EP 4 | Restoring Habitat: Some Truths About Our Not-So-Natural State

In this eye-opening conversation, Tyler Savage, a biologist from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, takes us on a journey through time and paints a clear picture of what habitat in the Natural State looks like today versus several hundred years ago. Areas that are now a dense sea of trees were once open woodlands and savannas maintained by frequent, low-intensity fires. These fire-dependent ecosystems supported diverse wildlife communities that have declined as forests became overgrown in the absence of this essential ecological process.

Drawing from his childhood experiences growing up in Mammoth Springs, where weekends meant chasing fish and hunting turkeys, Tyler explains how his passion for conservation took root. Today, through various programs offered by AGFC, he helps landowners restore their properties to more historically accurate and wildlife-friendly conditions. He shares success stories of small landowners making big impacts, emphasizing that conservation work doesn't require vast acreage – even backyard projects contribute to the greater ecological good.

Whether you manage thousands of acres or simply enjoy hiking through Arkansas's beautiful landscapes, this episode will transform how you see the forests around you and inspire you to join the effort to restore the Natural State to a truly natural condition.

🔗 AGFC Website: Arkansas Game and Fish Commission - Private Lands Habitat Condition

🔗 Facebook Group: AGFC Private Lands Habitat Division

_______________________

What is the Natural Obsession Podcast all about?

Growing up, we all had those moments in nature that stuck with us—whether it was a quiet walk in the woods or a grand adventure. On Natural Obsession, it’s our desire to bring those moments to life. As we talk to people from all walks of life we will learn how they fell in love with the outdoors, the different ways they enjoy it today, and explore how we can work together to ensure these spaces are around for years to come. It’s all about sharing memories from the outdoors and ensuring future generations can make their own.

To find out more about Natural Obsession and hosts, Daniel Emison and TJ Virden, visit our website at https://www.natob.co/.

If you have questions about episodes or have guest recommendations please email us at [e-mail].

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Episode Transcript

Tyler (00:05):
The Arkansas that we see and love today is obviously the
natural state and it's beautiful, but it's not what it could be
and it's not what it should be.
So, to the landowners, do yourpart to help take us back to
where we started and find thereal beauty and the real natural
of Arkansas.

TJ (00:34):
Hi.
This is TJ Verdon.
This is Daniel Inneson.

Daniel (00:49):
And this is theiel I'm tj and today we got tyler savage
with arkansas game and fishcommission on natural possession
podcast what's up guys?

TJ (00:58):
you doing all right today, pretty good.
How about y'all doing good man?

Daniel (01:02):
awesome.
So I guess we'll start offgetting a little bit of your
background.
So I know you grew up inMammoth Springs, yep.
How was it like growing upthere?

Tyler (01:09):
Well, mammoth is kind of typical small town America.
I mean, everybody's drovethrough something like Mammoth
probably a hundred times intheir life.
But about a thousand people inthe town you know real small
school, you know everybody, youknow everybody's parents, you
know everybody lives that sortof thing.
So Mammoth is a little bitunique.
Obviously the Mammoth Spring isin Mammoth Spring I believe

(01:35):
it's the biggest spring inArkansas which supplies water
for the Spring River.
So tons of outdoor recreationopportunities for you know a
young 16-year-old with a truckand mammoth.
So yeah, about every weekendman, there was no sleeping in.
We were chasing fish, chasingturkeys, rabbits, deer, you name
it.
Man, we pretty well grew up inthe outdoors.
Yeah, that's awesome.

Daniel (01:56):
So we both grew up in small towns also.
Was there a particular momentthat you decided you want to do
something in conservation or alove forager?

Tyler (02:04):
So I've pondered this before.
What was the one thing thatpointed you in this direction?
And this might sound kind ofsilly, but I think guys that are
in the same position probablyhave something similar and know
what I'm talking about.
As a youth turkey hunter, Iwould say I was probably 12, 13

(02:25):
years old I think it was theopening Saturday of turkey
season.
My dad and I always hadpermission to hunt this property
, which was a big hill aboveField Creek, and so the property
line ended where the timberline ended and there was a big,
large pasture below that field,and so we went out that morning.
Some birds, you know, chasedthem around, did our thing.

(02:45):
We weren't successful but stillhad a fun morning.
So that afternoon we went backin that area uh, where we were
pretty sure those birds hadroosted at, and it was right
over the the break of that hillwhere you could see down in that
field pretty good.
So we just kind of set up there, you know, got, got set up,
made some small calls and stuff,and then for about two or three
hours we watched anunbelievable amount of birds.

(03:08):
You know, 30, 35 turkeys justfilter through that field, you'd
see a lot of hens, a lot ofjakes.
You know two or three longbeards.
They'd kind of all cometogether do their thing.
The long beards would chasethose jakes off and they just
did that all afternoon long,watched them strut from one end
of the field out to the otherand, uh, I think that was.
That was probably that onememory that kind of had you

(03:29):
hooked on.
All right, I need to find out.
You know, how do I get paid todo something similar to this?
That's really cool.

TJ (03:35):
Yeah, that's.
Uh, I think that's really coolto watch turkeys do their thing
and I'm biased man.

Tyler (03:41):
Everything I do, I do through the lens of creating
more turkeys on the landscapeand being a turkey hunter.
That's what I take everythingback to.
That's cool.

Daniel (03:49):
So, outside of work and working with Arkansas Game and
Fish, what do you do besides?
Sounds like you like turkeys alot, absolutely so.

Tyler (03:57):
yep, in the springtime I'm chasing turkeys.
About the time turkey seasonrolls out, middle of May, may
we're.
We're getting the canoe out andwe're floating either the the
spring river, the strawberryriver or the south fork river
just about every weekend, tryingto catch some goggle eyes, so
to speak.
Rock bass, small mouth, bass,large mouth we might, we might
venture up in the trout watersevery once in a while, but we're

(04:20):
we're fishing all summer longand we, we always do it redneck
style.
That's what me and my dad andmy cousin that go a lot call it.
We use a, a flat back canoe witha trolling motor on it.
So not not exactly your KevinVan Dam Ranger bass boat set up,
but we, we catch a bunch offish doing it.
So that's, that's the fun part.

(04:41):
And then, of course, the fallrolls around and you're looking
for white oaks that are droppingacorns to put a tree, stand up
in and try to shoot a deer in.
And my dad, he's got somewherebetween eight to ten beagles
that we run rabbits pretty wellall wintertime long.
So about the time Thanksgivingrolls around, you hang your deer
, raffle up and break out ashotgun and go try to shoot some

(05:02):
rabbits.

TJ (05:03):
Yeah, you don't hear a lot of people doing that these days.

Tyler (05:07):
It's a dying breed outside of you know a couple of
young guys I hunt with.
Everybody else is, you know,your old geezers just hanging
around, basically.

Daniel (05:14):
Yeah, it's kind of like squirrel hunting.
I like squirrel hunting, butnot many people do that anymore,
Especially with the dog too.

Tyler (05:19):
Yeah, so Arkansas Game and Fish, I'd say somewhere
about five years ago kind ofstarted I don't know what you
call it.
It was kind of part of our R3strategy, which is recruitment,
retention, reactivation,basically trying to get more
hunters out there.
And we started what we call theBig Squirrel Challenge and so
it works almost like a you know,like a bass fishing tournament.

