Announcer:
You know what that sound means. It's time for the Michigan DNR's Wildtalk Podcast. Welcome to the Wildtalk Podcast, where representatives from the DNR's Wildlife Division chew the fat and shoot the scat about all things habitat, feathers and fur. With insights, interviews and your questions answered on the air, you'll get a better picture of what's happening in the world of wildlife here in the great state of Michigan.

Rachel:
Welcome to Wildtalk. I'm Rachel Leitner, and hosting with me this episode are Holly Vaughn and Hannah Schauer.

Hannah:
Hi Rachel.

Holly:
Hello. Today we'll be talking with our very own Wildlife Division Game Biologist, Karen Cleveland, about games like board games and card games and how those can be used to help Michigan citizens learn more about Michigan's wildlife.

Holly:
We'll be answering your questions from the mailbag, but first we'll kick things off with what is happening around the state.

Announcer:
2019 has come to a close and with it so is the application period for the Pure Michigan Hunt. Find out if you're one of the three lucky hunters by joining us at facebook.com/michiganDNR on January 24th at noon. Don't miss the big reveal.

Hannah:
It's time for some updates on what is going on in the Wildlife Division around the state. Today we're going to start in the north. Holly, what's going on in the UP?

Holly:
Well, it's very snowy in the UP right now, but right now they're working on preparations for a winter wolf population survey. This survey is conducted every other year in the upper peninsula and Wildlife Division staff are working on those final preparations. The wolf survey is completed by the DNR Wildlife Division and US Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services staff, and they search specific survey areas for wolf tracks and other signs of wolf activity like territorial marking or indications of breeding. In 2017-2018, approximately 63% of the upper peninsula was surveyed, so that was the last survey period 2 years ago. Since the winter of 1993-94, combined wolf numbers in Michigan and Wisconsin have surpassed 100, meeting federally established goals for population recovery. The Michigan recovery goal of a minimum sustainable population of 200 wolves for 5 consecutive years was achieved in 2004. Wolves remain a federally endangered species and having accurate winter population estimates every other year will be essential in any future delisting efforts if they are to come off the federally endangered list.

Hannah:
Lots of winter fun.

Holly:
Indeed.

Hannah:
Okay, so let's jump below the bridge. Rachel, what is going on in the northern lower region?

Rachel:
In southern Alpena County, a late antler-less firearm hunt on private land will be held from January 2nd through the 5th, and then also from January 9th through the 12th. The purpose of this hunt is to provide an opportunity for deer management at a more local level in the bovine tuberculosis areas. The hunt will take place on private land only, south of highway M-32 in Alpena County. We're hoping that an increased number of antler-less deer are harvested in this targeted area will reduce the number of deer interacting with farms and help limit the number of bovine tuberculosis infected wildlife and cattle herds in the future.

Rachel:
There's several types of licenses that can be used during the antler-less season. Hunters can take antler-less deer with an unused 2019 deer license, a deer combo license, private land antler-less license for DMU 487, and disease control permits issued for 2020 will also be valid for use during this season. Then any other additional tags can be purchased at the DNR eLicense website or over the counter at any place that sells your licenses. If you do decide to participate in this hunt, you'll want to remember to swing through the Alpena DNR Deer Check Station to submit your head for testing. Those station hours will be available online at the DNR Deer Check website and you can submit those heads for TB testing through Alpena or the Mio DNR field offices.

Rachel:
Additionally, the northern region has been doing a lot of discussing regulation cycles and meeting with work groups. The new regulation cycles for deer, bears, waterfowl and elk are currently up for discussion, and so our staff has been spending a lot of time meeting amongst themselves and also with stakeholders or other interested parties, which is a really important component to these conversations because we want to make sure that we're taking in all perspectives and considerations when developing new regulations.

Rachel:
Last month, the Black Bear Work Group met with the Bear Forum, which is a coalition of folks composed of people who all have a stake in bear management. The Forum represents perspectives from those who hunt bears with dogs or with bait. Those who have beehives and apiaries, or anyone who might be experiencing conflicts with bears all have a seat at this table. The meeting was open to anyone to attend and the day was spent having a lot of great conversations regarding our current and potential future bear management techniques.

Hannah:
Excellent. Well, it's good that all those folks could gather and have those conversations. Holly, what about the southeastern region? What do we have happening over there?

