00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening. Don't eat podcast. You can't predict anything presented by first Light. Go farther, stay longer, All right, Becky Humphries, UM, thanks for coming on and talking to us, my pleasure. Can you can you in a in a super quick fashion or take as long as you want explain to people what the National Wild Turkey Federation is? UM? And also you know you can also throw in there how you are. Is it still fair to say new? I hope? So yeah, less than a year or so. I mean I started in April at you. Yeah, so I talked about the I talked about the n WTF people all the time. UM, and people listen to the show. I've heard about it a fair bit. But just yeah, give give what sort of like your standard breakdown? Okay? Well, the National Wild Turkey Federation was formed back in nine. It was formed to restore the wild Turkey and has grown to conserve our hunting heritage. So we are a nationwide nonprofit conservation organization with volunteers and chapters in every state. UM, and we we worked real hard on making sure there's really good active habitat management across the country, and also that we are bringing in the next generation a hunter, that we're maintaining that continuity in our hunting public and and growing the hunting sport. So for this last ten years, well the last five years, on a ten year initiative, we've been working on save the Habitat, Save the Hunt. We're we put together some pretty lofty goals of restoring and conserving four million acres a habitat, creating a million and a half hunters, and opening up a half million acres the hunting access, opening up a half million acres tony access. So there's not public access now would become public access according to the goal. Yep, that's correct. I want to get into that. UM. But first back, like, are you from Michigan. I am from Michigan, Okay, where well, I lived all over the Lower Peninsula UM, spent a lot of time in the up also, but might still have a home north the Grand Rapids. Yeah. Yeah, I was born in Moskeeton County, YEP, so it's just a little further north. I went to regular college in in in in Grand Valley, but lived in Grand Rapids for a while yeah, well it's not very far. My home is north of Lowell, Michigan, on the Flat River, and I still have a home there, and I get back there on a regular basis, and I have some of my kids that still lived there. And you were, I think in the years that I was trapesing around Michigan, you were involved in Michigan's Department of Natural Resources or the the Michigan Fishing Game equivalent, right, I was. I was. I had a thirty two year career there. I started off as a field biologist, worked my way up was Wildlife Division chief and and retired as the director of both the d n R and um d e Q, the environmental regulation as well as the Natural Resources Agency. They were coming journey. It was like, when you started out as a field biologist, what was the first thing you were doing. I was managing waterfall areas. I managed hiawassee um Maple River and grassh at Sagna in the center part of the state. So I was very much about active management on those managed wetland areas and grass at Saginaw was the headwaters um you know, to the Saginaw River and also Downlooking Glass into the Grand River and So it was um doing grouse management, timber management on those lands, writing management plans, working with private landowners, setting hunting regulations and UM. I like challenge. So I worked at a Grand Rapid size the district supervisor including Muski and County for ten years. I had no idea how what you were influencing my life? Yeah, there you go. And so I was out of Grand Rapids off and on for ten years. It kept pulling me into Lansing, trying to get me to run statewide programs. And I kept pushing back out and going out in the field because I really liked the connection with the landowners and in the sporting public out there. UM. And then what was the biggest challenge about all that? I mean about about working at the you know, the state level, because we're joking about this last night that you know, you hear some you hear somebody like ill informed criticisms all the time of of state agencies. In fact, it's like like growing up in Michigan, the only thing you would hear about then was like crazy theories and criticism. Oh yeah, when I get a NonStop right, oh yeah, the conspiracy theory. I mean we had when I started I remember hearing people swear they saw green bands unloading coyotes in southern Michigan. I mean they would swear up and down we would drive in at night and unload kaya. That's the kind of resemble and you'd be like, no, you guys, you know it's it's these animals are adaptable and they're moving back in, just like we're seeing changes and having black Bear, you know, moved down into southern Michigan and more bobcat down there. It's related to habitat change and animals are adaptable. They moved back in. But people don't want to hear it, you know, they if they haven't seen it, um, they suspect that we have helped create it. Sometimes we have. I mean the wild turkey is a great example. I worked on live trapping wild turkey. And were you dumping them out of green vans? No, we weren't jumping them out a green vance. Know, they were cardboard boxes. They had National Wild Turkey Federation on the side, and we did them. Went press, you know, we invited the press out there, and we invited the public. No. No, in fact, we tried real hard not to have it be secret. Um. So you know, but you had that, you had everything from that to over abundance issues. You know, at the time when I was Wildlife Division getting criticism about overabundance, where we had again we had deer, you know, throughout Diego County. You know, that area tremendous pine plantation, but there's not a you know, there's not anything for deer to eat, and a lot of that that red pine plantation that used to be in Oego County and a deer had to pack a lunch and bring it with them. But with real high deer numbers and with the prevalence of baiting that was going on there, people could have a little ten acre track and a red pine plantation and throughout some sugar beets and carrots and and have a reasonable chance of seeing some deer. And as we had more and more car deer accidents, it was costing insurance companies and people with insurance a lot more money. We started have disease issues with bovine tuberculosis and the deer herd um. We started to bring that population down to what we thought was sustainable on the landscape, and that was tough for folks, tough that had gotten used to really high deer numbers when uh, I don't want to I don't want to indulge it, but I just want to know. Now obviously brought it up. I'm curious about it. People like when people feel that, Okay, someone is dumping like predators out, did you ever get like, what what what the idea is that they're after? Um? Like? What the what? Like? What the perceived motivation for it was? No? UM, I think I think they just thought was government, you know, trying to mess with their life to Yeah, and inconvenience. They didn't. They clearly didn't like those predators on the landscape and they had to blame somebody for it, and not just that they would just drift in on their own. Yeah. So when you were like when you were with Michigan UM, with the Department Natural Resources of Michigan, you were probably aware of National Wild Turkey federations because you would have been through all the turkey. Oh yeah, yeah, I I mean I remember Dr James Earl Kinnemer came to Michigan to talk to us about UM bringing in wild stock from other states. We populations at that time down an elegant up in Baldwin, A few birds up in Um the Alpina area that came from Pennsylvania game farm stock, and they were they were a little focused populations. They weren't growing. We haunted them, but they you know, they weren't doing much, to be honest with you. Those are the ones that the Baldwin ones are the ones that I remember. And it was that you know, you could apply for tags. Remember one of my brother like drew one of those tags and went up with his body and they kind of messed around and never got a bird brown trou But then all of a sudden, it was just like I left the state and and moved out west. Then all of a sudden was just like someone through the light switch man and my dad was hunting turkeys a mile from our house. And that ever year, it seemed to happen just like overnight, it did. It happened very quickly. Um. We brought in birds from Iowa and UM a few other states. We released those in some areas that we thought had really good turkey habitat in it. They took off. They just went gang busters. And then we would go in and trap some of those birds after they were established and relocate them to other areas and then continue to do that across um historical turkey range in Michigan and then started opening it up to turkey hunting. And then we continue to do trap and transfer as we opened it up to hunting, to get people used to the concept that you don't you know, you can hunt, especially you can hunt in the spring where you're hunting those males and um, and still restore that population into remaining habitat simultaneous. How do you get like, when you say identified turkey habitat, how do you guys define turkey habitat? Well, you know, in the early days, I remember, UM, we thought you needed to have much more extensive blocks of wooded habitat because in Michigan, a lot of the presettlement observations, you know, when as early settlers came in and talked about the abundant turkey populations, it was in the big woods. And I think that really those observations came because in that mixed agricultural land of southern Michigan, people had hunted him out, you know, UM or poached him out or whatever was going on at the time. They weren't regulated and so because of that, people thought they probably took much more extensive wooded habitat than they than they do take. And so when we first started on it, we asked that same question to Dr James Earl Kennemer, and his comment was, you know, this looks like habitat where we find birds in the southern United States. Put them out here and try it. And we found that they were highly adaptable. But they did better in some of those areas where you had open glades and you had not real thick um young forests. They would use some of the habitat at times, but where we could open it up, and southern Michigan used to have what we call a lot of oaks savannah. It's much like pine savannah that you find in the South, where it was a low stocking of oaks and then a lot of grasses and forbes on the forest floor. Now on a lot of like early successional shrubs and heavy cover where a bird can't see but or it gets enough daylight, get a lot of insect life, You get a lot of variety in there. You get those early forbes that come up in the springtime. They love that. And so as we got birds and learn more about what they were using, we