(05:40):
You bring in your three bestsquirrels, we weigh them and at
the end of the day day whoeverhad the heaviest wins a you know
, an air rifle.
And we we always help with theweigh station up at yaleville.
We try to try to make it awhole big thing.
You know, have activities forkids, obviously, try to get kids
interested in squirrel hunting.
Do some squirrel cookingdemonstrations that it's amazing

(06:01):
how, when you put the emphasisback on small game hunting, how
many of those people remembertheir you know fun times as a
kid doing it and really getinterested in it yeah, that's
the best time I've had in thewoods is squirrel hunting
absolutely, and for a young kid,you don't have to sit still,
you can get up, walk around.
You know, hopefully shoot 10 or12 times, even if you don't hit
every time.
It's a great, great way to geta kid in arrested and hunting

(06:24):
yes, so you've already mentionedyour dad a couple times.

TJ (06:27):
Was he like the guy that fostered the outdoor thing for
you for sure?

Tyler (06:30):
fell in love for sure, yeah, okay um, my dad, and then
I had an uncle that always, letme back up, my dad was a great
dad, as as good of a dad as youcould ask for, but I had an
uncle that was like a dad aswell.
They, they were brother-in-law,so of course they were good
buddies too.
And so those two guys myselfand then my, my first cousin, um
, growing up man, just just likeI said, every saturday, I mean

(06:52):
those, those two guys were withus all the time.
So, yeah, my, my dad and myuncle were definitely the two
guys that got me into, uh, theoutdoors so hunting, fishing for
goggle eye, was that the mainthing growing up?

TJ (07:03):
was there anything else thrown in there in the outdoors?

Tyler (07:04):
that was like special um, uh, we, we did have a little
flat bottom boat that we wouldtake out sometimes, and so, uh,
you know, the old schooltwo-stroke cheap johnson motor
this this is kind of gettingdown the tangent.
We don't have to stay here.
But, um, good, you know,learning, learning about how to
work on motors and stuff,because of course we're too

(07:26):
cheap to go buy anything new.
We're just going to keepworking on the same thing over
and over and over.
So maybe not an outdoorrecreation, but it's something
you did outdoors and you learnfrom and, uh, take with you as
an adult now yeah, I told danieland a couple episodes back.

TJ (07:41):
You know my family.
We connected grandpa, granddad.
It was either working onsomething outside or it was
hunting or fishing yeah and allthose are good memories, even
the working.
So I relate to that totally.

Tyler (07:50):
Yep, yep and and I mean we all, we all play basketball,
baseball in high school.
But you know the the weatherwould get right and in the fall
you'd be practicing basketballin the gym and and all practice
long.
You'd be thinking, man, this isa really good afternoon.
I would much rather be in atree right now than dribbling a
ball inside.
Or baseball season rolls aroundand you're thinking, man, I bet

(08:12):
turkeys were gobbling thismorning.
What am I doing out here?

TJ (08:16):
I get that.
So Daniel and I have kind oftalked about this lately.
We feel like we live in thenatural state.
Obviously all of us Yep and alot of people think that the
natural state is natural.
So what we wanted you to dotoday is kind of paint a picture
for us of what the naturalstate looked like before, um, we

(08:36):
started seeing like europeansettlement happening and stuff
sure what did that look like?

Tyler (08:40):
so I'm gonna paint the scene of for for people that
maybe don't know of what theozarks look like now, and so I
always bring up this sameillustration.
You think about hawksbill crag.
Are you guys familiar with whatthat is?
Most most people are?
If you're not familiar with it,get on google, look up
hawksbill crag in arkansas andand you'll you'll find a billion

(09:02):
and a half pictures.
And it's this big lookout nearthe Buffalo River, heart of the
Ozarks.
And when you get up on thatlookout and you look out, all
you see is a sea of trees, ofoak, hickory, cedar trees, and
that is all there is outside ofmaybe a river bottom, somewhere
where there's some riparianvegetation.

(09:22):
It's been that way for so longnow that people see that as
natural, and when I sayunnatural, I don't necessarily
mean that it's terrible by anymeans, because it is beautiful,
obviously, but it is certainlynot what was here when
Christopher Columbus sailed over, however, many years ago,

(09:43):
taking it back to that sea oftrees.
Historically, that is not whatyou would have seen, especially
on your ridgetops, your westslopes and your south-facing
slopes.
Historically, those areas wouldhave been much more open, and
when I say open, I'm talkingabout almost like a pasture in
places.
Very, very few trees.

(10:03):
They were extremely scatteredout, oftentimes, creating what
we call open woodland or savannahabitat conditions, and that's
different from what we seebecause of fire.
Fire was extremely common onthe landscape in the Ozarks, if
I remember right.
We have an old map that triesto map historic fire frequency

(10:28):
throughout the continental US,and the Ozarks are somewhere
right in that second third.
They might dip down to thefourth, but somewhere top five
most fire frequent areas in thecountry.
That frequent fire kept thosetrees from growing up.
You think about cedar trees,hickory trees, even your young

(10:48):
mid-story oaks, elms, maples andareas, sweet gums, all of that
stuff never had a chance toreach these overstory tree sizes
.
And so when you put that space,that tree spacing out there,
something's got to grow in itsplace, right.
And so if it's not trees, ifit's not shrubs, it's your

(11:09):
native warm season grasses andyour forbs, your broadleaf
wildflowers, broadleaf plants.
And I want to talk aboutwildfire as well.
Wildfire as well.
When we think about wildfire,it's third day of March.
When we're recording this,we're somewhere around a month

(11:31):
removed from the LA wildfires,and so when people say or hear
wildfire, that's what they'rethinking of burning 10,000 acres
at a time.
It's a black nothing.
Once it gets through, it eatsevery tree.
That is not at all the firethat used to be across the
landscape and that's because itburned so frequently so it never
had the fuels to burn asintensively as what we see on,
you know, out West and Arizona,colorado, california, wherever.

Daniel (11:56):
Okay, awesome.
So what were the dominant plantand animal species back then?
It sounds like there was a lotof grasses and things like that?
And then, how did they stay sowell balanced?

Tyler (12:05):
I guess fire had a big part to play in that yep, yep,
fire's the answer there,especially on those those
ridgetops south and west facingslopes, are what we call zero
phytic species, um which isreally a latin term for light
that they like and require a lotof light.
But we take that a step furtherand say, well, if they had a
lot of light, they had a lot oflight.

(12:25):
But we take that a step furtherand say, well, if they had a
lot of light, they had a lot offire as well.
So we kind of twist the termzero fitter into fire tolerant
or fire dependent.
And I heard Clint Johnson he'sour quail program coordinator.
I heard him say somethingreally really good one time.
He said I hear a lot of peoplesay that these were fire
tolerant ecosystems.
That's actually incorrect.
These are fire tolerantecosystems.
That's actually incorrect.
These are fire dependentecosystems.

(12:47):
They they don't just toleratefire, they have to have fire to
stay in the conditions that theyare now.