Holly:
Well, over on the east side of the state, there's still plenty of great opportunities to enjoy some outdoor fun including small game hunting and fur harvesting. State game and wildlife areas provide high quality outdoor recreational experiences for hunters of all skill levels and all ages. Take to the woods at Sharonville State Game Area to chase some rabbits and squirrels, or go do some muskrat trapping at St. John's Marsh State Game Area. There's still plenty of time for goose hunting in the region also. The late goose season runs from January 25th to February 10th, so head over to a wetland wonder like Nayanquing Point, Fish Point, Shiawassee River, Harsens Island or Pointe Mouillee for some late season goose hunting. Maybe you'll find an elusive Michigan snow goose or speckle belly or cackling goose if you're lucky.

Hannah:
What a prize.

Holly:
One of the most rare, unique geese that sometimes show up in Michigan. Winter is also a great time to get involved with a local conservation group. These groups are fun ways to connect with other outdoors people and also to support wildlife conservation in Michigan. Many of these organizations like Pheasants Forever or Ducks Unlimited or Michigan United Conservation Clubs provide opportunities for the members to get involved with habitat projects that directly benefit wildlife. Check out your local chapter this winter and help conserve wildlife into the future.

Hannah:
Yeah, I imagine there's all kinds of different projects to get involved with.

Holly:
Absolutely. If you're not a hunter and prefer birdwatching, check out your local Audubon group too.

Hannah:
All right. Finally, Rachel, can you give us an update from the southwest region?

Rachel:
Sure. Even though deer season is over, we are still talking about deer. Southwest has also been really busy with work groups, specifically talking about deer regulations and the new deer regulation cycle that is going to come up next year in 2020. Our wildlife staff has been spending a lot of time evaluating the current management plans, regulations, population status, license quotas, all of these things that might be relevant to deer. Stakeholder groups are also involved in this process, and these new changes will be proposed to the Natural Resource Commission this upcoming summer. If you have any input or you have questions regarding deer, deer management or wildlife in general, there's also the super cool opportunity on the horizon for you to come chat with us. If you will be in Grand Rapids, Michigan from January 24th to the 26th, the wildlife staff will be at the Hunting Time Expo in Grand Rapids at the Deltaplex. That's an awesome opportunity to come learn lots of things about hunting. It's Michigan's largest hunting show. If you have questions or you want to just come chat, please stop in and see us.

Hannah:
Those outdoor shows are so much fun to work and getting to meet lots of exciting new people.

Rachel:
Also, if you've got youth hunters and you're wanting to get them outdoors and kind of break up the monotony and coldness of this winter, there is a youth small game hunt at Flat River coming up on January 15th. We do have spots available. You can bring your kids out for a fun day with food, so breakfast and lunch will be provided. We'll hopefully keep them fed and keep them happy and give them an opportunity to harvest some small game.

Hannah:
Sounds like a fun opportunity. All right, well that's all from around the state. Next we'll be chatting with Karen Cleveland, so be sure to stick around.

Announcer:
It's time to gobble up those applications for spring turkey hunting during the January 1st through February 1st application period. Visit michigan.gov/turkey and download the spring turkey digest for full details including updated regulations, season dates and more.

Rachel:
Welcome back to Wildtalk. Today we are joined by Karen Cleveland. Welcome, Karen.

Karen:
Hey, it's great to be here.

Rachel:
You have a really unique and interesting role in the Wildlife Division as the Game Biologist, but your position isn't exactly what most people would expect. Can you tell us a little bit about your role?

Karen:
Well, what I'm doing for the Department of Natural Resources right now is I am actually designing games. It's games to help people get a little bit more excited about our wildlife and learn more about it.

Rachel:
Awesome. Games are obviously really fun, but what makes them such a great tool for folks to learn about wildlife or other natural resources?

Karen:
Well, a lot of it kind of goes back to how a lot of us learned about natural resources and wildlife when we were kids. There's a lot of exploration and there's a lot of your parents kind of showing you around and letting you know what's out there and how it all works together. I'm working on making games where you can kind of explore some of those natural systems through the game and kind of learn for yourself how these pieces connect together, but also games that you would play with your family so that parents can learn along with their kids as well as bringing some of those lessons to their kids.

Hannah:
I'm sure you've gotten this question before, but what would you say to someone who says, "Why is the DNR creating games? That seems like a stretch?"

