Announcer:
You know what that sound means. It's time for the Michigan DNR's Wild Talk podcast. Welcome to the Wild Talk Podcast where representatives from the DNR's Wild Life 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 wild life here in the great state of Michigan. 

Hannah:
Hello and welcome to Wild Talk. I'm your host Hannah Shower. 

Holly:
And I'm Holly Vaughn. Today's podcast will include your questions from our mailbag and we'll be talking with deer program specialist, Chad Stewart.

Hannah:
And we'll end this podcast talking about bird banding, but first let's take a look at what's going on around the state. 

Announcer:
Is it time to renew the license plate on your car or truck? When that moment arrives, show your support with Michigan Elk and conservation by getting the Wild Life Habitat at the Secretary State. 2018 marks the 100th year since the reintroduction of wild elk to the state of Michigan and while the Elk have been here for a century, this plate is only available for a limited time, so don't miss out. Visit mi.gov/elk and click on the license plate for more information. 

Holly:
Well staff in Southwest Michigan have been busy improving habitat for wildlife in several state game areas around the southwest. Habitat improvements have included prescribed burns and also the planting of food plots to benefit wild life. So prescribed burns are fires that are carefully and intentionally set to achieve a specific purpose. Generally these burns are conducted in grasslands to remove woody vegetation like shrubs and trees and to encourage the growth of wildflowers and beneficial grasses.

Holly:
So these burns benefit a whole suite of grass and wildlife including songbirds, pollinators, deer and pheasants and then food plots, it might seem kind of funny that wildlife, biologists, and technicians are planting crops, but these plots benefit many wildlife species including deer, turkeys, water fowl and many others.

Holly:
Then the Southwest region has also been working on an exciting restoration that's finally coming to a close. So for over four years they've been working with the environmental protection agency, the department of environmental quality and others partners to remove the 100 year old Oswego township dam on the Kalamazoo River just west of Plainwell. So this multi million dollar project included removing pcb contaminated soils behind the old dam, removing the dam and restoring the stream bank along the river. So after all that work, that stretch of the river is free flowing again and is returning to a healthy, vital river ecosystem. 

Hannah:
Awesome.

Holly:
So Hannah, what's going on in the upper peninsula?

Hannah:
All right. Well, kind of similar to the southwest, we've been working on managing some public lands and there's quite a lot of it found in the upper peninsula. So here in the upper peninsula, state land is managed both through the DNR's wildlife division and the forest resources division also plays a huge role in that management. So it's basically co managed between these two divisions and we're always looking for ways to benefit wild life and this is all species of wild life, so in general we're working in the forest by cutting timber. We target different tree types, different aged trees, and use a variety of different harvest styles all the generate food and cover for wildlife.

Hannah:
Then also the original purchase or acquisition of lands can determine what sort of management takes place on those properties. So depending on where the money comes from is going to kind of determine what sort of species we might manage that property for or what sort of activities we might do there. And staff are also currently making improvements to the Cordidge Marsh State Wildlife Management Area. And that's just south of town of Eskinaba in Delta County and the improvements include parking lot paving and lining, a viewing platform construction and walking trail maintenance. So this is a really great outdoor area to check out for the folks or maybe someone who wants to take a walk on their lunch break. So definitely if you're in that area, check it out. 

Hannah:
Next let's head back to the southern part of the state and take a look at what's going on in Southeast.

Holly:
The southeast staff has been working with partners to monitor and study a nesting colony of black terns in the St. Clair flats. So black terns are small, delicate gull like birds and they are a dark graphite gray color. They are really pretty. So this the largest black tern colony in Michigan, and black terns nest on floating mats of vegetation in marshes and they really the habitat that the St. Clair flats provide, being that it's the largest fresh water delta in the world so the colony numbers about 300 individuals which is huge for a black tern colony.

