Turkeys For Tomorrow | How Private Land, Predators, And Smart Harvest Can Rebuild Turkey Populations

We sit down with biologist and CEO Jason Lupardus to break down turkey declines, the power of private land co-ops, and a bold, multi-state predator-prey research push. We share practical harvest math, habitat tips, and a new citizen science tool that puts real data in hunters’ hands.

• why two poults per hen is the stability line
• how small parcels create black hole overharvest
• forming 2,500-acre cooperatives to match turkey biology
• when habitat alone stalls and why imprinting matters
• targeted predator management around roosts and roads
• nine-state research testing trapping impacts at scale
• cicada hatches, fur markets and telling correlations
• funding gaps, enforcement needs and durable policy
• how to join a local TFT flock and self-regulate harvest
• citizen science app to log sightings and guide action

If anyone out there wants to learn more about us, turkeysfortomorrow.org, you can find us, you can find us on any of the platform. Just look us up. If you got a question, reach out, call us, send us an email, we will respond to you because we want help.

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Transcript

Meet Jason Lapardis And TFT

SPEAKER_04 0:16

What's going on guys? Tristan and Tony back with another episode of the One Hove Life Outdoor Podcast. Tonight we have Jason Lapardis on the podcast. He's the CEO of um Turkeys for Tomorrow and uh super excited to you know get to talk some turkeys with him and learn a bit about what they do from my understanding. Like outside looking in is a similar organization to like a Ducks Unlimited or a Delta Waterfowl, something like that. And uh Jason's also a wildlife biologist, so we always love having biologists on the show to learn some cool full cool facts. So, Jason, thank you for taking the time to join us tonight. We're really excited.

Turning Science Into Hunter Action

SPEAKER_02 0:59

I can whip a little bit out. I'll tell you what, I mean, with turkeys and everything else, it's been kind of a beautiful evolution over time where we see people now very hungry to get some of the science. And I'm gonna brag for just a second, not about me, but about the wild turkey science podcast and kind of the whole emphasis of us supporting that and driving that with Dr. Goolsby and Dr. Lashley was to really take some of the details of the science and what if I showed you my bookshelf over here, like published stuff, right? That no one usually reads except for a few nerds like myself and others at times. Get some of that information out to the you know, the average hunter, landowner, you name it, folks that want to do something in a way that they can consume it, digest it, use it. And so it's been kind of a beautiful evolution to see how we're starting to get some of the real science out there uh in front of people. And I gotta be honest with you, next week we have some things we're gonna launch that is going to put the science in what we call the citizen scientist hands. And so um, we got some cool things going on with some new partners, and it's something we'll be able to collect data across the United States and beyond. Uh, and it's pretty fantastic. Wow. Very that's super cool. Very cool.

Jason’s Path Through Wildlife Work

SPEAKER_04 2:20

Looking forward to seeing what you guys roll out with that. Uh, if you wouldn't mind, just give everybody just a little background, Jason, on you know what your background is and how kind of turkey for tomorrow came about.

Turkey Declines And Why They Matter

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Yeah, man. So a little bit about me. I mean, um, I'm I'm now Kentucky Hillbilly. Um people call me a mutt of the Southeast. I'm originally from North Alabama. Um, got lost in East Tennessee working on elk restoration when I was in college. Okay. Um, worked on that for the map, my master's degree. So um, you know, chasing critters that like to talk back to me is kind of my thing. Uh whether it's small as a turkey or big as an elk, you got my jam, right? And so uh really good. But uh got lost down in Georgia after that for a bit, working as a private lands biologist, uh, working with private landowners. I was kind of the sole biologist working with folks across the southern half of the state, uh, doing a little bit of everything. Uh jumped from there and went to the National Wild Turkey Federation and worked there for about a decade. Uh, had a great run and worked in many different roles. And um, before it was over with, working as a conservation director, I'd kind of built about 25 staff working for me and doing a lot of projects. Um, left there and worked for union sportsman, working with union labor as a chief operating officer over there, and then started dabbling with some different things, kind of started my own consulting company. Um, even worked with another gentleman on a um, let's just say an app. And so uh and then uh and then basically started volunteering with TFT. Okay. And I heard heard some guys go, hey, they may need some help. And some years ago, I had some of the regional founders that reached out to me and talked to me about it. And I just I just said, hey guys, y'all need some help. We had a call, and I had a call with Ron Jolly, which is is truly the founder. Okay, he said, Hey, we're about to write the we're trying to get a grant. You know anything about grants? I said, Yeah, I've I've moved a few grants and agreements uh with a lot of zeros on there. And so we started talking, and literally that turned into a hey, me and another gentleman, we're gonna help y'all write a grant and do some stuff. He's like, Can you tell me about your background? I went, sure. And like, did we hire you for something? I'm what made me. So that's kind of how I stepped into this thing. And um, you know, I'm a I'm a turkey nut. I mean, chasing turkeys is my passion. Um, when I grew up in Alabama, you know, northwest Alabama, it's uh it's an area that is still very devoid, very devoid of turkeys, northwest Alabama. And it always is just it's been one of those things, you know, you you kind of soul search over time, right? There's some things that bother you, and that one has always bothered me, been a biologist, that there aren't turkeys there. So stepping back into the turkey ring again uh to try to solve some of those issues have been very important for me. And so uh so yeah, I jumped on to kind of handle some of our business ops, and the next thing you know, they're like, Hey, would you just try to help run this thing? And I said, you know, maybe. And so I did, um, but not because I needed a title, but because I care, man. I mean, I'm just I I want to see some changes with turkeys. I have seen the high point of turkey numbers in throughout the coast of plain United States and other areas. We're we're seeing some significant in some areas turkey decline. And uh that that it's it's not good. And so we got to do something. And that was really the emphasis of what how turkeys for tomorrow started. Well before I stepped on, these guys said, hey, man, we're going to places where you used to hear a bunch of birds and they're not there. What's going on? And a lot of people asking questions, and those questions from a lot of people that were in the hunting industry started kind of sparking some reactions. And so, I mean, I just stepped in to try to better build this organization and and really bring some of my background with the turkey science to try to drive some action. And so we're at a very good point. Uh, we got a lot of things going on, and um hopefully we can turn this thing around in a very positive way.

SPEAKER_04 6:46

Man, that's good. That's yeah, that's that's great stuff to get you guys have you guys boots on the ground. I mean, obviously we you hear about the glory days of like the 90s, and like you hear about here in Georgia, you know, like they used to have what, like three, four uh polts to hen ratio back in the day, and now it's like 1.6 or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Yep, that's not good. So the average, you know, for a balanced population where you're you're not up or down is a one to two ratio, right? Every hen uh is able to recruit two of her polts into the population to be adults. Uh we're just not seeing that everywhere. Um, and so in and if you really target specifics, the coastal plain up the east coast, Mississippi River Valley, all the way over to Texas, and then kind of a spattering uh throughout some of the Midwest, we're we're seeing some issues. And so uh it's a complicated kind of deal because turkeys are boom and bust, they they can go up real fast and they can go down real fast. And Mother Nature does have a big hand in all this, and so it's um it's a complicated kind of system, but I feel pretty confident we know some of the big components, and if we influence three or four of those in a positive way, I think we can flip things around. Um, and there's a lot of correlate correlations in the past that I like to talk about because I think it's important for us to consider these today, even though no one was really monitoring back the day. But if we follow some of those guidelines, I think we can we can turn things around. So nice.