actually went into some of the game areas that were really heavily stocked forest management areas and heavily um real dense forests. So by stock I mean just a stocking of trees UM and we opened some of those up, we thinned them out. We put fire on that landscape where in the spring, usually during the beginning of the growing season, we'd run cool fires, low fires through that forest floor, so it would take out a lot of the old you know, the snags and the dead vegetation, put nutrients back in the soil, and really increase that grassy forb cover that was on the forest floor. And they loved it. I mean they just took off. Some of those areas are just prime hunting at this point. Yeah, everything loves it, right, Yeah, I mean deer did really well in it, Turkeys have done well in it. I mean it just is um and even their insects. I mean, we have um some of the corner blue and Mitchell saeder butterflies that are really heavily dependent on loop and nectar sources, and that loop and seed bank was out there. It was just being um because we were not providing enough daylight and running fire through the system. We really had not re established what had been native vegetation there, So it's kind of what's good for the bird scenario. Yeah, and to me, there's no more beautiful landscape out there than those savannahs. You know, I love like big cottonwood savannas and uh you have those big oak savannahs where you can see away and see him. It's going to say, that's a nice part of it. You can really get some visibility, you can see, they're they're very aesthetic and we've lost a lot of those. So it's been nice that not only in Michigan, but you know throughout the South we're restoring a lot of the pine savannah's down there and getting those historical long leaf you know, um savannah's out on the landscape and running fire through them and they're very um, they're very special places. Yeah, you might be familiar with the Crotan in North Carolina. My in laws living not far from there, so we go when we're there, we go for walks and borgeous area, just gorgeous. Do you understand the history, I'm sure you do of how early on when people are trying to re establish turkeys they would use domestic birds, not domestic birds but they'd use like, uh, you know, wild birds raised in captivity, but it wouldn't it wasn't very effective. No, you breed you know, it doesn't take very long in a breeding program that you breed out a lot of the characteristics that make wild birds successful um meaning paranoia, paranoia and flightiness and the pens birds that that tend to do well and activity, um and and have the genetic makeup there calm and behavior and the rest of it, they just don't do that well in the wild. I mean there what would be the things that would happen when you cut them loose? They just wouldn't reproduce the population. They you'd have young, but you just didn't get above that critical threshold where the population was filling the capacity of the landscape. So they you know, they'd be there and you'd have them, but they just didn't ever get the kind of brood size you wanted. They didn't know the survival and they didn't ever expand their range. So initially they yeah, I guess I wouldn't call it lazy. They just were not competitive against other species that were out there, um And so as a result of that, they got picked off by a number of predators. They just didn't have the survival capability bread in them to really do really well. So what like, how did the breakthrough play out where people realize if you go and just capture wild birds and then very quickly move them to a location, that those birds do good. Well, there's a there was technology that made that available and the pure wild birds. If you try and live trap birds wild birds using a drop net or some of the other early methods of trapping, you're unsuccessful. I mean, your ability to catch those birds as they are so weary trying to walk, have them walk under a net is impossible. You know, it's just really really Oh yeah, yeah, there's just like no way. And so they recognize. So as we we got to the point where we started using some rocket net techniques early on to capture um. Actually they were first developed to do some of the waterfall trapping, and when we brought that on land, concealed the net, used rocket nets propellants to shoot a net over top of those birds. That's when we were able to start going and really capturing some of those pure wild stock that we're still found in remnant populations throughout this southeastern and central part of the United States, and so that technology allowed us then to go in and capture those birds and begin that relocation program. Before that, I mean, you couldn't get enough birds captured to really jump start those populations and then move them around. So that's what really kicked it in the high gear bringing the turkey back, that's right. And so, and we had to train all of our folks, you know, on how to use those explosive devices. We had to get you know, certified, we had to have placards. In the early days, we were doing it all, you know, unregulated. There really weren't regulations again for wildlife biologists use explosives and the rest of it, um, like anything in society. After you do it for a while, we have more and more regulations. So now how we store those explosives, how we carry them on placard vehicles, getting people certified, all the rest of it as part of the daily life of a wildlife biologists, those kind of the wild West. At first, that's well, yeah, it wasn't it for the good old days. The good old days, I mean it wasn't. Um, you're pretty careful with it. I mean, when you're dealing with explosives like that. Um, you've got to be pretty careful, and you want to work with people that were also careful so that as you're setting up those nets, that you're not inadvertently in front of that net, because you those nets have weights on the front of them, and that's what they shoot, that weight out and you can, I mean, you can hurt somebody pretty badly or kill them if they're out front of it. And you don't want to be around anybody had an itchy trigger finger, because you get a few birds in under the net, you're waiting for the rest of the flock to come in. If you set it off too soon or too late, you're going to have an empty net or one or two birds underneath of it. So is they're like pretty high mortality on the birds and you're shooting the rocket nets. Um. Not if you do it right. I mean occasionally you'll have some mortality, um. But but typically it's when a bird picks up and tries to fly and it get in the net the front of it, the weight catches it. But most of the time, if you if you can time it right and those birds are in there and you've baited long enough, I mean, typically we do the trapping in the winter months, when those birds are pretty stressed, we put out bait. We get them to the point where they're comfortable coming in debate and they start to relax a little bit, and then go ahead and trap them. But if you get itchy or you know, a little trigger itchy or a little um hurried in the whole proposition, you're most likely going to be unsuccessful or not as successful as you would have liked. So when they when you fire that thing, what's a good catch? Like? How? What like? What's it like? It depends on how many birds do you have in there? UM, You know there there are times that you might just get four or five birds. There are other times you might get um, fifteen, sixteen birds in there. UM. Rarely do you get more than two dozen birds in there, but you know a dozen or or less UM is more typical. And so it's about where those birds are they typically UM And depends on parts of the country too. In some areas birds really flock up bigger, bigger groups. In other places you don't get big fly in the winter months. Really, when you you can like tailor this to two experiences you had in Michigan or wherever else. That makes sense that you kind of know the timeline. But if you go into an area that has no turkey. So so when when the Nationale Turkey Federation was involved in in UM in bringing birds into new locations where there were no turkeys on the ground at all, and you bring in a population and establish a population, what's the timeline before you can start tapping that population to expand in other directions. We usually by the second year we were in there, we're trapping a few birds out of it, and some of those areas depending on how UM in the early years, I'm trying to remember how many years it was before we opened up hunting, but really it was within the first five years UM that you could be hunting within five years, Yeah, it was pretty amazing, but we had pretty extensive trapping going on to relocate, trying and fill all the available habitat. We continue to bring in some additional birds from out of state, so we were doing pretty extensive management with that, and right alongside it at that time, UM, we grew the sport of turkey hunting too. I mean there were always a few folks that went because we had turkeys to Michigan. They would go hunting, but we didn't have anywhere near the number of turkey hunters at that point in time as we do today. It's the turkey hunting is one of the entry points for hunters um in many parts of the country, including Michigan, deer in Turkey, or the two entry points where it used to be small game. You know, through the forties, fifties, and sixties, it was usually pheasant hunting, squirrel and rabbit. Now it's moved over to deer in Turkey or the points of entry. Yeah, I feel like I feel like the Turkey even though it's a spring activity, I feel like it's siphoned off a lot of small game interests somehow, like traditional small game, you know. I mean like I feel like, like growing up pretty Turkey, there's so much like squirrel and rabbit hunting. But then the deer hunting just got better and better and better better, and so all these like big things like turkeys around everywhere. Deer hunting got really good. I think I think it was also the demographic changes and the you know, we're now three generations off the farm or ranch, and I think people that lived on the farm did small game hunting on a more regular activity. They go out back to the woodlot and kill a few squirrel and and have use it for food. They go rabbit hunting through the winter months and use it for food. And now people have to make it. Most people do not live on the land where they hunt, and so you have to be pretty directed and also with their time involved with it. They tend to go out for the big seasons and shorter windows of time and with it, I think there has been a decline in small game hunting, which is too bad because I think it still is a wonderful way. I think turkey hunting is a wonderful way to start hunting, but I also think small game hunting is awesome way to start. Yeah, I found that turkey hunting is a great way to introduce people. Oh yeah, it's because it's just like fun. Well