Holly:
So over the past several years, black terns have been declining greatly throughout their range, including in Michigan and the cause of the decline is really not yet known, so the DNR along with Audubon Great Lakes, Detroit Audubon and the Detroit Zoo are helping to monitor these unique birds and band them and Hannah we'll talk a little bit more about bird banding later in the show and trying to answer the question of why this birds' population has decreased so much in recent years. So, we hope to determine whether declines are occurring on their breeding territories or whether losses are happening on their wintering grounds in tropical seas west of Central and South America. 

Holly:
So in addition, the Detroit Zoo is helping to monitor common tern colonies on the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair. Common terns are experiencing similar declines to the Black Tern. So these terns nest on rocky areas with very minimal vegetation and the Detroit Zoo has helped to create some special nesting areas on Belle Isle and Grow's Eel and also near several lighthouses on Lake St. Clair. So they band these birds with colored bands to help monitor their movements within the Great Lakes region.

Hannah:
Awesome.

Holly:
So Hannah, what is happening in the lower northern peninsula? 

Hannah:
Well right. Much like you mentioned in the Southwestern part of the state where they were moving the dam on the Kalamazoo River, the northern lower region is also working on some of the DNR owned rural dams. So there is some interesting things going on there. Many of these dams were created 70 or 80 years ago across Northern Michigan and they were basically put in to provide wetland habitat which was more limited and now our landscape has changed quite a bit over that time span, and so due to the changing landscape many of these rural dams, because they are so old need some costly repair, so it's a good time to try to better align the needs of today versus when those dams were originally put in. So there's a lot of changes that have happened on the landscape and a lot of different management goals that we have now.

Hannah:
So many of these rural dams are either being renovated, removed or in some cases the ownership might be transferred, so there's been some changes going on with the dam, so if you're in areas where you might have some of these dams in your neighborhood, you might notice some changes going on. And finally, you may have seen some information coming out about the wildlife habitat grand applications that are due July 23rd. So the wildlife habitat grant program is an opportunity for folks to apply for grand funding to be able to help manage and do wildlife habitat, either restoration or improvement projects. So there have been a lot of different projects going on throughout the state and particularly in northern lower peninsula we have a couple great projects coming out of this program and just for a few examples, doing projects with the military near Grayling, here on Pines at Pigeon River, and Tuttle Marsh near Tawas. So those are a couple examples in the northern lower, but certainly you can find examples of these habitat projects that are going on throughout the entire state that are being funded through this wildlife habitat grant program. 

Hannah:
And as I mentioned, those applications are due July 23rd, so if you're interested in looking into that more or potentially applying for a grant do check it out. You can find that grant application information on our website and learn a little bit more about that. 

Holly:
Great. So that's it from around the state. Stick around. Next up is our interview with Chad Stewart.

Announcer:
The Elk and Bear Draw has come and gone but you can still enter the Pure Michigan Hunt and have a shot at both elk and bear along with spring and fall turkey, antler less deer, and first pick at a managed water fowl area. If you're one of the three lucky winners not only do you get all those licenses but you'll also receive a hunting prize package, valued at over $4000. Get a $5 application or two anywhere hunting licenses are sold or online at MI.gov/PMH.

Holly:
Today in studio with us is DNR Wildlife Division deer management specialist, Chad Stewart. Welcome Chad. Thanks for joining us. 

Chad:
Thanks for having me guys. 

Holly:
So, tell us, what is it exactly that you do for the wildlife division?

Chad:
So my exact title is the deer, elk, and moose management specialist and I'm in the policy and management unit so essentially what we do is we take a lot of the science and take a lot of the harvest metrics and the trends and we put those together and we create regulations out of them, and it's all meant to manage our wildlife populations, in my case specifically deer and elk for the purpose of maintaining or sustaining hunt able populations for the people of Michigan.

Holly:
So how did you come to be interested in deer?