SPEAKER_04 8:27

Good.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

No, I was just gonna say, you know, it's interesting, and and this is a uh Tris and I are just such big advocates of folks like you that have spent their life, you know, investing their time to uh be able to be smart enough for people like us that just go, well, why did they lower the limit? You know, and you know, and we can all laugh at the comments and stuff like that that go on social media and everything, you know, but but at the end of the day, thank thank God that there's people like y'all that do these things because it's not as simple as just like, okay, well, just don't hunt as much. You know, I mean, right? Like what you said that you you guys get your eye on three or four things that you know there's a balance that has to happen. And the first time I can ever remember understanding like the true balance, I think the biggest slap in the face for me on that was my buddy having this first saltwater fish tank. And and and you'll see where I'm going with this is that I didn't realize why people put thousands of dollars into these things because they're creating this ecosystem, right? That's gotta, and it's just in this one little tank. We're not talking about what God put on this earth, you know, and and the and that we're taking from it. So uh no, but but big shout out to to y'all and and thank you for for being the the leading. Uh if it wasn't for folks like you and Dr. Mike Chamberlain and everybody else, and every single different species of of animal that we we we harvest is we we would be toast, you know. So thank you.

Private Land’s Outsized Role

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Yeah, we thanks for that. It's um it's definitely a team effort with a lot of people that care and and honestly, man. Um I mean, there's a lot. I mean, I just I call myself an average yo hillbilly uh turkey. I mean, I I love to hunt, I love to get out with other people. Uh, and at the end of the day, I do feel like um hunters are truly kind of the, you know, they're they're at the front line. And the folks on their own properties, I really feel like they know about what's going on there better than anyone else. So all we need to do is to try to provide a little bit of guidance, but also get feedback from those people as well. And so I when I first introduced the idea of citizen scientists, and we we were having like a I put our board and staff, and at that time I I just come in trying to help um through a SWOT analysis, um, kind of strengths, weaknesses, opportunity, threats, and it's a it's a means to really pull people together. You kind of dissect everything going on, and it was really interesting. Everybody, we we're everybody was like shotgun patterned, like bad shotgun pattern, right? And I'm like, let's put the choke in, let's tighten this baby up, and then we're gonna do this right with the right shot. And then we started really honing in, and I'm like, oh yeah, we can kill a turkey with that. And so, but we come out of that with really some defined direction and how to start tackling some things, and we're in a we're in a really good place right now, trying to drive some of this with some action on the ground. And I mentioned earlier that you know, we're gonna try to really grab a hold of all the citizen scientists out there. So when I mention citizen scientists, people are like, Man, that that sounds too fancy. I'm like, dang, I'm trying to elevate the average Joe like myself.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

You can feel like you're part of it, you got a white collar on. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

I'm like, look, we we I'm gonna make everybody extra important. So that that's kind of the goal. Like, if you're redneck, you're my crowd. I'm gonna call you a come on now. So okay. That's where we're driving some action. And I think at the local level, having people that are out every day where they're dear turkey. What's up, guys?

SPEAKER_04 12:30

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SPEAKER_02 13:01

Season, deer season, duck season, you name it, and collecting information for us is going to be uber powerful. And what we can do, we can supersede what state agencies are able to do. Because oftentimes, believe me, man, I I work for a state agency for a bit. When I show up in the mean green, people are like, oh no, it's Game Board, this bad guy. And it was always a challenge, man. And I was all over Georgia running around. And but what I saw is once you broke through and they and folks understood that, like, hey, I'm not here to try to tell you what to do, I'm here to try to help you. Yeah, and coming from a non-profit, it's it's extra easy because people know I don't I don't have a hidden agenda. Yeah, I'm not the gov. I don't have a hidden agenda. I want to do I want to have more turkeys like everybody else.

SPEAKER_05 13:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

So if we look at it from that perspective and we give some tools to people at a local level, I think we can all really enhance how we're gonna manage turkeys for longevity, and that's the goal.

SPEAKER_04 14:01

I yeah, that's I could see that being super beneficial because I think um I want to get the number, you might know the exact number, but I don't want to mess it up. But we had uh Emily Rushton on our podcast like two years ago. She's the Georgia turkey biologist, and she she was saying how important those private landowners are because I want to say she said that 93% of the turkey habitat is privately owned in the state of Georgia, and like seven.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

In the eastern U.S., let's just make this huge, right? Yeah, in the eastern U.S., about 87% is all privately owned.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

So you you think about management schemes and how much money is just put on public land and all this jazz. And if we're not addressing it on private lands, we are missing the needle.

SPEAKER_05 14:47

Yeah.

Harvest Math And Black Holes

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Um, and technically we could have some private lands that are adjacent to or within proximity of what I would call an area we're really trying to manage for turkeys. We can basically bolster turkey numbers on public lands from private land management. It's that easy. And so birds cover a big home range in the state of Georgia. Back in the day, we're talking about up to four square miles, but and wow, that's still true. You know, two to four square miles, 1200 to about 25, 2600 acres is what a bird covers throughout the year to make a living.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Holy cow!

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Wow, that's a that's a that's a larger home range than I thought. Yeah, I mean, that's like yeah, that's two to four square miles. That's a lot of land.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Okay, right? Deer is about one square mile, 640 acres. And so when you start thinking about this, it becomes uber complicated. Um, when you look at average landowner or ownership in the southeast, it's it's 50 to 100 acres, okay. So let's have some fun. How many birds can you harvest in in Georgia this year?

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Uh it's two of them, I think.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Yeah. But yeah, but it used to be you could harvest three birds a day because believe me, I'm one of those stupid guys that occasionally would try, I'd hunt in the morning, hunt in the middle of the day, and hunt in the afternoon, different places, and try to make it happen. Um, so here's some fun facts for you guys. So let's say the average landowner is about a hundred acres. You can harvest two birds. Okay. Now let's let's go to average home range. Okay, let's do it on the small side, two square miles, but we're going to talk about management on a square mile basis. Kind of the the green thumb of some management regimes is talking about how many birds we can actually harvest on a square mile without impacting population dynamics.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

And so let's say we're on the sand hill. I mean, I can talk about different parts of Georgia. Let's talk we're talking we're on the sand hills of Georgia, not such good habitat, and we have those six landowners that make up that 640 acres-ish, okay? Easy math. So if each one of those landowners want to harvest two birds, that's approximately 12 birds, right? We could legally harvest. Yeah. Now on them sand hills, I'm going to tell you sometimes that's some of the absolute worst habitat if it's not manage, etc. Okay. And so on poor habitat on a per square mile basis, we really don't want to be harvesting over one to two birds per square mile.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

No kidding.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Wow. Okay. So moderate habitat, we may be up to four to five birds on really good habitat. It could be 10 to 12 birds. Oh, look out. We're starting to approach the high threshold of six landowners. Wow. Now, do you guys sorry, go ahead. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

No, I was just I was just gonna ask. Yeah, no, I'd be just now I it is, and that's why my next question's coming from is so of those property owners, obviously not everybody's hunting, you know. So do you guys have a way of gauging like um how many, like how the hunter disbursement is per hundred acres? Or yeah, that's that's the tough thing, right? Because you could you could have one area that the word gets out that's really good, right? And everybody just goes in there and whacks them, stays legal, and that's a gigantic impact to America.

