Turkey Talk with Dr. Michael Chamberlain

Speaker 1: 0:26

Welcome back to the Garden State Outdoorsman podcast presented by boondocks hunting. I'm your host, mike nitre I'm peyton smith I'm frank mastika and I'm steve molnar guys, we got a very special episode for you guys. This is, uh, starting off our turkey talk segment here. Um, this is going to be the initial drop for for our new, our recurring segment, three years in a row, now that we're going to be doing this, and this is a real special one that we got here for you guys. We have michael chamberlain, nice to meet you.

Speaker 1: 0:56

It's good to meet you guys, nice, nice to talk to you and you know, yeah, and to have you on. Yeah, the zoom meet right. Yeah, you know it would be cool, it would be better if we're in person, but you know, being from so far away and everything like that, that's that's not possible. Uh, but uh, can you guys just give us a quick backstory on on yourself and uh, let all the listeners know, uh, a little bit about yourself, if they don't know already?

Speaker 5: 1:22

Yeah, sure, sure. I'm a professor at the University of Georgia. I conduct research and outreach here, meaning I get paid to study critters, help inform agencies on management strategies and explain what the work means to people. That's kind of my job. Explain what the work means to people, that's kind of my job. I grew up in Virginia suburban kid hunted everything that I could hunt, starting with a BB gun in the backyard, chasing whatever I could chase, and ended up going to college because I liked animals and didn't really like people and figured if I studied wildlife that I could back into a job where I got to spend time outside. And boy little did I know that my job would end up being working with people. So that's just a cautionary tale. If you think you're heading in a career path that puts you where you think you might be, just be open to other options.

Speaker 1: 2:32

Yeah, no, definitely, and you know talking about that a little bit. Your your your backstory. So so you were East, you know East coast guy, you know being that from from where? Now, how? How'd you end up out out in Georgia?

Speaker 5: 2:44

Yeah, so I I went to Virginia Tech and did my undergraduate degree there and then I got an offer to go to graduate school at Mississippi State University and I went there and did my master's degree, was offered a PhD program to stay on, so I stayed there and did both my masters and my PhD work and I actually I actually left Mississippi State and went to work at LSU, at Louisiana State University, as a faculty member there for about 11 years and then my current position came open here at University of Georgia and I applied and was fortunate to to get an interview and be hired, and so that's kind of where I've been for the last gosh almost 13 years now yeah, so we before you, you know you, you really dive into.

Speaker 1: 3:39

You know the whole turkey, like you. You started off, you know, with with the bb gun. You said you know it's small game and everything like that, what it went from, I imagine deer hunting. Has turkeys always been like, like this passion of yours? Or where did the turkey passion and drive really come from?

Speaker 5: 3:56

yeah, I mean, I was.

Speaker 5: 3:58

I was a turkey hunter as a as a kid, as a teenager, but it was mostly we fall, we hunted in the fall at home and spring hunting really wasn't, it was just gaining popularity in the, you know, in the night mid 1980s when I was a teenager and that tells you how old I am but I mean, I turkey hunted, but I it was a turkey hunted because I could and it was fun and it offered me the chance to get outside.

Speaker 5: 4:29

I didn't really become super passionate about turkeys until I trapped the first one. When I got hired as a graduate student at Mississippi State, I was allowed to choose the project that I worked on, the field research that I did, and one of the options was a study doing wild turkey work and I thought that would be super interesting because I love to hunt turkeys as a teenager. And then when I shot the first rocket net over the first bird and put a radio on its back and tracked it, I became infatuated with with the bird, um, and that's. That was 30, 31 years ago this year that that happened and I've been, you know, I've been passionate about it ever since um, that that's.

Speaker 1: 5:21

That's absolutely amazing. I know, uh, pete, and he's he's gonna have a bunch of the questions. Peyton, he's going to have a bunch of the questions for you. He's our big turkey guy. I'm just getting into it. So I'm really going to sit back and just take as much as I possibly can in, but I know Peyton, steve and Frank, they're more of the turkey experts on this team, so I'm going to let Peyton start getting into it and, you know, getting more into the detail, talk about this for sure.

Speaker 5: 5:44

I'm getting to let Peyton start getting into it and you know, getting more into the detailed talk about this, I'm getting a little concerned. Peyton is really. I can see Peyton's wheels are turning. He's kind of pacing a little bit and you know he's walking in place.

Speaker 2: 5:56

That's the standing desk, actually more than anything else. But yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it's hard to consider myself an expert, especially on this phone call, because I'm far from that, I'm an engineer by trade. But so the science behind everything always gets me interested. And for those, you know, and every time I look into wild turkey, research and kind of understanding, like you know, habitat, what habitat to look for to make me a better hunter. Research and kind of understanding, like you know, habitat, what habitat to look for to make me a better hunter, you know, because I like to look at the science behind things. You see quotes, articles, journals from dr mike chamberlain. So, um, you know you've helped me a lot more than you know already, so I want to thank you for that.

Speaker 2: 6:39

Uh, giving me some pointers yeah, um, I guess, like you know, being in the southeast, your season's you probably open by now. You got the opportunity to get out at all this season. Have any luck.

Speaker 5: 6:52

I've been out. One time I went with a, with a buddy. Our season just started this past Saturday here, so it's just an infant, infant stage, if you will. Um, I don't, I won't get started until actually I'm leaving tomorrow to go on my first little little trip and I'll be going pretty hard from now until the middle of may, um, at which point I'll be tired and probably divorced, but uh, but it'll be, it'll be fun, yeah yeah, absolutely, where's, uh, your first stop on your kind of turkey tour?

Speaker 5: 7:29

it's going to be in alabama. Yeah, I'm heading next door for a few days with some friends and then, uh, then I'm heading to florida to participate in a wounded warriors hunt, which is all, it's a. It's a lot of fun. It's very, very humbling and rewarding to be able to do that hunt and spend time with those guys and and then I'm headed for places unknown. Uh, yeah, I'm going. I'm looking forward to it. I love to travel and I like to see turkeys in different places that they call home and I don't. It's not that I dislike hunting here in my backyard, but it's a lot more fun to me to be able to to go different places yeah, I mean that seems like something that a lot of people do with.