TJ (12:52):
Yeah, yeah you mentioned the map that you guys have that
kind of showed that frequencyacross, you know, the us or
wherever.
Is there anything else that wecan like document historical
fires with that kind of showthat that's what was going on
here in the central US.

Tyler (13:07):
So we take that map and we use another map which was
quail distribution across thecontinental US and it's kind of
ancillary evidence.
But if you take that fire mapand you look across the
southeast and the Midwest, whichis where most of the fire was

(13:28):
occurring historically in theeastern US, and you take that
northern bobwhite quail map,those overlap almost perfectly.
So you think from like Kansas,nebraska, east, anywhere, you
see where fire was superfrequent in the eastern US is
where the quail were very, verydominant and we as professionals

(13:50):
know that quail.
We call them the fire birds.
That's because quail are firedependent animals.
They have to have that frequentfire in there.

Daniel (13:59):
Is that to make it where they can get on the ground?

Tyler (14:02):
Absolutely.
It creates those good broodrearing conditions um it's
resetting your vegetation backto an early successional um
vegetation type.
So that's providing the thebrood rearing, the nesting, the,
the bugging, the open ground,the bare soil at ground level,
that um turkey quail, really allground nesting birds require

(14:24):
yeah, I was actually involved inone of the uh prescribed burns
this weekend with his brotherokay he's got 40 acres and we
he's trying to get back to morenatural native sure that, so it
was pretty cool seeing him doingit one.
One more interesting anecdote um, on those maps, when you look
at the appalachias as they comekind of southwest out of

(14:45):
Virginia and West Virginia, youknow those higher mountain
ranges.
It's cooler up at the top sothere's not as much historic
fire and in those areas you cansee that the quail density was
less and so you know you've gotless fire in this map.
And then you turn over here andyou've got less quail on this
map.
It's just so interesting to mehow inextricably linked those
two things are.

TJ (15:07):
So would they be considered like an indicator species of a
place that's fire?

Tyler (15:10):
dependent?
Yes, absolutely.
Maybe not indicator species,because quail use such a I hate
to say niche, because that'skind of got a different meaning
now Quail require such aspecific set of habitat, needs
that for quail to be present.
It's really got to be prettygood stuff already where we
might use indicator species,like, say, little bluestem, to

(15:33):
say, well, there's a good seedbank there, we just need to get
it out yeah, you talked aboutbroadleaf plants and things like
that being dominant in the.

TJ (15:42):
You know terrain, you know back then and brood rearing
cover and that kind of stuff.
A lot of our listeners may notknow exactly what you're talking
about with that and earlysuccessional growth.

Tyler (15:51):
Can you kind?

TJ (15:51):
of explain more about what that looks like.
Forbes and broadleaf Sure.

Tyler (15:57):
It's always easier to see it, but I'll do my best to try
to explain it over audio.
So when we're talking aboutbrood rearing cover, whether
that's turkey quail, whateverground nesting birds, these
broadleaf species are what wecall umbrella species.
So you think about an umbrellaand it's got one stem that's
pretty narrow, and then it goesup and it branches out or it it

(16:19):
umbrellas out.
So you think about a bunch ofumbrellas on the ground.
So you got a bunch of smallstems and then above them
there's a big canopy thatprotects them.
And that's important for tworeasons.
So I mentioned bare soilearlier.
Those quail chicks, thoseturkey poults you're looking at
something from the size of abumblebee to something the size
of a golf ball, so they can'tpush through these really thick

(16:41):
fields.
They've got to have that fairlyopen component just to be able
to maneuver.
They've got weak legs.
But having that, that umbrella,part of that umbrella species,
the part that that canopies outover them, is also really good.
Protection from avian predators, your, your meso predators, you
know coons, bobcats, foxes,coyotes, whatever it may be.
That's really what we're, whatwe're lacking across the state.

(17:03):
You know the the last 10 to 15years.
All turkey hunters know thatturkeys have taken a sharp
decline in that 10 or 15 yeartime frame and we like to blame
it on everything from, you know,predators to disease, to
chicken litter, whatever, andreally it's the habitat loss.
Predators are kind of thesymptom of the problem.
They're not the problem.
If you put the right habitat inplace, predators are really

(17:25):
irrelevant.
At that point I mentioned nativewarm season grasses.
So that's what some people callclump grasses, bunch grasses,
prairie grasses, and those areimportant in low densities.
So that's important because ithelps carry fire across an early
succession field and it's aplace where a quail mother can
actually lay her eggs, thatthose clumps of those clump

(17:46):
grasses are where she's actuallymaking her nest at.
So it's important for those twofactors.
But grass can be way too thickfor a while.
When I say a while, we'retalking 20 years ago.
The thought was well, about 70percent grass, about 30 forbes,
and that's going to be ideal.
So we started working that wayand we don't see any improvement
.
And so I have to go back to thedrawing board and think well,

(18:08):
what do we need to tweak?
So we go down to like 50 grass,50 forbes, and you see a little
bit of uh improvement, but it'sstill not like what you think
you ought to see.
So in today in our what we calllike a pollinator blend and
acres for wildlife blendwhatever, whatever you might of
we're only getting like 20 to30% grass, and even and even

(18:29):
times I still think that's toomuch grass.
So, yeah, it's really thoseforbs that are extremely
important.
And from a deer perspective,you know, when you've got fresh
burn, when that grass is threeor four inches tall, that's
great high protein food for adeer, but as soon as it gets to

(18:49):
six and above, that grass isnext to worthless as far as food
goes.
So it's those broadleafs plantsthat are really providing the
wide spectrum from cover,insect-attracted and food for
deer as well.
Okay, cool.
And going back to fire and firetiming.
Timing is extremely importantwhen you're talking about
habitat management and your fireregime.
This is March 3rd.
You take about two weeks agoand go to the end of March.

(19:13):
Every nice sunny day you'reprobably going to see a smoke
plume somewhere and that's great.
I want fire on the landscapewherever we can get it, whenever
we can get it, but it's thosedormant season burns.
What we've seen is that reallypushes properties to be in grass
dominant or grass heavy.
If you're burning late February, march, early April every year,
you're eventually going to pushyour habitat to be in really

(19:35):
grass dense.
We want to change up our firetiming to help shift that
composition towards a morebroadleaf dominant vegetation
type, and so the important thingfor then is changing your fire
regime.
So stop burning in the dormantseason every single year and
start mixing in, you know, everyother year at least a growing
season fire.
So July, august, september,even early October Now you'll

(19:58):
still get those same growingseason results.

TJ (20:01):
I heard the other day from a guy on I think it was Wild
Turkey Science Podcast.
He was saying do it at leastevery two years not wait three
Yep, is that correct?

Tyler (20:10):
If you want to leave that , whatever it is an open timber
stand, early succession field,whatever it may be, if you want
to leave it in a state that'sgood for turkey and quail
production.
Yeah, like every two years I'mlooking at burning it and,
honestly, probably some of thoseareas you know you could get
away with not the whole unit butunits within a bigger unit burn

(20:30):
it every year Cool, that's howimportant fire is.

Daniel (20:34):
Yeah, so what's one of the species that you think is
underappreciated in Arkansas ormisunderstood that?
We have Kind of an oddballquestion.