Imprinting And Site Fidelity

SPEAKER_02 18:25

So let's let's add some some reality here. Okay, you guys want to hunt together. I'm bringing my friend with me, right? Yeah, maybe I have a son or I have a daughter, uh, or granddad, and we're still gonna we're all gonna hunt, we're gonna be legal, we're gonna follow statewide gate uh guidelines. Well, the issue here is it may be one property is really a black hole that's sucking in birds and and killing a lot of birds, okay? Maybe your neighbors don't hunt. Maybe you're the only one on that that 600-acre area, even though there's six landowners, but y'all hunt, you bring your friends, and you successfully harvest more birds than you should. What we are actually seeing uh in in some areas is very believable. I think uh Whiteman has demonstrated this in one of his studies underneath Chamberlain, et cetera, but we're seeing some additive mortality. There's two types of mortality. One's capitatory, which basically means this many birds are going to naturally die each year, and we think that by harvesting this many, it's not impacting the population. Beautiful. And we have some areas where we do think that we're harvesting too many birds over what would naturally die through um disease, predation, etc. In those cases is where we start seeing some serious turkey decline potentially. And we could create, I'm calling the black holes where we've had a lot of landowners in multiple states reach out and go, we don't have turkeys anymore. So let me add in, uh let me add in another like curveball because this blows people's minds. So turkeys have evolved through basically imprinting, okay?

SPEAKER_04 20:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

So if we don't have a gobbler to bring other gobblers to a key roof site in this area because we've killed out an age cohort, you know what happens? They may not come back for a while. And a while could be months, years, decades.

SPEAKER_05 20:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Okay. And so we start throwing in some of these other curveballs, and it becomes very complicated. And we're seeing some areas where people they're shouting up and down and screaming like I don't have turkeys anymore. Well, it could be the things I just discussed. Very simple. It's not a big disease, it's not something else. People have been legal, but because of the fragmentation of the land, how many people may be in an area hunting, we may be having some isolated wild turkey decline in areas. It's that simple.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Wow. You know, all right. So here's what's I it keeps going on in the back of my mind, Tristan. Is you know that that video that we're releasing? You know, so Cade has that property, you know, that he hunts and everything else. When you talk to him, this is a buddy of ours that's got property in Arkansas. Talking about it's making me Cade, I'm actually respecting you tonight. It's talking about a true steward of his land and the people that connect to his land. He's got a rule that he will not harvest. I don't know what the number is.

SPEAKER_04 21:29

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SPEAKER_00 22:00

Like the ever since he's no matter what, he can shoot more than that, but he won't do it.

SPEAKER_04 22:05

Yeah. Because he's raising that little ever since he's done that, he's always like there's always like four or five gobblers, if not more, like you know, two two-year-old or older birds when he's been doing it that way the last like six years.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

So yeah. And that's that's a great example of the importance of that. And the other thing that we haven't even talked about is predation, right? I mean, talking about the removal of of significant predation can make a high impact because these birds are smart, right? And and they know we're hunting them, but they also know what else is hunting them and how thick that population is here and there. And if they know that, hey, this area used to be high in predation and this landowner went in and did those things to help reduce that, they're gonna naturally, if the habitat is there, progress to those areas, you know. So there's all there's that in to throw into this whole thing too, you know.

Habitat Shifts And Predator Surges

SPEAKER_02 22:58

So absolutely, man. It it's it's it's pretty interesting. Uh, I'm gonna hit on this predator uh discussion because we're very comfortable talking about it and and things were standing up, and uh people get to hear a lot of details because we haven't even put it all out to the to the bigger public yet, so they're gonna hear it right now. But um, I'm gonna finish up on this this over harvest because um there's some folks were talking about this almost like a DMAP program, deer management assistance program, right? Where you're trying to manage your local deer herds XYZ, okay. And and I and I'm gonna give Brian Murphy, Brian Murphy, a friend of mine from the past from Quality Deer Management, and um you know he's no longer there, and it's things have changed dramatically, right? But when they started cooperatives, okay, thinking about deer, it changed even how state agencies manage deer herds across the nation, okay. And so I give him a lot of credit. When we first started talking about how we're gonna address private lands and turkeys, I said, Man, I I love the cooperative and we're gonna try to do something similar. And he said, That's probably the one of the best things you'll ever do. And and I'm I'm I'm giving him public credit again. They had a great idea because it brought landowners together. So we are standing up private landowner cooperatives for the wild turkey. And so what we're trying to do is get people working together, and one of those components to talk about is when we do an assessment there, ideally we'd like to have at least a 2,500-acre complex. It's a goal. So bring your neighbors in. We want to take a look at things, we want to give some management goals for harvest, turkey harvest. Okay, it may be that not everyone can harvest as many birds as you want to, and so give an example. I was talking about turkeys in Florida. I have a landowner that we have some osceola birds with, and we discussed this like how many birds he's seeing, etc. And we set a harvest goal. We're not going down to harvest as many birds this year, and there's a reason why, because he's not seeing as many turkeys as he did, and we're not going to impact the population. We have to think about, and I'm I'm gonna throw it out there turkeys for tomorrow, right? Yeah, so some of this is self-regulation. Just because on a statewide basis, we know what we can harvest, we may have to pull back a little bit. We have to self-regulate. If people aren't self-regulating, you need to listen up, you need to think about it. Okay, if you want to have birds down the road, for your kids, grandkids, friends, you name it, think about it. Uh, we can't be selfish, can't be greedy. All right. So that's one of them. So then on the front side of all this, and what we're trying to talk about with private land or cooperatives is really habitat, nesting and brood range. I can talk to I am blue in the face about it. We have pushed this forever, and I and I I've talked with many others, and I give an example of a property that I helped do some consulting on, about 3,000 acres down Alabama, a very big track. It was primarily young pine plantation, okay. And what we did is we converted that to uh heavy thinnings. Um, the hardwoods in the little fingers, stringers were not touched. We expanded the openings, we did everything you could. I gave them the full-blown turkey habitat plan, okay. Yeah, they did it. You know what happened? The turkeys just didn't show up. And I and and I've seen this multiple times working with a lot of landowners, and it's always bothered me because I grew up learning and went through school and worked with a lot of folks going, if you do this, they're gonna come. Well, that's just not the fact. There's something that I'm gonna term, and it's not a truth yet. I've talked to all the turkey researchers about this, it's almost like an adoption period. So you heard me earlier talk about birds evolving through imprinting. This is where this is where it becomes a challenge. So if you do a lot more scalable habitat work and you think they're gonna show up, I'm gonna tell y'all right now, it ain't gonna happen because these birds have basically adopted to an area, okay, and they've imprinted on, I need to go here. And so the research shows this is kind of interesting. Here's some here's some cool facts through GPS studied hens. Hens tend that they have this high site fidelity where let's say they drop a nest in one area, they'll usually go back to that five-acre-ish area and put a nest back down the following year and the following year, even if it's depredated on and they almost die, they will go back. Wow. Why is that imprinting? So the the biology of the bird, they don't know better, they do not have cognitive reasoning. So they'll go back to the same place, they will take their brood right back to the same feeder where little Joe gets gets eaten by a hawk one day, and they'll go back the next day, and little Susie dies, and then the next day uh Tristan dies, right?

SPEAKER_03 28:18

What's up? Why do you keep going back?