Speaker 2: 8:13

That's like unique to turkey hunting really. And I'm not entirely sure what that reason is, and I myself have started doing it. You know, I start my season in Virginia kind of by where close to your, where you went to undergrad. I start my season in Virginia, kind of by where close to your, where you went to undergrad. Um, I start my season in, you know, virginia and then I eventually move up to my home state of Maryland before hitting New Jersey and and this year adding Vermont, uh, to the mix of things. So it seems like a lot of people do that like quote-unquote, like turkey tour, where they go and hit different states, but you don't see that with like a lot of other things. You know, maybe people go out west for elk, but why do you, what do you think it is about, like turkeys that might lend itself to like the you know kind of tour kind of aspect, go to these foreign states and and set up shop.

Speaker 5: 9:02

I can't speak for others. I can tell you what my motivation is and that being I just think it's. You know, turkey hunting, and particularly in the spring, is just different. It's just a different activity. It's cerebral, it makes you think, you get connected to the bird.

Speaker 5: 9:21

You're you, you're visually connected to the bird, because bird because of how gaudy they are and how visceral the hunt is, they're particularly, you know, if you've been lucky enough to have one screaming in your face and it just consumes you as a person and you long for opportunities to experience that thrill and that that opportunity somewhere other than where you've already done it. And I think once you start traveling, you realize how many different places this bird lives that are so different from one another that you. It becomes at least for me, it becomes like a not a drug, that would be a poor choice of words it becomes something that I really look forward to. I look forward to seeing the bird somewhere new, because that forces me to go somewhere new and see different people and talk to different people and see the bird in a unique environment that I haven't seen him in before, and that that's my motivation.

Speaker 2: 10:33

Yeah, no, I, I totally agree and I kind of had that realization last year when I did my first trip to Virginia. My first Turkey I shot on Maryland's Eastern shore, so if you're familiar, it's flat pancake, yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:47

And then you know turkey hunted last year and you know forest land on the Virginia, west Virginia border and not flat at all. But you know and just like seeing, you know, having one screaming in your face and and and that terrain and the difference in terrain, it's so integral to like turkey hunting culture. You know you have the this turkey hunting slam where everybody wants to shoot a turkey in 49 different states and it's just such a part of it that's super interesting. But I guess, kind of with that like when I was scouting in virginia, you see all those different license plates and yeah, obviously hunting pressure has an effect. But do you think that you know an influx of pressure from other states? As you know particular groups open up, you get not just the residents but a big non-resident draw as well. Do you think that that might be something that's looked at, I guess, in future legislation or in a manager?

Speaker 5: 11:44

perspective. Yeah, you're already seeing it actually. I mean, you're seeing states that are changing their systems for non-residents, whether it be states like Nebraska that are limiting tags total number of tags that are issued to non-residents. You're seeing some states like Mississippi that are making draw issued to non-residents. You're seeing, you know, some states like Mississippi that are making, you know, draw systems for non-residents on public lands, states that are reducing bag limits for non-residents versus, say, resident hunters.

Speaker 5: 12:18

Because there is such an influx of us you know, folks like you know, like you and I there is such an influx of us folks like you and I, as we're talking here, that wanna go to a different state and hunt. And the reality is that when, if the season is open in a state somewhere, then us turkey hunters wanna be there hunting. I mean, that's who we are. And one thing I think that factors into this, this traveling mentality to some degree, is that here in the South we're spoiled Like if you're a deer hunter, you can hunt for four and a half months or longer in some states. I think that here too, yeah.

Speaker 5: 13:01

So it's a third of the calendar year or more that you can.

Speaker 5: 13:04

You can deer hunt if you're an antler junkie, and and if you're a small game hunter, I mean geez, you can hunt for up to six months in some states in the south, but yet our, but our turkey seasons are are proportionally shorter, you know, and and so we don't, we don't have as much time and therefore I think it's just innate that we want to seek more time.

Speaker 5: 13:28

So we, you know, like, for instance, here I'm not going to say hunting's over by the middle of May, but the season ends in the middle of May, but by early May it's gotten quite warm, the birds are tough. You can kill a bird if you strike the right guy at the right time, but but but it gets more difficult as it gets there later in the season. And so you know, this year I'm going, like you, I'm going to Vermont for a hunt, and and part of the reason I'm doing that is, one, I love to travel and I've never hunted there. But two, I can go in the middle of May and it's early in the season. There, you know, and I can extend my, I can extend my turkey hunting experience, and I think that's part of the traveling mentality is just the desire to want to do the activity longer right?

Speaker 2: 14:21

yeah, I'm a bit concerned about that. I'm going early May, so like the in the opener, that opening weekend, and I'm going to be hitting the northern part of the state. So part of me is concerned. I'm checking the weather that it might be a little still too cold because especially in the northern part of that state but I'm Vermont is one of the ones I'm excited about legislation you, you see with kansas too, with whitetail hunting.

Speaker 2: 14:45

You know they do the same thing where they are in iowa and me and mike have talked about wanting to deer hunt those states and they have really put the clamps down on on out-of-state hunting for sure well, it's just you know, and, and I hope, well, we're already in headed in this direction.

Speaker 5: 14:59

Kansas has done the same thing with non-resident turkey hunters, where you you know you have to draw, and a buddy of mine actually applied together this year and got drawn as a group in Kansas, which is wonderful, but you know I have to. I think in my head are we heading in some places where the demand is going to continue to exceed the supply, are we going to see scenarios more comparable to some of the population declines in a lot of areas not all, but in a lot of areas and therefore, you know, I think agencies are just looking at all options on the table. You know, and from a non-resident standpoint, like we've talked about they are, many agencies are reducing opportunity for non-residents.