Karen:
Well, it might seem like a stretch, but if you kind of think about what we do here in the Wildlife Division, it's just sort of an extension of things we already do. We already work with people to come up with recreational opportunities for wildlife. It's just our more traditional recreational opportunities that come with rules and winning and losing and well, we all know about deer and their point systems. It's very much hunting oriented, and so games are just sort of an extension of that. It's a way for people who don't hunt to have that recreational experience with our wildlife, to learn more about it, to really understand that they do share a lot of those same kinds of feelings about enjoying the wildlife in Michigan the same as our hunters do. It's a way for us to connect to those audiences, to help them get invested in the resources that we really care about, and looking into the future, we want those folks to care and we want them to understand what the resources are all about.

Hannah:
Yes, I'm sure that there are a lot of folks out there that have experiences with wildlife every day but might not know very much about those different critters. This sounds like a good way to kind of share that information with those people.

Karen:
It really is. It's fun and it's not intimidating. A lot of times educational materials can be really intimidating and it's, here's the book you have to read, here's the article you've got to read, here's the documentary you've got to watch. It's really kind of heavy and serious a lot of times. The idea here is we want to have fun. I mean, we all grew up having fun in the woods and with wildlife. Our hunters and our anglers know about having fun in the woods with our fish and our wildlife. It'd be really great to kind of introduce that to folks who haven't had that experience before, to see a raccoon and go, "Okay, that's not a terrifying thing, but it's something I can understand and I can appreciate." The idea is like, let's have a little bit of fun with this whole thing. There's no reason not to do that.

Hannah:
Right, absolutely. Learning can be ... If you say something is going to be educational and you're going to learn something from it, that might turn some people off, but this way it's just like, oh no, you're just going to have a good time.

Karen:
Yeah. I think we've all experienced educational games in school and we thought it's better than having to listen to a lecture, but it's not really fun. The idea on our games is, hey, we want to have you have fun first, and maybe you're going to learn something behind the scenes and you don't really realize as you're playing that you're learning something, but when you get done with it, you go, "Wait, I recognize that plant that I see as I'm walking down the street," or, "I recognize that animal that I see in a TV show," or that you see out in your neighborhood.

Hannah:
We touched a little bit on the education piece. How do the games that you've developed so far and the ones that might be in the works tie into the K through 12 wildlife education curricula that we have available for teachers?

Karen:
Well, the game that we've got available for sale right now is called What in The Wild. That was developed to compliment our elementary school curriculum. Our audience for that is really kids that are between the ages of about 5 and about 11 and they're families really, but the idea is that that game should also be able to go into a classroom where a teacher is using the curriculum for our elementary school students and the teacher should be able to use that to kind of compliment the messages that she's giving during the class sessions themselves. We've got games that kind of help kids identify the different components of habitat and what are the components of habitat, not just, oh, well, maybe it's trees, maybe it's grass, but the grass and trees make up shelter for the species. They can kind of connect the components to the types of things you'd find in those components, and beyond that, to kind of learn some of the species that we highlight in that curriculum so that they'll be able to understand better the animals that they might find living around themselves in Michigan.

Hannah:
I want to totally go off track for a second here and ask, what got you interested in games?

Karen:
I've been with the DNR now for 15 years. In my life prior to being the Game Biologist, I was actually the Bird Biologist here in the Wildlife Division. It's really interesting to work on species in that way, to kind of look at the large scale planning, come up with conservation partnerships, but the more that I worked on that, the more that I saw that we really are not going to be able to make a difference if we can't engage these next generations coming up. I got very interested in, how do we engage folks? I ended up playing a mobile game that, it sounds strange, is all about killing aliens, but the things people were talking about when they were playing this game were not at all about the aliens. It was very much about how it was connecting them with the environment they were playing the game in. People were getting very excited about their communities. I saw that and thought, that is amazing.

Karen:
If you've got something where people are having fun, they're opting into it themselves, it's not somebody telling you, "You need to do this, it's good for you," and it's getting them excited about their community and it's getting them to engage with people in their community, we should really be looking at that because that is a huge lost opportunity that we could really be taking advantage of. So far in just having What in The Wild out there, we've been getting a lot of positive feedback from people using it, talking about how they use the cards to look at what's in their backyard. That's really what we want to see is we want to see that game as that first step that they can use to actually get outside and connect with that resource in a way that's fun, it's not intimidating, and it makes them want to do more and it makes them want to think about conservation and what's the world that they want to leave to their kids.

Holly:
In their blog, Adobe recently named the Michigan DNR in its list of 10 inspiring public sector organizations to watch in 2020 for the What in The Wild card game. Can you tell us a little bit more about What in The Wild?