Cooperatives And Self Regulation

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Because they're stupid, okay. I love their believe me. But then their their downfall, all right. So they keep going back and back and back and back and back to the same place. So same thing on this property. We rehab this property, and what we saw was birds were going to young pine stands.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

I I took one day and walked 15 miles with with this guy, just walking around, walked the roads. I said, Hey, he said, Hey, let's hunt. And I said, Well, I'm gonna hunt on my own. Let me just go and look. Couldn't find a bird. The only bird's gobbling on the adjacent track. Now, to be a biologist and telling someone what to do and how much time money they put into it, I felt like an idiot. But it's the birds, so it takes them time to slowly immigrate back into an area after disturbance is done, even though that habitat was ideal. Yeah, but I'll tell you what happens on the interim when we do scalable habitat, we get a lot of bugs, we got a lot of small rodents, we have all these other populations that start flourishing real quick. So, what does that mean for a turkey? So, this turkey's now got to infiltrate back in where now there's a lot more foxes, cowdies, bobcats, you name it, that used to not be there. I see now there's a second challenge. So, what I noticed walking around, I saw a lot of tracks on the roads. Then I asked the guys with the cameras, I said, Hey, what are y'all seeing on camera? Like, man, we're seeing more bobcats we've ever seen. I went, Well, your habitat has flipped, and you have a lot of young critters here. I'm sure you do have, yeah, we we're seeing a lot more. We're even picking up some foxes, and we got cowdies running. I'm like, okay, all makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

So the biology mine's telling me what happened, but the birds have just not moved back in. It takes them time, and now it's even more of a challenge because there's a higher predator index than what there was.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

I said, All right, boys, next step, we gotta do some predator management. Right. Like that's like you just made me realize like if I had some property and I had turkeys on it, and I haven't assessed the predator population on my land, I am at risk right now, like this spring, this hatch, whatever, from just losing my turkeys for a long, long time. If ever, if ever, getting them back again. You know what I mean? Like, let's say that that population just because they keep going back, right? It gets wiped out, whatever, then man, yeah, you're looking at a a rebuild process. That's that's tough.

Predator Management Research Plan

SPEAKER_02 31:00

It it takes time. Um, you know, and Mother Nature, she deals her cards the way she wants to. And each year, you know, if we get uh crummy weather of any kind, it can it can make populations boom or bust. And so it's interesting. The whole predator thing, I've been thinking about this for years, and not everyone's on board, okay. And so we're standing up some some of the most robust predator prey studies that's ever been done, and there's a reason why. There's less than five studies that's ever really been done with turkeys and predators. That's just a fact. Wow, wow, okay. There's a ton of research with predators and bobwite quail, a ton. Okay, and so we know that if we do some selective trapping and predator removal, two weeks to nest and uh nest initiation for bobwites, we can flip a population in one year by 10 to 15 percent. Wow, depending on population size, juxtaposition of habitat, all this kind of stuff. We've seen populations over a three-year window boost to 100% change. Wow. Okay. If I'm gonna invest in something, boys, I'm gonna tell you right now, I'd invest that every day of the week. We retire, right? So there's some complications here. We haven't proven this with turkeys yet, but we want to prove it with turkeys. Some of us that have worked with a lot of landowners and we've you know we've integrated next steps, especially folks that have done a really good job with habitat. Maybe some predator management could help. So the reason why we want good nesting and brood range, y'all know why? It's to protect birds from predators. Okay, so we get caught up talking about, hey, we need good nesting and brood range. Well, yes, but why do we need it? And we tend not to talk about that. Well, we're talking about it. We do it because we're protecting birds from predators, and so the more that sea of habitat you have across the landscape, the better opportunity that hen is going to survive on the nest, not get bumped. We know through studies that sometimes a hen bumped once, twice, she'll completely leave the nest if she's been bumped by a predator. Okay. And so if we're if we're protecting her with good habitat, fantastic, but predator numbers are still really high, it may it may be really hard for them to overcome that. And so this is some basic biology. Like if we have too many predators and and this kind of prey, they never have a chance to really grow. Now, if we take some correlation of data from the past, I like to talk about this. A lot of the turkey researchers don't like me talking about it, but I am okay, because we got we got to throw it all out there and we got to mix this up and figure it out. And so in the state of Missouri, it's kind of interesting. State of Missouri has long-term data on scent stations for predators. It happens to go back when trapping was at a heyday, fur prices were high. But we happen to see a lot of turkeys. It happened to be around when turkeys were being reintroduced, and the beautiful thing of this this correlation of data here is that we're seeing each hen pulling off seven to eight or more uh polts recruited into the population. So one to seven, one to eight plus ratios. Wow. That's beautiful, right? Yeah, people say, Oh, it's just because birds were being reintroduced at that time, and you know, it just happens. Well, they keep trying to dump birds in Texas right now, the last 10 years, eastern's in Texas, and they cannot get that population to recover. Could it be something else?

SPEAKER_03 34:44

Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

Okay, so let's go back to this data. Do we know which state in the union used to have the highest turkey harvest harvest in the nation? Give y'all a guess. Georgia. Oh Lord, it was Missouri. We're in Missouri. This this is gonna be really easy, okay? So in Missouri, we saw the highest. Do you know what state used to move more furs than the other state in the nation?

SPEAKER_04 35:06

It's gotta be Missouri.

Correlations: Fur Markets And Cicadas

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Oh no, dude, I mean, yes, you're correct. And so we start looking at some of this information that turkey population bolstered, grew, grew, grew, grew. We had intrinsic growth, which is very fast, rapid growth of the turkey population. And then when when the hay may of furs and whatever went away, this is all correlation. I can't say this is a fact, but the correlation is when the fur prices started going down, we happened to see the turkey population harvest going down. Is there something to that? It could be. We did not see as many furs going out the door, and those 60 plus thousand birds being harvested a year started dropping 50, 40s, you know, and then it's still a very high less this past year. They had a very high harvest, okay. Um, but we also have some other things that are going into the mixer, it's pretty interesting. I talk about cicadas a lot. Cicada hatches, it's not everywhere, but we've had some tremendous hatches year over year, and what we see is predator-prey shifts. So this is the same thing as now instead of a predator going, hey, I might pick off a pulse or two, now they got all these cicadas on the ground, they're like, buddy, let's fill on up. This is good. Yeah. And now they're not moving around as much. And so hawks, uh, cowdies, measo predators, they're they're eating cicadas, they're gorging, just like turkeys. Okay. And what we see in all the states, believe it or not, is all the research shows from state agencies through um the basically the polled indices that they run, and then looking at harvest two years after, two years after a cicada event. You know what happens in those states? We usually have record book harvest because which component of the population is harvested almost every year, the highest component, it's two-year-old gobblers, right? Those are those teenagers, they're loud mouth, they gobble a bunch, whatever. But we see this, it's been proven Ohio, here in Kentucky, in the other Midwestern states where we've seen these cicada hatches. We had a back-to-back cicada hatches here in Kentucky last year. Here's some data. Here's some here's some nerdy facts. But we had cicadas hatch over three-quarters of the state. Okay, even though we had some flooding rains, okay, and our hen to pole ratio this year was like a one to four. Wow. Fantastic. Yeah. Correlate, right? Correlation again, can't prove it for sure, but we've seen this in multiple states now, and I think it's it's becoming more factual.

SPEAKER_04 37:50

Wow, who would have thought? I mean, that's I never would have even crossed my mind that that would be a factor.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

Yeah, wow. Yeah, well, I mean back to predators, right? So now predators are focused over here, not here. Yeah, could it be that predators are impacting population growth? Cicadas kind of prove it, right? Right, and so we're trying to start pulling all this together and going, you know, we might be able to do a little bit of work here and have dramatic impacts on populations. If we could get prey numbers higher than predator numbers, then we see growth again.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

And then we then how do we manage that over time? And that's what we're getting at. We want to see good habitat work, but number two, and our private landowner cooperative deal is predator management. Okay. Number two, number three was harvest, which we hit on early here. Okay. Number four, which people are gonna learn about this next week with a partnership we have with Hunt Regs. Um, we're gonna have an uh basic an application rolling out nationwide that basically anyone can collect data for us, okay. The citizen scientist, and then we're gonna have a little fun with this. We're throwing in for each day that citizen scientist enters in data. It's real simple, just a few questions about turkeys. I don't care if you're if you're if you're riding down the road, you see them entered in. You get entered in for a chance for a fully guided osseola turkey hunt next year. Wow. So we're trying to incentivize people to help. Um, because we got to tackle this problem at a much larger scale.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, why would why would you not get involved in in that if you're uh listening to this podcast?