Tyler (20:43):
No, I like it that we have kind of an oddball question
.
No, I like it.
Um, I'm gonna kind of take a180 and go away from terrestrial
stuff and, uh, we're gonna diveinto the spring 11 point rivers
and and talk about the ozarkhellbender um, that's, that's,
uh, that's cool.
It's a species that probablymost people have never seen.
When, when you get and you'redone driving, look up Ozark

(21:04):
Hellbender on Google, it's agnarly scary looking alien,
almost a giant lizard species,but it's really cool.
Unfortunately, a species thathas seen a lot of decline the
last 20 something years Riverjust going to swim, the Lassiter
Access and Mammoth.
We used to catch themunderneath the big concrete dock

(21:26):
that used to go out in thewater.
You know you could swim downthere and catch them and I think
most data shows that they'vebeen extirpated from the Spring
River for quite a while now.
There's still a population inthe 11 point, so hopefully
that's something that, asmanagers, that's something we
can target and help bring backto some degree.

TJ (21:49):
Is there any correlation between the fire that we used to
see on that and, like thehabitat change that happened
throughout the Ozarks to that,or is that completely different
circumstances that led to that?

Tyler (21:56):
Yes and no.
Sedimentation is and don't getme wrong, I'm not a aquatic
herpetologist, so if there'ssomebody in the audience that is
, I'm sorry if I butcher this,but I think sedimentation is
probably the number one factorfor what's happened to those.
Arkell Bender, historically,all these creeks, streams,
rivers had a reallywell-established wetland and

(22:20):
they had lots of riparianvegetation, and so we'd get
these big rain eventshistorically.
And you pretty well had armoron your bank, whether that's,
you know, canes, sycamores, box,elder, you know, whatever,
whatever that is that's on thesestream banks was armor for
those, those stream banks, andso it was holding your soil in
place so it wasn't eroding everytime it floods.

(22:42):
Well now and don't hear me wrong, I'm not criticizing farmers at
all.
Farmers are super important forour entire country, but farmers
have to get every bit out oftheir land now, and so, whether
it's cutting hay, grazing cows,whatever it is, they do it right
up to the stream bank, and soit's gotten rid of a lot of
those wetlands and a lot of thatarmoring for our creeks, rivers

(23:05):
and streams.
And so now we get these bigflood events kind of like what
we're seeing today, and it'sgoing to rip that water down
through there and it's justgoing to erode soil the whole
time that it's in those floodstages.

TJ (23:17):
So you almost have two opposite ends of the spectrum,
where in the Ozarks we letthings grow up, and then around
the hillbenders habitat, whereyou've taken everything down to
near bare soil yeah, if it's notbare soil, it's got you know
lip high fescue on it and that'sthe that's the only root system
.

Daniel (23:35):
That's in there now what are you thinking the biggest
threats to the native speciesand ecosystems in the state are
today or central United States?

Tyler (23:46):
I guess the first answer that comes to mind is probably
just keeping up with our speciesneeds.
Like I just mentioned, farmershave to get every bit out of
their property, so that's goingto continue.
On open ground, we're going tocontinue to be probably clearing
forests to seed it in fescueand Bermuda grass and either cut

(24:08):
hay or graze cows on it.
Our fiber products paper, twoby fours, whatever it may be,
we're going to continue to needmore and more and more of those,
and so we're going to clear,cut more of our hardwoods and
plant loblolly pines in there,as dense as we can get them.
But that's part of what we'vegot to do to keep up with our
species needs.
So, yeah, finding the rightbalance is going to be something

(24:28):
that we, as conservationists,have to have to answer for for
the next 25, 50 years becausethere's like no habitat in the
live lolly pines right it.
It's just like a dense hardwoodstand.
There's there's pine needlesand shade on the ground, and so
you know you might see a deerpass through it, but that's just
about it.
You're not.

TJ (24:48):
You're not raising turkeys in the live lolly stands yeah
yeah, I do hear a lot of peoplegoing more organic and stuff
with their, with their farmingand stuff and not and trying to
leave like fence rows and youknow soft edges and that kind of
thing.
So sure I you see that and whenyou're doing habitat programs
are there more people that areturned in that direction?

Tyler (25:07):
you feel like there's more and more people, um, trying
to find the balance, and someof that is people that they want
to have enough cows, that itgives them something to do,
gives them a tax write off, youknow, whatever, and so they're
not necessarily looking at itfrom a bottom line standpoint.
And so those are the peoplethat are mixing in, like those
native grazing regimes and thatkind of thing.

(25:27):
And don't get me wrong, we'vegot a lot of, you know, big time
producers, where the bottomline is their concern, that are
using these native grazingregimes that are making big
impacts.
But, yeah, certainly you knowpeople that aren't spraying
trichlopyr on their fields everyyear, getting rid of your
broadleaf species, or leaving afew fence rows nasty here and
there, leaving a field border,you know, on your hay fields.

(25:49):
All that stuff adds up for sure.

Daniel (25:52):
Are there any common misconceptions people have about
conservation efforts?

Tyler (25:58):
I'm going to take this on two routes the private land and
then kind of the largerconservation.
You know game and fish.
So a lot of people think thatyou know from our, our larger
standpoint, that we've got somekind of bias in the work that we
do like.
Well, they're getting paid offby blah, blah, blah, blah to go,
you know, do duck work orwhatever it is.

(26:18):
And that's not really the case.
We're just going where there'sfunding available and where the
needs are.
So we try to keep bias out of itas much.
You know, whether it's turkeysin the hills, ducks down in the
Delta, deer across the state, oryour non-game species, painted

(26:39):
buntings, hellbenders, whateverit may be, I mean we're trying
to tackle it holistically andnot have any bias from how we
manage across the state.
And then at a local level, on aprivate landowner level, I hear
all the time like well, if Iwork with you, you know that
that turns my property into aWMA.
Or you know, public land,whatever.
We hear that all the time.
If you know people think ofgaming fish is coming out there,

(27:01):
they've got to turn the gateswide open and let let whoever in
.
And that's not the case at allman that that's your property.
You do with it as you see fit.
We just want to help you manageit.

Daniel (27:10):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I think that is a misconceptionbecause you know, I didn't know
that y'all even came out andhelped with that until recent
few years, I guess.
Yep.

TJ (27:18):
Yeah, I've talked to a couple of old guys recently who
are like we're not lettingArkansas Game and Fish
Commission on our propertybecause they feel like that
they're going to have to turnover control Sure up on them,
which you know.
There may be reasons they'reafraid of being checked up on
game and fish, I don't know.
But yeah, you guys and QuailForever have both been on my
property and I've notexperienced any of that.
You guys have just supported mein any decisions or

(27:40):
conservation efforts I've triedto make.

Tyler (27:42):
So yeah, the.
The only time that we can evenbegin to tell somebody what to
do is if, if they willingly signa contract to willingly get in
a program.
You know, there's, there'scertain I don't know what the
word is for it off the top of myhead.

TJ (27:57):
That happens more like you're in RCS stuff, where they
take a little bit more controlof the property and what they
want to see done.