Chad:
So I've always been fascinated with deer and deer hunting. So as a kid growing up in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania has a very similar culture to what you see in Michigan, so as you get into the fall, that's what people talk about when you have families get together, you talk about deer hunting and what you're going to see. You share the venison, so it's been a really big part of my life for a long time. So I was always ... that side of hunting always appealed to me just from the ability to sort of bring families and people together and then as I started pursuing my education at a little bit higher level going to college, I became more and more fascinated with how important deer are in overall general conservation in other states and other species. So how important they are. They really are sort of a keystone animal that a lot of things hinge on.

Chad:
So that was fascinating to me and then just the overall impact of deer in general to the economy and people's perceptions and how you know it brings people together or it can potentially divide people apart, so it really all sort of came together for me and not only the fascination with the hunting side of it, but just the general biology of deer and deer management itself. So I started just taking more and more jobs related to deer and lo and behold I started getting higher up and higher up in positions that allowed me to have a little bit more influence. That was kind of a neat sort of progression of how things have happened in my career.

Holly:
For sure. So how long have you been with the Michigan DNR and where did you work before that? 

Chad:
So I've been with the Michigan DNR for about three and a half years now. I started in December of 2014. Before that I had a similar position with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and I was down there for about eight years and prior to that, I came from a place in Virginia. I was working for what they call the Conservation Biology Institute, which is sort of a campus, that's affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution and I was doing a lot of deer research and some international research down there. So I've been pretty fortunate so far to be able to do some really cool things over the course of my career. 

Holly:
Great. Thank you Chad. In our last podcast, we happened to mention chronic wasting disease and I was wondering if you could give us just a really basic overview of the disease and where it's been found in Michigan for our listeners who might not be familiar with it. 

Chad:
Yeah, chronic wasting disease, what we tend to call CWD for short is a disease that affects members of the deer family so in Michigan it's only been known so far to affect white tail deer but certainly in other states and other provinces it has affected yule deer, it's affected elk, it's affected moose. They've identified it in reindeer overseas in Europe. So it really seems to be impacting cervids. And what causes chronic wasting disease is a little bit different than what you think of in terms of things that make you think. You tend to think of like bacteria or viruses that cause you to become ill and those two agents are living organisms, so they have nucleic acids that viruses and bacteria eventually die. Prions are misshapen proteins and that's what causes chronic wasting disease. So these prions, which everybody has but if they're shaped normally they function properly, they help your body work properly. When they get misshapen, they don't work properly and it causes problems and it causes things like chronic wasting disease to expand in your body and accumulate and then ultimately it causes a loss of body function, especially in your central nervous system.

Chad:
Over time, it eventually degrades your body. They lose functioning in what they are able to swallow and ingest and ultimately the animal, if something else doesn't kill it before chronic wasting disease, it will succumb to the disease. So it's always fatal. The animal, once they contract the disease, they will die from it if something doesn't kill them sooner. 

Holly:
Okay. And where have we found it here in Michigan so far? 

Chad:
So far, it's where we've identified is mostly in the Southwestern region of Michigan. So we've identified it initially in our free ranging deer in Ingham and Clinton County and then last year in 2017, we found a pocket really focused on Mothcomb County and then parts of Northern Kent County and Northern Ionia County. So one of our big focuses going into this hunting season, is to help identify the geographic area or the location where CWD may or may not exist on a broader scale. So right now we've confirmed it in five counties in Southwestern Michigan, but fully expected that number to probably increase a little bit as our surveillance becomes a little bit robust and we start sample more areas and getting a little bit more confidence in some of those surrounding areas around where we're finding those pockets. 

Holly:
Okay. So we mentioned going into the deer season, I imagine this disease could impact deer hunting regulations for the upcoming year, could you maybe tell us a little bit about where we are at currently with the regulation process this year and what some potential impacts to regulations might be? 