Speaker 1: 16:08

Now I have a quick question about that. With the population going down, how much of that do you think is because fur prices have gone down and people aren't trapping as much as they used to? And you know you have raccoons and foxes and possums and you know all these nest predators are really on a booming incline.

Speaker 5: 16:30

That's definitely part of the equation. I mean, we know I mean turkeys have dealt with predation forever and predators the fact that they have to deal with predators is the primary reason they're so wary. But the reality is that, like you said, there is very little demand now for fur and there are not trappers being recruited into the trapping trade and therefore it's a lost art and it is an art. Some of the very best outdoors men and women I've ever been around were trappers and that's a lost activity in many ways. And the result is that some of these species that historically there was a demand for, like raccoons, there's no longer such a demand for. Like raccoons, there's no longer such a demand. And you couple that with the fact that our landscapes in a lot of ways are more conducive to predators than they are to turkeys and it kind of exacerbates itself yeah, that's something that I've I read.

Speaker 2: 17:41

You know that you've said before that the kind of the landscape is predator geared and it makes a lot of sense. Right, you've described, like in that article, what would be an optimal scenario for a pole, right In the brooding, where you'd have, you know, clumps of grass or open areas to hide in. You have the at the right height where the mother, mother, the hen can see kind of what's coming and just thinking about. You know, I know me and mike hunt the same track of public land and when it's thick there it's thick from kind of knee to head high yeah and you know where it's briars or laurels or or what have you.

Speaker 2: 18:22

So you know that really works. When you get down you can see a good ways because it's just, you know, kind of straw, thin stems, but you can't get up out of that. You know you can't fly out of that. You can't get up out of that. So what do you like? What has been the main driver? I've heard burning you've talked about before. In the absence of that, in a lot of I think it's just a.

Speaker 5: 18:50

I mean, it's a combination of a number of different things all centered around. We don't disturb the environment like we used to issues, whether it be a large piece of property, let's say, that was owned by a family, the patriarch and or matriarch passed, the property is sold and split into 10 pieces of property.

Speaker 5: 19:32

Much of that is owned is absentee owned. You know you get smaller chunks of land. You get this move to the country mentality or buy small tracts mentality, because that's what you can afford. You're not a tenant on the land anymore like the patriarch and matriarch were. Therefore, the land is not as actively managed as it was and you kind of put all of that together and you just see.

Speaker 5: 20:00

I see I'm 52 years old and I can remember as a kid riding around my home in Virginia and seeing. I could see. I could see agricultural fields had fence rows and they were brushy along the sides. And I mean now there's a McDonald's where there was nothing. It was nothing but fields and agriculture and woodlots and the hardwoods. There were hardwoods everywhere. The hardwoods, there were hardwoods everywhere.

Speaker 5: 20:33

And now when I drive around my area that I grew up in, much of that is completely gone. It's subdivisions and other residences and businesses. The hardwoods have been replaced by pines. You know, the hardwoods have been clear, cut've been replaced by pines. The fields and the larger farms that were thousands of acres are now split into 50 pieces and some of those pieces are owned by people out of state who have built a weekend or a beach home, or you just go down those rabbit holes and the end result is, if you get on Google Earth and you look at Hanover County Virginia, you know in the mid 80s and you fast forward to Hanover County Virginia in 2024, there are parts of the county you can't recognize and there's so much of our world that you could say that about now. That's what I see when I think about the last few decades from a turkey's perspective.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Right. Less of that open track and more restricted movement. That makes sense.

Speaker 5: 21:49

We just don't disturb the environment like those that came before us. If you think about fire, you think about the mentality. I mean, how many people, if you were to talk to the general public, view fire in forests positively? You know what they're used to seeing is wildfires on TV and how. You know thousands of acres have been scorched and and they, the general public, doesn't realize what prescribed fire actually is. So there's, you know, in general, we as human beings are. I mean, there are many of us in our society, that society, that are scared of fire, that view fire in a negative way, not a positive way.

Speaker 1: 22:48

But isn't that? The one thing that I keep hearing is that a lot of reasons why these wildfires are so bad is because the land is unkept, and you know things, just they just become so much thick forest and dead woods and it's just a perfect habitat for a fire to just blow out of. You know proportion Because, listen, fires, forest fires, have been here for forever. You know there's nothing that we can, but you know, like you said, things were managed more back in the day, you know. You know, like you said, things were managed more back in the day, you know, and now you have it as if there's just so much growth and just this unnatural, you know, shrubs to, and just the force the fires do help so much natural vegetation grow and everything like that. Like, yes, fire is destructive, but it does create life as well. Fire is destructive but it does create life as well.

Speaker 1: 23:35

And you know, we just have to somehow find the balance of, you know, having these prescribed fires to create and diversitize, if I'm even saying that correctly right now, jesus Christ, the proper way, instead of letting things just go unnatural and just piling up and just, you know, a lot of dead trees where it's now becoming dangerous. Plus, also, we keep pushing our, our homes and and things like that more, the boundaries of where we live. Now it's, it's everywhere. Every little thing is getting destroyed and, of course, it's only going to be in a negative way, because we just keep diving further and further and further in into nature and destroying more nature.

Speaker 5: 24:19

And a lot of the issues with the wildfires out west is simply that us as a society, we, you know, every time the US Forest Service wants to go in and do a logging operation, there's lawsuits filed against them. There are people that don't want to see trees cut. Therefore, all of that dying dead timber falls on the ground, you have fuel loads that increase and then, when a fire is ignited, it becomes catastrophic because there hasn't been management.

Speaker 5: 24:55

That's why I was saying there hasn't been disturbance, there hasn't been logging, because us as a society in many ways try to shut down that type of activity. You know, save a tree, don't harvest a tree tree. But if you look at habitats that are managed with prescribed fire, several things that go along with managing with fire include thinning the timber to reduce the amount of fuel that's there so that when you burn, the burn doesn't get out of hand. All it does is stimulate the understory, the vegetation that's on the ground. It doesn't kill it, it actually it burns that top off, which stimulates the plants to rejuvenate themselves, put their nutrition in their stems, which is beneficial for not just turkeys but for deer and many other species that thrive in areas that are managed with fire. Yeah, so we as a society, we basically are suppressing management activities that are creating many of the same issues that we deal with as a society. Yeah, it's a paradox for sure.

