebral hunters out there. 1:31:26.080 --> 1:31:28.600 I mean they're they're hunting at the time of the 1:31:28.640 --> 1:31:31.519 year when you don't hunt other things, so they are 1:31:31.680 --> 1:31:34.320 solely focused on this bird. And you look at all 1:31:34.360 --> 1:31:38.160 the gear and the technology. These folks really get into 1:31:38.200 --> 1:31:41.519 this and they think about it. And I don't talk 1:31:41.560 --> 1:31:45.960 too many that don't perceive an issue, even folks in 1:31:45.960 --> 1:31:48.960 in that hunt Rio's and Miriam's outfitters that I've been 1:31:49.000 --> 1:31:52.040 with that look at this and think and in conversations 1:31:52.080 --> 1:31:54.000 they go, you know what, come to think of it. 1:31:54.680 --> 1:31:57.080 I hear a lot fewer birds than I did ten 1:31:57.160 --> 1:31:59.200 years ago or twenty years ago. Still here a lot 1:31:59.240 --> 1:32:01.680 of birds. I don't hear or see the number of 1:32:01.720 --> 1:32:05.200 birds that I used to see. And I've heard some 1:32:05.240 --> 1:32:08.920 other agency biologists in the Southeast. One is a really 1:32:08.920 --> 1:32:12.360 good friend of Mount Charles, and I've heard him saying 1:32:12.479 --> 1:32:16.200 in open forums, if you don't have a problem right now, 1:32:16.479 --> 1:32:19.240 just wait, just give it some time. If you're not 1:32:19.320 --> 1:32:22.559 seeing declines in your area, just just wait. So how 1:32:23.160 --> 1:32:26.839 like how precipitous are the declines, like in certain areas, 1:32:26.840 --> 1:32:29.920 and like how widespread are the declines? Like is there 1:32:30.360 --> 1:32:34.240 certain regions of the country that are seeing more declines 1:32:35.080 --> 1:32:38.840 that others? Like how how how is it spreads the 1:32:38.880 --> 1:32:42.320 productivity declines, which back to what we were talking about earlier, 1:32:42.320 --> 1:32:47.600 the poltz per him has gone down threefold in like 1:32:47.880 --> 1:32:51.479 in what places are across the all of the Southeastern states, 1:32:51.880 --> 1:32:55.200 several of the eastern more kind of eastern Northeastern states, 1:32:55.240 --> 1:32:58.559 they're also seeing that decline in productivity. What they're not 1:32:58.640 --> 1:33:03.639 seeing buying law larger drastic declines and harvest. I suspect 1:33:03.720 --> 1:33:06.680 they may at some point, but we'll see and then 1:33:06.760 --> 1:33:10.439 several Midwestern states have shown the same trend, but it's 1:33:10.560 --> 1:33:14.679 a little different in the Midwest because you tennessee turkeys 1:33:14.720 --> 1:33:16.960 more in a in that agricultural belt or more in 1:33:17.040 --> 1:33:20.559 kind of pockets, and they're not they're not heavily hunted 1:33:20.560 --> 1:33:24.120 in some places, and and they are and others, And 1:33:24.400 --> 1:33:27.320 we don't have a good grasp on reproduction and Rio's 1:33:27.360 --> 1:33:30.719 and Miriam's and Goulds, we just we don't have those 1:33:30.800 --> 1:33:35.799 broad data sets we do. They roam and larger chunks 1:33:35.800 --> 1:33:39.160 of land, they're they're less visible. Well, if you think 1:33:39.200 --> 1:33:41.120 like Rio's, for instance, a lot of them live on 1:33:41.400 --> 1:33:45.360 on private lands that are large tracts, and they're they're everywhere. 1:33:45.640 --> 1:33:48.880 And what we do find from we've banded thousands of 1:33:48.960 --> 1:33:51.760 Rio's in areas that are hunted, and we see really 1:33:51.760 --> 1:33:55.960 low harvest rates in general, some really high in pockets, 1:33:56.040 --> 1:34:00.599 but by and large across the landscape, really low single 1:34:00.640 --> 1:34:04.759 digit percent. And in the Easterns we see in Easterns 1:34:04.760 --> 1:34:08.400 we see thirty plus percent on almost every population. You've 1:34:08.400 --> 1:34:11.320 got a couple for you. I don't even know what 1:34:11.520 --> 1:34:14.920 I don't even know what the hell one means. Um 1:34:15.200 --> 1:34:18.840 did a sports question, No, oh, you're looking at I 1:34:18.880 --> 1:34:22.080 had I had written down Arkansas versus Wisconsin. It seems 1:34:22.160 --> 1:34:24.360 like this is just in my little world. But it 1:34:24.360 --> 1:34:27.160 seems like you hear a lot of griping recently out 1:34:27.200 --> 1:34:30.880 of Arkansas for what's going on with their turkey population. 1:34:31.320 --> 1:34:33.519 A lot of people are saying that it's just down 1:34:33.520 --> 1:34:36.200 and out, and then you go to and then in 1:34:36.200 --> 1:34:42.599 Wisconsin they're killing like what fifty thousand turkeys annually and 1:34:42.680 --> 1:34:44.880 just you know, it seems to be nuts like, what's 1:34:45.400 --> 1:34:47.879 what's sort of like the I can it be possible 1:34:47.880 --> 1:34:49.880 to put it in a nutshell to say, yeah, this 1:34:49.960 --> 1:34:54.080 is why one's doing great and one's not. Yes, and no, 1:34:54.760 --> 1:34:58.800 the yes would be in Arkansas, what you've seen is 1:34:58.840 --> 1:35:03.320 a strong precipitous decline in productivity that's been happening for decades. 1:35:03.439 --> 1:35:05.920 This is not just something that started. It's been twenty 1:35:06.000 --> 1:35:11.000 years plus declining productivity to now we're in Arkansas. In 1:35:11.040 --> 1:35:14.320 some areas they're less than one pulp per hen, which 1:35:14.360 --> 1:35:17.360 means the flock has to be declining because a lot 1:35:17.400 --> 1:35:20.880 of the poults you see are are males. So in 1:35:21.040 --> 1:35:24.960 Arkansas you have a productivity problem to the point where 1:35:25.400 --> 1:35:29.400 their harvest has declined. They've gone through a number of 1:35:29.640 --> 1:35:33.599 season changes. In fact, they've changed their season twenty times 1:35:33.600 --> 1:35:36.880 in the past thirty years, trying to come up with 1:35:36.920 --> 1:35:39.760 a sweet spot, and that that was one of the 1:35:39.800 --> 1:35:42.360 reasons I was there The other last week was to 1:35:42.560 --> 1:35:46.360 talk to their biological staff about why would you even 1:35:46.400 --> 1:35:49.120 consider moving a season later? Like we've the things we 1:35:49.240 --> 1:35:51.439 just talked about, those are the things that I think 1:35:52.080 --> 1:35:56.360 people need to hear so that they understand why an 1:35:56.400 --> 1:35:59.439 early season could be problematic, not saying it is, but 1:35:59.479 --> 1:36:02.559 why it would be from the broader sense. So Arkansas 1:36:02.600 --> 1:36:05.759 is now trying to move to a much later opening 1:36:05.840 --> 1:36:10.040 date and hopes that most of their breeding has occurred. 1:36:10.400 --> 1:36:12.519 In fact, I think what they were considering as an 1:36:12.520 --> 1:36:16.320 April nineteenth opener, which for the Southeast is really late, 1:36:16.600 --> 1:36:19.000 that that's by far would be the latest except for 1:36:19.040 --> 1:36:22.559 some pockets in East Texas that have a later April opener, 1:36:23.080 --> 1:36:27.280 you know, Wisconsin. I think two things. One, you tended 1:36:27.320 --> 1:36:30.719 to see that turkey hunting exploded in the Southeast long 1:36:30.800 --> 1:36:34.960 before it did elsewhere, and the Northeast states are just 1:36:35.080 --> 1:36:39.960 now getting, you know, really heavily hunted populations. They've got 1:36:40.040 --> 1:36:41.880 a lot of times. They've got a lot of birds 1:36:41.880 --> 1:36:45.200 out there, and to my buddy Charles's point, maybe they 1:36:45.240 --> 1:36:48.479 just need to wait because if you if you keep 1:36:48.479 --> 1:36:51.560 on down this road, you may see problems. Now that 1:36:51.680 --> 1:36:54.439 the good thing about Wisconsin is their their season dates 1:36:54.439 --> 1:36:57.559 are more appropriately time with the bird. But they also 1:36:57.680 --> 1:37:00.800 lay to kill a shipload of them. Yes, and you 1:37:00.840 --> 1:37:04.599 have says that right in the REGs. Yeah, yeah, Um. 1:37:04.880 --> 1:37:07.320 I don't know what the bag limit specifically is in 1:37:07.360 --> 1:37:10.360 Wisconsin is, but in some stace like Alabama's five, I 1:37:10.360 --> 1:37:14.720 should tell you it's interesting Wisconsin. They I never thought 1:37:14.720 --> 1:37:16.599 about how it's interesting until right now. And it might 1:37:16.720 --> 1:37:20.240 be to do with timing out the breeding because they 1:37:20.280 --> 1:37:25.280 got what a B C D E F seasons seeks 1:37:25.479 --> 1:37:30.080 a season opening day is very competitive to draw a 1:37:30.080 --> 1:37:32.760 tag from, not especially non resident You could try for 1:37:32.840 --> 1:37:35.360 years in that get day, very limited hunting pressure. By 1:37:35.400 --> 1:37:37.799 the time you get to see which is three weeks 1:37:37.800 --> 1:37:42.400 in right, then you can pretty much rest assured you'll 1:37:42.439 --> 1:37:48.840 get after d you can hunt all the damn seasons, right, 1:37:49.080 --> 1:37:54.920 So they're greatly limiting in some way, putting a throttle 1:37:55.200 --> 1:37:58.960 on how many people are out there pounding them. Opening day, 1:37:59.000 --> 1:38:03.000 which is what for a second week in April, where 