Chad:
So, for those of you who aren't aware, when we bring forward regulations, it's usually a several month process, so the DNR just doesn't create regulations and put them into affect. They have to be vetted through what's called our natural resources commission. That's essentially the DNRs governing body, sort of what serves as a checks and balance. So we brought forward our recommendations to the natural resources commission at the June meeting and they will, they are still taking public comment on it and they'll continue to deliberate on those recommendations probably even into August. So there's an opportunity to get a lot of public comment for those of you who view the orders and understand what the recommendations are but in a nutshell, what we've tried to accomplish with our recommendations for chronic wasting disease is to provide a lot more flexibility and opportunity to those hunters who are hunting in and around areas that have chronic wasting disease to be more successful.

Chad:
So we've expanded some seasons. We've been a little bit more creative with some of our license structure, to provide some discounts and early incentives to taking deer and then we've expanded some equipment use within seasons, specifically like our muzzle order season so hunters can continue to hunt the way they normally have if that's the way they choose or we've added some additional opportunities and provided some flexibility for those that might need a little bit more time or might be limited in some of the equipment that they have so they can get out and try to be a successful hunter because we're trying to work really closely with hunters to try to meet some of our surveillance goals so we can identify what the scope of CWD is in that southwestern region.

Holly:
So this coming hunting season, how can hunters help to kind of slow the spread of this disease?

Chad:
Well there's a couple things that they can do, one is if they are out hunting and they see a deer that's certainly acting sick or looking sick and when we talk about chronic waste disease, what that generally means is the animal is really thin. You can see the ribs. You can see the hip bones protruding. The head is usually lowered. The ears are usually lowered. It may or may not be salivating excessively. Certainly if you see an animal that is displaying multiple symptoms like that, report it to your local DNR officer or biologist and that's an animal that we would consider a targeted animal or something that we would want to get tested to determine if it has chronic wasting disease or not. Certainly just because you see an animal like that, doesn't mean it has chronic wasting disease. Other things can occur in its body that makes it like, but we want to be able to check it and the only way you can test is if after the animal has died. 

Chad:
That being said, chronic wasting disease can exist in an animal for generally a year and a half to two years before those symptoms show up. So if you're hunting in an area that's known to have chronic wasting disease or an area sort of immediately next to those areas, we recommend getting the deer tested at one of our check stations, because it might have the disease and you just simply can't see it yet. It hasn't sort of manifested itself throughout its body enough where it's showing those outward symptoms. Again, the only way to test it for CWD is to bring it into our check stations and we can run it through the lab and that's a free service that we offer to our hunters and by having them take advantage of that service, it really helps with our knowledge of the disease and meeting some of our surveillance goals. 

Holly:
Hunters are certainly a very important partner in helping us learn more about where chronic wasting disease is located and hunters also very much help us manage the deer herd here in Michigan. Are there other partners that really do a lot of good work for deer and deer hunting in Michigan?

Chad:
Yeah, well certainly hunters are one of if not the most valuable partners that we have and we've tried to spend a lot of time over the past several years and certainly even before I came on board, trying to develop and build those partnerships and relationships. So we have in Michigan several deer advisory teams that work in the lower peninsula. We have sportsman coalitions up in the upper peninsula. These groups regularly meet with biologist and staff to try to hear concerns about what they might be seeing on the landscape. Talk about regulations or recommendations and changes that might be beneficial, not only to the deer herd but to hunters in general and we really tried to foster that as well. 

Chad:
We've kind of taken some innovative approaches that I don't know if many other states have done, so for one example now you'll have a partnership with the Michigan United Conservation Clubs and Pheasants Forever and Quality Deer Management Association and we all partially fund a cooperative position that's based under MUCC or Michigan United Conservation Clubs and the individual in this position is tasked with building relationships and building coops not only for deer management but for pheasant management as well and that's a really innovative approach that we have built up with several of our valued partners and then again that individual is able to work with local land owners to work with them to develop habitats and share data and information and all of it is geared towards building a better deer or pheasant hunting experience for locals involved, so it really turns over the keys to management to the sort of local or neighborhood scale and let them work together to sort of build their wildlife management in the direction that they want to see it go. 