SPEAKER_02 39:32

Absolutely. So the one thing about predators, we're standing up some studies. I think this is very important. Um, it's extremely important, and I'll talk about Georgia as well. Um, so we're standing up. Um, this may end up being one of the largest predator prey studies ever done. Period. Okay. Okay. We have nine states involved. Uh Pennsylvania, um, all the way over to Oklahoma, and then basically most of the deep south states. And so 11 study sites. It's going to be over multiple years. We have four major universities: University of Tennessee, um, University of Auburn, uh, University of Florida, and Oklahoma State. We also have tall timbers involved, the National Trappers Association, and the National Trappers Foundation at the moment. We may have some more. And so it's a big deal. Um, we're putting out ARUs at the minute at the moment, trail cameras, and we have control and study sites. And then literally we'll start a trapping protocol uh next uh quote unquote early, early, not spring, but really winter into spring of next year. Okay. Okay. And then we'll start monitoring results. And so hopefully uh we'll start figuring out if just some basic trapping helps, and then we'll start implementing some more advanced trapping down the road and see what those differences are. And all for turkeys, okay.

SPEAKER_03 40:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

Another study, we're standing up out of the state of Georgia with the Jones Center, okay. Down in Deep South, along with the University of Florida, is another prayer to prey study. Um, because we're we we gotta throw everything we can and try to figure out what we can do and then come up with real-world recommendations on how to do this. I think it's gonna fall really much in line with how we do it for Bob Whites, but um we want to make sure that is gonna be the facts. And then we have another study in Oklahoma with Dr. Turner. It's a prescribed fire predator-prey study there as well. And so we're we're we're throwing all we got at it to try to figure out if this is gonna be a bigger component than what we may have ever thought.

SPEAKER_04 41:45

Do you think that um, you know, assuming that this goes well and it kind of proves the the issue here, that they would ever implement something, whether it be state by state or just across the board where they put some sort of like incentive on trapping these for like the average person? I mean, would that ever be on the table, you think?

SPEAKER_02 42:05

I think so. So I can't share everything yet, but I will show you this. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

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SPEAKER_03 43:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

Where you can do XYZ, you know, um actions on your land to improve habitat, etc., for whatever species.

SPEAKER_03 43:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Maybe, maybe a component of some very larger policy from the federal to state policy would be to integrate some of these funding mechanisms for trapping when other things are in place. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 43:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

So if you're doing good habitat work and you want to do next level, hey, great. Maybe you're on a lease property and you can't do all the habitat work, but maybe you can trap. Hey. And so I think if we can get this data, if if if this some of these research projects, if it proves what we're really thinking, then we take this to change policy at a bigger, stronger mm arena. And that's really the goal.

SPEAKER_04 44:02

Man, that's that's awesome. And I think, you know, big picture. This is why uh organizations like what you guys do are so important. And I think, you know, people that don't look at data. There's you see on social media all the time people just like run their mouth and different things, and whether it be ducks, whether it be turkeys, whatever it might be, but don't look at the actual facts of like what folks like you guys are doing, boots on the ground, like behind the scenes that could influence like policy, you know what I mean? Right, like that that kind of stuff's just so important.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

I mean, well, data supports policy, right? Right. And if you don't have the facts and the data, there's not gonna be policy. And that's just nobody's going to invest money, time, effort, and everything else unless the facts are there. And and somebody's gotta be willing out to go out and do that. And thank God that I mean, what a what a to do to just put that together, that co-op of of all these different states to do that study. I mean, I know that just that in itself had to be a year a minimal year, a year of planning, just in that.

From Data To Policy Change

SPEAKER_02 45:04

I'll tell you what, um, believe it or not, we did it in about six months. Um this came from a couple of us basically kind of having some some you know one-on-one conversation about hey, we need to do something. And uh, and I'll tell you, uh, Dr. Harper um out of University of Tennessee, we were we were basically talking at one of our field days, and he had one of the exact same kind of examples that I have of multiple landowners. And he had told this story about working with a landowner from you know day one, and they didn't really do any habitat work, but they they just started with some really simple trapping. They had a ton of cameras on this place. Um, they only knew of a handful of birds on this property, okay, from day one. And so they started putting in um some dog proofs, right? Really simple trap, one of the easiest ones. I call it the the the candy, right? We uh if you get a taste that candy, you want to do some more. It's easy to do. Um, I mean, guys, when I when I go around the springtime, I keep some with me and I show people, I'm like, hey, have y'all ever run one of these? What's that? I said, Man, this is easy. This is a midday like we're gonna turn out in the morning, we'll run traps in the middle of the day, make a day out of it, right? So, and and everyone's like, Oh man, that's easy. I'm like, Yeah, we can set a few and come back next day and you're in turkey camp, let's let somebody come and you know, run the next few days, and all of a sudden you're starting to have little impacts, okay? And so it's a way to get people interested in doing it. But if we do all this correctly, right, uh, we may see some long-term benefits. And so I was talking to talking to Craig about the same kind of thing, and he's like, Yeah, first year we did this, and we saw a little little impact, then year two, and then man, year three. He's like, Man, we had 42 gobblers on camera plus jakes. I'm like, Good night. He's like, Yeah, he's like, all we're doing was trapping. We did nothing else, like the same habitat management was going on, nothing changed, but that did. I'm like, man, I've heard this too. We have one of my board members that said this. I have one of our board members in in that we did a study actually with Sitka, okay. And we radio tagged birds last year, about it was almost a year ago today, uh, down in Texas, some Rios. And our board member down there uh at Mellon Creek, Mellon Creek, it's an outfitter. Uh Mr. Dan Brayman owns the place. He's a fantastic human being. He's been on our board for a number of years. And he said, Look, Jason, he said, I will tell you this, I've been doing intensive habitat work for a long time. Uh, and in scrub country, brush country, it's a different kind of management. A lot of fire, a lot of mechanical disturbance for mesquite, etc. And and they're, I mean, it's it's different. And he said, You know what? I changed and my turkey population changed. I said, What's that? He said, We started trapping primarily around our roof sites and really working the road system. Most of these predators like to use road systems because they're lazy like we are. And he said, It may have been two years, but maybe three years. He said, I bet you my population doubled, if not tripled. He said, I can't prove it. He said, But being here this many years, we got a lot of turkeys. And I'm gonna tell you boys right now. I went down there and I and and when I went down the first time and kicked around Dan, I said, Dan, I said, I rode around, I rode around your guys. I said, This is like an old, like an old roach motel, right? He's like, What do you mean? I said, Man, you got so many doggone turkeys, it's like roaches coming out everywhere.

SPEAKER_05 48:40

He just started laughing.

SPEAKER_02 48:42

He was like, Yeah, I guess so. And I said, Yeah, I said, I've been to a lot of tracks in a lot of states, um, all over the place, working with small landowners to very large landowners, thousands of landowners. And I said, Man, I've never seen so many birds. He's like, We do the habitat work, but now we're doing the trap, and he said, This works, this is common sense. And you know what he says, we don't over harvest. I love that. I said, Man, that's exactly what we're talking about. He said, We do not over harvest birds. I know roughly how many gobblers I have every year, and we will not over-harvest, and that is key. Like he is managing his population at a local level. That's right. That's not what anyone else can tell him to do. That's winning, winning, and winning.