it's fun and you can you know, you can sit right behind him or right near them. Um, it's it doesn't require them trying to wing shoot a bird, you know, while they're walking through cover and the rest of it. So trying to get that coordination together and some of the skill sets as early shooters do is nice for it. Um, there's an anticipation, which I think is absolutely awesome. I mean, we've all we've all been there where you're calling a bird and you can hear it coming in, and you're waiting and waiting, and by the time that bird comes in, your heart's pounding between your ears and you're so excited, you know, to have it come in. And I think that hooks people. Yeah, being out, it's all warm, it's one. Yeah, that's not the fun part of it. But I got two questions. One I just want to lay out because I don't want to forget it, and the other one was gonna take a little of time. But so I'm saying both knocks and before I'm gonna forget it, I'll remember that one. Um. Someone once told me, I want to check if you if this is true to your to your understanding. Someone once told me that they're talking about just like the attrition of turkeys, right, and they're saying that that if a turkey lays eggs on the ground, right, the eggs bill the eggs that hit the ground roughly seventy percent never hatch of the eggs that hit the ground. Are they talking about all their predation and everything, predation and everything else and they're kind of like and then they extended out and they said, of the ones that hatch, this is a Turkey biologist told me this, of the ones that hatch, about seventy s won't make it to their first year. Well, that second figure is definitely true. The first figure. You know, we do have a lot of nest mortality and the rest of it, and you have young birds that are they're not putting their nests, and then the best locations sometimes and your marginal habitat. I'd have to look at the overall figures. That's probably a little high, but not too far off. But they'll drop multiple rounds of eggs though if they will, if they're unsuccessful, they'll go back in and renst And so here's no question get on the more of the sort of sort of the work to found dation does. But but when you if you that female only lays one egg a day, correct, so she goes does she need to does she need to breed for every egg? No, she can hold she can hold some of that breeding in. Okay, so she can be inseminated by one male, but then lay a dozen eggs twelve days in a row. That's right, But she's gonna probably breed within that time period of I see, okay, so she'll can like she'll continue to go out and court a male, but then keep laying these eggs and then if this is I think this is right, she'll get the whole nest down and she doesn't incubate until all the eggs are down because she wants to synchronize when they have and those eggs remain viable, just like they do for chickens anybody that raises chickens and stuff. The first egg that hits the ground is sitting there potentially ten eleven days. That's right before she starts, and it can be dropping down below freezing at night. Yeah, I mean she'll but still it remains viable most of the times at that point it's not below freezing, and those eggs are covered and they usually have insulation underneath them. Um, but they are vulnerable because she's out there doing breeding and feeding and all the rest of it. She's not on that nest really incubating those eggs, so there's higher risk. That's why you're seeing that loss. At one time was calling a turkey and had a black bear sneak up right behind me to why I could hear exhale, and I'm convinced that that bear hunts bird nests could have Yeah, like everything has to eat the eggs, they're tasty, everything from snakes on. Uh. Yeah, it's it's not a kind life, is not a kind life. I'm having a hard time kind of reading Becky's demeanor right now, like when she's when you brought up the black bear, kind of kind of changed a little bit, like weird animals show up when you're calling turkeys. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I've called him bears, bobcats, and coyotes. Yeah. This past season, I was out with my grandson and we called into coyotes and I thought he was going to he was just so excited. I could see him just kind of start to quiver, you know, because those those coyotes snuck up on the decoy and we're sure that it was a turkey, and one of them pounced right by it, and then you could see the reaction like, oh, my goodness, isn't that really a turkey? And the coyote jumped up and then went down and then kicked up this young buck that was bedded down further, and it was just one of these you know, it was just kind of a mess. It was a circus out there, and I started laughing because it was you know, you couldn't help but laugh at all this activity going on with these animals that were just being spooked and and um and tricked, I guess the best way to describe it. So it's fun though, But when you I did change my behavior when you said you could feel the bare exhale, that's when I was like, okay, I've been there where you have an animal like right behind you, like if you turn around, you could practically hit it. And it's like, you know, sometimes it's amazing to me when you're out hunting, how something's just crashed through the woods and then they vanish. You know, we always had property in northern Michigan, and elk were one of those species where there were times when it sounded like a flight freight train coming through the woods and then the next thing you know that animals gone and you never heard it go. You didn't see it go, and it's like, oh my good, did they turn it on? And yeah, well they want to go. They can make more noise than you'd ever be able to make, and then they can be quieter than that's right, that's right. When you can check my facts on this too, But I think this is correct that it's time of European contact. There were turkeys and maybe thirty nine states, it's about right, and that shrunk like a lot of states lost them out right, they did so when when groups so so state agencies just focused on their own state. But eventually the National wal Turkey Federation, National Turkey Foundation comes in and they're gonna kind of oversee and implement these reintroduction efforts. Yeah, we coordinated it, and it is federation, not foundation, so that's all right. So and that's why we have these chapters in all the states. But we really coordinated that the states were one they needed. Um. We stepped in and helped broker deals so that states would would give up their birds to start populations and other states. And then it came with the expectation. For instance, in Michigan, we took birds from Missouri and Iowa and other states and then when we restored our populations, we live trapped birds and moved them to other states. So we helped broker those deals. And under the Lacy Act, you cannot um, you can not pay money for wildlife, for live wildlife between the states, so all kinds of deals were brokeren. Was that why it's done like that? Why the barter of barter system came about. Yeah, we we wanted to stay within the federal law system and yet provide that equity so that states could help barter various wildlife species. So I mean in my tenure, we we wound up trading otters, we wound up trading elk at times, um rough grouse that we trapped for some of the other states, turkeys, pheasants we had such one pheasants we brought over from China. We trapped those. So the Turkey Federation helped also become the bartering agent between the states where we would help allow that that trade system to go on and make sure that we stay sting at themselves in trouble with federal law. In terms, can you explain that comes up a lot when it comes to wildlife because it winds up being the tool you often use to really go after hardcore poets and wildlife traffickers. The Lacey Act was really the act that was put in place that shut down market hunting up until that time. States wound up passing individual state laws that precluded market hunting. But what would happen is they would move that product right across the state lines and then they'd um, they'd sneak it out, and then because of that, they couldn't catch them in another state. So, for instance, to use Michigan again as an example, UM at one time that you know, they'd take um saddles of venison during the lumbering era. They'd go out and they shoot deer and and take those saddles of venison down the saddle and they'd and they'd move it across and take it down to Chicago to feed people in the restaurants down there. And it would you know, they might be taking more than the limit, they might be taking them out of season. Whatever the market hunters were doing that particular area. Maybe it was just they were it was closed all together. They would ship them out and once they got across that state line, there's nothing that could be done about it. So the Lacey Act was a federal a that made it illegal to move that if it was against the law in that state, and made it illegal if you moved across state lines also, so it really interconnected the state authorities through federal authorities, federal enforcement. But it's funny when like the motivation of that right is to curtail the eradication of American wildlife, but then to later have it be a hindrance to wildlife recovery by prohibiting someone from buying turkeys from someone who had more than they needed. Well, you know, it really goes to the North American model wildlife conservation. Um. In our country, wildlife belonged to the people. So um, it's about a premise that those those species are not private commodity that you can move and breed. Now we have some private wildlife and some of some of its native wildlife, but it's still pretty contentious. It's about keeping that pure wild stock so that it belongs to the people and it's treated as belonging to the people, and that we are not putting a praise on it and selling it between states or then could move into private ownership, that it stays a wildlife resource. So that's why the Bowder system was put in place. And like I say, you know, it's about playing by the rules. Also, Yeah, and it's not like I'm sure that anyone who ever wanted to get turkeys probably found a way to get turkeys. They probably did. I mean, that was one of our biggest problems when we were restoring the wild turkey in Michigan. Is um people want to even sporting clubs really want to jump on the bandwagon and help out. And they go out and buy, you know, broad bronze, broad breasted turkeys that looked much like the eastern wild turkey. They'd raise them and they put them out there, and they'd be like, no, no, no, no, We're going to all this effort to bring in wild stock. We want great genetic variability with these animals. We want animals are truly wild. Do not to loose the jenet pool by throwing out domesticated birds that look like wild birds that will interbreed with wild birds, and it's gonna it's