Tyler (28:04):
Well, and I wouldn't even say control.
It's more so, if we're going toinvest this money to turn this
fescue pasture or this fescuehay field into a really high
quality you know native warmseason field, then we don't want
to spend all that money.
You know, say 2025 and then2026, you turn around and turn
your cows loose on it.
So you know, like I said, ifyou willingly sign a contract,

(28:25):
if you willingly get in aprogram, we just ask that you
know for how, for however longis laid out in that that
contract, you leave it in thoseconditions and typically it's
like five years.
So if we are paying cost sharefor you to burn, spray herbicide
and then go plant native seed,then typically we ask that you
leave it in that state for fiveyears.
Yeah, that makes sense, I think,yeah, you're gonna pay those

(28:45):
things yeah, I mean that's ahuge cost input on us so it just
kind of helps save us on theback end yeah yeah you kind of
painted that picture of what itlooked like pre-settlement days.

TJ (28:58):
What do you think it looks like now?
As opposed to that, what are weseeing now is like the big
difference um, the timber forsure.

Tyler (29:06):
Timber is as a whole throughout the ozarks is what we
call overstocked for wildlife.
There's too many trees in there.
So anybody any privatelandowner, that's listening they
just have to get started.
The worst thing you can do isnothing.
Get with a private landsbiologist, get with a Quail
Forever biologist, nrcsbiologist, whoever it may be,

(29:27):
and get started.
We're all partners in thistogether, and so we work with
NRCS, we work with Quail Forever.
We have great partnerships inthe state that help promote
conservation on private land.
There's probably more moneyavailable now for conservation
work than has ever beenavailable before, and so that's

(29:47):
going to be a big driving factorfor the next 10 years is can we
maintain that, that fundingavailability?
We all would like to thinkabout it.
As you know, a grassrootsmovement of you know we're just
going to go push conservationand that's great and I would
love for that to happen.
But I mean, we live in the real, real world.
Money drives everything.
So having that money available,is it so?

(30:09):
Having having landownerswilling to work and having the
money available to help them isis the two big things.

Daniel (30:15):
Yeah, so they just reach out to y'all's office directly
and talk, ask, say hey, I've gotsome land I want to.

Tyler (30:22):
It's funny.
Most of the time they contactme directly and and by no means
do I try to hide my phone numberor my email or whatever.
But it's not something that'snecessarily just out there that
anybody could go find, so italways cracks me up.
You know, how did you get mynumber?
How'd you get my email?
But no it.

TJ (30:39):
Most of the time people are contacting me directly okay yeah
, so we kind of talked aboutthis whole, you know, department
of government efficiency andstuff this last week or so.
Do you think that that's goingto affect any of that funding?

Tyler (30:52):
you see it already impacting some of that um, I
have not personally seen thataffect funding.
Um, I am I'm certain that atsome degree, at some level, it
probably will, but most ofthat's going to probably affect
the federal money that'savailable.
So we see less of kind of theinner workings of that and so I

(31:16):
don't know exactly what whatthat's going to mean moving
forward cool yeah, that's,that's good.

TJ (31:21):
So you know, our podcast is not really geared towards
hunting, although I'm a hunterand daniel hunts a little too.
Yeah, why would you say thatpeople who don't hunt need to be
interested in this kind ofstuff?

Tyler (31:31):
conservation- you know everybody appreciates seeing
wildflowers on the roadside,deer in a park, turkeys
strutting out in somebody'sfield, whatever it is.
Yeah, even the people thatdon't hunt most of the time have
an appreciation for wildlife,and so, like I mentioned before
earlier, that you know, as awhole game and fish isn't just

(31:52):
managing our big five orwhatever we're trying to manage
non-game species as well.
Everybody has that connectionat some point, whether it's
somebody that grew up with quailwanting to bring quail back,
whether it's a master naturalistgroup that's interested in
native wildflowers you know abig time bow hunter and deer,
whatever it is Everybody hasthat connection to wildlife

(32:15):
outdoors, and so conservationshould be, you know, towards the
top of everybody's priority,whether they bow hunt or not, or
turkey hunt or not yeah.

TJ (32:24):
Yeah, we feel.
The more people we talk to, themore outdoor stories we share
you know, it doesn't have to behunting, it doesn't have to be
fishing.

Tyler (32:30):
but you know some most people have some kind of deep
love, you know, yeah, and eveneven just for your recreational,
like canoe or, or you know guywith a boat on norfolk lake,
whatever it is conserving those,those aquatic resources too.
If we just had unregulated, youknow whatever, well, nobody

(32:50):
wants to float the spring riverif it's full of you know, sewer
water or something like that.
So protecting, protecting thoseaquatic resources are super
valuable too yeah, yeah.

Daniel (33:00):
So is there anything going on in conservation right
now that you think gives you alot of hope for the future, on
the way it's going?

Tyler (33:08):
the reintroduction of prescribed fire.
We're getting a lot of peopleinto that, and so this is, I
guess, kind of a plug for someof the classes we teach.
Starting in 1st of August of2024, we started teaching what
we call a qualified prescribedburner class a QPB for short,
sorry.
And so those classes providelandowners with some civil

(33:32):
liability protection forimplementing prescribed fire on
their property, but then it alsogives them a ton of good
information about how to burn,when to burn, what weather
factors, fire breaks, techniques, whatever it may be, really,
really helps a landowner buildthat fire toolkit for themselves
.
So they can take that class,and then we go do a live fire

(33:53):
demonstration, let them see whatfire can and should look like,
and then they could take it totheir property and start
applying fire on their ownacreage yeah, I think that's
what billy joe.

Daniel (34:04):
Is that the same course he took?
Because he?
Had like a whole fire plan, theweather and you know all the,
all the things had the trailerwith all the equipment yeah,
he's done the agfc course and Ithink he's part of a couple of
burn associations as well hegoes out to other people's
property and burns

Tyler (34:18):
with them that kind of thing and I'm glad you brought
that up.
The prescribed burnassociations are another really
hopeful project that game andfish is has kind of started.
We're not moving so much withthem now, um, not to say we're
not supporting them, but so I'mjust going to talk about PBA.
So Prescribed Burn AssociationPBA is kind of a grassroots

(34:39):
movement to put fire back on thelandscape.
It's neighbors helpingneighbors, landowners helping
landowners put fire on theground.
So typically you'll see them intwo to three counties at a time
.
Up in my part of the worldthere's the north central pba
which is boone, marion andbaxter county, there's the
foothills pba which is fulton,sharp and izzard, and there's

(35:00):
the ozark mountain pba which isstone, cersei and van buren
counties.
And so game and fish kind ofhelped kickstart pbas by
providing them and quail forever, and us fish and wildlife
service were in on the groundfor too, getting them a box
trailer, stuffing that boxtrailer full of fire gear.
You know Nomex protectiveclothing, leaf blowers, hand

(35:22):
tools, drip torches, radios,first aid kits, fuel canisters,
chainsaws, all that good stuff.
It gives you the people to gohelp you burn things and then it
gives you the equipment thatyou need as well.
Most of these PBAs operatewhere you pay like $20, $25 a
year to be in the PBA and thenyou go help somebody else burn

(35:44):
and then that entitles you tothat trailer and the whole PBA
worth of people to come help youburn when you're ready to burn.