1:38:03.000 --> 1:38:06.639 the hell it is? Yeah, very few people. And then 1:38:06.680 --> 1:38:08.960 by the time you're into mid late May, they just 1:38:09.000 --> 1:38:11.479 open the floodgates, but a lot of people are burned 1:38:11.479 --> 1:38:14.120 out by then. You already got a And their assistant 1:38:14.200 --> 1:38:17.200 game bird coordinator is a former student of mine. She 1:38:17.280 --> 1:38:20.240 actually studied at at Louisiana State University, but I was 1:38:20.280 --> 1:38:23.640 on her graduate committee and and she has sent those rags. 1:38:23.760 --> 1:38:27.840 Some of the southern states do something similar to that, 1:38:27.920 --> 1:38:31.120 like Missouri has there when their season opens, you can 1:38:31.160 --> 1:38:34.120 only kill one bird the first week or so. South 1:38:34.120 --> 1:38:37.920 Carolina just changed their regulations to mimic that they're still 1:38:37.960 --> 1:38:41.759 opening the first of April, but you can only theoretically legally, 1:38:41.760 --> 1:38:44.200 you're only supposed to kill one bird early and then, 1:38:44.840 --> 1:38:48.400 and obviously that's to delay some harvest on into the 1:38:49.120 --> 1:38:51.400 you know, the later part of April. Other states are 1:38:51.439 --> 1:38:56.000 just moving the season, the entire statewide season. I suspect, 1:38:56.760 --> 1:38:59.439 given the momentum that I've seen in the discussions that 1:38:59.479 --> 1:39:02.720 I've seen recently, I think most states, at least in 1:39:02.720 --> 1:39:08.360 the Deep South, are considering trying to entertain discussions about 1:39:08.479 --> 1:39:12.439 bumping it later even if that only means days, and 1:39:12.479 --> 1:39:14.360 you'll get about, you'll get you'll catch they'll catch a 1:39:14.360 --> 1:39:29.120 bunch of grief too. Absolutely hid biologists. Yes, hit him 1:39:29.120 --> 1:39:32.320 with the other question back to goblin, because a lot 1:39:32.320 --> 1:39:35.320 of some of these states you can't hunt afternoon or 1:39:35.439 --> 1:39:38.479 one or four. I mean we've hunted at least three 1:39:38.479 --> 1:39:40.760 different states. I think California was like four pm when 1:39:40.760 --> 1:39:44.000 we hunted it, Missouri's noon or one. I think what 1:39:44.120 --> 1:39:45.880 else do we hunt? Last year it might have been 1:39:45.880 --> 1:39:48.599 like one. We had a quit in time, Pennsylvania's noon 1:39:48.680 --> 1:39:51.400 the first two weeks. It helps, It keeps to be 1:39:51.479 --> 1:39:53.960 a sane man. But I don't. I don't like it 1:39:54.040 --> 1:39:56.720 when I'm there, But man, it keeps you sane, right, 1:39:56.880 --> 1:40:02.240 get rest? If not, did you pull your eighteen hour days? 1:40:03.160 --> 1:40:06.720 The proponents, usually we've talked to, like it because they 1:40:06.760 --> 1:40:09.880 think that it helps the goblin. Limits of pressure helps 1:40:09.880 --> 1:40:12.840 the goblin. What are your thoughts on that? What are 1:40:12.880 --> 1:40:18.200 they trying to solve? I suspect just pressure. We don't 1:40:18.280 --> 1:40:23.439 see a lot of gobbling in the afternoon anyway, um, 1:40:23.479 --> 1:40:25.760 but I suspect that when they do, you can't kill 1:40:25.840 --> 1:40:28.840 them anyway. They're hard to kill. At night. I'll tell 1:40:28.840 --> 1:40:35.360 you what gone the last hour a day. You know, 1:40:35.400 --> 1:40:38.479 here are some goblin. I get it, but you get 1:40:38.800 --> 1:40:40.519 you can't help but get all fired up. But if 1:40:40.520 --> 1:40:43.040 you like review your life, it's not a lot of 1:40:43.080 --> 1:40:47.040 death dealing happens at five pm. Yeah, see he's by 1:40:47.080 --> 1:40:49.960 five pm. If he's an hour from the tree, he's already. 1:40:50.240 --> 1:40:54.240 He has them, he has an agenda. I have had 1:40:54.320 --> 1:40:57.640 tremendous success killing birds one, two or three o'clock in 1:40:57.640 --> 1:41:00.960 the after If you can get them to gobbl it's money. 1:41:01.360 --> 1:41:05.559 I suspect the states that just open later or have 1:41:05.720 --> 1:41:07.960 that type of season, they're just trying to keep hunters 1:41:07.960 --> 1:41:11.439 out of the woods and keep the disturbance to a minimum. 1:41:11.560 --> 1:41:14.080 I honestly can't answer your question. I don't know if 1:41:14.120 --> 1:41:17.960 that translates to any change in Turkey behavior, because one 1:41:18.520 --> 1:41:21.519 the populations we study don't really they don't have that. 1:41:22.000 --> 1:41:25.360 And to like I said, very little gobbling happens in 1:41:25.400 --> 1:41:29.360 the afternoon anyway, So I don't we would. It would. 1:41:29.439 --> 1:41:31.599 The signal would have to be so strong in our 1:41:31.680 --> 1:41:34.479 data set for us to be able to detect it, 1:41:34.520 --> 1:41:38.760 because such little gobbling is in that time. You know, 1:41:38.800 --> 1:41:41.599 there's not that much disturb anyway. And plus you're saying 1:41:41.640 --> 1:41:46.040 that there's the daily hunter disturbances there anyways of every morning. Yeah, 1:41:46.520 --> 1:41:48.680 to untangle that too. And most of our what we 1:41:48.760 --> 1:41:53.320 see is most of the gobbling more than se is 1:41:53.360 --> 1:41:56.400 either in the tree or within the first hour after 1:41:56.479 --> 1:41:59.280 they fly down, so they're gobbling early and shutting up. 1:42:00.240 --> 1:42:04.360 Has anyone done a study like this, um to capture 1:42:04.400 --> 1:42:07.160 this sentiment that i'mna lay out for you, Like, imagine 1:42:08.160 --> 1:42:15.559 that you put out an electronic collar the hand call 1:42:17.080 --> 1:42:20.439 and you could somehow measure how many gobblers came within 1:42:20.520 --> 1:42:26.639 some specified uh distance of the electronic caller, and then 1:42:27.000 --> 1:42:33.759 you watch that play out over the spring and measure 1:42:33.840 --> 1:42:39.200 that like as the season wears on our gobblers meaning 1:42:39.560 --> 1:42:41.600 do they get do they get harder and harder to 1:42:41.680 --> 1:42:44.320 call as a season wears on because they're scared of 1:42:44.360 --> 1:42:46.920 getting shot? Or is it some other thing at play? 1:42:47.680 --> 1:42:50.479 If there has been work in that vein, I don't, 1:42:50.479 --> 1:42:52.160 I'm not aware of, dude, I would be tutting that 1:42:52.240 --> 1:42:55.519 on top of my list of ship to study. I 1:42:55.560 --> 1:42:58.599 think we see that in a lot of populations anyway, 1:42:58.680 --> 1:43:02.240 because if you if you go to the east or southeast. 1:43:02.280 --> 1:43:06.679 You see scouting. Scouting starts weeks in advance, and I hear, 1:43:06.960 --> 1:43:09.800 you know, horror stories I read on social media all 1:43:09.840 --> 1:43:11.839 the time, and you know, hey, I was out scouting. 1:43:11.880 --> 1:43:14.720 It's a week before the season. Dude, pull it into 1:43:14.720 --> 1:43:17.840 the cold sack up the road from me, hit the box, 1:43:17.920 --> 1:43:21.320 call five times, bird gobbled. Then he walked in spooked 1:43:21.320 --> 1:43:23.960 the bird type of thing, the flip flop flush here 1:43:23.960 --> 1:43:26.840 has already been out scouting, scaring them all up. Didn't 1:43:26.840 --> 1:43:30.200 make one call though, just looking, so I think we 1:43:30.200 --> 1:43:33.120 can see where they're at. You you may, I suspect 1:43:33.120 --> 1:43:35.880 there's some truth to the notion that the more we call, 1:43:37.040 --> 1:43:40.120 because our calling is often to associated with some type 1:43:40.160 --> 1:43:42.800 of disturbance, whether we try for that to occur or not, 1:43:43.600 --> 1:43:46.960 that the bird realizes through time that is not a 1:43:47.000 --> 1:43:50.600 hen and even if it is, I'm going to be 1:43:50.720 --> 1:43:54.000 really cautious. And and we see this in some of 1:43:54.000 --> 1:43:56.559 our data where we track hunters and tom's at the 1:43:56.600 --> 1:43:59.880 same time. So we put GPS units on the toms, 1:44:00.520 --> 1:44:02.840 and then we give the hunters my next question, and 1:44:02.880 --> 1:44:06.519 we actually see birds that show up at the site 1:44:06.560 --> 1:44:10.000 a hunter was at three or four hours later. So 1:44:10.040 --> 1:44:12.559 the hunter has already left, he's gone, or she's already 1:44:12.560 --> 1:44:14.560 back at the truck and going to work, and the 1:44:14.680 --> 1:44:17.960 tom shows up come sniffing around at one pm. Oh 1:44:17.960 --> 1:44:19.840 that's a question I was gonna ask you, like, if 1:44:19.880 --> 1:44:22.639 you if you're in the morning calling to a bird 1:44:22.720 --> 1:44:25.400 and he just like drifts away, is it is it 1:44:25.560 --> 1:44:31.599 smart to just sit there? Yes? What we we have repeated, Yeah, 1:44:31.680 --> 1:44:35.000 we have repeated examples of birds that end up where 1:44:35.040 --> 1:44:38.760 a hunter was hours hours later. Well that goes back 1:44:38.800 --> 1:44:41.800 to what you were talking a guy about that. He 1:44:42.160 --> 1:44:46.240 talked about how they'll come come back hours after right, Yeah, 1:44:46.320 --> 1:44:48.720 because he heard yeh, he marked you even though he's 