gonna reduce the genet viability of that wild stock out there. I gotta ask you way far afield question you don't need to answer. Maybe you can tell me how I find the answer. Since you now have state and asked it's not I'll ask so, since you now have deer like white tailed deer that are privately owned, how was the initial moment of someone taking possession of one of those deer. However it began, how is the initial moment of that legal? Some states actually sold dear to private individuals. So that's how some of that because I was look back like to the day one Eden moment, someone had to have taken a wild deer and made it, but there used to be a mechanism in place for that to happen. Yeah, and and um my state, unfortunately, Michigan was one of those states that did that. We used to individuals that want to defense our property to have a captive herd, which was still legal in Michigan. We would require them to try and drive those deer off the property, but if they were unsuccessful and they still had deer on the property, we would have them write a check for those remaining deer that they were fencing it. And the intent was we didn't want we didn't want them fencing the state's deer with no um, no restitution to the hunters of the state, of the public of the state for those animals. So I mean it was the best of intentions, but it essentially took pure wild stock and made it under private ownership. And I mean the captive industry has grown considerably and um, they're considered livestock under federal authority and many state authorities. Now, uh, do you remember what a deer was worse? I don't. I I do know, Um, after we had done it for a while. They're about thousand dollars apiece. But you know, we tried to make it comparable to what um restitution would be for somebody took a deer out of state or out of season. Now back up to the like the gradual recovery of the bird once it got to be that like for instance, now earlier I said, like, so you agree that it sounds a reasonable number that there are wild turkeys, maybe about thirty nine states. Um. The ones that didn't would be like the sort of the north the states in the northwest quadrant of the country, primarily in the western part of the United States, but the Southwest had birds, they had some birds. Um. Really the holdout for a lot of the populations, though we're in really remote areas. So in the eastern United States you wound up having places, um, you know, in Tennessee, Kentucky and some of those really you know on Appellachians, some of those hilly areas, um, where you had some really good remnant populations where those birds held out and those really became um the breeding stock that moved out in for Eastern the Eastern birds throughout the same thing is true if some of the western populations and some of those really remote areas you wound up having birds where you had pretty isolated populations because there was vast areas of um, not good habitat and and really just no birds. UM, So they kept pretty isolated. So what was like, like, how did the thinking go to be that that reintroduction of turkeys would would would phase into introduction the turkeys would be brought into states where they had not historically historically had no turkeys. So Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, all these places now have like thriving turkey populations. That that one that had to have been a very different conversation. Um it was and what then what rein production was? Yeah, but don't forget along with this. There was quite a bit of research done to look at what had happened just just because we didn't see it in early documentation. If you look back through in some of the Aboriginal populations, the native populations that were there, we found turkeys in many areas that folks didn't didn't find it when European settlers were here, But they were there prior to that, whether you know, whether they were extirpated for um, because of humans or whether it was habitat change or whatever it was, there were birds and most of those areas at one time. Okay, So so there's like like faunel remains in middens and whatever archaeological sites are just in general that didn't match up necessarily to where people documented seeing that birds. That's right. Ask just what is um the ability for a wild you know, a wild turkey to travel and establish a new group. Well, I mean it depends on the habitat, To be honest with you, it varies greatly, um so bird in terms of birds movements and all the rest of it. You know, it might just be um depending on how much that flock is expanding. If it's an expansion for relocation, those birds might just move a few miles. In other areas they might move, um, you know, eight or ten miles. And do they disperse because of pecking order situation or primarily breeding habitat, nesting habitat of those hens um To really get really good nesting habitat and having nesting territory and a breeding territory there just about all your wildlife will will set up some territories and that really goes to expansion. And a lot of times it's the younger hens that put their territory immediately adjoining where there their hen, their mom's territory was. And you see the same thing with deer. So with that you see this expansion that goes out. Um with the female part of the population expanding out through that breeding, the males will travel further because they want to breed where there are females and they're much more mobile. What's the furnest you've ever seen a female and or a male turkey travel from from from where? You know? What's like home range was? Well, you know, at the time we are doing a lot of trap and transfer. We were not doing a lot of transmitter work. Um, it just was not one of those studies that we we were investing our time and efforts and trying and re establish and get those populations. So I can't give you good information like I can some of the other species on the maximum amount of travel. Now we have colored birds down on our facility down in Edgefield, South Carolina or headquarters facility, and we've done movement patterns and we know daily travels or you know, um several miles as far as how those birds move. We've actually put transmitters and birds and we've it transmitters on hunters and then we've watched those the dance as we call it, and it's it's pretty amazing. You know, where hunters will go into a piece of property and they either don't think there are turkeys there or they don't see turkeys, and there's actually pretty good turkey populations and those those birds are masters and avoiding human detection. And you can you can see it in real time with as the hunter comes in and most hunters um hunt fairly close to the roads. That's the other part of it is a is you get a chance to look at transmitter activity of hunters. You realize that sometimes some of us were that get back in are the anomaly. A lot of folks are within a couple hundred yards of a roadway and they never get back in very far. And those birds just moved back into more remote areas and they dance as the hunter moves in the bird moves for their back in and as they come back out, it comes back out. Avoidance technique that is so person knowing it's going. That's right. They might hear a bird and stuff, but they don't see a bird. Yeah, have you identified any other tactics that they use, is like sort to avoid that you're you know, create that space other than just sort of being helped us kill them. Becky, I think we've all seen this. I mean, birds will go quiet if there's a lot of activity. I mean, we've all been there in the towards the end of the season where birds um are getting pushed pretty hard in areas and um, they just aren't calling. They'll come in. You might get a gobble off the roost. You might you know, if if a bird gets kicked up, you might have um, you know, a hand that pulls back in. Um. After they've nested, you'll hear some activity, but they'll go silent on you. And there are times when you wonder if they're really turkeys in the woods. And then the next thing you know, you you know, you kick up a bird when you're walking back out to the vehicle and it's like, oh my god. You know, I sat there all morning and Um, I just wasn't able to pull anything in. If they're moving around, I didn't see it. So there. I mean that they have incredible vision and they detect us and they know what's going on. They live in that territory and they know what's what's happening. I feel that people give them a lot of credit. Uh kind of like too much credit. Not enough credit for just how paranoid they are, but too much credit for that. They sort of build up a database of like experiences that they're drawing on. Oh, I think that's true. I think um birds have UM, well, their feathered reptiles, you know, they're they're not um highly advanced. UM So I agree with you. There's not the reasoning, but they have really strong instincts and you can see it in some of their behavior and um you know it's when they key on on a on a bird that's fanning. You know, when a male displaying and another male comes in, it's an emotional response, UM that that bird is really keyed in on, and even if there's danger in that area, they're going to key in on that. And the same is true of other instincts that they as animals have. Those birds have so I agree. It's not a reasoning process, it's it's instinctual. Yeah. And the ones that are uh, most wary are the ones that as they get older, there's like fewer and fewer, and you're dealing with You're like trying to call in the one is presumably like the least gullible or the most wary, because the ones that didn't have that, that that constant sense of you know, impending doom, they get killed off. That's true. You don't agree with that, No, I agree, I agree, I think, And you'll see that both throughout the season. But you'll also see it in terms of populations, hounted populations versus non hunted populations, in terms of weariness. What what happens? Um like, like, how do you view view it? Sort of culturally when you wind up with these like problem Turkey Pope relations in in in in suburban and urban areas, do you do do you guys look at that, Do you guys look at that as being like something that you need to be involved in or does that wind up being just like a municipal issue, it usually belongs to the state and the municipality um to deal with. You wind up having um, Turkey Federation doesn't step in and try and help some of those problems situations. We really do not have the authority to handle live birds that belongs to the state agency. So we'll we'll assist where we can. But when you get into nuisance situations, you usually have human behaviors going on there that are prompting it. One, you might have domestic birds that are out running around and people think they're wild birds and they're not. They're well, that happens, Oh, that happens. Yeah, you'll have that. Um. The other thing is you might have birds that just get very