Karen:
Well, What in The Wild is a fairly straight forward card deck, but it has five games designed that you can play with it. In the same way as if you had a standard deck of playing cards, there's sort of an endless number of games that you could play by rearranging them in different combinations. The deck in What in The Wild is designed so that you can play a number of different games. Right now the games that are in it scale from fairly simple matching style games to something that's quite a bit more complex that's very much about partnership building and conservation, and how do you help other people and help yourself at the same time to build these habitats for wildlife?

Karen:
One of the things that I think is really kind of cool and exciting about it is that deck, once it's in the hands of families and teachers, you can build any game you want with it. It's basically a deck that's connected by species and the habitat components they need to survive. You can manipulate that in a lot of different ways, depending on what the experiences you want to have at the table when you play.

Holly:
It's like a choose your own adventure kind of game.

Karen:
It really kind of is.

Holly:
Where can folks find out more about What in The Wild and where to purchase it and how to play it and all those good things?

Karen:
What in The Wild is actually a game that we are offering through a print on demand company. When you order it, they make one just for you. That company is called The Game Crafter and you can find it at thegamecrafter.com. Just search on What in The Wild when you get there and you'll be able to find that. Actually, before you buy it, you can download the rules for all the games so that you can see if that's something that's going to work well for your family, and then you can just enjoy it. Order a copy. It's going to be great.

Karen:
If there are teachers out there that are interested in figuring out how to implement this in their classroom, I would encourage them to go to the DNR's website, and from there you can actually find our curriculum packages that you can get a copy of, and you can also find a link there to buying What in The Wild on The Game Crafter's website. What you're going to want to do though if you're wanting to put it into your classroom is check out for the link on the sales page that will take you to the classroom pack, because for teachers, we have a version of the game where you get five decks in one box. That should be enough to fill your entire classroom with wildlife and their habitats.

Hannah:
That's excellent. Good choice for teachers, and so exciting to be reaching out to new audiences and trying to engage a new generation of conservationists. That's very awesome. Any last thoughts about game creation and the excitement of your job?

Karen:
Well, so the fun part is we keep coming up with more ideas on games to make. The problem is every game that we design goes through a lot of testing before we release it because we really want it to work well and we want it to be fun and engaging. What we need here at the DNR is we need families who are willing to be our game testers for us. I am always on the lookout for families that are in southern Michigan who would be interested in sharing some of their time with us and test some of our upcoming games. Our next game that we've got in the pipeline is actually for middle school students. We're looking for families that have children between 10 and 15 who'd be willing to test this. It's all about, this is going to sound really exciting, land use planning.

Hannah:
Riveting.

Karen:
The secret is it's all about land use planning and how that affects our bears and the people who live around them. If you're interested in helping us test that bear game, be sure to contact us.

Hannah:
All right.

Rachel:
As a side note, as someone who has tested games for Karen, she usually brings some type of yummy incentive. It's like a two for one here. You get to play games and eat snacks the whole time. It's lovely.

Hannah:
Yeah, so if you would be interested in loaning us your children and family for an hour or two, you can email us at dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov and let us know you'd be interested in helping to play test our awesome DNR games. Karen, you're pretty plugged in to the whole game design community and you go to a lot of conferences and a lot of meetups and all these kinds of things where you meet other game designers. How does that help kind of benefit the DNR and opportunities for conservation here in Michigan?

Karen:
Well, it's kind of a two pronged thing. Part of that is I am now in groups where these are the folks who we really want to communicate with. They haven't had a lot of experience working with the DNR or with wildlife or with conservation. I've had some really interesting conversations with game designers here in Michigan who get very surprised by some of the biology facts that I share with them, which is kind of cool and fun to realize, hey, that's a message that we can get out a little bit more, but part of it is also those folks are designing games so they're doing a lot of the same kinds of things that I am. Sometimes they're challenged to try to figure out [inaudible 00:21:57] like, "Okay, I've got an idea for like a turn-taking mechanism that I want to put in the game, but I don't know what I want to make the game about." I sometimes will help folks kind of discover different wildlife topics that might be really useful and might compliment the things that they want to already design.

Karen:
Some of them are folks that I talk to about where we have a shared interest in wildlife. One example is talking to Elizabeth Hargrave who's the designer of Wingspan, about ways that we might be able to use the game that she's designed, which has won international game design awards now, to help us promote birdwatching here in the state of Michigan and help people that are already playing that game realize, "Hey, we've got opportunities here in the state of Michigan where beyond just seeing the birds in the game. We could see the birds at some state game areas or state parks or state forests that are nearby." That's actually kind of cool because they've gotten excited about birds just through playing the game.