1:44:48.720 --> 1:44:51.000 got he got like his morning agenda. And then later 1:44:51.040 --> 1:44:52.600 he's like, oh, but you know what, I'm gonna go 1:44:52.680 --> 1:44:54.719 and check on that one. If you think about it, 1:44:54.520 --> 1:44:57.640 it makes complete sense. What we're asking these birds to 1:44:57.680 --> 1:45:00.760 do is against their ecology. The tom's are supposed to 1:45:00.840 --> 1:45:02.640 stand there and display, and the hens are supposed to 1:45:02.680 --> 1:45:04.519 go to them. Okay, so that is true that one 1:45:04.560 --> 1:45:08.200 of my in nature, the hen should always go to 1:45:08.360 --> 1:45:10.880 the gob. Yes, think about the leck. Back to the leck. 1:45:11.439 --> 1:45:13.559 Those males stand there and display and the hens come 1:45:13.600 --> 1:45:16.920 to them. We're asking them to flip that. So if 1:45:16.920 --> 1:45:19.280 you think about the tom that wanders off, he's not 1:45:19.360 --> 1:45:22.800 wandering off. He's going about his business even if he's 1:45:22.800 --> 1:45:25.880 not gobbling, and he's displaying and he's doing his other 1:45:25.960 --> 1:45:28.840 things because in his world, she's supposed to seek him out. 1:45:29.680 --> 1:45:32.519 And then three hours later he goes, you know what, 1:45:33.400 --> 1:45:36.400 I haven't scored any opportunities doing the route I was 1:45:36.439 --> 1:45:38.080 going to take, So I'm going to go over there 1:45:38.120 --> 1:45:40.720 and and covertly kind of check this area out and 1:45:40.760 --> 1:45:43.200 see if she's still there. And he doesn't need to 1:45:43.200 --> 1:45:45.519 gobble to do that. All he's gotta do is strutt 1:45:45.560 --> 1:45:48.439 and drum and and look, and if he doesn't see her, 1:45:48.880 --> 1:45:50.639 he high tails it out of there. He moves on. 1:45:50.720 --> 1:45:53.679 How well do you think he uh like spatially, how 1:45:53.720 --> 1:45:57.080 tight is he thinking as far as where he thinks 1:45:57.080 --> 1:46:00.880 she is? Ye, Turkeys have an incredible sense of place. 1:46:01.520 --> 1:46:06.360 They they know And this comes from conversations I've had 1:46:06.439 --> 1:46:09.400 with with Bill who imprinted those birds. He would take 1:46:09.439 --> 1:46:12.200 these birds out and let them forge, and then he 1:46:12.240 --> 1:46:14.439 would take them back. He was the hen. He would 1:46:14.439 --> 1:46:16.400 take them back to their pen and put them up 1:46:16.439 --> 1:46:20.760 at night. And when birds would get lost. He put 1:46:20.840 --> 1:46:23.400 radios on them, so his pet birds, he had radios 1:46:23.400 --> 1:46:24.880 on them, so he would go find them the next 1:46:24.960 --> 1:46:28.000 morning and and help them come back home. And what 1:46:28.080 --> 1:46:30.320 he found is they didn't need any help. So they 1:46:30.320 --> 1:46:33.320 would take this this kind of circuitous route while they 1:46:33.320 --> 1:46:35.760 were foraging, and they'd end up lost, if you will. 1:46:35.800 --> 1:46:38.719 At night the next morning, they walked a straight line 1:46:38.760 --> 1:46:42.200 distance directly back to the pen, like they knew exactly 1:46:42.640 --> 1:46:46.800 exactly which path to take, because they knew exactly where 1:46:46.800 --> 1:46:48.920 they were going. And what he likened it to, he said, 1:46:48.920 --> 1:46:53.000 they have an incredible sense of place. They hear, they 1:46:53.040 --> 1:46:56.680 know exactly Their mapping system is so acute. They know 1:46:56.800 --> 1:47:00.439 exactly where they think you are, or where they're roost 1:47:00.479 --> 1:47:03.439 it or whatever resources are there, and they know exactly 1:47:03.439 --> 1:47:05.760 how to get there. So at any given point in time, 1:47:05.800 --> 1:47:08.200 if that tom decides he's going back to the place 1:47:08.200 --> 1:47:11.640 where that hunter is, he knows exactly where that spot is. 1:47:11.640 --> 1:47:15.760 Is it safe to say they won't leave their lexs 1:47:15.840 --> 1:47:19.519 zone like to go into another gobbler's territory. Like if 1:47:19.560 --> 1:47:22.519 you're let's say you're you're hunting and you hear a 1:47:22.560 --> 1:47:26.080 gobbler on one ridge, and then a quarter mile pass 1:47:26.120 --> 1:47:30.800 at there's a gobble on another ridge. Like, would that 1:47:30.880 --> 1:47:36.640 second gobbler come into another gobblers zone? If if their 1:47:36.680 --> 1:47:42.040 home range encompasses those other birds, which in some cases 1:47:42.080 --> 1:47:44.840 they do and in some cases they don't. If their 1:47:44.880 --> 1:47:49.160 home range didn't encompass those birds, it's very likely they're 1:47:49.200 --> 1:47:51.679 not going to just go wandering. They're going to stay 1:47:51.720 --> 1:47:55.360 in their range and continue to signal, because that's the range. 1:47:56.160 --> 1:47:58.519 We do see some tom's that makes some kind of 1:47:59.080 --> 1:48:01.680 you know, weird move months, particularly when hunters bumped them 1:48:01.760 --> 1:48:05.040 or something. But by and large, this is not a bird. 1:48:05.320 --> 1:48:07.400 This is not an animal that's just going to abandon 1:48:07.439 --> 1:48:11.840 its home range and start wandering around. So I think 1:48:11.880 --> 1:48:14.280 what's happening is you see, like to your points, you've 1:48:14.280 --> 1:48:16.800 got birds here gobbling and over here gobbling. Well, when 1:48:16.840 --> 1:48:20.160 this pocket of birds stops gobbling, why would the other 1:48:20.200 --> 1:48:23.720 birds gobble If they don't have to go, if there's 1:48:23.760 --> 1:48:27.679 no gobbling near them, what's their incentive to gobble? So there, 1:48:28.120 --> 1:48:31.799 once they do, let's say mid morning, start maybe looking 1:48:31.840 --> 1:48:35.800 for a hen that they heard a little further away, 1:48:35.800 --> 1:48:39.400 and they're just going back to check that area. They're 1:48:39.400 --> 1:48:42.160 only gonna do that, like with a with a noise 1:48:42.240 --> 1:48:44.679 that they heard in their own I'm not only but 1:48:45.120 --> 1:48:51.920 primarily yeah, absolutely, talk about what you guys found looking 1:48:51.960 --> 1:48:56.679 at When you put a GPS track and devices on hunters, 1:48:57.360 --> 1:49:01.960 what do hunters do? They hang around the road, You 1:49:02.000 --> 1:49:07.000 don't say they Almost all hunter locations we found were 1:49:07.040 --> 1:49:08.960 within a hundred yards of a road or a path. 1:49:09.960 --> 1:49:12.240 But I mean, like, but in some states, the hell you? 1:49:12.240 --> 1:49:14.240 I mean, it's hard to get that, and we haven't. 1:49:14.560 --> 1:49:17.840 That work has all been Southeastern Eastern stuff, you know. 1:49:18.120 --> 1:49:20.200 I mean it's hard to There's a lot of roads 1:49:20.320 --> 1:49:24.280 there are, and people know they can skirt down this 1:49:24.439 --> 1:49:27.519 firebreak and hear birds, so they stick to the roads, 1:49:27.520 --> 1:49:31.479 they stick to the paths. And what we found recently 1:49:31.479 --> 1:49:34.439 with some work is when the season starts, turkeys and 1:49:34.520 --> 1:49:38.240 hunters do the same thing. So folks start going to 1:49:38.320 --> 1:49:41.599 places where turkeys are because they scouttered them out or whatever, 1:49:41.760 --> 1:49:45.439 and then we see this clear divergence after a week 1:49:45.520 --> 1:49:47.800 or so of the season. Turkeys are doing one thing 1:49:48.000 --> 1:49:50.439 and hunters are doing something else. In fact, the turkeys 1:49:50.439 --> 1:49:56.280 are moving away from hunting pressure into human habitation or 1:49:56.320 --> 1:49:59.240 into like remote areas just into other parts of their 1:49:59.360 --> 1:50:02.360 range where they're not being disturbed as often. But how 1:50:02.360 --> 1:50:04.320 do you typify what they like to go towards just 1:50:04.400 --> 1:50:08.240 away from roads, just away from roads into subdivisions, no, 1:50:08.760 --> 1:50:11.719 just away from roads. And and that's not all birds. 1:50:11.720 --> 1:50:14.040 We see some birds that just hunker down and stick 1:50:14.080 --> 1:50:17.519 it out, and presumably they just quit gobbling and they 1:50:17.560 --> 1:50:21.240 just hunker and stay there. But we see this divergence 1:50:21.280 --> 1:50:24.120 and behavior where by the middle of the season, hunters 1:50:24.160 --> 1:50:26.679 are doing one thing. They're still sticking to the roads, 1:50:26.680 --> 1:50:29.080 they're behaving the same as they did two weeks prior. 1:50:29.439 --> 1:50:32.519 Turkeys have changed their strategy, and then by the end 1:50:32.560 --> 1:50:35.599 of the season they come back together because hunters buying 1:50:35.680 --> 1:50:38.320 large quit towards the end of the season, and turkeys 1:50:38.360 --> 1:50:40.920 realize it because there's not as much pressure, so they 1:50:40.960 --> 1:50:43.120 go back to doing what they were six weeks earlier. 