hubituated. People wind up having um, you know, food out at their bird feeders, and they wind up living in a subdivision feeding off that or even a more urban environment. They get territorial at certain times and cause problems with it. Um. They'll roost over people's vehicles. I mean there it's a situation usually of over abundance of those problem birds and in areas where they're not hunting, so you're not like you're not actively out there trying to sort of um, sort of help smooth those relationships or kind of mitigate that. It's not something that we typically do in the National Wild Turkey Federation. Now we it seems like you hear more and more stories about places like that. Yeah. Well, I think with social media we see some of those more frequently because they get picked up, they've been there. Um And whenever the public's attention is on wild turkeys, then you'll tend to hear more of those stories where there are problems with it. Also got fun example, my buddy Zack, another Michigander. UM, he's on the list for depredation tags in Idaho and got a call just three weeks ago, Um, go up to Challis, Idaho, which that unit is actually a draw unit if you want to hunt turkeys and uh for a turkey and the depredation turkey hun depredation turkey hunt and um, I can't remember who what the title of is of the person that called him. UM, but I want to be real clear with you. You're gonna show up to this lady's house and you're gonna be shooting a turkey underneath her swings. It was legit wild turkey though he's just like taking up like took up residents in her yard. Yes, is it a fall hunt there? I don't even know if Idaho has a fall Yes, Idaho does have fall hunts. This was a basically like a nuisance birth. Yeah, okay, so yes, and every state treats it a little differently. UM. Up in you know, my home state, we had a fall hunt. In areas where we had some of those deprivation deprevation problems or over abundance issues, we would have a fall hunt. You can take either sex UM. The spring hunt was mail only and it was a limited entry system, so you can talk Can you talk about what is the UM because growing up in Montana you could you could kill hands in the fall with rifles. Yes, Now, how does that affect your population? Well, usually it's done to reduce the population. So your fall hunts are put in places they're usually just in areas where you want to maintain a population level that you think is a growing population. You want to contain that population, so you put in an either sex hunt and UM to do just that. So it just usually falls in geographic areas where you tend to have increasing populations, where you really don't feel like you have any more room or social tolerance to increase the population even higher. So that's a lowering device. Because spring hunts for males only probably doesn't have any real I mean, you're kind of mechanically removing some birds, but it probably doesn't have a real sale impact. That's why we could have hunting seasons, spring hunting seasons as we are trapping and moving birds and and growing that population, because all those females are still gonna live, and they're still gonna get fertilized, and that's right, they're gonna get bread. And that's usually not the limitation. I'd like to talk about the the big six habitats. So this is something that yeah, you do a better job explained, You do a better job explained. But this is a creation. This is the n w t F notion right, and it is it is. Although it was done in concert with our partners and state and federal agency partners UM. We we realized we really in order to be effective on the landscape, we needed to really focus are our habitat work and our conservation work on those habitats that were going to make the biggest difference to the wild turkey across the country. So we sat down with our state and federal agency partners and we mapped out where we thought those most important habitats were in each of the states, and then we we built those into focal landscapes and we combined them under America's Big Six. And America's Big Six is really just a combination of those focal landscapes over six broad areas of the country where we thought they had commonality, commonality and and some of the issues that we're facing those landscapes. Um it might be it might be a lack of forest management. It might be riperian zones where you have invasive species salt seat there they're moving in in the southwestern United States. It might be a lack of early successional habitat up in the northeastern part of the country. But we grouped those as America's Big Six, which I feel like it's confusing because people know the African Big Five. That's true, that's true, although quite off we're not dealing with the same hunter out there. But we did name it America's Big Six. But because we really wanted to try and tie people to that landscape and some of the issues that we were seeing on that landscape, so that as we bring in our donors and our members to raise money around helping us fond really good restoration and active management landscape. They would know why we were doing it. So for instance, UM, can you walk us through the six I can we have? We have America's Colonial Forest that is up in the northeastern United States, UM in the Great Lakes region and upper Midwest. We have UM America's Crossroads. We have America's Mid South Rebirth, which are really down in Appalachia and kind of the that oak that Southern Appalachian oak habitat that gets into it. We have UM Americans piney Woods, Southern piney Woods, which really goes on the historic long leaf that went along the coastal zones and all the rest of it. UM how many is that? For? UM? We have America's Bigger Great Open Spaces. We played with these names so much for great open Spaces that goes to the big the bread basket the United States. And then America's Western frontier, so we that really is a large one that will probably break down. It's over much of the western United States. But UM, so those were the focal landscapes, and we try to tie in some of the UM cultural parts of those parts of the country also into the name, so that that people really resonated so when you talk about America's colonial forests, they really think about that forest land that was found up in the upper New England States. It was there during colonial times. You know, we have at one time we support a huge um lumber era up in the in that area, and we went through having tremendous pulp mills and lumbering that took place in real active forest management. We've lost a lot of that in that part of the country these days, so lost to what um it's well, we've lost it in the fact that we don't have the mills up there to cut the timber anymore. So we don't have as much open management UM or an active management and really are our real critical feature young forest. A lot of that area were used to have tremendous gross and woodcock populations has really declined and it and it hurts areas where turkeys would go into those early successional areas. You know, those are great areas for broodcover to go in and feed and we just don't have much of that right now. So in a case like that, I think that's hard for people to to understand. People who look at this whole thing from the outside would be the idea that that forest management or you know which and sometimes serves as a euphemism for logging. The logging was in those areas beneficial to wildlife. It was, I mean, it created tremendous early successional habitat across a lot of that area, and a lot of the species that we like to hunt live in those earliest successional forests, those young forest um and we're just really create recreating through logging what had occurred through natural You know, you had wind throw in the Great Lakes. We have wind shear and wind throw that comes in and where the wind races across the Great Lakes, and you can actually see it on satellite imagery where it will blow down big swaths of timber up in the Upper Peninsula, in the northern part of Lower Peninsula along the shoreline. Well, that wind throw, you know, exposes root mass and all the rest of it. And you have and where you have aspen or other species, that's where you'll get sunlight coming into the forest floor, you'll disruption of that soil type and that will create that young forest coming back in. And then you also had the issue that we've largely kind of gotten rid of in a lot of parts of the countries. You had wildfire. That's right, you had wildfire that moved in and and would um, you know, it would it would kill off trees. It wasn't they weren't cool um fires that ran to just a forest floor. They would actually top out, crown out, and those fires would race across parts of the state. Um. And so with that you wind up having that forest set back and start as a young forest again and grow up older and older and older until you had another disturbance in place. So to give you a mixed habitat. Yeah, and you'd find that, I mean, we'd also see it with beaver ponds along river systems where they would you know, they'll go in and and cut down aspen um damn the stream kill off that timber maybe back through an upper valley area from that damned water, and then is that damn winds up blowing out. You know, then you're going to have that dead timber that has a lot of forests a lot of light down to what becomes the forest floor. Again, it'll create a new young forest there. So let's say you take the colonial forests there and you look at a system that that that once existed of yet presuming like a wildfire system and other things that would allow you to have like a mixed habitat. And then logging. Um, you know we we we began like fire suppression for human safety reasons or whatever, but logging still drove that. Now you can't be proposing like I don't imagine the solution is that we would somehow get the logging industry back up and running like like how like what would be a plausible solution. Well, in some of those areas, um, we still do have remnant populations of of a logging industry in those areas, um, but they're not as it's not as easy to get the timber cut as it once was. We are actually the Turkey Federation is actually the largest partner of the U. S. Forest Service to come in and do stewardship contracting, which is a tool where we can come in. We can actually buy out a timber sale that they can't seem to market or sell otherwise, use the proceeds of that sale then to resolve whatever issue needs to be done on the land for the Forest Service. So for instance, maybe there's an invasive species there, We'll cut the timber that needs to be cut as far as the forest management plan, and the Forest Service still does all the forest planning, all the NIPA, the environmental compliance review. Then we'll come in and we'll cut that, do that forest treatment as far as the cutting, will apply the proceeds to remove the invasive species, um close off the road, see them down, make them walking trails so that