Daniel (35:50):
Yeah, that's awesome.
You, ted, talked about somekind of security when you burn.
Is there some kind of insuranceyou get some kind of security
when you burn, like, is theresome kind of insurance you can
get with that?

Tyler (35:58):
or you can buy fire insurance.
Historically it's always beenextremely expensive and not
something that a lot of peoplegot through.
Act 695 if you have beenthrough that qualified
prescribed burner class and youhave a burn plan written by a
qualified prescribed burnerwhich should be you, had you

(36:19):
been through that class then youdo have some civil liability if
a fire gets out.
You know it gets on yourneighbor's property or whatever
while you're burning.
Okay, that's cool.

Daniel (36:28):
Yeah, didn't know that yeah, that's, that's kind of
important.
That's kind of why I veered off.

TJ (36:32):
I'm like that's kind of interesting, yeah I see a lot of
private companies starting todo the whole thing.

Tyler (36:37):
Yeah, and that's another exciting aspect, having enough
contractors has always been abottleneck for us.
You know you can get people twoprograms, you can get them the
money, but not everybody can goout there.
And do you know?
20 acres of chemical injectionor cedar cut and drop or
whatever.
We're getting more and morecontractors dotted across the

(36:58):
state, so that's anotherimportant step in connecting
these landowners that arewanting to do work to actually
getting the work done andfinding the people that can do
it.
Yeah, that's cool.
I actually used, uh, some guysat a darn nail to come in and
plant 10 000 shortleaf pinesawesome property not too long
ago it was super helpful becausethey did in three hours what
would take me two weeks exactlyI I've on property that is kind

(37:21):
of family land we've done triedto do some chemical injection or
hack and squirt.
You know, some people mightknow it and I think over the
course of like a week and threeweekends we got like five acres
done, where I use a crew out ofcentral arkansas that can do
like 40 acres in a day.
So it's unbelievable.
You know how much faster thosecrews can work than a, than a

(37:42):
single landowner.

Daniel (37:43):
So is this just going to cut out the invasive species,
or what is?
What?
Is the, the injection?
I guess?

Tyler (37:50):
So we we talked about that sea of trees that you'd see
over the Hawksbill Craig, andso part of what what we want to
do is thin these overstocktimber stands out and so,
hitting on what you justmentioned, we want to start with
invasive species.
So if you have chinese privet oror chinese tallow tree, um kind
of blanking on some other, um,common invasive trees, yeah,

(38:14):
definitely starting with thoseinvasive species, and then, once
you get those removed, we kindof work towards like, okay, well
, what's undesirable?
And so that's kind of yourcedar elm maple, you know your
mid-story hickories, and thenyou look at low value.
So you're talking about, kindof your, your 10 inch dbh

(38:36):
hickories, your your oak uh,regen, oak, advanced regen,
getting rid of some of thatstuff.
So really, what you're leftwith is your big overstory oaks
and hickories and that's kind ofuh, probably boiled too far
down.
It does get a little moreintricate than that, but, yeah,
we're taking out our invasive,low quality and low value uh

(38:58):
trees yeah, so I kind of knowthe answer to this, just because
I've, you know, talked with youand stuff before.

TJ (39:05):
But what would you say is like the ideal tree canopy I
mean, because we're talkingabout sunlight needs to get the
ground.
If you're standing in the ozarknational forest looking up and
can't see the sun, we we've gota problem.
Yep, so what does that need tolook like?

Tyler (39:18):
So there's two ways to approach that, which could be
what was there historically,which is kind of in the
ecological restoration realm.
Or you could be a privatelandowner and say, well, I want
to manage for deer turkey quail,and so, going at it from the
ecological restorationperspective, it just depends on

(39:39):
what's there and what shouldhave been there.
If we go to a property that youknow, there's a bunch of
scattered, gnarly looking postoaks and a ton of cedar in
between them.
Well, if I'm doing ecologicalrestoration, I'm probably
cutting every one of thosecedars out and all I'm leaving
with is a bunch of super widelyspaced out you know 20, 30 basal
area of you know gnarly postoaks, but not everybody wants to

(40:02):
go that far, so to speak.
And so if you're managing fordeer turkey quail, there's
different basal area targetsthat you could hit, based on
what you're trying to do.
Do from a deer's perspective.
If you just want to increasethe forage value on your
property for deer, then youcould take your timber stand and

(40:23):
thin it down to like a 70 basalarea and you're going to
stimulate growth at ground leveland it's going to provide a lot
more food.
If you want to manage forturkeys and kind of the the
broad range of turkey needs,then we kind of try to push
people get to that 60 basal area.
So so 10 square feet of treeless per acre.

(40:44):
And then if you want to managefor quail, then we try to push
people to get below 50 basalarea.
Research has shown time andtime and time again that in
timber stands anything over 50basal area of trees, you're
going to see that that residencyof quail just drop off like a

(41:04):
cliff below that.
So when, when you can get belowthat 50 basal area, that's when
you're really benefiting yourquail and what does the basal
area mean?

Daniel (41:13):
I guess I don don't know what that is.

Tyler (41:15):
So basal area is a forestry term and I really
struggle to kind of teach whatthat means.
It's essentially a measure ofhow many and how dense your
trees are per acre.
One way to kind of look at itis say you took all of the trees

(41:35):
in an acre on your property andyou smushed them together into
this one giant theoretical treehow much of that acre is taken
up by that tree?
And so as you get higher, youget up to like 80, 90, 100 plus
basal area.
Your trees are really thick andyou're totally shading out
ground level.
Once you get down to like 70,60, 50 basal area, um, that's

(41:57):
when you're starting to let more, more sunlight on the ground
and a savannah is going to belike a 20 or 30 is that, yeah,
yeah, somewhere in that.

TJ (42:04):
Okay, that's pretty that's pretty open right, scattered
trees at that point.

Tyler (42:07):
Yep can be very open.
One thing that uh, dr craigharper out of tennessee kind of
I say harp on, I don't mean thiscritically, um, and and he's
extremely right about is wealways use basal area as really
a description of canopy cover,and so we're we're kind of using

(42:33):
one um descriptor to talk aboutsomething else, and so we're
using basal area to get atcanopy cover, which is really
what we're interested in.
Getting sunlight to the forestfloor is what we're really
getting at.
And so maybe thinking of itless in basal area terms and
more of how much of your canopyis open is probably easier for
people to understand.
That's good yeah.

Daniel (42:53):
We've touched on this a little bit but say I own a bunch
of land and I want to get.
I don't know what to do, but Iwant to do something to like
make it better.

Tyler (43:01):
Like.
How do I?

Daniel (43:01):
how do I like initially get started with that?

Tyler (43:05):
So I'm biased, so I'm going to tell you, go to agfccom
, slash private lands, and we'vegot a map, we've got a PLB that
covers every single county inthe state and we've got contact
info for all of those people.
Not only do we have the plb map, we've got the quail forever
map as well of their farm billbiologists.