Chad:
So that's a really creative approach that I think can serve as a model for other states and I think the people of Michigan should be really proud that those opportunities exist in the state. 

Holly:
I love this idea that we're all kind of interconnected and we are all part of the team when it comes to managing deer here in Michigan.

Chad:
Yeah, that's one of the great things that I think I've certainly noticed in coming up here is that there's a lot of effort expended on building some of those relationships and partnerships and so I think Michigan does a really good job of bringing people to the table and having those conversations and I'm not sure a lot of other places do that to the level that we do and certainly there are always disagreements between the agency and certain people that we bring to the table, but the hope is we can work through those obstacles and again focus on what's best for the resource because ultimately that's why everybody is passionate and involved in choosing the path that they have is because they want to see what's best for the resource overall long term. 

Holly:
Great. Awesome. All right so thank you so much for joining us today Chad. We really appreciate you stopping by to tell us all about what's going on in the world of deer.

Chad:
Yeah, no thanks for having me guys. I really appreciate it. If anyone is interested in learning more about what we're doing here in Michigan, we've got a couple of great websites. One is just simple MI.gov/deer and there you can go and find really all the information you need about hunting seasons, deer biology and anything we've got going on here in the state of Michigan. And for anybody who is interested in chronic wasting disease, again very similar MI.gov/cwd and there we report where we've been finding CWD in the state. We post regular updates for surveillance and then we've got a lot of information on what the disease is as well as some pictures from other states of animals that have been tested positive for CWD. So both of those websites are really great resources. 

Holly:
Great. Well thank you again. Stick around. Next up we'll be answering your questions from the mailbag. 

Hannah:
Hello there. This is Hannah. Just wanting to let you all know that after we spoke with Chad Stewart in our studio, we did find a suspected positive deer with chronic wasting disease in Jackson County. So we wanted to let you all know that we had that update to our locations in the state of where we found chronic wasting disease in the free ranging deer. Please visit MI.gov/CWD for the most up to date CWD testing results and information. 

Announcer:
Now is the time to apply for your fall turkey hunting license. The application period begins July 1st and runs through the first of August, with drawing results available online August 13th. The comeback of the wild turkey is one of the greatest wildlife conservation success stories. Since the 1980s, the efforts of the DNR along with many partners has resulted in a restored turkey population in Michigan. Visit MI.gov/turkey for more info or to apply for your license. 

Holly:
Welcome back to Wild Talk. I'm Holly and hosting with me is Hannah and we're going to continue this episode by answering some of your questions from our mailbag. So I recently got an email from Debbie and she writes that there is a swan on her lake that is chasing all the jet skiers and kayakers and is acting very aggressively toward people and even towards other birds, like geese and ducks and she wonders what can be done about this problematic animal. 

Holly:
So mute swans are these large beautiful swans with orange bills and those graceful S shaped necks that can be found on lakes all over the state of Michigan. They are actually an evasive species that was introduced to Michigan in 1919 to be decorative on people's ponds. Today, the population of mute swans numbers around 20,000 individuals in the state and the problem with them is that they out compete native trumpeter swans which are a threatened species in Michigan and they also can chase ducks and geese and even loons off of their nest sites, so they can be pretty aggressive not only towards animals but also towards people and this aggressive behavior is common for mute swans during the time when they are nesting and raising their young. The parents are really territorial and protective, just as a good parent should be but if a mute swan is truly endangering human safety, that is an instance where you'd want to get in touch with local law enforcement or with your local wildlife biologist because if there is clear and immediate danger from that mute swan that animal can be removed right away. 

Holly:
But on lakes where the mute swans are just acting protectively and are a frequent problem year after year, we do encourage lake associates to enroll in mute swan control programs or nest removal programs to reduce this type of behavior from mute swans. It's no fun when you can't use the lake for fear of being chased by mute swans, so lakefront home owner associations can sign a petition with about 70% approval from lakefront land owners and they can obtain a permit from their local biologist to begin that work to lessen the problem on their lakes. And a signed resolution from local government also works to begin the permitting process. So you can learn more about mute swans and this permit process at MI.gov/muteswans. So Hannah what do you have?