people can access it, but not have it be all torn up that causes soil erosion, and then move into another forest stewardship contractual arrangement. And because of that, I mean, Turkey Federation is a pretty big nonprofit. But to give you an idea, we do so much work. We're usually when the top ten timber buyers in the country for the US force there. Yeah, so I'll tell you how much we really do across the landscape with that, and then we partner with a lot of state agencies also to make sure that we have help them get really good active forest management as well as other habitat management on the landscape that they need to get done. So over years, the model of conservation work being done strictly by agencies has broadened out, and we've been able to bring in hunters and through their membership dollars and their fundraising efforts and donor dollars. We can use that money and make agency money go much further in order to get some of that habitat management on the ground. Walk us through another one of the six habitat types. So like like a challenge and solution situation another one. Well, I'll do to um. You know I talked about UM the Midwest. We're seeing tremendous um stress on oak. I mean we've we've had a lot of mass producing trees, and we know, mass producing trees our prime wildlife food. I mean eggcorns or hickory nuts or chestnuts. When we had those, you know, they provide a lot of food energy to a wealth of wildlife species out there. And we lost our chestnuts UM, and we have lost to disease. And now we're seeing some real problems with oak UM with oak wilt disease and a number of other diseases, and also our oak populations UM. Because of the way we cleared our forest during the logging era and then the the hardwood regeneration came up, we are not seeing the kind of oak regeneration that we had seen fifty years ago. So our our forests are converting over to you know, um more beech, maple and some other forest types that are more mature, but not as a and as far as mass crop. So in those areas we are going in and working with um land managers to make sure that we have really good regeneration of some of those mass crop species that are so important to the midwestern part of the country. Another area would be down in Oklahoma and parts of Texas where we have river systems, riverine systems where salt cedar has moved in and grown up along those river corridors. It sucks up the moisture, it draws down the water table, but it you know, it's really really thick, it's not used by a lot of native wildlife, and it really changes the hydrology of that system. So in those situations, we're going in and manually and and using mechanical equipment removing that salt cedar, getting it cleared out of there so that we can get cotton woods and some of the trees that are much more well, they're native to that area, but they don't have the negative impacts on hydrology, and they're really also important for roost trees for wild turkeys, and those have a tat types. But I'm sure you can always go and tie all those turkeys, but it winds up going way beyond turkeys, way beyond, way beyond. It's a whole system out there, and and we we try and focus on the habitats that we think are the most important for turkeys. But it has huge benefits when you look at some of the other species. So in the East United States, the golden wing warbler as a species that is uses those young forests. As we do a lot of work on young forests to benefit turkeys, the golden wing warbler has been the real recipient of a lot of that benefit. Um in the southern piney woods, you know, the gopher, tortoise and indigo snakes and and you know the woodpeckers that thrive in those environments are other beneficiaries that might be there. In the Midwest, you might have deer populations that are really beneficial and bear populations on those masterrees where they use it as a tremendous food source and really thrive in those types of environments. So you know it does it benefits a lot more in the wild turkey. So how do you how do you want of explaining that to people, because I think they look at the name of the organization, they look at the work, right, and I think they probably not really understand sort of the broader magnitude of the kind of habitat work you're engaged in. Well. I think it's a constant um challenge for us to make sure people realize how much great work we really do and all the benefits of it. We came together and formed over the restoration of the wild turkey, but today it's about save the habitat, save the hunt, and it's about making sure that we're not only conserving the wild turkey and the host of other species that live in those those habitat types, but also that we're passing on the hunting heritage to the next generation so that we have folks that go out and use and recreate and enjoy, but also value that resource and really know it and understand it takes change in these habitat systems. You can't let them just grow up continuously and get overaged. That that change is good and that we need to actively manage those to have a good habitat for people and good habitat for wildlife. When we were emailed with some of your team. A figure that came o way was that that in this country, we're losing about six thousand acres of habitat a day to what to any number of things. It can be. Um, it can be to urban sprawl and suburban sprawl. It could be to golf courses. UM. In some cases, it can be to to industrialized farming, you know where we're clearing out farm fence rows. The agricultural community is usually a great partner with us, but agriculture today is far more intensive, um and extensive in some parts of the country than it once was. UM. So it's a whole range of things we and all I gotta do is go to space and look at pictures at night time to see how it has changed across this country. And I think that probably is is one of the most visual ways to really think about how much more landscape that we as people are tying up, you know in in um parking lots and strip malls and um, the things that we use every day. Yeah, I understand, like economic growth, and I understand all that. I thought when I do when I see someone making a parking lot, I offered to think like that'll that will never again be habitat. That's tough. It really is tough. I mean, it's a painful world to live in. Well it is. I mean, I'm Michigan. I've had that house now for twenty five years. And you you'll drive by someplace. I'll hear my daughter say, that's where I shot my first pheasant. And you know, it was heartbreaking to her when she saw the house that was built there. Now there's a subdivision there, and it's like, oh my goodness, you know, and and um, she's in her mid twenties now, but it's pretty quickly that it's happening. It's just tremendous growth that we're gobbling up landscape. And I think that's why we need to get people to recognize that we can still have really good habitat and good wildlife populations for a lot of species in those those suburban environments. It's about recognizing that we have to have working landscapes. Though define that I've for me personally, I view it as a working landscape is one where we we make room for wildlife within the area that's there. So in other words, we think about ways that we treat our watersheds and a lot of our urban environments we've put hardscaping in along riversides, you know, where we have retained cement, retaining walls. We don't have the saut shorelines where we um. A lot of our sewer systems in Michigan are underground pipe and drain system systems as opposed to putting it up on the surface and and having it filtrated through and using it as an actual wetland with um surrounding areas for grassy cover and trees. And so it's about thinking about ways that we that we can incorporate natural features into our landscape to still clean our waste water, to filtrate that water, to handle our waste, and to make sure that as we put in parking lots and facilities that were not unnecessarily um limiting all the cover around it. The turkey wise up being a good emblem for that. I feel like because the birds do so well along sort of the human wild interface. They do I mean in some areas they really do really well. And the other part of it is it is a it's a bird that people can get out and hunt in some of those suburban urban um wild interfaces UM and and that is remarkable that you can go out there and have a tremendous hunt, you know, right with people's homes that very far away. If we haven't I know how to put it figure to it. But when the National Wallle Turkey Federation was founded, is maybe a million and a half turkeys? Yeah, what we're early figures one million, one three millions, somewhere around seven million. Now, yeah, do you feel that we're like, do you feel that we could have a false sense of security about the well being of the bird right now? Oh? I think so. You know, we've had a lot of talks about that within the National Wild Turkey Federation. In fact, the organization went through some periods where when we fulfilled our last trap in transfer. I mean, we still do some work with some states in terms of restoring populations and do some trapping, but the question was what comes next? And um then we started to see some decline in bird numbers and some parts of the country, and we we invested in research to better understand that, and then we started looking at some of the habitat changes that were going on and recognized now, because we restored the birds, we can't just rest on our laurels. We need to make sure that we maintain in those really good habitats that we can out on the landscape and make sure it's there so that we have birds known in the future. Yeah, So you don't let taking for grantedy, that's right, we can't. We absolutely have to make sure that we have great habitat when you uh, you do work a lot of work with government now, like like with government agencies, trying to move legislation, influence legislation in a way to be beneficial the habitat. That's right. Um, give me an example, right, well, Um, the Resilient Forest Act that's been trying to move through Congress. Now, Um, that's one that really is trying to tackle how we do active forest management in our national forest lands, so national forest lands across the country. We have gotten to the point where with with the regulation the processes in place, that we were spending the majority of our time and effort doing the planning process. But then we'd have these big forest fires and we'd borrow all the money from management in order to fight the fires. You'd never get the active management and as a result, then we're cutting less, we're having fuel loads build up and then we're having even more massive fires. So we've been working real hard with Congress to try and do some forest reform so that we can do more active management and use that product that fibers supply off the forest and UM and then also UM address the forest fire funding