Karen:
It's in the same way that we have conservation partners here in the state of Michigan who will help us with habitat conservation projects or will help us with hunter recruitment and retention. I'm working on developing a network of partners in the game design and game publishing community that will help us to either improve the messaging that we're doing or will help to bring some of the messaging and the values that we've got to the audiences that they have access to. It just helps us to kind of increase our reach and it helps them to come up with really new interesting, cool ideas to put in games as well.

Hannah:
Thanks so much for being here today, Karen, and for lending a little bit of your expertise.

Karen:
Hey, it's been great. Thanks for having me.

Hannah:
Absolutely. Stick around. Next up we're going to answer your questions from the mailbag.

Announcer:
Join Karen Cleveland of the Michigan DNR for a lunch and learn at the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute in Hastings on January 24th, 2020. The program titled From Game Design to Game Management: How to Teach Wildlife Conservation Practices will be held from 11:00 AM to noon and the lunch will be held from noon to 1:00 PM. Visit cedarcreekinstitute.org and click on events for full details. Be sure to register by January 22nd to reserve a lunch.

Rachel:
Welcome back. Now it is time for us to answer your questions from our mailbag.

Rachel:
I had a question that came in from Dale. Dale is asking ... He's trapping for otter this year and he wants to know what the furbearer registration process looks like and where he can take his harvested otter. First, you can find all of the furbearer registration locations and hours on our michigan.gov/trapping website. We will link that in the show notes for easy access, but the process is relatively quick. You will take your harvested game to these registration locations where the DNR will attach an official seal to the pelt of each animal. You will want to make sure that you bring in the fur as well as the skull, and it will need to be skinned prior to registration.

Rachel:
The seal replaces the furbearer kill tag. We will need the location of take, date of harvest and manner of harvest, and that will be recorded when the animal is sealed. We will be keeping the skulls. Those skulls will be retained for our new population estimation techniques which will help us determine precise sex and age information, which can only be determined from the skulls. Be sure to go to the michigan.gov/trapping website where you can gather all of the furbearer harvesting details and furbearer registration location information. Hannah, do you have any good questions you'd like to talk about?

Hannah:
Absolutely. Jack emailed and said, "I was trying to apply for the spring turkey application period but cannot get a 2020 base license yet. Do I need one to apply?" This is an excellent question. No, you do not need a 2020 base license to apply for your spring turkey license. You can apply right now through February 1st online or at any of our licensed agents. Your drawing results will be posted on March 16th at mi.gov/turkey, and your 2020 base license will be available March 1st. When you go to purchase your spring turkey license, at that time then you'll need to buy your base license in order to buy additional licenses such as your spring turkey license.

Hannah:
I wanted to mention too that this year there are some expanded spring turkey hunting opportunities with hunting open in some of our units into June. Be sure to check out the 2020 spring turkey digest for all those details and get in your application before time runs out.

Holly:
Hard to believe we're already thinking about spring turkey hunting.

Hannah:
I know. [crosstalk 00:27:03].

Holly:
We haven't even really hit winter down here.

Hannah:
Snow on the ground and we're thinking about spring turkey. All right.

Holly:
Well, good. I got a question from Tabitha. She is an art teacher and she was wondering if there were any ways to kind of get her students involved in and interested in wildlife. This is a really great opportunity for educators. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting entries for the Annual Michigan Junior Duck Stamp Contest. All kindergarten through 12th graders are welcome to participate in this program. A student should feature one of the following species in their artwork, so a whistling duck, a swan, goose, brant, a dabbling duck like a mallard or a pintail, a diving duck like a redhead or a canvasback, seaducks, mergansers, stiff-tailed ducks like the adorable little ruddy duck, or Hawaiian ducks. This year the program is expanding and will be accepting all styles and types of two dimensional visual artwork.

Holly:
Of Michigan's first place winners, one best of show winner will be selected and then that best of show winner will then be entered into the National Junior Duck Stamp Contest. Mandy He, a 16 year old from Ann Arbor, was the winner of last year's contest with an acrylic drawing depicting two mallards. Educators are encouraged to incorporate the contest into their classroom by utilizing the Junior Duck Stamp Program curriculum, and we'll link to that in the show notes, to teach students about the biology of waterfowl and the importance of wetland habitats. Educators interested in incorporating even more lessons and activities about wetlands and waterfowl can register for our very own DNR Michigan's Wondrous Wetlands and Waterfowl middle school curriculum.