1:50:44.200 --> 1:50:51.040 Pretty interesting, definitely pressure sensitive. We gotta email, no, no, 1:50:51.120 --> 1:50:52.960 it was here. If it's the article. I think it 1:50:53.040 --> 1:50:57.080 was the article someone sent us that in this state 1:50:57.200 --> 1:50:59.320 here in Montana, they have had I think in the 1:50:59.400 --> 1:51:04.360 last two years, like twenty four requests you know what 1:51:04.360 --> 1:51:10.640 I'm talking about of citizens demanding GPS tracking data on 1:51:10.720 --> 1:51:13.680 game animals, and they have a little choice but to 1:51:13.680 --> 1:51:16.720 give it to them. They have, and they're so people like, hey, 1:51:16.760 --> 1:51:18.280 I want to know where there's a bull elk in 1:51:18.479 --> 1:51:20.880 such and such area where and its radio collar? And 1:51:20.960 --> 1:51:23.919 apparently apparently the way it works, they have to divulge 1:51:23.920 --> 1:51:29.000 it its public information. Sure have you guys had that? No? No, 1:51:29.160 --> 1:51:32.160 we have. People want to know where your turkeys are? No, 1:51:32.360 --> 1:51:35.120 we have not, because you can tell them exactly where 1:51:35.120 --> 1:51:37.599 they are. We can, we can tell them with certainty. 1:51:37.600 --> 1:51:40.640 Now we have. In the past, in the interest of 1:51:40.640 --> 1:51:43.320 getting data, we have put on I have personally put 1:51:43.400 --> 1:51:47.040 hunters on birds trying to see how the birds would 1:51:47.040 --> 1:51:49.759 respond to hunting pressure. When I was putting a really 1:51:49.760 --> 1:51:54.439 good turkey hunter on them and found some pretty bizarre, 1:51:55.240 --> 1:51:58.320 crazy thing like what I had this one bird that 1:51:59.280 --> 1:52:02.559 the youth season opened, and I put a kid and 1:52:02.640 --> 1:52:06.160 a really good guide, a biologist, turkey hunter, really good 1:52:06.160 --> 1:52:09.680 guy that he's a killer, put them too on this bird, 1:52:10.000 --> 1:52:12.639 gave him the GPS, basically said put this in your 1:52:12.640 --> 1:52:14.599 GPS and you're going to be a hundred yards from 1:52:14.680 --> 1:52:18.559 him when he when he gobbles the bird. Um came 1:52:18.640 --> 1:52:21.080 up to him several times during the morning, they never 1:52:21.120 --> 1:52:25.080 saw him, and he ended up spooking and moving north 1:52:25.280 --> 1:52:28.040 about a half mile, and then he hung out and 1:52:28.080 --> 1:52:30.519 he stayed there all week. And then when the general 1:52:30.520 --> 1:52:34.720 season opened the next weekend, I put another hunter on him, 1:52:35.400 --> 1:52:37.760 and the hunter went in neew exactly where the bird 1:52:37.920 --> 1:52:41.000 was a bump the bird. After he flew down, the 1:52:41.040 --> 1:52:43.679 bird saw him. He traveled a mile and a half 1:52:43.720 --> 1:52:46.320 to the north to to an area that was about 1:52:46.320 --> 1:52:51.200 two yards from the check station, and and he stayed 1:52:51.240 --> 1:52:55.600 there for weeks until a guy killed him who was 1:52:55.760 --> 1:52:59.360 fighting with his wife. And took off and from the 1:52:59.400 --> 1:53:02.120 aft for the afternoon to get away from home, went 1:53:02.160 --> 1:53:04.720 to the check station, parked his truck, walked over the 1:53:04.800 --> 1:53:07.920 levee to just I'm just going to sit in the woods. 1:53:08.240 --> 1:53:11.400 Didn't call, put his face mask on, was playing on 1:53:11.439 --> 1:53:13.960 his phone, and he hears a bird gobble and he 1:53:14.040 --> 1:53:16.720 calls him once and he kills him. We're already fighting 1:53:16.760 --> 1:53:23.679 about I didn't have probably turkey hunt. Yeah, yeah, we've 1:53:23.720 --> 1:53:26.160 we've seen some pretty you know, we've seen some pretty 1:53:26.160 --> 1:53:31.000 bizarre behaviors, whereas some of these other times frequently encountered hunters. 1:53:31.920 --> 1:53:33.680 I'd love to know what they're fighting and and they 1:53:33.720 --> 1:53:37.400 just hunkered down like we had this. We have this 1:53:37.439 --> 1:53:39.720 one time. I cannot tell you how many hunters he 1:53:39.800 --> 1:53:43.120 ran into and none of them ever saw him. We'd 1:53:43.160 --> 1:53:45.000 interview the hunters when they come out of the w 1:53:45.160 --> 1:53:47.760 m A, so we had their GPS data, we knew 1:53:47.800 --> 1:53:50.400 where they were, and we knew where the toms were, 1:53:50.880 --> 1:53:52.760 and we'd interview him. So how many birds did you hear? 1:53:52.800 --> 1:53:55.320 How many hunters did you see? You know, etcetera, etcetera. 1:53:55.920 --> 1:53:59.599 And we had this one gentleman who who was right 1:53:59.640 --> 1:54:01.640 there the bird was and he's like, I didn't hear 1:54:01.680 --> 1:54:04.880 a bird all morning, I didn't see a bird nothing, 1:54:05.560 --> 1:54:08.559 And he was literally under this bird all morning. The 1:54:08.600 --> 1:54:11.920 bird was right there where he was, and he never heard. Yeah, 1:54:11.960 --> 1:54:15.040 but when they're not that's the thing, man, When they're 1:54:15.040 --> 1:54:19.720 not calling and not out chasing around, they're just they're there. 1:54:19.760 --> 1:54:21.240 That's the thing I always tell myself when you're hunting 1:54:21.240 --> 1:54:23.439 turkey's in the the middle of the day, it's like, dear, 1:54:23.560 --> 1:54:25.200 you be in some spot hunting deer in the middle 1:54:25.200 --> 1:54:27.320 of the day and be like he is laid up 1:54:27.360 --> 1:54:30.920 in a briar patch and you're never gonna get like 1:54:31.120 --> 1:54:32.840 you're not gonna get onto him. He's laid up in 1:54:32.840 --> 1:54:36.040 a briar patch. You're not gonna get a shot at 1:54:36.080 --> 1:54:37.880 him laying there. If you try to go in there, 1:54:37.920 --> 1:54:40.720 you're gonna blow him out. It's like he's essentially untouchable. 1:54:41.560 --> 1:54:43.560 But with turkeys it could be too. In the afternoon, 1:54:43.600 --> 1:54:46.320 like that's some of bitches out right now eating yep, 1:54:46.520 --> 1:54:52.880 loafing around. He's out perfectly visible somewhere on his feet 1:54:53.640 --> 1:54:56.160 unless he sees you first. And what I'm saying, but 1:54:56.200 --> 1:54:59.360 he's not. It's like he's findable and what we see 1:54:59.360 --> 1:55:00.920 a lot of turk he's due during the middle of 1:55:00.960 --> 1:55:03.400 the day as they don't move much. They forage in 1:55:03.440 --> 1:55:06.800 the morning, and then they settled down into a relatively 1:55:06.840 --> 1:55:08.600 small area during the middle of the day and they're 1:55:08.600 --> 1:55:11.320 just hanging out, and then they pick it back up 1:55:11.360 --> 1:55:13.160 in the afternoon. So I think a lot of these 1:55:13.200 --> 1:55:15.320 times during the middle of the day when you happen 1:55:15.400 --> 1:55:18.520 to strike one is you just happen to end up 1:55:18.560 --> 1:55:21.320 close enough to him where he was comfortable in that 1:55:21.320 --> 1:55:24.360 little loafing area. He may periodically get up and feed 1:55:24.440 --> 1:55:26.720 or strutt or whatever, and you just struck gold and 1:55:26.800 --> 1:55:29.800 hit him and got him in the right and he's 1:55:29.840 --> 1:55:33.440 there because he's loafing there, because he's comfortable there. So 1:55:33.560 --> 1:55:35.800 you happen to get, just by dumb luck, get close 1:55:35.920 --> 1:55:38.280 enough to him where you could strike accord with him, 1:55:38.280 --> 1:55:40.320 and then you kill him. I think that's a lot 1:55:40.360 --> 1:55:43.360 of it. We're in New Mexico. We're coming down that 1:55:43.440 --> 1:55:45.960 narrow little cane. We're coming out into sort of where 1:55:47.040 --> 1:55:48.920 maybe a couple of draanges sort of I don't know 1:55:48.920 --> 1:55:52.040 if they came together. We're departing each other, but it 1:55:52.120 --> 1:55:54.840 opened up, you know, into like a fighter zone. Were 1:55:54.920 --> 1:55:58.320 they actually part they don't part each other, well, depends 1:55:58.320 --> 1:56:00.240 on what way you're moving up and down on him 1:56:00.520 --> 1:56:04.600 going down. So another drainage was coming in from our 1:56:04.680 --> 1:56:07.000 left is a is a big wide open Tell him 1:56:07.000 --> 1:56:10.640 what we were looking at seconds earlier, Yeah, a turkey 1:56:10.680 --> 1:56:13.520 carcass that we believe was you know, taken out by 1:56:13.520 --> 1:56:17.760 a cat, some kind of cat, but somebody had eating him. Anyways, 1:56:18.520 --> 1:56:21.920 it was like we were in a narrow drainage can 1:56:22.040 --> 1:56:24.480 you eat sort of thing, And so we're a group 1:56:24.520 --> 1:56:27.200 of us five or six probably were fairly well hidden 1:56:27.400 --> 1:56:30.160 from this bigger opening, and right when the first two 1:56:30.240 --> 1:56:31.800 or three of us sort of popped out and you 1:56:31.800 --> 1:56:35.200 could see a couple hundred yards not far away, almost 1:56:35.280 --> 1:56:38.560 within shotgun range, there's a gobbler. And what does he 1:56:38.600 --> 1:56:41.360 do because he thought he was he had caught us 1:56:41.400 --> 1:56:45.040 early enough that he just sunk, I mean, just melted 1:56:45.680 --> 1:56:48.760 his head and neck out on the ground, you know. 1:56:48.880 --> 1:56:51.680 And something just thinking when you're talking about that guy 1:56:51.760 --> 1:56:53.320 that was right on top of that turkey. If the 1:56:53.360 --> 1:56:55.600 turkey was on the ground, he very well just could 1:56:55.600 --> 1:56:58.640 have sunk into the ground and just laid there for 1:56:58.800 --> 1:57:03.200 two hours. What How big is the turkey's home range? 