Hannah:
Well, I got an email from Christine the other day. She said I saw this snake while camping and took a couple pictures. Any idea if it's a Michigan rattler? So this is an excellent question. We get tons of questions about snake identification. So while I can't show you all the photo of the snake over the air, the snake in the picture was an eastern hog nosed snake, a harmless non venomous species that we have here in Michigan that does look very similar to the Eastern massasauga rattlesnake, however one of the key differences to look for is that the hog nosed will not have a segmented rattle. So we do have a few species that do look quite similar but they'll lack the segmented rattle. 

Hannah:
They might still vibrate or wiggle the end of their tail but it won't have that segmented rattle on it. If you want to learn a little bit more about the snake species that we have here in Michigan, and how to identify them you can find some of that information on our web site, mi.gov/dnr and you can also check out the Michigan DNR's YouTube channel to watch our 60 second snake video series and this will go over snake identification, tips, and some information on these different species that we have. 

Hannah:
Also if you do come across any reptiles or amphibians, we are interested in any of those sightings and you can report those to our herp atlas database. So that's miherpatlas.org is where you can find that. You can also find a link to get to the reporting page from our website as well. So be sure to check that out.

Holly:
And we like reports of common species as well as the rare ones, right?

Hannah:
Yup, absolutely. We want to hear all about it. It kind of helps us keep our finger on the pulse of how are reptiles and amphibians are doing here in the state, since they can be easily impacted by a variety of changes. So it's kind of how we keep an eye on things. 

Holly:
Good. Well I got an email from Gretchen who lives in a metro Detroit city and a mallard has nested in a shrub right next to a busy main street intersection. So she's concerned because the mama duck will have to lead her youngsters across four busy lanes of traffic to get to the water once they hatch, and she wondered if she or we at the DNR could move that nest so the ducklings are safer once they hatch. So it's not unusual to see ducks and geese nesting in really weird places, like rooftops and parking lots and you know the medians of highways and things like that. Often these places can really be quite a distance away from the water. There are federal laws in place, so the federal migratory bird treaty act that protects birds and their nests and their eggs, so we can't just move those nests unfortunately without the proper permits. 

Holly:
So in addition to that, moving nests can also disrupt the incubation. It can chase the female away and she may not return to the eggs and also shaking the eggs can make the eggs nonviable, which we wouldn't want to do. So we have to trust the head mallard to lead her youngsters to water herself, once they hatch and it's very tempting to want to help but nature knows best and the ducklings, they'll make it to water just fine with their moms help and she'll pick a time in the day when she can lead them quietly to water, probably early in the morning or later in the evening, so just leave the nest be and mama duck will take care of the rest. 

Hannah:
That's great advice. I know we got duck's nest here around the state, like our buildings here in downtown Lansing that have duck's nests right out in the planters and this is in the middle of the city. So it seems like a silly place. 

Holly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). All right. Another question, we had Mike send us a photo wanting us to identify a blurry furry critter, off in the distance so sometimes the photos we get can be a little bit challenging to identify, but often times we can get a pretty good idea of what it is. In this particular picture, we can see the reddish orange body color and the white tip on the end of the tail, so that's a fairly good indication that it was a red fox, so with any of these wild life observations especially if they are maybe a rarer species that we don't often see around the state, it's important for us to get some sort of visual confirmation about them, we can get a better idea of what it was and might be able to actually confirm the sighting. So we love to get those pictures from people. You can also report observations online. We have an observation support form for things like disease wild life, mammals, fish, birds and that's at MI.gov/eyesinthefield.