Speaker 2: 26:09

Right, yeah, where I hunt in Maryland on the eastern these still it used to be that way, used to there's still the tire tracks, you know, the ditches from the logging trucks coming through on on where it was logged.

Speaker 2: 26:20

And you wouldn't be, you know, and that was what 20 years ago, but you wouldn't be able to tell that now, I mean, it's, it's a lot of pine, but it is a lot of pine down there to begin with, but there's hardwoods and and everything mixed in and I guess like, and there wasn't, there's not as much, I guess, of that like deadfall, you know where it's like. I guess, like how I think about it is like if you're building a campfire, you would start with like the newspaper and then you would add the little sticks and then you'd have like the big logs that go in. But if you have like clean kind of undergrowth, it's just newspaper to big logs and you're not going to light those kind of those bigger trees, whereas if you have the deadfall and all the other like little stuff, the medium size kindling mixed in because you're not taking care of the land, then those fires really get out of control. Is kind of how I've understood it, but maybe that's wrong no, that's right and basically.

Speaker 5: 27:10

basically, the prescribed fires are consuming fuel that would allow the fire to become more serious and by repeatedly burning the stand through time you're preventing that accumulation of fuel. That's problematic. So you're ensuring that you're not going to have a wildfire by using prescribed fire and the reality is that out west agencies have, they try to use prescribed fire, but when you can't remove deadfall and you can't cut timber and you can't reduce tree density, the fuel just accumulates through time. Then suddenly you're no longer in a situation where you can safely use prescribed fire and that's the situation you see on millions of acres in this country.

Speaker 2: 28:01

That makes sense, I guess, like where this you know. Every time you talk about, you hear about turkey populations, you hear about no more fire, no more controlled burn. Could you go into a little bit of like really break down the connection between the dropping turkey population and the lack of fire? And is it because of the habitat and they can't get out and fly when it's so thick? Or could you break down kind of the habitat difference?

Speaker 5: 28:29

Yeah, I mean what you see from a turkey's perspective. When you think of fire, you have to understand that turkeys, their primary means of survival is their vision. So they live their entire life outside of when they're roosting at night and, as an aside, they have poor night vision so they sleep in trees to avoid being eaten at night. So all of their world is walking around on the ground and you need to get out on one knee or sit down on your knees to see the world from a turkey's viewpoint. And if they can't see effectively, then will they be there? Yes, will they thrive there? No, because their primary means of defense is gone, has been compromised. So what prescribed fire does is it takes the vegetation and it reduces it to zero and then, as that vegetation grows through one, two, three growing seasons, it eventually it's low growing, so it's below their head, so they can see over it and they can see through it because it's not as dense. But then at some point, once it hasn't been disturbed for a number of years, it gets too dense for them to move through and what they then do is use the edges of it. And that's what you see, and I see in a lot of places that I travel to. Are there turkeys there? Yes, where do you see them? Primarily along rights of way, roads, areas where they can see, because the center of the forest is so dense they can't even move through it, and that's again that's at their detriment, because a lot of the predators that hunt turkeys hunt edges Bobcats, coyotes, birds of prey all hunt edges.

Speaker 5: 30:38

So if we're forcing the bird to use edges of habitats rather than the core, we're putting them in a situation where they're more susceptible to being killed.

Speaker 5: 30:51

Where they're more susceptible to being killed and that's one primary benefit of fire is that it takes dense vegetation and puts it below their eye level, where they can see. So part of this decline issue is, just if you look at it, and it's not just fire-related, it's disturbance in general. As the landscape gets thicker and thicker and thicker on average across the landscape, turkeys are forced to use habitat that's not optimal for them. Will they make it work? Yes, but they're not making it work as well as they did 30 years ago, when the management was better, and therefore you're seeing these declines that are primarily centered around we're not making as many turkeys right, we're not producing as many young birds as we were, and it's because nest predation is extremely high, holt mortality is extremely high from predators and it's just tough to produce turkeys now in this, in many of the landscapes that we, that we live in yeah, that's something I've seen too when I was doing kind of my research in new jersey's pretty good about um posting all that data online.

Speaker 2: 32:07

And you see that in the early 2000s, like 2002, 2003, it went from 25 years of the average brood size dipping below four, you know, per hen twice to now. Since then it's only been over four twice and it's been you know it's. You know a difference in average brood size over you know pre-2002. And it was of being like five to now like two and a half. You know that's right. What at that? Early 2000, you know it's like that 2002 to like you know I looked at a bunch of different states to like 2006, 2005. Like what happened there, where it really kind of it was ramping up and it hit its peak and now it's just kind of at a slow kind of linear descent downwards in most places. What about that time period was so critical?

Speaker 5: 33:08

Yeah, well, there's a lot to unpack there. Part of that is that in not all areas, but in some areas restoration meaning the period when we were restoring turkeys to as many parts of the range as we could, actually beyond their original geographic range populations had skyrocketed and they were doing quite well, but we knew that they were going to reach some asymptote and start to decline. We just didn't know how far they would come down that kind of line, if you will. So we knew it was going to happen. At the same time that birds are being restored, you're seeing all these changes to the landscape like we've talked about, all the things that were changing in the 80s, 90s, 2000s population expansion, particularly in the east, everybody wanting to move out of cities, everybody wanting to move out of cities. You're seeing these population shifts. You're seeing again at that time you're starting to see all kinds of lawsuits and things being filed against state and federal agencies that were doing management practices like timber harvest and prescribed burning, and all of this is kind of going on and turkey populations were actually starting to decline at that point, Like we just didn't know it. We knew it, we could see it in the data, but it wasn't alarming. And then you have to think at that same time, the popularity of turkey hunting was exploding. I mean, it was just it was exploding. And all of that gets wrapped together into this kind of this quagmire, if you will, where you've got this popularity of this activity? It's just it's exploding.