1:57:04.400 --> 1:57:08.560 Several thousand acres in the east southeast. As you move 1:57:08.640 --> 1:57:12.160 in the Western States, much bigger, and in fact, like 1:57:12.240 --> 1:57:15.600 Miriam's have and Rio's to a lesser extent, they have 1:57:15.880 --> 1:57:19.480 fairly large ranges that can change by season. So you'll see, 1:57:19.560 --> 1:57:22.720 you know, birds that disappear from areas in the winter 1:57:23.240 --> 1:57:25.160 and then show back up in the spring. And ask 1:57:25.200 --> 1:57:27.640 about migrations as well, because I feel that here they 1:57:27.680 --> 1:57:30.360 migrate absolutely, they follow the snow line that they do, 1:57:30.400 --> 1:57:33.440 and they they have much broader ranges. But if you think, 1:57:33.520 --> 1:57:36.520 like you know, Easterns are four species and the forest 1:57:36.560 --> 1:57:39.720 don't change that much from year to year, so they 1:57:39.760 --> 1:57:43.000 tend to have several thousand acre home ranges. If you 1:57:43.080 --> 1:57:47.879 encompass the entire year, how many trees take your average gobbler, 1:57:48.400 --> 1:57:51.600 how many trees does he have that he will roost in? 1:57:52.120 --> 1:57:55.040 And does he have well he does at randomly add 1:57:55.080 --> 1:57:57.160 trees to that list or does he like got like 1:57:57.320 --> 1:57:59.800 I rust they're they're, they're there and there and that's 1:57:59.800 --> 1:58:04.160 where roost. Each bird has roosting areas that they go to. 1:58:04.920 --> 1:58:07.920 They don't necessarily use the same tree every time they 1:58:07.960 --> 1:58:12.640 go there, at least Easterns. Rio's and Miriam's obviously, roost 1:58:12.680 --> 1:58:14.520 are limited in some of those populations, so they go 1:58:14.600 --> 1:58:16.760 back to the exact same tree, but Easterns don't do that. 1:58:17.760 --> 1:58:21.960 We see that almost every gobbler has a handful or 1:58:22.160 --> 1:58:25.760 more range areas that they use, but they don't use 1:58:25.840 --> 1:58:28.800 them back to back nights during the spring. They tend 1:58:28.880 --> 1:58:31.800 to use a roost site here, and then they moved 1:58:31.840 --> 1:58:34.480 to a different roost that night, and then they moved 1:58:34.480 --> 1:58:37.640 to a different roost the following night. But other birds 1:58:37.960 --> 1:58:40.840 will come to the roost that they abandon. Oh that 1:58:41.000 --> 1:58:43.240 explains a little bit because I read in Colorado they 1:58:43.240 --> 1:58:46.160 did a study and there's only a thirteen percent chance 1:58:46.240 --> 1:58:48.800 that the turkey roost and that these gobblers, there's only 1:58:48.840 --> 1:58:50.880 a thirteen percent chance that heat roost in the same 1:58:50.960 --> 1:58:52.920 tree two nights in the world. That's right, And if 1:58:52.960 --> 1:58:55.200 you think about it, you know, back to these legs, 1:58:55.760 --> 1:58:59.240 they're very likely or places that are good for sound 1:59:00.160 --> 1:59:04.720 sound to travel, and they're they're somewhat static. Unless there's 1:59:04.960 --> 1:59:07.839 clear cutting or something that changes the forest, they're probably 1:59:07.880 --> 1:59:11.000 fairly static. So there are certain places where I hear 1:59:11.040 --> 1:59:12.880 this all the time. I've been hearing turkeys there for 1:59:12.920 --> 1:59:16.760 twenty years. Yep, you have, and you didn't hear the 1:59:16.840 --> 1:59:20.240 same birds night after night. What you actually heard was 1:59:20.360 --> 1:59:23.760 that this bird moved and his buddy came in and 1:59:23.880 --> 1:59:27.320 roosted in that same area. Because these birds know there's 1:59:27.360 --> 1:59:31.360 certain places where sound carries, and that's why they're gobbling. 1:59:31.440 --> 1:59:34.280 They're gobbling to hear each other and to attract hens. 1:59:34.960 --> 1:59:38.400 So there's probably some places that are just good roost areas. 1:59:38.760 --> 1:59:41.360 So what do you think the odds are that, Uh, 1:59:42.160 --> 1:59:45.520 on Monday I went out, season wasn't open, or or 1:59:45.680 --> 1:59:48.920 let's just say, you know, it was evening, and I 1:59:49.000 --> 1:59:51.600 went out and roosted a bird, heard him on a ridge, 1:59:52.040 --> 1:59:54.280 but I couldn't hunt for two or three days. I 1:59:54.360 --> 1:59:56.640 go back in there three days later in the morning, 1:59:56.720 --> 2:00:00.280 on that same ridge, there he is, goblin. Where the 2:00:00.320 --> 2:00:02.800 odds that that's the same bird I roosted three nights early. 2:00:02.840 --> 2:00:05.760 If it was three nights later, there's a decent chance 2:00:05.840 --> 2:00:07.440 that may be the same bird. If it was the 2:00:07.520 --> 2:00:10.800 next night, there's a better chance it's not. There's a 2:00:10.840 --> 2:00:13.800 better chance that he's somewhere else than him being there 2:00:14.080 --> 2:00:16.760 two nights in a row. Now, turkeys are like people, 2:00:17.080 --> 2:00:19.560 and they're like deer and everything else. They're all different. 2:00:19.680 --> 2:00:22.960 So we do. We've had some times that man, they 2:00:23.000 --> 2:00:25.200 were they were money, going back to the same spot 2:00:25.320 --> 2:00:26.960 every night for three or four nights in a row, 2:00:27.080 --> 2:00:30.920 sneaky pete. But by and large across the population, that's 2:00:30.960 --> 2:00:33.920 not a strategy they use. And which is what's interesting 2:00:34.040 --> 2:00:35.880 is if you they don't do that from the time 2:00:35.960 --> 2:00:38.760 their poults, I mean, brood hens don't roost in the 2:00:38.840 --> 2:00:41.760 same spot two nights in a row. They move roost 2:00:41.880 --> 2:00:44.560 every night, And if you think about it, that makes 2:00:44.600 --> 2:00:47.280 sense from a predation standpoint. Don't go signal in the 2:00:47.400 --> 2:00:51.839 same spot every night because you're just attracting undue attention. 2:00:51.960 --> 2:00:55.520 Move around a little bit, and don't pigeonhole yourself to 2:00:55.600 --> 2:00:58.640 the same place, you know, like rio's have to do that. 2:00:59.200 --> 2:01:01.800 They have limited roost sites, and there may be four 2:01:01.880 --> 2:01:04.440 or five trees and an entire home range that are 2:01:04.520 --> 2:01:07.520 roost locations, and they go back there every night. But 2:01:08.280 --> 2:01:12.120 Rio's roost in large numbers, and in large numbers their safety. 2:01:12.200 --> 2:01:15.600 There's more eyes, there's more ears, there's more predator detection. 2:01:16.120 --> 2:01:18.640 You got an eastern that's standing there with him and 2:01:18.720 --> 2:01:21.320 his buddy is right down the ridge and there it's 2:01:21.360 --> 2:01:24.600 just two of them. Just so people who aren't familiar. 2:01:25.440 --> 2:01:29.080 Rio's have limited roosting because they're riparian. That limited the 2:01:29.160 --> 2:01:31.960 ripe parian areas, that's right. They could be surrounded by 2:01:32.240 --> 2:01:36.000 pine ridges, arid area with no trees, yes, And and 2:01:36.360 --> 2:01:40.640 you're seeing across the rio range cotton woods are really 2:01:40.720 --> 2:01:44.160 important tree species for them, and in many areas you're 2:01:44.160 --> 2:01:48.080 seeing widespread loss of cotton woods to disease issues, and 2:01:48.840 --> 2:01:52.400 that's causing a drastic reduction and roost availability to the 2:01:52.440 --> 2:01:55.600 point where some of our rio's only have we have 2:01:55.800 --> 2:01:58.440 several marked birds that have only had to roost in 2:01:58.480 --> 2:02:01.640 their entire home range. So you flip a coin, they're 2:02:01.640 --> 2:02:03.120 going to be at one of those two clumps of 2:02:03.160 --> 2:02:05.200 cotton woods every night. You know what you're talking about 2:02:05.240 --> 2:02:07.520 having a great tree where people can hear you. Um. 2:02:07.720 --> 2:02:12.840 You see that with blue grouse Alaska when you can 2:02:12.920 --> 2:02:14.480 you can hunt them in the spring on their calling 2:02:15.520 --> 2:02:17.880 and you go and find them, and sometimes they'll be 2:02:18.000 --> 2:02:21.080 like you got like a big main ridge and there's 2:02:21.120 --> 2:02:23.280 a finger ridge coming off at that finger ridge and 2:02:23.400 --> 2:02:26.040 have kind of a hump that sticks out. It would 2:02:26.040 --> 2:02:29.360 be some giant tree leaning out over that thing. And 2:02:29.440 --> 2:02:31.720 then he's up on that thing and he's just broadcast 2:02:31.800 --> 2:02:33.680 into the world. Man. You know, he's just like hanging 2:02:33.720 --> 2:02:36.440 out looking out over everything, you know, And you get 2:02:36.520 --> 2:02:38.360 up there and be like, I bet you he's got 2:02:38.480 --> 2:02:39.920 to be in that tree, right, And he's in just 2:02:40.040 --> 2:02:43.160 some crazy tree where he's like like got a megaphone 2:02:43.240 --> 2:02:45.920 up there. That's interesting. That is the one other burden 2:02:46.440 --> 2:02:49.080 big bird that you can hunt during this ring. But 2:02:49.160 --> 2:02:51.800 it's limited in scope, very limited. It's only a few weeks. 