issue, because right now the Forest Service gets past a budget and they have to do both components of it, and they've had because of the increasing fires, they are staffing up, having to staff up and fire suppression staff and reduce their staff for foresters. They're doing active management on the ground, which is compounding the problem. So it's it's a really complex problem. And UM and with it, there have been some other components of it, putting in some pilot projects so that we look at UM ways to do arbitration and partnerships rather than gaining the legal battles for you know, their individuals and groups out there who really don't like timber cutting and they think it's ruining the forest, and and every citizen this country has the right to challenge some of those decisions and then actually challenge it in through the court system, and and we through the Equal Opportunity Justice to act, then wind up paying through government funds if they're successful in some of their their court challenges. Well, when you do that, sometimes we are we're spending more money net than it was really necessary to get good decision making on what we want on the ground. We strongly support really good comprehensive planning and developing good environmental assessments of those plans. But once the decision is made to cut, then let's go in and cut and get the treatment done. Let's not spend all of our money bickering about it in court. Let's let's make sure that we're using the funding that's intended to have to have health the forest. Do you find yourself making painful compromises down then where you just you realize you pushed something as far as you can get it, and uh, and you just gotta move on. Yeah, I mean that's part of the game with any sort of policy work. Public policy work is, Um, we live in a democracy, and there are people with different views and and members of Congress have to represent their constituents and have their respective opinions on it. So while we might want to see something, maybe we can only get a baby step to get there. This year, you take the baby step, you participate in the pilot projects that are out there, you'd be the good partner to the agencies, and then you come back down the road and try and make the additional changes that you need to get done in the future. So I imagine you probably found a way because you spent like coming up, you spent so much time in state government and probably dealt with federal government long time. You probably you must develop sort of way to not sabotage relationships. We'll still try to get a little bit of what you want out of the well. Yeah, I think it's um. I think first of all, it's a philosophy coming into it. I think most of our and if not all, our lawmakers run for office because they really want to make a difference in this country. And so it's about sharing your experience and your your insights on what can be done to make that difference out there and why we think there are changes that need to be done, And it's about showing them. You know. Sometimes I found that you can sit in someone's office and try and explain something they don't get it. But if you go out on the ground and you point to it and you kick the dirt, and then they can see what's really happening. It's about getting out on the ground sometimes and showing them what we're seeing as we go out and do our work, and that the light bulb goes on and the how moment occurs and they go, Okay, I don't agree with the solution, but I think we can come up with another solution that will still achieve this. And then that's where you get compromised and you get the ability to talk through what are ways that we can make policy change just will be effective in this country? What are what has been the impact of hunters and hunter dollars on all the habitat work that has gone on, and that that that your organization is involved in others like like how how impactful has that been compared to other sources of revenue that would be allocated state and federal level to do in similar habitat work. Well, I'd have to say that um hunters dollars and the excise tax that it matches is really the lions share of the money for all the state agencies. And you know there there are federal agencies to do fine habitat work on our national forests and our wildlife refuges and and BLM lands and the rest of it. But the lions share of the state efforts and they are the agency that's responsible for all the native wildlife in their state, UM except for those at full under Migratory Bird Redact and Threatened and Endangered Species Act those UM those efforts are all funded through hunter dollars and through licensed money and the matching excise tax. Can you um when you say excise to actually talking like LWCF or Pittman Robertson, Dingle Johns, I'm talking about Pittman Robertson, Dingle Johnson wallet row dollars primarily. Now there there are there's some other funding sources out there also, but the majority of that comes back to the states in a formula that's based on the land base of that state and the number of licensed hunters individual hunters in that state. So, for instance, in Michigan, we wound up taking federal Pittman Robertson dollars and Dingle Johnson from fishing UM. Pittman Robertson is a wildlife restoration component of it. So that's for wildlife and the and the fishy. We've explained the listeners of handful times just in case one hasn't caught. What we're talking about is that like Pittman Robertson money. When people talk about Pittman Robertson funds, there's an excise tax on guns and ammunition. So when you go down to buy a firearm, it doesn't matter if if it's someone buying a handgun to carry around in their purse for self defense, like anything like that winds up being rolled into Pittman Robertson fund. There's a thirteen or fourteen exercise tax on that item. So that's what funds the the Pittman Robertson Fund, which is established the Wildlife Restoration Act back in the thirties, and then Dingle Johnson came afterwards, and it's a little bit more far reaching in the in the items that includes, because Pitto Robertson is very specific to archery, to like bows, guns, ammunition, guns, ammunition, unfishing, Dingle Johnson even like like boat gas, so like fuel sold at Marina's. It's a little bit more reaches a little bit broader to try to establish its funds, but those all going to federal funds that are then moved along to states to do wildlife working habits at work. That's correct, and that form the backbone and most of the funding for the state agencies. So everything from wildlife research to trap and transfer efforts, to habitat management um to funding their biologists or conservation officers. There's some money that goes into hunter um, safety of course work and ranges out there. So all of that is funded through those funding sources. There is very little general funder tax payer support in most states. Now there are a few states they have earmark funding. Missouri, Arkansas are a few of those. Minnesota has that, but the majority of other states really do not have tax pay or dollars that support their conservation efforts. Do you find like in your dealings with government officials, do you find that people who that there are people who are coming into government through elected politics who don't have haven't had a lot of exposure to issues around wildlife inhabitant wildlife management who are just like who are kind of unaware of the funding structure. Absolutely, and we used to see this Michigan hand term limits manut much of the country doesn't does at this point, but we're seeing more and more local elected officials that are moving up to being state officials. And that money isn't UM isn't part of the funding mix, you know, cities and townships and county level, So it isn't until they get at the state level they really realize where the funding is coming from. And and there has eye opening form in a way that would be like really like satisfying for me. It's like for them to see how this happens. It is UM. The hard part of it is sometimes they don't recognize some of the protections are in place. Every state that it gets wildlife Restoration funds or pr dollars has to have what they call assent legislation passed in their state, and that says that that funding source is going to stay with the agency that's charged with managing that wildlife, and it can't go to building bridges or highways, it can't go to pay the general funds shortfall. So you get elected officials that will come in and they'll see, you know, a couple of million bucks are going into conservation work and times are tight, We're just gonna take that money and we're gonna use it somewhere else. Well, they put all their federal dollars at risk when they do that, and so it's always an interesting opportunity to educate new legislators on it. And we're really fortunate because the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus is a large caucus. They're forming sportsmen's caucuses at the state level around the country, and as we do that, we're finding more and more legislators are becoming informed earlier in their careers and and really valuing that and building those partnerships. And they're bipartisan, bicameral, so you have you know, in those caucuses, you'll have both people from the House and the Senate the state level, both Republicans and Democrats. And that's that's pretty good, is it. I think it probably is fair to say that the majority of people in this country who enjoy turkey hunting, the majority of them are not n WTF members. That is true. That is true. And then would you like to say to those people, I'd like to say, step it up, step it up, come join us. Um. Yeah, It's like, if you'd like turkey hunting, you already gott to buy a license anyway, like you gotta buy a license, you gotta buy gear, You're gonna buy a shotgun. It's like, just add into the list of stuff you need to buy, you need to get a membership, that's right, and we'd love to have them come join us because we're doing so much great work and and it. You know, the thing is that it's relatively inexpensive. Our membership is thirty five dollars, but so many of our members give, you know, countless hours of their time, and they'll take new hunters and mentored hunts. They'll wind up doing all kinds of events for you know, individuals who wouldn't normally get a chance to go out and go turkey hunting or learn their hunter safety courses. They'll they'll put that funding towards great habitat projects and working with federal and state agencies to have good habitat out there. It's about piloting new projects to try new things for both habitat and hunting heritage and and quite frankly, it's a great group of people. And so quite often we say that people come because of the mission, but they stay because of the people, because you form tremendous relationships, and that that social network of other people that share your values the enjoy going out