(43:26):
So if you want to work withgame and fish, you can find that
info really easy.
If you want to work with quailforever, you can find that info
really easily.
If you don't care, call one orthe.
We work with each other all thetime and just because you call
a private lands biologist doesnot mean that a Quail Forever
biologist won't show up.
When they show up too, we worktogether all the time.

Daniel (43:46):
You had talked a little bit about money being available
for this and you said sometimesyou have a five-year contract or
whatever.
To get it back to what's kindof the typical setup for people
calling and getting help Do theydo a big renovation on their
property or is it just kind oflike little spots here and there
?

Tyler (44:03):
It's super variable.
So sometimes you have you knowthat farmer, that he's got some
timber that he would like to seequail back in.
Or you know he's a farmer buthe likes to turkey hunt and his
turkeys have disappeared in thelast 10 years, and so maybe out
of a 1,000-acre farm he's got240 that he's willing to put in

(44:23):
some kind of conservation effort.
Or I won't say her name.
I work with a landowner inMarion County that owns
somewhere in the neighborhood ofabout 800 acres that says like
I've got this airstrip, let'snot mess with it.
The rest of it, have at it.
And then we see everything inbetween too.
So you know some people havehalf their farm in you know true

(44:44):
farming and then half of itthey want to do conservation.
So I mean it really runs thegambit.

TJ (44:49):
Everything in between, okay Do you guys prefer to have the
landowner be like this is what Iwant.
Or do you like that blankpalette where you just come in
and do what you want to do?

Tyler (44:58):
Well, I've probably said this a hundred times it just
depends.
Sometimes landowners that kindof have an idea of what they
want to do and what kind ofservices we offer.
When they've already got thatin mind, that really helps,
because we're not trying to haveto be educators as well as
habitat practitioners.

(45:18):
But then you've also got thosepeople that say, like, well, I
want to do this here and thishere and this here and this here
.
Now you just make it happen andyou're like, well, none of that
really fits into anything thatI would prescribe.
And so the people that know whatthey want to do and they kind
of know what they're talkingabout, those are the, the easy
landowners that you just kind ofget it done for them.
And but then you got the otherpeople that you kind of have to

(45:39):
educate along the way, which is,which is fine, we're used to
doing that.
Sometimes those people thatdon't know anything, you say,
well, do this here, this here,this here, burn it this time of
year.
And they give you the thumbs upand say, all right, let's go.
So it.
It just depends on the peoplethemselves.

Daniel (45:56):
Yeah.

TJ (45:57):
Do you have like a favorite memory or field work you've
enjoyed?

Tyler (46:02):
Yeah.
So this is one I go back towhen I'm kind of telling success
stories.
So it's a guy that he doesn'thave that big of a property.
I'd say between he and his dadthey might have 25 acres.
So you're kind of on the smallend of what a property size
looks like that we help with.

(46:22):
I can't remember how we met itmay have been at a PBA meeting
but he said you know, hey, I'vegot this, it's right on White
River.
I'd like for you to help me out.
And I said okay.
So I went out there and welooked at the property and he
said, yeah, I haven't seen aturkey out here in like 12 years
or whatever the number was.
And I said, well, that fescuepasture, that your dad's not

(46:43):
running cows in anymore, thatall you do is spend money in
diesel to bush hog it every year.
That's some low hanging fruit.
Let's see what we can do inthere.
So we've got equipment that weloan out for free for landowners
.
So I loaned him a broadcastsprayer for his tractor.
He bought some glyphosate andhe sprayed that field.

(47:03):
I went out there with him.
We calibrated the sprayer.
I kind of showed him the insand outs of how to spray.
So he sprayed the fescue out,he got in the PBA, went and
helped with the burn.
He got the PBA out there andthey burned it in March, april,
sometime in that timeframe.
And so I said, man, you'regoing to look perfect this year.
Let's reevaluate, you know,come July.

(47:25):
So I didn't hear anything fromhim really from the time they
burned.
July rolled around and he calledand he was all down in the
dumps and he said, man, I just,I don't know I did something
wrong or we burned it wrong.
I don't think we're going to doanything for turkeys.
And I said, well, you know, letme go out there and look before
you before you get too far inthe dumps.
So met him out there one onemorning in July you know foggy

(47:48):
morning, on the White River, andwe jump in his truck, we're
driving through this field and Isaid, all right, stop here.
I just, I kind of want to seewhat, what you've got growing
out here.
And I'm looking around andthere's a lot of broom, sedge,
what that's what everybody callssage grass, a bunch of ragweed,
a lot of your, your annuals,that you see that that first
year.
And he said, man, I just, Idon't know how this can be good

(48:10):
for turkeys.
So we're walking around and I'mI'm kind of trying to talk to
him and we flush a hen that had,I think there was nine turkey
poults with her, um, and, andthese were, like you know, yard
chicken size poults they were.
They had well got past thatstage of like, okay, well, if

(48:33):
you're at this stage, 90% chanceyou're going to make it to, uh,
you know, the next spring, andand so that that guy had been
all down in the dumps and he'ddone something wrong or this
wasn't going to be good forturkeys.
And there we go, we flushed ahen with with nine viable poults
, and that was just awesome, theway it worked out, that you're
seeing success on small acreagesand you're seeing success with
with landowners that they didn'thave a lot of cost into it.
They got into P, they, you know, in my opinion, kind of did

(48:55):
everything right, I guess, yeahwould you say that's the norm.

TJ (48:59):
Do you see that kind of stuff happen that quick that
often?
Or is it kind of 50 50 that?

Tyler (49:05):
you probably see that success that fast, or success
happens that fast you just don'tsee it that fast.
Um, I think we just got luckythat that hen you know happened
to be brooding in that fieldthat morning that we were
driving out there.
I mean, he lives, his house isa, you know, baseball throw from
that field and he hadn't seenthat hen.
So I think, just right place,right time, we saw it.

(49:27):
And so you see that thatsuccess happens on all those
properties.
You just may not be the rightplace at the right time to see
it every time, that's cool forme as a land owner.

TJ (49:37):
You know that's one of the things I look for, you know, to
see happen and I'm probably thesame way.
I look over my property and I'mlike, you know, don't see
anything because we, we let ourum cool season grasses, you know
, nibble down, like you'retalking a little height lip grow
up to three or four feet.
This year you higher, someplaces even five feet, and we

(49:59):
saw nine gobblers come out ofthat one day and we hadn't seen
a turkey anywhere on the place,so that was super encouraging.
So a lot of times you probablyjust aren't seeing what's there.

Daniel (50:07):
I guess For sure Do you have any cool wildlife
encounters, I assume, sinceyou're out in the woods so much,
have you seen any Bigfoot oranything?

Tyler (50:16):
I haven't seen the elusive Bigfoot or Black Panther
Trying to think.
You know, being in the Ozarks,you're kind of always surprised.
When you run up on a group ofhogs, you know you get the wind
in your face and you couldpretty well walk on top of them.
So it's not uncommon to kind ofget startled when you bump you
know five or six big hogs.

(50:36):
That can be, you know, a littlescary sometimes.
Trying to think of that, onejust cool story, there was a
landowner in Fulton County thatwas in an NRCS program and we
helped him get a burn inprobably early April of 2024.