2:02:51.880 --> 2:02:56.440 And I suspect how many harvested during the spring. I 2:02:56.520 --> 2:02:59.920 don't I think that it's we went. It's a tough 2:03:00.080 --> 2:03:03.080 punt and it's like that, it's like everything, like everything's 2:03:03.080 --> 2:03:05.800 at a forty five degree angles. Yeah. We took like 2:03:05.880 --> 2:03:07.880 a forty five minute boat ride to go to a 2:03:08.040 --> 2:03:11.280 remote island to, you know, to hunt him. So I 2:03:11.280 --> 2:03:13.280 don't think there's a ton of pressure. I wouldn't think so. 2:03:13.480 --> 2:03:15.880 But man, it's like it's great if I had to, 2:03:16.000 --> 2:03:17.800 if I could do that, or hunt turkey's. I have 2:03:17.800 --> 2:03:21.080 a hard time decide. I've never hunted the blue grouse, 2:03:21.160 --> 2:03:24.360 but I tried for sure. It's fun, man, But you 2:03:24.440 --> 2:03:28.200 gotta go with our friend Barb whatever. Just show you 2:03:28.240 --> 2:03:30.360 what's up. Not you driver, you you pull your hair out. 2:03:30.760 --> 2:03:33.720 I could I could see that being very being very frustrating, 2:03:34.160 --> 2:03:37.560 just thinking about what you just said. Steep inclines a 2:03:37.680 --> 2:03:40.200 lot of work and then it doesn't pay off well, 2:03:40.840 --> 2:03:43.400 kind of like that, like when you hear a turkey 2:03:43.400 --> 2:03:45.080 guy we start getting close, you kind of be like, well, 2:03:45.160 --> 2:03:48.120 he must be right over there. These things, the sound, 2:03:48.840 --> 2:03:54.080 the noise they make, which is you can't place it. Oh, 2:03:54.240 --> 2:03:57.640 so it's unplaced, breaks down in the environment. You're just like, 2:03:57.960 --> 2:04:00.040 I don't know, man, somewhere within a hundred yards me, 2:04:00.120 --> 2:04:03.880 there's a bird doing that noise. I don't know what direction. Yeah, 2:04:07.040 --> 2:04:10.760 that would make sense. It's more like, um, it's like 2:04:10.840 --> 2:04:14.200 you kind of feel it, canaring it or feeling it. 2:04:15.560 --> 2:04:17.760 You kind of know he's drumming over in that area, 2:04:17.800 --> 2:04:21.240 but out a rough grouse drum. The drumming is a 2:04:21.280 --> 2:04:23.400 little different from where you thought it was. I had 2:04:23.440 --> 2:04:25.720 it right there, and in reality it's right over there. Yeah, 2:04:25.760 --> 2:04:28.320 you can basically be like within a hundred I can 2:04:28.360 --> 2:04:31.360 tell you within about a hundred eighty degrees where yeah, yeah, yeah, 2:04:32.680 --> 2:04:35.000 what else we got, Johnnie, I just want to follow 2:04:35.120 --> 2:04:38.720 up a little bit more on the predator populations, like 2:04:39.600 --> 2:04:42.920 outside of low fur prices, what else is causing the 2:04:43.000 --> 2:04:47.880 big boom we see? Snakes are a huge predator of 2:04:48.160 --> 2:04:51.960 of eggs and poults, and I don't remember seeing that 2:04:52.120 --> 2:04:55.240 when I was a student. If you look at many 2:04:55.320 --> 2:04:58.240 areas of the of the United States, particularly that you 2:04:58.320 --> 2:05:02.840 know where I do most of my work, it's become brushier, shrubbier, woodier, 2:05:03.760 --> 2:05:11.280 less prescribed fire less land disturbance, um pine monoculture, edges, fragmentation, 2:05:11.480 --> 2:05:15.760 and snakes benefit from that. So we see snakes account 2:05:15.840 --> 2:05:20.400 for nest loss on some sites. Yeah, yes, rat snakes 2:05:20.440 --> 2:05:23.440 and they killed the poults. Uh. And a friend of 2:05:23.480 --> 2:05:27.160 mine who's A who's yeah, who's our hurt guy at 2:05:27.240 --> 2:05:30.040 u g A has has told me that rat snakes 2:05:30.160 --> 2:05:33.760 all snakes down. Yeah. He said that rat snakes are 2:05:34.160 --> 2:05:38.240 really savvy sage predators that they tend to revisit nest. 2:05:38.640 --> 2:05:40.560 So if they go and they eat three or four 2:05:40.640 --> 2:05:43.720 eggs in this area, they'll go back and keep searching 2:05:43.760 --> 2:05:46.040 and keep searching and keep searching until they get all 2:05:46.080 --> 2:05:49.600 the eggs. Yeah. So if you think about it, even 2:05:49.680 --> 2:05:52.440 if she's laying right, if she hasn't finished the clutch 2:05:52.640 --> 2:05:55.680 and the snake shows up and picks all four at 2:05:55.720 --> 2:05:58.800 snakes going back to that clutch before it's over satting, 2:05:58.840 --> 2:06:01.920 you know, all said and done. The Old Testament is right, man. Yeah. 2:06:02.040 --> 2:06:04.880 And and and John was telling me that buddy of mine, 2:06:04.920 --> 2:06:06.640 he was like, man, if if the the eggs are there, 2:06:06.640 --> 2:06:09.240 they're going to find them. So how do you think 2:06:09.240 --> 2:06:14.240 they're finding them from smell? They keen sense of smell 2:06:14.320 --> 2:06:17.040 as a snake has it. They also are visual predators. 2:06:17.200 --> 2:06:21.000 They sit in shrub mid story understory, and they watch 2:06:21.960 --> 2:06:24.240 and there's they got good long, they got long some 2:06:24.400 --> 2:06:26.640 type of long range type of vision that they know 2:06:26.880 --> 2:06:31.480 something is there. And I think probably what's happening is 2:06:31.640 --> 2:06:35.560 as these birds are leaving their clutches for recesses right there, 2:06:35.560 --> 2:06:38.320 moving away and back and forth, that through time the 2:06:38.440 --> 2:06:41.040 sense the key the snake keys in on that nest 2:06:41.120 --> 2:06:43.680 site and it doesn't take that many days. And if 2:06:43.720 --> 2:06:47.400 they're numerically more of these snakes, then there were that 2:06:47.560 --> 2:06:50.440 just through the law of averages, more nests are going 2:06:50.520 --> 2:06:53.320 to be eaten. So to your question that snakes are 2:06:53.600 --> 2:06:56.840 are an important predator by far, and there's more of 2:06:56.960 --> 2:07:01.000 them because the habitat is good for them. Yes, Basically, 2:07:01.080 --> 2:07:03.400 what we've done is create a landscape that's better for 2:07:03.560 --> 2:07:08.680 predators than turkeys basically in many areas. Here's my last 2:07:08.760 --> 2:07:14.440 question for you. Why do uh why did turkey? When 2:07:14.480 --> 2:07:18.440 you shoot a turkey sometimes his buddies beat the hell 2:07:18.520 --> 2:07:21.720 out of him. How is their desire to get each 2:07:21.760 --> 2:07:24.760 other when they're down higher than their desire to get 2:07:24.800 --> 2:07:27.760 away from a loud, sudden gunshot, Like, what is it 2:07:27.880 --> 2:07:29.960 in them that's so keyed up to wait for a 2:07:30.040 --> 2:07:33.160 moment of weakness. That's their social hierarchy. That's that pecking 2:07:33.320 --> 2:07:37.000 order where Turkey I was. I've been told turkeys they 2:07:37.120 --> 2:07:39.440 fight from the time they're young, and they never forget 2:07:39.480 --> 2:07:42.320 a grudge. They carry a grudge their entire lives. So 2:07:42.440 --> 2:07:47.560 they're around these other birds that have beaten them, and 2:07:47.640 --> 2:07:50.480 when you shoot that bird, he is suddenly vulnerable, even 2:07:50.520 --> 2:07:52.440 if you're the dominant. But they make that decision so 2:07:52.640 --> 2:07:57.040 fast because this is ingrained. This is what structures their populations. 2:07:57.280 --> 2:08:00.640 These social hierarchies start from day one of a of hatching, 2:08:01.240 --> 2:08:04.919 and they this is the ladder. That ladder has dictated 2:08:04.960 --> 2:08:07.760 their entire lives. So when that ladder, when one of 2:08:07.840 --> 2:08:10.960 those steps gets broken, the guy that's under that's the 2:08:11.000 --> 2:08:15.040 step below immediately sees that as a sign of weakness 2:08:15.200 --> 2:08:17.960 and he is going to attack that bird that's socially 2:08:18.040 --> 2:08:21.000 above him and win so that he can move up 2:08:21.040 --> 2:08:24.640 a step and he kill it. Well, he's well, they 2:08:24.680 --> 2:08:26.600 don't really kill each other. They just beat the hell 2:08:26.640 --> 2:08:28.400 out of it. You never see one actually get like, 2:08:28.760 --> 2:08:31.480 let's say they're in a fight and he gets or whatever. 2:08:31.560 --> 2:08:34.480 A bird gets weakened by something. Will they ever harass 2:08:34.560 --> 2:08:37.080 it to the point of killing it. Oh well, they will. 2:08:37.320 --> 2:08:39.360 They will injure each other to the point where they 2:08:39.440 --> 2:08:41.920 can suffer mortalities from it, because then it's just it 2:08:42.040 --> 2:08:45.400 just compounds against They spur each other, they cut each other. 2:08:45.600 --> 2:08:48.440 They if they get injuries, the other birds pack at 2:08:48.480 --> 2:08:50.480 those injuries if it's on the head. So you kind 2:08:50.480 --> 2:08:52.600 of have to isolate birds that are injured if they're 2:08:52.600 --> 2:08:55.560 in captivity, because they'll they will hurt each other. So 2:08:55.640 --> 2:08:58.320 when these tom see the other their buddy on the ground, 2:08:58.600 --> 2:09:00.880 that's an opportunity to move up in the pecking order. 