and doing the same things you do. Is a fun group of people to hang with too. Is that the normal pathway for for a hunter who's finding his way into the n w TF is just like getting a membership and then kind of staying up to speed on things. Yeah, it could be. I mean, we're finding we're with our our three efforts and our three stands for recruitment, retention, and reactivation of hunters, we're trying to branch out and and go after segments the population that might not have exposure to hunting otherwise. Traditionally, a lot of those what we would call one and done UM program in the past, where we take youth out hunting and we'd have a hunting day and and the rest of it. We're finding that it really takes more than that one touch in order for someone to go through the stages and learn how to be an accomplished hunter and and be comfortable to go out and do it on their own. UM, they need to have several opportunities to be with other hunters, to learn the skills and techniques, to build the confidence up, and eventually we want them to be mentors to new hunters, other new hunters out there. And so as we've we've reached into that, we've tried to reach into markets where we might not have been before. People who who might buy their food in a food co op and be really really interested in and going out and harvesting their own food with a low carbon footprint close to home. No, it's raised, you know, in a in a natural environment, and they want to try hunting, but they didn't grow up in a family that hunted. They don't have any friends that hunts hunt, and so it's about getting those people to come in and be comfortable, um where they don't have that social network around them. Yeah, those are the and I find because we talked to a lot of those people, I find that they feel that the barriers to entry are very high. And also it's the place to go because I feel like if you could take any one of those people and give them a three d acre farm and have exclusive access they hunt all the time. Well, that's it. I mean, it's about learning how to get access to that land, learning where there is public land already available for you, um, finding someone that helps teach them the basic skills to get out there, and then doing it so they feel comfortable and confident that they can do it and they can do it on their own. That's where I feel that that, uh, your organization's access work is extremely important. I think that that, like just from my own you know, findings and and uh communications, I feel it's just like that access part of it one be education about how to learn about what's already available, but also increasing the availability places for people to go is it's I don't think you can. I don't think you can really overstay the importance of that. Well, it's interesting with some of our Learned to Hunt programs, more and more we're doing a lot of those on public lands and having them camp on public lands. So that's stuff that they can go out and do the next weekend on their own. They can get access to the very same lands they can they can go to that campground and do it. It's one of those situations where they don't need to go and um go into private lands and the least situation with a guide. It's one of those situations where it's about taking them out learning about what resources are available to them, actually available that's right that they can go out and recreate and do. That's that's that's a good way looking at it. Yeah, I never thought about that because my brother in law works in Tennessee with the Tennessee Wildlife Federation and they all their most there. I think learn to hunt programs with the kids. They're going to private ranches. They're not ranches, but you know, farms and whatnot. And so yeah, because once you added that program, right, you don't have that acces. That's right, you don't have it. And we're creating unrealistic expectations that they can't go and recreate it you know later on. Um. The other thing we're doing is trying to do more family based activities. You know, with two income families on time off on their weekends and the rest of it, a lot times they want to do things as a family. Where we once might have our widow program or women in the outdoors that were as all women that got together. Um, now we're doing it where it's women and their children. Um. Same thing with father and son or father and daughter. But families that can come out and we're finding where kids want to get out and hunt and the parents don't hunt want to hunt. It's about making sure that the parents enjoy it also and and know enough about it that they're comfortable that they can do it as a family activity. So it's it's changing in terms of because we've lost a couple of generations and getting involved in the outdoors and UM, we're gonna be sccessful. We're going to have to reach beyond folks that are just in our family and social circles. Yeah, people who are in just like the natural lineup of the class that like father to son progression of and we and we found by doing following back on some of our past programming, a lot of our youth programs were really all of our youth. UM. There were folks, they were kids that would have gotten involved in hunting otherwise some exposure. So we're taking far more care to get out there and expose UM youth and young adults who haven't been exposed before. UM. We have a program we have several universities down at our headquarters facility. We have Learned to Hunt curriculum with actually UM programs that we work with students, for instance from Clemson University where you'll have students some of them are even in wildlife profession UM that have never hunted, that really want to learn how to hunt, but they don't know how to get started in it. So we'll bring them down We'll give them hunter safety. We'll teach him that the fundamentals will get them out of a dove hunt. Then we'll go out and do a turkey hunt. We might do a deer hunt in the fall. Will partner with ducks Unlimited, try and get them out hunting with those folks or with pheasant quail forever and get out one of their hunts. But it takes those multiple touches and to make them feel comfortable that they know what they're doing and they can partake in hunting down the road. Uh, do you have any final things you want to add that we haven't that I haven't asked you about that you're dying to. No. We have our national convention coming up here in mid February in Nashville, Tennessee, and it is it is. Yeah, it's a great time. It's a great time for us to UM bring in a lot of our volunteers and success, celebrate their success and what all they do for the organization and for turkeys and conservation around the country. We bring in a lot of our agency partners UM. We usually have about thirty people from the U. S. Forest Service. There, people from BLM laws agencies, have people and the Turkey Federation formed a technical advisory committee long before even before Dr James Earl Kinnemer was the head conservation as the Turkey Federation, where those folks that where the technical experts amongst all the states come together and sit around a table and they share the latest and greatest and Turkey research and and talk about the concerns and problems are having in the opportunities and come together and make recommendations to us as well as helping each other maintain that population and good habitat out there. And the convention is open to the public. It is open the public. It's February fourteen, fifteen sixteen. Through the right and uh in Nashville, Yep, come on in and people can wander in off the streets. That's right. UM, we'll have you, will sell you a membership, will give you entrance to it. There's a great trade show if you are interested in turkey calling, if you're interested and seeing people that make decorative calls, that do calling um demonstrations as well as contest. I mean, there's Texadermy to take a look at. There's all kinds of cool stuff. Turkey calling competitions are pretty interesting. They are there, so it's fun. And then in the evenings we have celebrations just about every night where we get a chance to honor people that donate money to us, that give their time and energy to to raise money, that do partnerships and events, and so it's really really a good time. Yeah, and you got your final comments. What's the easiest way for someone to become a member if they're not going to the just go to the n w TF website. We have the right on the on the website front page you can sign up to be a member. It will take your credit card and issue a member number, and we'd love to have you join us. And then awesome if you on Turkey's Man, you really ought to be doing how you do. And then there's also events um listed there by your area that you can take a look at. If you want to go to a banquet, you can also buy a memberships as your banquet ticket. And Steve and I've talked about a lot of great benefit of being a members. You get to read is a Turkey Country. That's right, We're gonna We're gonta magazine. It's like I really appreciate because there is a lot of science in there, and I like reading the science and stuff that goes on in there. Yeah, we're trying to do a good mix of of UM telling people what they need to know about the latest and greatest UM everything from great products to use to the best science available out there. Yeh, we need a longer podcast on this. I have many many questions for you, Becky, but you're not, like you're not like a super huge turkey hunter. Well, growing up in Montana Turkey yeah yeah, yeah, And now I approach it much much differently. But we've talked about this, like growing up in Montana and we were always like, why are why is every hunting TV show turkeys? What is? What is? It's fun? And we took our cow olke diaphragms and wear and calling turkey and if that didn't work out, we'd run around the hill and shoot him, you know. And it just took a while and then all of a sudden we're like, oh, this is l cunning in the springtime. It is, But yeah, we don't have enough time. But I absolutely agree with you, like we as hunters do a really poor job of uh being honest with ourselves on how intimidating this sport is, and we put up more barriers to entry than then we even think about because we want to feel like we're cool too. Um and yeah, I feel like you're a good egg. And I wish we had more more biologists in your position, a lot more nonprofits because yeah, still a few things I gotta ask you, but um, yeah, I really enjoyed the time. Thank you for letting me be you here and listen. Yeah, well, thank you. All right, it's been fun. And I'm going to the National Wild Turkey Federal I know that's awesome. We'll look for you down there were banquet. I'm going to the National Convention. Already booked my flights. Yeah, really, there you go. So if you go down there, look up, look for Callahan, say hi to him. All right, Becky, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you my pleasure.