SPEAKER_04 49:28

Yeah, so folks listening to this. I mean, if you have if you're fortunate enough to have your own property, I mean, I hope hope there's some people listening to this that are taking notes tonight that can be like, man, if I implement some of these things in three years, you know, could potentially see a really great turnaround.

Funding Models And Agency Gaps

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Well, and and the the bigger thing is that you know, just it gives you if you if you don't know your neighbor, it gives you good reason to go over and talk to him. Yeah, and just say, hey, you know, whether you hunt or not, I mean, literally, if even if you allow hunting on that property or not, just go and and and talk about being cooperative in it, you know, and and that effort, you know, and I think that's just a huge deal. I've seen it. I mean, the whitetail community does a really great job of it, I think, in in in a lot of areas, you know. I mean, especially with what land's going for and it's when it's being driven by whitetail hunting populations. You you really are in a lot of states like Illinois and Iowa and stuff like that. People, I've had a buddy that I mean, he he wasn't gonna go invest$1.4 million before he talked to the property owners around there, you know, and said, Hey, what are you all doing? You know, and and um um it's become a a bigger deal, you know. But um that's that's what it's all about, I think. Is it's just like you said, is when you can can take that effort of managing your population, uh, that's the key.

SPEAKER_04 50:54

Um let me ask you this, Jason. So for um, you know, we talked about private and how private can influence public, and it seems like just from in our backyard, like what we see on public land, it seems like the state of Georgia does a pretty good intentional job of managing their turkeys. I mean, you see areas that are burned, you I mean, you see I think. Come up from habitat management, yeah. From habitat management standpoint, I mean, has and I don't want to like say this in any sort of way, like that's not painting state agencies in a great light. That's not what I'm trying to do, but like are state agencies all receptive or all kind of across the board as like doing everything they can, or don't name any states, but I mean, is it one of those things that can be frustrating working with certain states that aren't like on the same page, I guess? And don't you don't have to name anything. I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_02 51:44

I'm not gonna point anyone out uh at all, or locations, but I'll tell you this. I think I think a lot of the mindset, I mean you look at how agencies are structured, whether it's the feds or the states, and you know, their goal is primarily they're they're they're taking care of the wildlife populations at large. But oftentimes there's a lot more time, energy, money put into the public grounds because they're having to manage those, right? And they're trying to maximize output, knowing that there's probably going to be more people um per acre on those those tracks than anywhere else. And so that's a challenge. I mean, I worked for the state agency down in Georgia in the past, and we saw that on all the public grounds, and so it was always a challenge. And so it takes a lot more effort to do that. Um, but thinking very holistically here, I do think there needs to be a lot of change in states where there's more emphasis on professionals working with private landowners for management. And I don't know where Georgia is these days. I just know that you know, I left Georgia and I had a six-month waiting list of people wanting me to meet with them.

SPEAKER_05 52:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

That's a fact. There were that many people that needed help. And, you know, I I know I was burning the road every week trying to help folks and I love doing it. You know, a lot of people depend on what they're managing for, and so I think there's a gap, and I think it's because of how many of the agencies were designed in the past and even the funding structures to help that happen. A state, and I will mention a few here, but a state like Missouri that has a more permanent funding model where an eighth of the cent of sales tax goes into conservation, so everybody buys in, okay?

SPEAKER_03 53:30

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:31

They have one of the best infrastructures, they have private land biologists for every county.

SPEAKER_03 53:36

Wow. Holy cow.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

So Missouri has a big focus. Minnesota is another one of those states with a very good funding model, and so they have a strong, and some of that's through their lottery dollars, okay? So they have a very strong uh component there. We've been um, excuse me, there's some dogs gonna bark. But um in in the state of Tennessee, right now, they're trying to come up with some additional funding sources to help because right now, I mean, you guys understand how this works. It is the folks that buy the hunting and fishing licenses that are are are the the bread and butter to fund the agencies, and then they use you know uh Pittman Robertson and Diggle Johnson dollars, okay, as matches. And the PR dollars are primarily coming, it's anywhere from 83 to 86 percent of that total funding is coming from recreational shooting.

SPEAKER_03 54:30

Wow.

Enforcement, Rights, And Threats

SPEAKER_02 54:30

Folks that don't even really hunt. So we have a very complex system that's worked, but we have a lot of pressures in this system. And honestly, you know, I think that in society, and this is this is um this is a controversial topic, and you get around a lot of agency staff and and folks in positions and that work with commissions, and this is a scary topic because when people say, hey, we need to have everybody at the table to solve these problems, well, that means so-and-so wants this and so-and-so wants this. I'm gonna tell everyone right now, I've said in a lot of meetings in a lot of places from Washington, D.C. to state capitals, trying to drive some kind of conservation directive for the greater good of all of us. And what you see is folks on the very big opposition, they show up. The HSUSs, the PETAs, the other folks that we don't really think about, we joke around about, they show up and they're driving hard. So these other random folks are there. So what we need are better funding mechanisms, uh, I think long term, if we're really going to manage wildlife across all counties in every state the way it needs to be managed correctly. Yeah. And I think there needs to be more emphasis there.

SPEAKER_04 55:47

Uh that's a great point.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

Well, and hopefully, you know, through good hires and direction that, you know, some of these states that are doing it right, that, you know, and you see it, I know, I know you see it in a lot of ways, you know, is that it's that duplication effect, right? You know, that they see one one state doing it right, and there's a co uh a co-worker or colleague that now is in charge of this state, and you know, starts putting in the same mechanisms, you know, because of that, you know, and hopefully we'll we'll see that more of a uh uh of a of a drip effect, you know, with that.

SPEAKER_04 56:22

So yeah, absolutely. I feel like a lot of um not all states, but it feels like for sure, Illinois, like um just like from what he's told me, like when he we're originally from Illinois and like the stuff he tells me about when he was a kid, like the state parks and just the the resources of the game wardens that were around and the the biologist and the stories he used to tell me about the staff that just worked there at the park. I mean, now it's like you you may yeah, you you hardly see anybody up there, and it's just like it seems like you see that and even in Georgia too. I think they had a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

We had a 24-square mile lease. Uh never it hadn't been hunted in in 20 plus years, set by one person, a family member. And we got rights to this property, and it was, I mean, it's just a Mecca, a whitetail mecca.

SPEAKER_02 57:11

And um, you know, can you send me an onyx point?

SPEAKER_00 57:15

Well, it's it's public land now, so the the state finally got what they were aiming for. Uh long story on that. But um, the uh the thing that was intriguing though was when they were approached by the state of Illinois uh with two biologists and said, we want to utilize your property and the neighbors to do a six-year study on deer that are four and a half years of age and older. And they want to they wanted to get into the minds of why are these deer so smart? You know, what's why why are they uh why was uh you know, I always give credit to the guy that wrote Bambi that you know, all the animals in the forest, where did they look for danger? Boy, when uh the great prince or whatever stood up, they they was like, hey, all right, and even that guy knew what was going on with a smart deer. But I'm point is is that they were reaching out to to private landowners to make an impact, you know, and you understand that that's where they're gonna get some of this data from and stuff. It was really interesting, and actually I'll just share the the the long the stat that that they came to that I I'll I'll never forget was after that six-year study, they were going over there uh so many different results. But what they determined was, and this is before trail camera, the results came out in like 96, 7, that range, and that 78% of bucks over the age of four and a half years or older are never even seen by a human. That's what they that's what they determined, and they did it by radio collar, you know, they did every every single way. Um, but that's before we had trail cameras and and everything else, you know. Trail cameras made a gigantic difference in that. But um, but no, but the point is is that um that Illinois used to do that kind of thing. I don't know if they still do, if they have the resources to, but but when you what I'm to piggyback off what Tristan's saying is that perception a lot of times is reality, right? And you go to this famous place that you see so staffed, and it wasn't it was very common to run into a biologist and a game warden and and and people there that are managing the property and and putting in food plots and doing all these things, and you know, sometimes it's like crickets there now, you know. So it's uh you know, that's how it can change so drastically in just a 20-year period. Yeah, you know, big piece of land being uh being uh affected like that, and it's everything, not just deer, it's everything in that in that absolutely, you know.