2:09:01.280 --> 2:09:02.840 That's what they're doing. And they're able to make that 2:09:02.960 --> 2:09:06.080 call like that instantaneous because that that pecking order has 2:09:06.120 --> 2:09:09.000 structured their life from the time that they were little. 2:09:09.520 --> 2:09:11.960 So that's all they know. See, I looked to think 2:09:12.000 --> 2:09:16.760 that something happened to me. Yanni went just instantaneously. I've 2:09:16.760 --> 2:09:19.560 seen him looking at the funny out there like a 2:09:19.720 --> 2:09:24.160 trip and he just jumps out like Seth, Seth, I 2:09:24.280 --> 2:09:26.080 know you know how to do that turniquet, but you 2:09:26.120 --> 2:09:29.160 don't need to do it that not that put it 2:09:29.240 --> 2:09:32.320 around his neck. We never we never got back to Shoplin. 2:09:32.440 --> 2:09:36.160 We gotta have him back. We didn't get to Turkey 2:09:36.200 --> 2:09:39.360 Tuesday either. Oh no, we're gonna do that. Okay, tell 2:09:39.400 --> 2:09:41.880 people about Turkey Tuesay. I like Turkey Tuesday. Yeah, Turkey 2:09:41.920 --> 2:09:44.040 Tuesday started, So I go check it out by Slay. 2:09:44.040 --> 2:09:45.920 I gotta click. I gotta click the file with button? 2:09:46.080 --> 2:09:48.840 Please do that? Would that would help? Yeah? I just 2:09:49.000 --> 2:09:52.520 opened up Instagram. Yeah, so it's at wll Turkey Doc 2:09:53.040 --> 2:09:57.480 on Twitter and Instagram wal Turkey Doc. There are Wild 2:09:57.520 --> 2:10:01.040 Turkey Doc Mike Chamberlin. I'm opening to page. Yeah. So 2:10:01.240 --> 2:10:04.360 every Tuesday I fall back. I like it already because 2:10:04.360 --> 2:10:09.040 I'm seeing like diagrams and charts and yep, yep. That's 2:10:10.560 --> 2:10:14.400 no grip and grins, not yet. That's my ways a 2:10:14.480 --> 2:10:16.960 duck grip and grin. That's my way of putting a 2:10:17.000 --> 2:10:19.680 little bit of science out to people who may not 2:10:19.840 --> 2:10:23.320 see it and in a digestible way where they can 2:10:23.760 --> 2:10:27.040 appreciate why we do research and what it means. Oh, 2:10:27.120 --> 2:10:31.640 here's a here's a diagram, just for instance. It's a 2:10:31.960 --> 2:10:36.280 chart showing um prescribed burns. Yeah. How how how the 2:10:36.360 --> 2:10:39.400 scale of fires affects turkeys? Yep, yep. And that's a 2:10:39.480 --> 2:10:42.440 modeling word that came about to a point you made earlier. 2:10:43.520 --> 2:10:47.520 Um former student works as a state agency biologist. He 2:10:47.640 --> 2:10:53.280 posts on Facebook and he absolutely gets chewed alive and 2:10:53.960 --> 2:10:58.600 it really made me mad because he couldn't respond. And 2:10:58.800 --> 2:11:00.520 I said, right then, I was like, you know what, 2:11:00.840 --> 2:11:03.520 every week, I'm going to put something out there because 2:11:03.560 --> 2:11:06.200 I can respond. I have academic freedom and I can 2:11:06.480 --> 2:11:09.520 I can go back and forth. And it was so 2:11:09.640 --> 2:11:12.440 clear to me when Jeremy, who's the Turkey coordinator in Arkansas, 2:11:12.520 --> 2:11:15.400 when he made that post he couldn't respond to the 2:11:15.520 --> 2:11:18.880 two people that were criticizing him because they were misinformed. 2:11:19.680 --> 2:11:21.840 And right there, I said, you know what, I don't 2:11:21.880 --> 2:11:24.840 get paid to do this, to to to post on 2:11:24.960 --> 2:11:27.000 social media. I don't get credit for it per se. 2:11:27.880 --> 2:11:30.280 But I'm going to do this because this is a 2:11:30.400 --> 2:11:33.760 form where people can digest what I do. Now, if 2:11:33.840 --> 2:11:35.960 I can just take the ability to to to give 2:11:36.000 --> 2:11:39.040 it to him in a easily degestible way where they 2:11:39.080 --> 2:11:42.200 can appreciate what research is being done and why it's 2:11:42.200 --> 2:11:44.800 important to them, then every week I'm going to post 2:11:44.880 --> 2:11:47.839 something and I'm going to get as much momentum started 2:11:47.880 --> 2:11:50.640 as I can so that people understand the issues facing 2:11:50.680 --> 2:11:54.920 this bird and it's it's been great. I mean started, 2:11:54.920 --> 2:11:57.360 as you can imagine, it started slow, but recently it's 2:11:57.400 --> 2:12:02.240 really exploded. And it's awesome because I get people that 2:12:03.360 --> 2:12:06.640 that don't see academic work. They have no idea that 2:12:06.760 --> 2:12:09.200 I even exist. They don't they don't know what I'm doing, 2:12:09.280 --> 2:12:11.280 that I've been studying this birth for twenty five years. 2:12:11.360 --> 2:12:13.400 They have no idea who I am, they don't know 2:12:13.520 --> 2:12:16.240 the research it's ongoing. But when they see those posts, 2:12:16.960 --> 2:12:20.160 they suddenly realized that there's something and being done that 2:12:20.400 --> 2:12:23.680 I can relate to, and I think is is relevant 2:12:23.800 --> 2:12:26.840 to me as a hunter and a land manager. So 2:12:26.960 --> 2:12:29.320 I'm going to follow it. And if every post is 2:12:29.360 --> 2:12:32.960 not to their liking, fine, But I also respond to 2:12:32.960 --> 2:12:35.560 the naysayers, people that are critical of me or the work. 2:12:36.080 --> 2:12:38.040 I try to go back and revisit those posts and 2:12:38.120 --> 2:12:42.640 try to help explain two people that may not understand 2:12:43.160 --> 2:12:47.240 the science and what we're doing why it's important to them. 2:12:47.360 --> 2:12:49.400 I'm looking at I'm looking at your March third post 2:12:49.560 --> 2:12:52.120 right now, and it's a map. It's a satellite photograph 2:12:52.200 --> 2:12:55.160 of an area that's sixteen square miles and on it 2:12:55.280 --> 2:12:59.720 are six thousand one yellow dots all GPS locations where 2:13:00.000 --> 2:13:04.000 in turkey hangs out. So she's using she's using sixteen 2:13:04.040 --> 2:13:08.320 square miles, but the dots show of that where she 2:13:08.480 --> 2:13:11.920 likes to be. Yes. Think about that map, and there's 2:13:12.000 --> 2:13:15.800 big areas where she doesn't do ship she never goes, 2:13:15.840 --> 2:13:18.920 and there's big areas where she really really likes it. Yep, 2:13:19.080 --> 2:13:22.040 she has to maintain a sixteen square mile home range 2:13:22.360 --> 2:13:25.040 to be able to find those pockets. That's a problem. 2:13:25.560 --> 2:13:28.160 That bird should only maintain a couple of square miles. 2:13:29.240 --> 2:13:32.600 Back years ago, we didn't see sixteen square mile home ranges. 2:13:32.680 --> 2:13:34.960 The only reason a bird that's scaled to be the 2:13:35.040 --> 2:13:38.480 size of a turkey would move sixteen square miles is 2:13:38.600 --> 2:13:42.120 because they have to doesn't have So she's trying to 2:13:42.200 --> 2:13:45.080 balance energy to intake with energy loss and it takes 2:13:45.080 --> 2:13:48.040 her sixteen square miles to do that. To me, that's 2:13:48.040 --> 2:13:51.160 a habitat problem. That's something that I think most people 2:13:51.200 --> 2:13:53.320 would look at that map that Steve looking at and think, 2:13:53.520 --> 2:13:56.440 wait a minute, if he's telling us that is I mean, 2:13:56.480 --> 2:13:58.760 if you think sixteen square miles, that's a huge area. 2:13:59.680 --> 2:14:02.360 If a herkey's using that and I only own five 2:14:02.440 --> 2:14:06.400 hundred acres that birds disappearing from my land for weeks 2:14:06.520 --> 2:14:09.640 or months on end, and I whatever I'm doing is 2:14:09.680 --> 2:14:11.840 not benefiting this bird because they're not even on my 2:14:11.960 --> 2:14:14.960 property anymore. You know. It speaks to the need that 2:14:15.160 --> 2:14:17.200 we need to cooperate, We need to we need to 2:14:17.280 --> 2:14:19.560 think bigger about how we're managing how it's that for 2:14:19.640 --> 2:14:21.160 this bird. That was kind of the reason for that. 2:14:22.360 --> 2:14:26.480 Four hours ago you posted a chart that shows gobbling 2:14:26.760 --> 2:14:32.680 activity and barometric pressure correlated to barometric pressure. Yeah, so 2:14:33.000 --> 2:14:37.440 all the gobbling research done previous to this use people 2:14:38.080 --> 2:14:41.400 two to record gobbles. So their data sets had like 2:14:41.960 --> 2:14:46.680 five hundred gobbles. That has a hundred seventy thousand and 2:14:47.240 --> 2:14:49.800 and and we related to weather variables, and we see 2:14:49.920 --> 2:14:52.640 like that figure shows that if you on on any 2:14:52.680 --> 2:14:55.960 given day, if you have an average barometric pressure whatever 2:14:56.040 --> 2:14:59.040 they average is that day, if the barometric pressure starts 2:14:59.240 --> 2:15:03.160 rising point oh three inches right or point three inches, 2:15:03.520 --> 2:15:07.840 you see this market increase in gobbling activity. And conversely, 2:15:08.320 --> 2:15:11.000 if the pressure is declining, you might as well stay 2:15:11.000 --> 2:15:14.240 in bad right, because this is going to create like 2:15:14.360 --> 2:15:16.920 it's gonna be hard. Just a bunch of Mark Kenyan 2:15:16.960 --> 2:15:23.280 type turkey hunters man's you know this next year? Tuesday? 