Speaker 5: 35:09

We thought in many ways that turkeys were doing fine, and I was just in a meeting with someone talking about this. Many agencies took their foot off the gas and said we don't need to do anything else. That period you just described, 2002 to 2006, there was almost no research being done on wild turkeys at that time, anywhere in North America. In fact, the only people studying turkeys at that time were me and two other researchers. That was the only field projects going on at that time, and it's partially because agencies said, okay, turkeys are good, we're going to spend our money somewhere else, we're going to go do these other things, study these other things. And they did, and by the time, people like me started hiring around 2010, we got a problem folks, something's going on on here. We were already looking at a decade of data showing declines, and it even took another five years after that for we actually wrote a paper that was published. I gave talks all over the country about this, showing the date in the south, that the populations were declining in almost every Southeastern state and had been and fast forward to where we are now.

Speaker 5: 36:38

I think COVID, in many ways, as negative as it was, I think COVID put us in a situation as people where we started. We were unable to be around each other, and yet we were seeking knowledge and we were seeking companionship. We were unable to be around each other, and yet we were seeking knowledge and we were seeking companionship. And we were out in the spring woods and we were seeing these things going on and we started talking to each other and we started listening to podcasts and doing these events and doing these things online together and suddenly a lot of us realized that the same problems we had in our neighborhood were the same problems you were having in your neighborhood.

Speaker 5: 37:17

And since 2020, my life has changed. And if you had asked me in 2020, what do you think you'll be doing in 2024? What do you think you'll be doing in 2024? I wouldn't have told you what I do right now. I could not even possibly have imagined that in a four-year time span, we would be sitting now seeing more research done on this bird than any time in my career. I would have never guessed that, and I think it's because all of us, like we're sitting here having this conversation now. We see problems and we we want to seek solutions and we we want information and we cherish the bird and we want to be able to chase this bird and and and chase this passion that we live for. And we see a problem and we want to.

Speaker 1: 38:11

We want a solution, we want to fix it yeah, I went from a area where I saw birds constantly to. I haven't seen a a turkey, in the last two years, uh p, and I don't think you saw. Did you see a bird this year at all?

Speaker 1: 38:26

I saw I spooked one turkey deer hunting in september okay, um, and it's, it's just so like, and this is a, it's very thick. It's very thick, you know, like paint was saying briars and everything like that. But the, the raccoon population has just skyrocketed and we're talking about some, some of the biggest raccoons I've ever seen, to coyotes that are, you know, just massive. And then our rising bobcat population to what New Jersey has been working on as well to get back up there, because I know it was in danger and I think it's still considered. But now I'm seeing, I went from not seeing bobcats to I see at least five to six on my trail camera pictures every every year, and it's that's going to be a number that's just going to keep going up and up and up as well. And you know it's turkey participation, like you said, it's just grown and I think it's going to be something that is going to get bigger.

Speaker 1: 39:26

I think just hunting birds in general, when it comes to waterfowl as well and things like that, these are just such unique creatures and it's it's a little more the, the interaction with, with birds is more exciting than it is with with deer, and I'm not, you know, putting deer down or because that's what I love to do that. My main thing is is deer. But you know, to get somebody new into the outdoors you would take, um, I think, waterfowl hunting or turkey hunting or pheasant hunting, something like that, where you're hunting a bird because you know there's just so much to do vocalization to one of them. You know it's camaraderie, you know you're you could be sitting with somebody and you can. You know you're hunting waterfowl. If nothing's there, you can talk.

Speaker 1: 40:06

And when you're turkey, you know it's hey, you know paint and I we're gonna be out there together and it's like we're gonna be doing a thing. It's like he's gonna be right next to me where we don't have to worry about our scent. You know we need that. That's something that we don't have to worry about. It's finally a great thing not having to worry about our scent, because it's something that drives us uh, us deer hunters crazy. But with that and with with covet, I think, how many people the sales, sales of hunting license skyrocketed, you know, I think not only in New Jersey but in most of the United States, because people were looking for things to do and it definitely would have such a negative impact on turkeys.

Speaker 5: 40:48

Yeah, and I mean it hit at the worst possible time from a turkey's perspective. I mean I can remember I was trying to get home from Bozeman, montana, from doing a podcast out there, and I got stuck in Denver in March trying to get home because the first COVID case had been announced in the US. I can still remember looking at a TV in the terminal and President Trump discussing the first detection and boy, how our life has changed ever since. I mean that spring was a wild, wild, wild experience.

Speaker 1: 41:31

Yeah, it was a. Everyone was out for turkey season, Everyone was out for trout fishing.

Speaker 4: 41:36

Fishing yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:38

And this is another thing. It's not only just people were looking for things to do. Everyone like the health aspect has grown Like everyone wants to be in the outdoors, everyone wants to eat healthy. Now you know grocery stores. They weren't having you know products in there. You know everything was, was empty and it's like, well, how else am I gonna, am I gonna get food? How else am I gonna people feed my family? Guess what? Hunting and fishing right there, guess. And that time of the year, guess what was the first hunting season up turkey season.

Speaker 4: 42:10

Yeah, yeah, for sure you bring that fast forward to right now. And new jersey has a ridiculous amount of zones for turkey uh, just like our deer uh zones, and I believe we have six or seven that are completely sold out of.

Speaker 5: 42:27

Uh we because we do lottery but then sold out and over the counter, and half of those were within the first day or two this year yeah, yeah, yeah, I was actually just talking with with the, the guy that manages my website for me and, um, and when I go to South Dakota and Nebraska every year I've been going out there for years I love to go out west, I just I love it. I love to be Dakota and Nebraska every year. I've been going out there for years and I love to go out west. I just love it. I love to be able to see and I love to be in the middle of nowhere. And boy, you can get in the middle of nowhere out there. And when the tags opened this year for South Dakota, it was different. I mean one. The computers were locking up. I had five browsers open trying to get a tag because there was so much demand.