States To Watch And Progress

SPEAKER_02 59:46

Well, I I think from uh from a national scale, um, especially in the eastern U.S. the Western U.S. I mean, if we look at some of those states that are almost all public ground, and you know, um I know I've hunted in a few of them and it's crazy. I'm like, oh, I can just go over on the checkerboard here and hunt another track, there's no one around, you know, and it's just totally different. Um, but here in the east, I mean it's it's primarily privately owned. And, you know, it's um we have to change the mindset. And and honestly, a lot of this is it comes down to really legislative efforts. And uh this is a whole other topic, but you know, we do need to think about more permanent funding resources um to fund uh making sure that we continue to have places to hunt, we have staff to manage this and people that are out there ensuring that things are being regulated as well. I I was um I was talking to a gentleman, uh Wayne the other day over um, he's with like wildlife crime stoppers, right? Someone we're gonna do some work with. And we're just talking about the lack of even enforcement out there, especially for turkeys, um, and and how a big of a challenge it is. And we hear all these stories, hear a lot of them, uh, and we've seen a lot of of the outlaws out there over harvesting, over the limit, trespassing, baiting, you name it. Uh, and it's it's you know, turkey hunting or turkey hunters or folks that are, I'm gonna say not turkey hunters, but are true doggone poachers, okay. They are a problem. And so also having the ability to have the funding to for all that mechanism, because even on the law enforcement side, uh, for game wards, conservation officers, etc., oftentimes those funding mechanisms are much different with how they are funneled down through the agency. So there's some challenges uh for sure. And for some reason, a lot of people tend to throw you know the wildlife stuff kind of on the back burner. You know, it's like, hey, we need to we need to put funding here, we need to do this here, and it's kind of here, and but maybe we can borrow some money from from them too. And so there's always almost every year you hear of some kind of legislative fight where someone's trying to dip in and grab license funds to pay for something else. Uh and it's pretty scary. You know, in the state of Oregon right now, boys. I don't know if y'all know this, but there is a petition where they're gonna try to push through for a referendum vote to basically ban all hunting and fishing in the state.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:18

Oh my gosh. What? That's a fact. It's pretty scary. Wow, is that why um they talk about like, you know, like it was such a big deal, like Travis Thompson's a huge played a huge part of those too, but like the right to hunt and fish in Florida, that's why that's so important, I guess.

Join A Local Flock And Get Involved

SPEAKER_02 1:02:34

There's a lot of states, um, I'm pretty sure Georgia has it in place. Um, there's a lot of the southeastern space, especially moved through with that legislation. Or I remember when the boat was done here in Kentucky, um, maybe a decade ago, and man, that's a big deal. It's it's there now. Okay, we got a protection in place. And I never thought we'd have to go those routes, but I think there was a time era where a lot of these crazies were pushing to basically take away these things that we fought so hard to have. I mean, our natural resources, what grew our country. Yeah, I mean, we're very blessed. We're blessed to be in a country where we have the rights to do these things. I mean, it's we're in um we're very lucky and we're still kind of on the back end of a heyday, you know, and we need to protect that. Um, because it's it can be with this right here, it's called a pen. A pen can a pen stroke can take that away. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:31

Yeah. I think uh I know you talked a little bit about Steve Ranella uh when we were on the phone, but I think he was the one that said that or it was either him or uh Clay Newcomb over there talking about the first like millionaire or whatever in the United States was a trapper, I guess, like beaver, beaver pelts or something. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:48

Which is pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:50

Yeah, I mean you you think about how our country was formed, and and you know, we had all these people leaving uh basically Europe because you know, um they they were on the thumb of the king. And you know, to go over there, you just can't go over there and hunt. Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:04

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:05

So um it's totally different, and so it's it's really a hierarchy, and you got to have a title and all this jazz. And so, but over here, you know, people came here for that freedom to do these things, and clearly this abundance of the natural resource. Number one, we had a ton of fiber, but ton of trees. And so uh people are like, whoa, we can build and make things, and then like whoa, furs and whoa, feathers. Um, and so there they end up being this huge market that erupted, and and of course, you know, over time, you know, things have changed. But yeah, um, it's kind of interesting on a on a I'm not gonna get too global, but I will, but uh, you look at South America right now, and South America is at kind of a point where we were, um, and where they're seeing a lot of growth into into this big jungle environment, and they're going, man, look at all this, and look at all this stuff, and and so they're seeing a big boom, and and it's because of their natural resources as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:03

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:05

Um, you know, I haven't done this in a while, and I haven't thrown random questions like this at people, but when we have listeners, but let's go, baby. All right, I'm gonna hit you with one right now. Who's the biggest state that you want to give them a big shout out because you see things going in the right directions for turkeys? Oh man. Or if you if you've got a handful to give them shout-out. I don't want to leave anybody out, but I think I just wanted to show that in a good light to the people that are listening that hey, you know, somebody like Jason here that's so involved and understands um there's some good things going on, you know, for your state.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

So I I'll tell you what, um, I think Mississippi is about to stand some things up like no other right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:49

All right. They just they just moved uh uh a turkey stamp there not long ago. We we didn't publicly talk about it, but I'll tell you whose letter was on the governor's desk before anyone else's. Pre-cenders had it pretty quickly. And so I will say that that state has some great potential to do some things. We've been talking behind the scenes. We actually have some content we're going to be releasing the next few weeks with some of our Mississippi folks. They they um they're going to progress some things. Uh is Mississippi hurting on the turkey population? Yes. However, I'll tell you what, there's some very motivated individuals with the agency there, and I'm proud to call them my friends and colleagues. And I think some great things are about to happen. I'll leave it there.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

Awesome, awesome stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:38

That's great stuff. Well, from a from a like holistic view of like uh turkeys for tomorrow, do you guys, and this might be a dumb question, but like, so how do people you know take us through getting involved and what people I mean, do you guys do local banquets and chapters and stuff like that, kind of like the NWTF model, or what's what's the we we do have some similarities, and so we have something called local flocks.