Hannah:
So you mentioned red foxes and this seems like a good time to talk about all those nuisance fox and coyote emails that we get and they are really concerned for the safety of their pets and the safety of their children and it can be pretty worrying when you have a predator like that living in your neighborhood. The important thing to remember is that foxes and coyotes would really rather retire away from people rather than attack. They are fairly small creatures. Foxes weigh about 12 to 15 pounds. Coyotes weigh about 40 pounds. So really on the dangerousness scale for people, they really are not a danger to us at all, in fact, they'd rather run away and then come close to us. 

Hannah:
When they can present a challenge is if you have small pets so things like small dogs, small cats that are unattended, coyotes especially tend to see those pets as and especially dogs as a challenge in their territory so sometimes they will attack, not necessarily for food but as kind of a challenge, a territorial challenge, so if you do have small pets in your neighborhood and you know you have coyotes nearby especially or foxes, the wise things to do is when you take them out to use the bathroom at night, keep them on a leash. Keep a close eye on them, just so you don't have any tragic things happen to your pets in your neighborhood. 

Hannah:
Then of course, a great thing to do when you do have foxes and coyotes around your neighborhood is to remove any sort of food sources that might attract those foxes and coyotes to your yard, so things like brush piles that might attract small mammals or even bird feeders that attract mice and chipmunks and other creatures like that, that might also attract coyotes, and then the morning of your trash pick up, that's the best time to put your trash out so you don't get creatures like foxes and coyotes digging through there or even raccoons and possums too. Just be mindful, be wise when you have coyotes and foxes living in your neighborhood and you should be able to coexist with no problem at all.

Holly:
Well I've got another here from Rich. He says I saw on the Michigan DNR that the blanding turtle is listed as a special concern species protected by Michigan law and would want to report two of them that I've found in the last couple of days. The first one I picked up crossing the road and after finding out what it was, I took it to a nearby nature preserve and released it. 

Holly:
The second one I spotted in our pond. So we appreciate this and we get these a lot particularly turtles crossing roads or even turtles up in your backyard, maybe laying eggs because this is the time of year that's going on, so the important thing with turtles if you do see one crossing the road, don't pick it up and bring it somewhere else. That's just going to kind of throw off whatever plans they have. A lot of turtles right now that are moving across the land are females looking for a place to lay their eggs, so if you do need to help a turtle across the road, only if it's safe for you to do so. Don't put your own safety at risk for the turtle, but if you're able to help it out, please move it to the side of the road in the direction in which it was traveling. If you move it in the opposite direction, it's just going to turn around and try to cross the road again.

Holly:
Then as far as turtle eggs, for those who might have a turtle up in their backyard laying some eggs, just leave them be as soon as they are done laying those eggs they will move along. They don't sit and protect the next or anything like that and the nest and eggs are protected, so we don't want to dig them up and move them. Leave them be. Eventually the eggs will hatch. 

Holly:
It kind of depends on the species of turtle that will happen and if you have further questions about what kind of turtles we have in Michigan, you can check out our website. We have all those species listed and if you're wondering about regulations pertaining to turtles, our fishing guide has all the reptile and amphibian harvest regulations in there. So if you need to check that out, look at the 2018 fishing guide for that information. 

Holly:
That wraps up our mailbag. Remember if you have questions about wild life or hunting, you can call 517284WILD. Or you can email dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov. Your questions could potentially be featured on our mailbag.

Announcer:
Hot off the presses, the new standalone fur harvesters digest is now available at mi.gov/dnrdigests. Fur harvesting regulations have been included in the hunting and trapping digest in the past, but are not available as their own separate booklet. In addition to the fur harvester digest, the water fowl digest, fall turkey digest, and antler less deer digest are also newly available. Download them at mi.gov/dnrdigests today. 

Hannah:
To wrap up this month's episode, we're going to talk a little bit about bird banding. 