Speaker 5: 43:22

You know that the the final draw opened on at 2 pm or whatever day it was, or 3 pm eastern I think, and and at 2, I get a text saying it. You know, from my guy in South Dakota saying, hey, go ahead and get you a tag, and it took me 30 minutes, 35 minutes, to get a browser to finally. I mean, I had application you know pending there for 35 minutes, know pending there for 35 minutes and it took that long for one one window to finally say, hey, it worked and I drew a tag and they were gone that all of them statewide, all of the left, the tags were gone and it was just.

Speaker 5: 44:08

I was like, wow, man, that. That that speaks volumes about what you know. Some of what's facing this bird is just and I get it because I'm I'm one of those people. I'm part of that. You know, I'm that guy with five browsers open you know, you know, damn it, I want a tag out there yeah, and so I'm sitting there with five browsers and I was thinking to myself how many other guys are out there doing the same thing I'm doing? There's got to be a lot if the system locked up.

Speaker 1: 44:43

Yeah, I agree, and I think Steve even told us on the day it came out. I think Steve, didn't you say the site crashed or something. Froze up on you as well.

Speaker 4: 44:51

Yeah, it was wild. So I had done lottery but I got tags that were less desirable than I was hoping for, so I forfeited those and decided to go with over the counter and I was queued up and I believe it was about two minutes before 10, because they open at 10 am. Um, on the 25th, uh, most years, and I went in system locked up, and it was wasn't till like 1005 that finally things started working as you would expect them again, and and that's when the zone that I live in I'm not going to be hunting in this year, but the zone I live in literally there weren't a ton of tags left over from the lottery, but they all sold out within an hour. It was. It was crazy, yeah, um, so, but I was going to ask you, along with, uh, the different things we've been talking about there.

Speaker 4: 45:43

So, with the different species first. First question is is there a species of turkey that you enjoy more than others? And the second question, along with that, is um, is there a species of turkey that you enjoy more than others? And the second question, along with that, is is there a particular species of the four that you think, from your research, is thriving more than others?

Speaker 5: 46:03

Yeah, so there are five subspecies. There's Osceola Easterns, rios, osceola Easterns, rios, merriams and Goulds. We don't know a lot about Goulds. They only occur in two US states, arizona and New Mexico, and they're very small populations there. The heart of the Goulds range is in Mexico and there hasn't been, there's been very little research on Goulds. What we do know, at least in Mexico they seem to be doing fine. They are being restored to Arizona and New Mexico. So those populations are increasing but they're at low levels.

Speaker 5: 46:48

Rio Grande's, at least in the heart of their subspecies range, which is like Texas is kind of the dead center of their range, appear to be doing quite well in most areas. In some areas they are not, particularly as you move into, say, oklahoma and southern Kansas, where Rio Grande populations have declined a lot in the past five years, which is why the agencies in those states have made such dramatic changes to the spring seasons. Kansas is a one-bird bag now Oklahoma is a one-bird bag. The eastern subspecies which we've talked about, because that's kind of the heart of where we live, those populations have declined in a lot of areas. They're the most frequently hunted subspecies because they they cover the most geographic range.

Speaker 5: 47:38

They you know, half of north america is occupied by the eastern subspecies, osseolas. Um, if you look at what's facing osseolas, they, they live florida peninsula. If you, you all you have to do is go drive, drive around Florida to see one of the major issues facing Osceola and that's us. It's just urbanization and urban sprawl is insane in Florida and that's a real challenge for that subspecies. Challenge for that subspecies when I'm headed with your question is the Merriam subspecies. In some areas appears to be doing quite well. In other areas there are signs that there may be issues there as well Poor reproduction in some cases, poor survival, high harvest rates. So the issues we've talked about are not the same in every turkey population, but they are consistent across many, many populations and subspecies Loss of habitat, high demand for harvest, predator populations that are expanding, et cetera, et cetera. A lot of these issues we've talked about are similar.

Speaker 5: 49:00

From the standpoint of what I enjoy the most, and I guess you'd have to ask me that it would literally depend on the week that it would. It would literally depend on the week. Um, right now, the first one I can get to gobble and come to me is going to be my favorite, because I I haven't really hasn't started, but I mean, I don't. This is a sounds like a coy couch getting out of answering the question, but I don't really have a favorite. Honestly, man, I I love chasing turkeys everywhere that I go. There are some places that do it for me, if you will, more than others.

Speaker 5: 49:42

You know I loved, I love to hunt out west man. I love, I love to go out there. But I a lot of that is because I love to travel and I and I love to see different places and you know there's nothing better than than an Eastern at 30 yards screaming in your face in the forest. There's nothing like that. But last year, you know, I was blessed to go to Mexico for the first time and I can tell you there is nothing like a Gould's at 30 yards in full strut. They literally look like they're glowing white. They are just stunning how beautiful they are. And yeah, the gobbles are different and it doesn't carry as far. But man, looking at that bird, it was hard, honestly, it was hard to concentrate to shoot because all I wanted to do was stare at him. So they're all my favorite man, every one of them.

Speaker 4: 50:43

That's awesome. I heard you say that in another podcast, I believe, where you say well, I couldn't even take the bird because it was so beautiful, I just thought it was just less dominant bird.

Speaker 5: 50:55

They are. If you ever get the chance to do that, that, that was something, man, and I'm telling you, if you're a turkey hunter and it drives you, you have to try to go do that once. I understand not everybody has a financial capability of doing that. I was blessed, I was given the opportunity for a reduced cost to do it. It's just unbelievable that bird, in that environment it's hard to wrap your head around. It's that dry, that that rugged, and yet there are turkeys everywhere and when they strut to you they literally they look like they weigh 50 pounds, they are huge, their tails are huge and that white tips and the the base of their feathers on their tail looks like a woman's eyelashes, but they're painted in white and they just, they just glisten in the sunlight and thankfully the sunshine, you know, shown the entire time I was there. But and they? That is a pretty bird.