Stewardship, Memory, And The Why

SPEAKER_02 1:07:02

Okay, uh, it's got a different name because we're trying to keep us separated from everyone. We're not a branch, we're not a chapter, we're not a group. We're called a flock, it's kind of turkey-centric. Yeah, um, so we have flocks that are erupting uh primarily in the southeast, but the northeast is picking up. Um, we even have one form with some policemen and firemen in New York City, which is pretty cool. Wow. So yeah, uh Pennsylvania, New York, um, New Hampshire is about to have something, uh, Maryland's about to turn on Virginia, West Virginia, the Carolinas, and then the deep south is uh Alabama is kind of the biggest stronghold right now. Um, and so that's really good. But we have flocks. Um basically our requirement is hey, we're we're just looking for your time, talent, or treasures. How can you you build back in? If you want to help us do a field day, fantastic. If you want to do something to help fundraise, fantastic. If you want to just help get the word out, let's do it. And so we're trying to keep it very open. And what we're seeing is we have a very young following. So if I look at our our following online, which is pretty tremendous on all of our social platforms and/or our membership, it's primarily 20 to 40 year olds, is the bulk. And then it kind of tails down, it's much different than all the other organizations. Uh we have a similar approach to backcountry hunters and anglers um with bringing people together with social events very early. Have fun. I mean, you may see some bourbon behind me. I'm kind of the bourbon guru. Um, and we're having fun at events, bringing people together. It may just be we're not doing any fundraising, we just want to get people inspired to try to fix the turkey issue. And we got folks that are on our side, fantastic. So that's how we're doing that um from local level. Um, if people do want to fundraise, we put a committee together this past year. It's called the Fly Down Committee. Basically, our volunteers, and we decided that at a local level, they can expend 20% of anything they make, uh net value back at a at something local, local projects. If they want to invest in larger projects, they can. But we got a suite, a list of items and things they can do to get back and help. And that's something we heard is like we want to do more locally. Well, let's do that. Uh, the only cursor I put on all that was that you have a two-year window to expend it. And so we just don't want money sitting. Uh, we want it to go to use, and so a little different approach than everyone else, but that's that's how we're doing that. Uh so yeah, we have a lot of different kinds of events. We've had golf tournaments, uh, we've had trapping field days, we've had habitat field days, um, and then typical conservation dinners. And so uh we're trying to elevate the nomenclature a little bit. It's uh it's conservation focused, it's a dinner, and so most of these are in the evening, uh, Thursday, Friday, Saturdays. We have a couple coming up uh this weekend, so to speak, uh in Tennessee and down in Montgomery, and so uh, which is good. And then uh I think the following week we have several Birmingham, Alabama, to a couple events over in South Carolina. So um, yeah, it's very good. Awesome, awesome stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:13

Yeah, man, that is fantastic stuff, and definitely um, you know, shoot, just learning about uh your guys' organization night and stuff you're doing. I I it's really inspiring and uh just exciting.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:26

I holy cow.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:27

I mean, feel very optimistic hearing and again, like I was telling you, like we're not we're pretty green to turkey hunting, but like from just the overall you know, noise of people's opinions, like to hear what you're preaching over there at TFT, like it's it's really encouraging stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:46

Yeah, no, it is, and it's great. And and you know, like he said, you know, we don't invest most of our time and money into turkey hunting, but I know there's a lot of people that do, yeah. And probably way more than what we put into deer hunting and and waterfowl hunting. And um I just know that it grabs people like and you're it's like you're a crackhead.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:08

Yeah, you know, I mean yes, yes, I am a crackhead.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:12

Yes, no, but that's but that's but that's a great thing, right? And and and uh with us, you know, we understand our worlds because we're more engaged in that a little bit more when it comes to like you know, waterfowl and and big game and stuff like that. And we understand like truly firsthand, we how involved it needs to be to support those things. And and uh man, uh again, you know, just like I started off with, if it wasn't for folks like you guys, um we we wouldn't have these resources. We just wouldn't. It's that simple.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

Well, we appreciate you guys. Um, and um once again, it's a team effort. Everyone's out there trying to um solve some of these problems. And what what it is, I mean, we're we're just a bunch of passionate fools that love it. And uh, and we you know it's it's kind of it's kind of interesting to talk about, but uh oftentimes I I talk about this is one of the hardest duties that God has put upon us to be the stewards of the land and do it right because this is man, this is we've already screwed it up enough, but but now we got to try to make it right. And so it's a big challenge, and I hope everyone can just take a minute to think about it. Next time you're out this spring or whether you're fishing, deer hunting. I mean, ain't no doubt. I mean, I like to do all kinds of stuff. It's it's pretty crazy. So um there's a lot of dead parts. My wife's gonna go, what am I gonna do with this? If you pass away, I'm like, just throw it away, whatever. Bear it with me. Yeah, I mean, bear it all with me, man. I mean, I'll be whacking like, but uh, but yeah, it's it's a challenge, you know, and it's it's a it's a challenge and a hill that I'm willing to die on for. Um, because it's not just about me, it's about everything else. And if we're doing what's right uh at the end of the day, I mean it's gonna be great greater for all the communities out there too. And so that's how I look at this. And so uh I'm just blessed to get to do something I love and don't feel like it's work, but uh, but it definitely is work.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:14

Well, at the end of the day, this is all about the bird that should have been America's. That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:23

I thought just one last thing I wanted to uh kind of bring up because it's something I've been thinking about recently. You know, there's so so many freaking Monday morning quarterbacks on waterfowl, and I understand it's a migratory bird, and there's a lot more dynamics that go into it, but I think what you hit on earlier about being selfless about your harvest as a hunter and being more, you know, for the greater good, you know, that's one of the points I was talking about with a guy from Louisiana the other day about duck hunting is like me personally, for the greater good, like if I didn't have to hunt, if they I don't I know this is not a popular opinion, but if there were certain states I couldn't hunt as much, if I couldn't shoot as many birds, whatever it's gotta be, I don't know how to make those decisions and figure that stuff out. Whatever they need to figure out to make sure this, like the greater good of waterfowl's good, do it by all means. Whatever we gotta do. I'm willing personally to be selfless about that and everything else. And I think that um just through all hunting, I mean, that was a great point you brought up. I think you know, everyone's gotta look in the mirror, I think, and kind of as much as we love it, we gotta be a little bit, you know, gotta share the resource, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:30

And protect it to pass it on, man. I mean, thank God people did that before us, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:34

Yep, yeah, amen. I mean, it's I I think that's um when you're out there by yourself or with someone or whatever, I mean, that's that's where it all comes, I mean, it all comes together, right? And you have that ability to make that decision. And, you know, for me and turkey hunting, I mean, no doubt I've I may have harvested a turkey or two and may have been to a few places to do it. But uh, to be honest with you, I I don't have to go out and go, hey, if my limits two birds here in Kentucky, I don't have to kill two birds. Um, and if I'm out and experiencing that, you know, I mean, some of my coolest mornings, afternoons, you name it, has never yielded a turkey in hand. It's everything else that's come with it. Right. And I mean, I cherish those moments. I mean, I got some tearjerker kind of stories that I'm not gonna go into here because I am not gonna get into ball mode, but I'm gonna tell you every season, and I and I I mean, I promise you this, every season I really look forward to getting out with folks, because I don't know what's gonna happen, but it's been some of the best doggone memories I've ever had in my life. And and I and I'm just like, I can't wait to make another one. Can't wait to make it you know, and that's what it's all about. Amen. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:50

Well, Jason, thank you so much for taking the time tonight. Uh this was awesome. We really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:56

Yeah, that's again, we say this all the time, and and kudos to everybody 170 plus episodes ahead of you. But uh, dude, we get off of these and we're like, dude, that was that podcast is so awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:09

That's why we love it. That's why we love doing this.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:12

Yes, I mean, and people like you just humble us to death.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:15

So well, I appreciate the opportunity and you know, trying to get some good word out there to folks. And y'all do y'all good, you guys are doing a great job. And uh one of our staff's like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I can't believe you're gonna talk to them. Like, yeah, we don't have that was good. That was really good. Uh, but no, guys, I appreciate it. And uh, yeah, if anyone, if anyone out there wants to learn more about us, turkeysfortomor.org, you can find us, you can find us on any of the platform. Just look us up. If you got a question, reach out, call us, send us an email, we will respond to you because we'll we want help.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:51

Yes, sir. That's awesome stuff. Well, we can't wait to get you back on and and dive into a whole bunch of other rabbit holes. And man, if you're ever out here in the Atlanta way, let me know. Let's go have let's go have a dinner and a beer or something. I'm always eating three cats.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:10

Going too fast now, think off, slow down, standing in the poor rain.