Holly:
yeah, so summer is the time of year when our staff are out banding birds and specifically they band a lot of ducks and geese and then some endangered species around the state, like peregrine falcons so these birds get a small metal band on their leg, kind of like a little bracelet and the band has a serial number that is specific to that bird and then that number is entered into a computer database that the US geological survey manages and so when people find a banded bird, like if you find a song bird with a band in your backyard that maybe has hit a window or died or maybe you're a hunter and you've harvested a bird with a band, you can report that band number to the bird banding lab website and that website is www.reportband.gov and you'll get a little certificate back that tells you about that particular bird. Where it was banded. Who banded it. How old it was when it was banded. Information like that. 

Holly:
So those bands help scientists like us to track bird migration, where those birds travel within their fly ways, what their range might be, how long they live, and then any behavior like nesting. So right now, our biologists and technicians and staff and volunteers are helping us to band ducks and geese. And geese are pretty ... it's adventure to band geese. 

Hannah:
Yes, it is. Quite a roller coaster ride, you wouldn't think it but I remember when I went goose banding, I think I got so scratched up from their ... you wouldn't think you'd have to worry about getting scratched by a goose but they have some sharp toe nails.

Holly:
They sure do. So right now in late June, early July, geese are flightless. So they molt all of their flight feathers all at once, so they can't fly right now, so it's easy to herd not only the youngsters but also the adults into these temporary snow fences that we set up. So we herd these geese into the fences and then we pick up the geese and hand them over to the biologists. They put a band on the bird. We record information about that bird, whether it's an adult. Whether it's a youngster and then they are immediately released back into the pond or the field where we gathered them. So it's a quick and easy process. It's a little bit stressful for the birds, but we try to reduce stress as much as we can during that time. 

Holly:
So hunters really help us to recover these banded birds and they help us to monitor populations of ducks and geese, so we really appreciate reports of bands that hunter do harvest. Then later in the summer we do a lot of duck banding and duck banding ... ducks are caught in either swim in traps that they swim up and into the bait that's inside those traps or they can be trapped with rocket nets. And rocket nets are pretty exciting, Hannah, they are kind of like a cannon and just like a cannon they fire a net over a flock of ducks. So they can't fly up and away, so they are gently untangled from the net and then again, the band is put on their leg and then they are off and able to continue on with their daily lives after that. 

Holly:
Peregrine falcons, so this is fun too because peregrine falcons are probably the most territorial birds. Very protective of their young, so when we band peregrines we wear hard hats. We carry an umbrella. We're ready for those adults to come and dive bomb us.

Hannah:
And isn't it true that you're not trying to catch the adults to band them, you're trying to get the babies to band, so the adults are just being very protective of those young ones which are the ones you're actually handling. 

Holly:
Exactly. Yup. So we do remove the young birds from the nest when they are about four weeks old or so. Peregrine falcons get two bands, one on each leg and so we band these birds and the reason we really want to monitor peregrine falcon populations is because they are an endangered species in Michigan. We introduce peregrines into the mid West and Michigan in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, we now have about 56 nest sites around the state, so it's a pretty cool success story and we may even see peregrine falcons taken off the endangered species list sometime in the near future, so that's a great wild life success story. 

Hannah:
A few years ago I went to go help with peregrine banding in Jackson, and I believe we also have some audio from that where you can hear the young birds kind of squawking because they are never too happy about being handled, so we try to handle them for the least amount of time possible but they let us know that they are unhappy about it. 

Hannah:
And isn't true that peregrines are the fastest bird in the world?

Holly:
They are. They can reach speeds of about 200 miles per hour in a dive and they hunt other birds like pigeons and starlings and things like that, so when they hunt their prey, they hunt from a very tall perch and they hurdle themselves like a torpedo toward the ground and towards their prey when they are hunting, so ... yeah they are very, very speedy. Very exciting birds. Don't forget, if you do find a banded bird, you can report that band number to the US geological surveys bird banding lab, that website is reportband.gov. 

Hannah:
All right. Well thanks for joining us everybody. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Wild Talk and we hope to catch you next month. 

Announcer:
This has been the Wild Talk 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 5172849453 or DNR-wildlife@michigan.gov.