Speaker 1: 52:09

I got one more, at least one more for one that I'm really interested in, and it's I can only talk about New Jersey just because I know about New Jersey, and I don't know how much your knowledge is with with New Jersey, but have you seen you know with any other states?

Speaker 1: 52:24

Like, why is it such a these states sometimes don't want to admit that we're having a issue or a decline and they keep pumping out the same amount of of tags when you know clearly like we can talk about Northern Jersey, the bird population just isn't there, but they keep. The numbers for tags are still high. We can't even sell out, like we were all like ah, we don't even need to worry about getting a tag because not many people are buying the tags up north, but the quota is still pretty high. Is that like a lack of research? Is that, if I could say that? Or is that more of a money situation? Or are they're not ready to admit that there, that there is a problem? But they probably should, because why don't you want to get a handle on the situation sooner than later?

Speaker 5: 53:20

The reality is that it unfortunately, in many cases, politics drive wildlife management rather than biology driving it, and that shouldn't come as a shock to anybody. I mean, unfortunately, politics enter into damn near everything in our lives and see that a lot new jersey with the bear situation oh yeah, that's no foreign factor to us.

Speaker 5: 53:48

Yeah, you know, and you think you know you have to think about and this is a and it's just the reality is the world we live in, that a lot of state agencies have commissions that oversee what's occurring. The commissioners are often they're politically appointed. They are often they're politically appointed, they're worried about constituents in districts or regions. They often may not have any biological background whatsoever and those are the decision makers that influence what you and I see on the landscape. And I know of states that are in similar situations, where the biological staff have expressed concerns and the decision makers are not heeding those concerns. And part of it, you said, is you flip that around and you put your director of a state agency hat on or your commissioner hat on and you say okay, you want us to make a change. Well, give us some information to justify it, give us some data to show that the population in northern New Jersey is down by what you think it is.

Speaker 5: 55:25

And the reality is a lot of states don't have the data and that's one of the primary reasons why so much research is going on now is one we know we have a problem in a lot of areas but two state agencies. If changes are desirable, they have to have data. They have to walk into a commission meeting and provide some type of relevant information to justify a decision that affects a state. You know that affects hunters or consumptive users of a resource across an entire state and I get that. I totally understand that. That you know. Okay, you want to change? Give me information to justify making that suggestion Because, like we said, at the end of the day, a lot of this is a political process and we know how. I mean, I think all five of us understand at least to some degree, the political process in this country.

Speaker 2: 56:24

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4: 56:26

Yeah, there's definitely budgetary and monetary issues that seem to trump all sometimes and it takes the priority instead of the management side of it and what's good for the animal and the habitat.

Speaker 5: 56:40

Yeah, I mean the bottom line is, you know, state agencies are, in many ways, I mean, hunters, are shouldering a tremendous economic load for, for the management of, of state, you know, of natural resources and states, we, we provide a lot of the economic engine that runs the. You know these agencies and and so you know agencies are threading this needle constantly. They're trying to, they're trying to make sure we're out there buying licenses, because those licenses fund the agency. They want us satisfied, they want us happy, they want us to want to go and they need us to go. But they're also trying to make sure that the resource is sustainable and there's this constant political pulling on these agencies, like we just talked about. And so you know I have some close friends that are, that are directors and high up in state agencies, and it's a constant battle where the biology is often not at play, it's other, it's other things that are at play.

Speaker 2: 57:49

You see, in New Jersey they still keep that um fall any bird season. I mean you can shoot turkeys in the fall in new jersey, which is something that surprises me and, I think, something that's less common I would feel I believe you can shoot hens, right, mike? Yes, yes I'm pretty sure we can shoot hens, but I honestly only in the fall only in the fall.

Speaker 1: 58:12

Yeah right and I don't know how many I've it's probably the last 10 years I've only encountered one person turkey hunting in the fall, because at that point, listen you're, you're so on deer season, but then also you have the saltwater fishing season. You know, I know, there are some waterfowl sprinkled in there too. There's so many things going on where, versus the springtime, we really don't have much hunting to do. It's fishing and it's hunting, and that's really about it.

Speaker 2: 58:47

Shooting those hens in the fall has got to be just way more detrimental to the population, yeah, than shooting a gobbler after he's already bred a few hens in the spring.

Speaker 5: 58:58

It really just depends on what the research has shown. Is that a really low harvest of hens in the fall may not matter? The way I look at it, I mean, for instance, you're killing 20 hens across the state of New Jersey, that's. I mean. What relevance could that have? But I kind of look at it like this there's only three outcomes of fall harvest of hens. One it helps the population. I think we could agree that that's not the case, right? I think we could agree logically. That's not the case, right? I think we could agree logically that's not the case.

Speaker 5: 59:39

So the only other two outcomes are it doesn't matter at all or it's a negative. More likely it's somewhere in between, depending on you know what percentage of your hens you're taking in the fall. If you're taking a tenth of a percent or something extremely low, probably doesn't matter. If your fall harvest is higher and your population's not doing well, then it may be more impactful than in other places. I also kind of look at fall harvest like this we know with certainty that fall harvest is dominated by hens and juvenile birds, hens and jakes. That's what most fall harvest is comprised of. We don't kill many toms in the fall, yeah, so if you've got a population that's struggling to produce birds and you know that you're taking mostly young birds in the fall, if you're allowing them of those you struggle to produce in the fall, that does that make sense biologically. That's kind of the way I look at it, yeah, and you know, in some populations that are doing well and that's the bottom line, guys is fall harvest.