2:15:23.440 --> 2:15:29.320 The third? What's so? What's that? You know? You always 2:15:29.360 --> 2:15:32.680 hear people? I heard five gobbles this morning? Heard it 2:15:32.760 --> 2:15:36.520 was a thousand gobars morning. What in reality, since you 2:15:36.640 --> 2:15:41.200 know I'm in off of one censor, how far can 2:15:41.240 --> 2:15:44.120 you hear? How several hundred yards all the way around? 2:15:44.280 --> 2:15:46.280 What's the most gobbles one of those things ever logged 2:15:46.280 --> 2:15:49.800 in today? A couple of hundred? Yeah, that's it? Yeah, 2:15:49.840 --> 2:15:53.120 Because I mean, if you think gobble gobble, goals fly 2:15:53.280 --> 2:16:00.360 down and then they're moving away from the oh because okay, 2:16:00.400 --> 2:16:02.120 so you think you're not picking up a lot of 2:16:02.160 --> 2:16:03.640 the stuff he does on the ground because he moves 2:16:03.640 --> 2:16:06.040 away some I didn't think that. Sometimes I've sat there 2:16:06.360 --> 2:16:08.760 under a bird in a tree and you think he 2:16:08.800 --> 2:16:10.840 gobbles a hundred times before he flies down. When you 2:16:10.920 --> 2:16:13.760 start actually counting that, you don't get anywhere close to 2:16:13.840 --> 2:16:15.600 a hundred. I've done the same thing. I've sat there 2:16:15.600 --> 2:16:17.680 and thought, man, he has gobbling his head off eighteen 2:16:18.240 --> 2:16:21.120 nineteen twenty, and he flies down, it's like thirty four. 2:16:21.160 --> 2:16:23.520 And I would have texted my Bundy and said, gobbled 2:16:23.520 --> 2:16:31.080 two four. I'm gonna do a better job accounting. Yeah, 2:16:31.720 --> 2:16:34.640 and you're twenty five years of research. What's the most 2:16:34.800 --> 2:16:40.439 like surprising thing you've learned about turkeys? The most surprising 2:16:40.560 --> 2:16:45.080 thing cook them drumsticks long enough for good yea. UM, 2:16:45.680 --> 2:16:49.200 I would say without question the things that I published 2:16:49.280 --> 2:16:52.800 that were false, that's been the biggest surprise. Like I 2:16:52.879 --> 2:16:55.600 published a paper years ago saying that Hen's went out 2:16:55.680 --> 2:16:58.880 and searched for nest sites. Right, they went and looked 2:16:58.959 --> 2:17:01.040 for these really good nest sites. Because a lot of 2:17:01.080 --> 2:17:04.000 people have found the same thing. And in reality we 2:17:04.080 --> 2:17:06.040 see now they don't do any of that. They don't 2:17:06.520 --> 2:17:08.760 they literally fly down the day they're going to lay 2:17:08.800 --> 2:17:11.280 the first egg and they go find a spot to nest. 2:17:11.840 --> 2:17:14.640 They don't visit these sites days in advance or weeks 2:17:14.680 --> 2:17:17.920 in advance. They don't go pick this perfect spot like 2:17:18.040 --> 2:17:21.280 I thought they used to. So I've actually found that 2:17:21.400 --> 2:17:25.200 my own science was garbage, that that work was flawed, 2:17:25.320 --> 2:17:27.440 and it was flawed because of technology. We just didn't 2:17:27.480 --> 2:17:29.879 have the technology that we had, so we were inferring 2:17:30.080 --> 2:17:33.480 things that were inaccurate. It's good that you're comfortable, um 2:17:34.680 --> 2:17:37.120 admitting that moving on and not doubling down on I 2:17:37.200 --> 2:17:39.560 don't because that's what science is about. If you can't 2:17:39.560 --> 2:17:42.840 admit your own errors and flaws, then you shouldn't be 2:17:42.920 --> 2:17:45.440 in the academic. Well, that's why my father liked to 2:17:45.520 --> 2:17:49.560 discount all sciences, because because the story would change. So 2:17:50.040 --> 2:17:52.959 if like, if the story changed, he just was like, yeah, 2:17:53.000 --> 2:17:55.440 I screw the whole thing. Yesterday it was this, and 2:17:55.480 --> 2:17:57.280 today it says so. Therefore, I just live in a 2:17:57.800 --> 2:18:01.120 factless world rather than just sort of embracing the prices. 2:18:01.200 --> 2:18:03.560 If somebody comes along twenty years from now and proves 2:18:03.640 --> 2:18:06.920 me wrong, then I would welcome that because that meant 2:18:06.959 --> 2:18:10.240 that somebody cared enough to go revisit those questions for 2:18:10.280 --> 2:18:13.400 the resource, the people. These people change their minds all 2:18:13.480 --> 2:18:16.720 the time. If Mike is wrong and his assertions, then 2:18:16.800 --> 2:18:22.480 he was wrong, But at least science is moving forward. Seth. 2:18:22.920 --> 2:18:24.800 That was Broidy's concluder. What do you what do you 2:18:24.840 --> 2:18:28.920 say to people that say turkeys are dumb animals? They 2:18:29.000 --> 2:18:32.280 can do some stupid things. Understand, they have a brain 2:18:32.400 --> 2:18:38.080 that's quite small in their environment. They're incredibly savvy until 2:18:38.120 --> 2:18:42.000 it's time to breed, uh, and then they can do 2:18:42.160 --> 2:18:44.800 some Tom's can do some stupid things, as we all know. 2:18:45.760 --> 2:18:48.119 But by and large, I mean, this is a bird 2:18:48.240 --> 2:18:52.720 that in its own environment is quite intelligent. In the 2:18:52.840 --> 2:18:56.280 breeding season, all bets are off. So that's kind of 2:18:56.520 --> 2:19:00.600 even though even like what you just said, that sounds 2:19:00.680 --> 2:19:04.320 like they smarten up to there the pressure during during 2:19:04.360 --> 2:19:06.560 the breeding season, during the hunting season. If they didn't, 2:19:06.560 --> 2:19:11.800 we wouldn't have many. I mean they obviously become yeah, inadaptable, 2:19:11.879 --> 2:19:19.160 absolutely absolutely all right, Doctor Michael Chamberlain. Michael Chamberlain, c 2:19:19.560 --> 2:19:22.040 H A M B E R L A I N 2:19:23.760 --> 2:19:28.040 found on Instagram a wild Turkey doc Twitter two on Facebook. 2:19:28.400 --> 2:19:30.840 Yeah on Twitter, it's the same handling. On Facebook, it's 2:19:30.879 --> 2:19:34.520 just my name. Yeah, I'm an instagram man, me too. 2:19:34.800 --> 2:19:36.760 But you know why, because people don't get all keyed 2:19:36.840 --> 2:19:40.840 up on politics Facebook. They get all riled up. They 2:19:40.879 --> 2:19:45.360 get on Facebook like and then they go over to 2:19:45.480 --> 2:19:47.760 like some hunting thing and they're pissed. Yeah, it's a 2:19:47.800 --> 2:19:52.200 different demographic Instagram. Lets that what's going on on Yeah, 2:19:52.480 --> 2:19:54.320 you catch them in a different movie. If somebody gets 2:19:54.360 --> 2:19:57.279 cranky and fussy at me and cheesay on Facebook, almost 2:19:57.320 --> 2:20:00.560 always it's never already riled up or Instagram. They were 2:20:00.600 --> 2:20:05.720 mad before they ever logged on. What's this guy turkey? 2:20:05.800 --> 2:20:08.280 He thinks he knows about turkeys. Yeah, I've been hunting 2:20:08.320 --> 2:20:11.560 turkeys my whole life. What you're saying is you know garbage. 2:20:11.680 --> 2:20:15.640 I get that. Yeah, I'm sure it's okay. Uh all right, 2:20:16.000 --> 2:20:19.400 I followed you. I had looked previously, but now I 2:20:19.480 --> 2:20:25.600 follow Awesome, Thank you, thanks you go following Instagram. Let's 2:20:25.680 --> 2:20:28.760 let's let's smoke his number up. Also, we gotta present 2:20:28.840 --> 2:20:31.560 with our T shirt. So here's our T shirt. It 2:20:31.680 --> 2:20:34.760 says it's a circle, and inside the circle is a turkey, 2:20:35.320 --> 2:20:38.360 and the circle says me eater sounds that make a 2:20:38.480 --> 2:20:42.800 turkey gobble. And then within the then the turkey is 2:20:42.879 --> 2:20:46.760 filled in with things that make a sampling. Ice cream trucks, 2:20:46.959 --> 2:20:51.039 sonic booms, cattle guards, antlers, ratlin, revving motorcycles, the calls 2:20:51.080 --> 2:20:54.520 of a loon, monastery bells. These are all user sourced. 2:20:55.040 --> 2:21:01.080 Shotgun blasts, rumble strips, loosening log nuts, artillery fire, ambulance sirens, 2:21:01.320 --> 2:21:06.160 dropping anchors, the braise of a jackass kicking rusty hunks 2:21:06.200 --> 2:21:09.560 of metal, the calls of a peacock, woodpeckers hammering on trees, 2:21:10.120 --> 2:21:14.080 squeaky door hinges, dry heaves, rocks, thrown it, stop signs, 2:21:14.160 --> 2:21:19.080 train whistles, dog whistles, elk bugles, kyle halls, helicopters, and 2:21:19.280 --> 2:21:22.440 thunder the dry we only just scratch the surface. We 2:21:22.520 --> 2:21:25.560 got a list of curl your hair. I'll wear it 2:21:25.640 --> 2:21:29.400 with I'll wear it with pride. Knowing that whoever came 2:21:29.480 --> 2:21:31.800 up with a dry heaves example, that had to be 2:21:31.879 --> 2:21:34.960 a hell of a story. Three people really wrote in 2:21:35.240 --> 2:21:39.200 about puking and getting rips from it. I'm not going 2:21:39.280 --> 2:21:43.840 to try three people I designed anyway. Yeah, we're too 2:21:43.920 --> 2:21:47.480 old for that. Well, I appreciate you can considerably man 2:21:48.000 --> 2:21:52.160 like a real part of life. Been there there, I 2:21:52.200 --> 2:21:55.959 appreciate the opportunity to be here, all right, thank you. Yep.