Holly:
Entry forms and rules can be found on the Fish and Wildlife Service website, which we'll link to in the show notes, and that will have information about where to send your entry form and all those good things. This annual contest has been held in Michigan by the US Fish and Wildlife Service since 1995. Get involved, create some awesome waterfowl related artwork, and have your students compete in this duck stamp contest.

Hannah:
There are always so many cool entries that the kids have. I just love to see them.

Holly:
There really are. There are some very talented young people in this state. Well, as we zip this segment to a close, remember, if you have questions about wildlife or hunting, you can call 517-284-W-I-L-D, you can email dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov, or stop by one of our offices. Your question could be featured on our next mailbag.

Announcer:
There are many camping and lodging opportunities available in Michigan state parks. When you choose state park campgrounds, you get more than just a campsite. State parks offer a diverse range of recreational opportunities including hands-on instructional classes, nature programs, places to fish, boat launches, family friendly events and much more. Reservations can be made six months in advance, so why wait? Visit MIDNRreservations.com or call 1-800-44-PARKS to make a reservation.

Rachel:
Winter is a great time to get out and explore Michigan's different habitats and do some wildlife watching. While you might not always see some of Michigan's critters, you might be able to find their tracks. Snow makes for a great medium in which to find animal tracks. If there's no snow in your area, take a look in wet sand, soil or mud.

Hannah:
Trying to identify which species produce the tracks is a lot like solving a puzzle and can be done if you keep a track book or chart handy. Tracking wildlife in the winter time is one of my favorite activities. I love trying to solve the little mystery of who left the footprints in my backyard. A few tips for you to keep in mind. Pay attention to the overall shape and size of the track or other noticeable features. If you can, try and distinguish the number of toes the animal has. For example, raccoons show fingers, not unlike our own. Beavers will have webbed feet. Deer have a familiar two hooved print, while most birds have three toes pointing forward and one facing backwards, although you might not always see that back toe.

Holly:
Speaking of birds and wildlife watching, you may decide that it's time to place your bird feeders outdoors and watch the wintering songbirds that they attract. Using a tube hopper or suet bird feeder rather than using platform bird feeders or spreading seed directly on the ground will deter uninvited guests from visiting your feeder. Make sure your feeder is placed high enough to be inaccessible to deer and elk. Remember, of course, baiting and feeding of deer and elk is actually illegal in Michigan now, so keep those deer out either by raising your feeders high or even putting a fence around your feeding setup. Don't forget to keep your feeders clean to prevent the spread of any bird diseases that could happen from a dirty bird feeder.

Rachel:
If you live in black bear country, winter time bird feeders should no longer attract bears to your yard as most bears should be settled in for their winter hibernation. If you live in an area that is known to have bears, make sure to mark your calendars now to take your feeders inside when March arrives and bears reawaken.

Hannah:
We also should mention that there are some citizen science projects to track birds that you might want to get involved in this winter, such as the Great Backyard Bird Count. This occurs in February and it's a four day bird count. It's a fun opportunity to watch your feeders or go to your local park and record the types and the numbers of birds that you see around your neighborhood. Then Project Feeder Watch is another really cool citizen science project. Of course, we'll link to both of these projects in the show notes, but Project Feeder Watch is a year round project that you can get involved with with your family or your school classroom, observing the different birds that come to your feeder throughout the year. Again, we'll include those links in our show notes. Get involved in some citizen science.

Holly:
Absolutely. I mean really, if you think about it, opportunities for exploration are abundant in every season that Michigan has to offer and in all the different habitats that you could find here. Now, Michigan's public lands offer year round wildlife viewing opportunities. You could go look for wildlife tracks, see if you can spot any birds, all kinds of different things. Be sure to check out our state wildlife areas or recreation areas in your neck of the woods. You might discover something pretty cool.

Rachel:
We look forward to chatting with you in February. In the meantime, grab your snow shoes, skis or boots, and head out this winter for some wildlife watching.

Holly:
Happy new year everybody.

Announcer:
This has been the Wildtalk Podcast, your monthly podcast airing the first of each month and offering insights into the world of wildlife across the state of Michigan. You can reach the Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453 or DNR-wildlife@michigan.gov.