Speaker 5: 1:01:12

You know I grew up fall hunting it. That's what you did then that when you hunted turkeys you hunted in the fall. It was a short season and that's it, but populations were exploding and state agencies were trying to give us more opportunity to chase birds. And, like Mike said, now you got I mean literally you have small game seasons, deer seasons, duck goose, this, that and the other and you has declined across the US in most areas and participation in fall hunting has precipitously dropped like dramatically. And part of that is there's so many competing interests in the fall, there's so much other stuff for us to hunt, and part of that is agencies have either closed fall seasons or they reduced opportunity during the fall Because, one, there's not a lot of interest in it and or, two, they're trying to limit the harvest in the fall. They're trying to reduce it a little bit because there is so much more. You know, there's so much more interest in spring hunting. That's kind of what you see when you look at the the fall harvest data.

Speaker 3: 1:02:40

Yeah, yeah because I know new york state, they um you actually they receive you two tags, excuse me, during um, during the fall season. Then they cut it back to the one because I guess the declining and they actually they would send me um a questionnaire every year, and they still do, even this day, so I could document how many deer I see, how many turkeys, how many bears, and I guess that helps them keep track of it that way as well. That's right yep that's right um, we we're.

Speaker 1: 1:03:14

I know we got a wrap up soon. We got got like two or three quick small questions. Uh, real, real quick answers. Um, you know, one is what would we be your top three piece of advice for a new turkey hunter?

Speaker 5: 1:03:30

Uh, one would be go, get out there, spend some time in the woods, fight the temptation to always rush everywhere. Two, which is related to that slow down, be willing to sit, be willing to be patient. If you get frustrated at 8.30, sit till 9. If you get frustrated at 9 and you can sit until 9.30, sit there, because if nothing else, you're going to learn something about the world around you. You're going to unplug a little bit, leave your phone in your pocket.

Speaker 5: 1:04:16

I'd say that learn about the wild turkey, become a student of the bird, not just of hunting it, because what you'll realize is, if you learn about the biology of this bird, you will be a better hunter. There's absolutely no way around it. If you pick up a book about that, love it you. You know there's a book sitting here on my desk, the book of the wild turkey by love at williams. You read people that understood the biology of wild turkeys. They were exceptional hunters because they were students of the bird. So learn, be willing to read, not just what what's on the internet. The last thing, a piece of advice I'd say, is if you know of someone that's an accomplished turkey hunter, try to spend some time with them and they would be glad to take you with them. I don't know a single turkey hunter worth his or her salt that if, given the chance, wouldn't put their back against a tree with a new hunter to show them why they're so passionate about what we do. Yep.

Speaker 5: 1:05:34

That's actually about five or six pieces of advice Hot tips for sure though we love it.

Speaker 1: 1:05:40

And then you know one more that's going to have kind of two, two parter what is a state that you haven't hunted yet, that you really want to, and then a state that you would recommend to somebody that's not like more of an undercover state, that's that's not as popular, popular but does have a good turkey population, Like. I've heard great things about Maine and and a big part of that because how long you can hunt and how much later into the season you can hunt is idaho.

Speaker 5: 1:06:07

I've not been to idaho and but I have some friends that have hunted in idaho several times and they they absolutely loved it. But they're like me, they like to be able to see, they like the mountains, they like you know cool places, pretty places that are different. Uh, for a sleeper gosh man I I honestly don't even want to answer that because I don't want to blow up your spot yeah, I get that um I would say it's rh Island, isn't it?

Speaker 5: 1:06:55

Yeah, Honestly, one of the places that I go is South Dakota. You just don't think about South Dakota being a turkey state, and it's largely not. But, man, where they occur, there are some really cool places. South Dakota is a beautiful state, by the way. If you don't, if you've never been there, you can go from the Black Hills to the. You know the prairies of the east and you'll think you're on a different planet, Like it's not even close to the same. That's a sleeper to me, because I don't think about South Dakota being a wild turkey state. You think pheasants and you know ducks, but, man, there's some good places to turkey hunt out there and it puts you in a cool part of the world.

Speaker 1: 1:07:50

All right. Well, that's pretty unique. You know I want to thank you personally for coming on. It was a great time and you know a want to thank you personally for for coming on. It was a great time and you know a lot of information. I imagine you know a lot of our Turkey. Turkey listeners are really going to appreciate this one. You know Peyton, frank Steve, especially with Peyton, you know he carried a big being the the host of this, this episode. So you know, I know I hope you got in as your questions.

Speaker 2: 1:08:19

I imagine you have more, but oh, I can pick your brain for all day, so I appreciate the time that you did give us. I know everybody probably wants to talk to you being you know the great work that you've done, so I thank you for giving us some of your time and congratulations on your award you're accepting later today. Yeah, not sure what it is yet but it's a communications award.

Speaker 5: 1:08:41

It's a. It's a award the university gives to a person each year for for excellence and research communication. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 2: 1:08:51

Nobody here is going to listen fitting based off this conversation fitting based off this conversation.

Speaker 5: 1:09:01

Yeah, yeah, um, no administrators here are going to be listening to your podcast, so I I'll. I'll say this on the air I'm not looking forward to the actual banquet because these things are stuffy and yeah I've got I've got my suit over there that I don't.

Speaker 5: 1:09:12

I don't wear suits and I don't even know hi, but I've got to put this stuff on and go. I'm very humbled to receive the award, but the activities that go in the receipt of such things are. They're just not my personality. I'd rather be at home with my wife looking out across the lake with a bourbon in my hand, and it's going to be a few hours before I can write that out.

Speaker 4: 1:09:36

Well, maybe we need to find a tailor who can do a bottom land, you know, blazer for you or something.

Speaker 5: 1:09:42

There you go, there you go yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:09:45

Well, thank you so much, you know. I hope you enjoy tonight as best as you can, you know.

Speaker 5: 1:09:53

I do. I enjoy podcasts, otherwise I wouldn't, I wouldn't agree to do them. They're enjoyable.

Speaker 1: 1:09:59

Appreciate it. Appreciate it and for our listeners out there. I hope you guys enjoy this episode and we'll see you guys next time.