(51:00):
Probably early April of 2024.
And so I was going back in, Ithink, june to make some
herbicide recommendations forhim, cause he was, he was trying
to do a pollinator planting andhe said, you know, he just kept
saying like man, there ought tobe quail out here, that, and we
actually had saw quail the daywe were burning.
But he said, yeah, I knowthere's quail out here, I'm just
not seeing them.
And so we were out there and Iwas making notes of what I was

(51:21):
seeing and making herbicideprescriptions and all of a
sudden, in this big brushy drawthat just had a lot of native
shrubs and some laid-over oldred oak in it.
We started hearing three orfour quail start singing, so I
guess similar to the last one itwas.
It was neat to be with alandowner the first time.
They'd seen the you know thesuccess out of their work yeah,

(51:42):
that's got to be one of the mostrewarding parts.

Daniel (51:44):
I would absolutely so if you could get people to do one
simple thing today to increasethe wildlife or to make it
better, what's kind of one thinglike everybody, because not
many people have you know, 100,200 acres or whatever they have
five acres or 10 acres, yeah the.

Tyler (52:02):
The most important thing is what, whatever you own,
whether it's, you know, five tothe 5,000 acre landowner, find
what of your property eitherthat you want to do conservation
work in or that you're willingto do conservation work in, and
it doesn't matter if it's 1% ofthat 5,000, if it's 50% of the

(52:23):
20 acre landowner.
Find where you're willing to dowork and then get with somebody
that knows what they're doing,whether that's QF, biologist,
agfc, private lands biologist,whoever it may be.
Get with somebody, because I'vekind of came in on the back end
of some landowners trying to doit themselves, which is fine.
If anybody wants to do that,have at it.

(52:44):
But when you're able to come inthere and make a plan and make
maps for a landowner and have atimeline to say, do this here in
2025, do this here in 2026,here here, 2027, and you give
them a direction that is almostas valuable as having funding

(53:04):
for them to do it, I think for aprivate landowner trying to do
it themselves, it can be sooverwhelming that you just spin
your wheels and you do a tinylittle bit of something here, a
tiny little bit of somethinghere, and you never make that
big impact like you certainlycould with a good plan.

Daniel (53:22):
Yeah, leverage all the experience would be great.

Tyler (53:25):
Absolutely.

Daniel (53:26):
What do you hope for Arkansas's natural landscape and
wildlife to look like in 50years?
Not even Arkansas, you know,just any of the United States,
not even.

Tyler (53:35):
Arkansas you know just any of the United States.
Sure, One of my big hopes isthat public land starts to see
that ecological restoration andthen we get the wildlife
response out of it.
I used to have Marion County,and within Marion County is the
Fred Berry ConservationEducation Center right on
Crooked Creek.

(53:59):
Fred Berry ConservationEducation Center right on
Crooked Creek, and I love thatplace because it is what
historically open ground shouldlook like.
And so when you have thoseschool groups, master,
naturalist groups, whoever itmay be, that go out there and
they're using that place like apark essentially which is fine,
that's what it's for they'reseeing correct ecological

(54:19):
condition at that place whereyou go to almost any other park
in the state and you're going tosee tons of trees that don't
belong, you're going to see abunch of Bermuda grass that gets
cut twice a week.
For a lot of those kids thatdon't have the connection to the
outdoors that maybe I did whenI was a kid, when they think of

(54:40):
the outdoors and what you knowoutside air quotes should look
like that park is what they'regoing to think of.
So whether it's in our parks,in our WMAs, whatever it may be,
I want to get that stuff backto what it belongs in so that
people have the right viewpointof what natural condition should

(55:02):
be.

Daniel (55:03):
Yeah, so I do a lot of hiking and you know Ouachita's
Ozark Highland Trail, yep, andyou know it's overgrown a lot of
it Like is there anything goingon with those to try to get
that back?

Tyler (55:15):
So that was one of those pieces of public land that I
said don't necessarily share thesame wildlife management goals
that we do on our WMAs.
Don't get me wrong.
The Forest Service does a lotof good work where wildlife are
maybe the third goal.

(55:35):
Work where wildlife are maybethe third goal.
You know, take your big lakes,like norfolk bull shoals, a
watchtower lake, that aremanaged by core of engineers.
Well, recreation and access aretheir number one goals.
So wildlife may be third orfourth on that list, or forest
service lands maybe third orfourth on that list.
So, yes, there is work beingdone, but it's slower and not at

(55:57):
the scale that we're doing iton our own lands yeah, I don't
know how you speed that up, youknow yeah, because there's so
many acreage.

Daniel (56:04):
I don't know how you would get that, how you get them
like, because like ozarkhighland trail, like there's, I
mean tons of land you could tryto get straightened out there
absolutely, and and even withendless funding and and endless
uh bodies to do it, just thatthat amount of land would would
take a while to get there, forsure.

TJ (56:22):
Yeah yeah, do you think that's something that will come
with more people knowing aboutthis kind of thing?
Yeah I put pressure ongovernment to do that kind of
stuff.

Tyler (56:30):
Yeah, I think so, um and and, as, as these other agencies
kind of get educated on on whatthey can do to manage for
wildlife as well, yeah, yeah,because that'd be super cool to
look back and see how it lookednatively.
Absolutely.
I'd love to hike HawksbillCraig one day and see, you know,

(56:52):
whatever?
A bunch of scattered post oakson a south slope that have
purple coneflower and black-eyedsusans growing under it.
That'd be awesome.
Yeah, yeah, that'd be cool.

TJ (57:02):
So we kind of have this uh, I don't know if you call it
cliche slogan that we've talkedabout in here on the podcast a
few times a window seal to athousand acres is kind of an
idea that we have.
You know, we want our guests tobe able to do, whether they
have that little space outsidetheir window flower bed in the
yard or they own a thousandacres more maybe yep, to be able

(57:23):
to do something forconservation, because you know
we talked about private land,you know, and how important that
is to this.
So do you feel like that?
That's something that'sfeasible?
You think that you can dosomething, no matter what how
small of a place you've got?

Tyler (57:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
Even if it's just a yard andyou do a pollinator flower bed,
you're probably going to benefit.
You know some monarchbutterflies.
It's making its migration north.
Obviously, the smaller it is,the smaller impact you're going
to have.
But every time you make apositive impact that builds and
builds, and builds.
You know, with the idea thatyou know, maybe the guy with the

(57:59):
thousand acres drives by, youknow the lady with 10 that that
did a pollinator planning andshe's hearing quail in it or
whatever to you know, maybe thatkickstarts a guy with a
thousand to say, okay, well, youknow how do I redo that on on
my property.

TJ (58:14):
So nothing's too small, no.

Daniel (58:16):
No, Get everybody's yard done.
You'd have tons of acreage.

Tyler (58:20):
Yeah, john Deere may be coming after us, but that'd be
great.
That's funny.

TJ (58:26):
You could leave people with just one message about the
natural world.
What would it be?

Tyler (58:31):
The Arkansas that we see and love today is obviously the
natural state and it's beautiful, but it's not what it could be
and it's not what it should be.
So, especially to thelandowners, do your part to help
take us back to where westarted and find the real beauty

(58:51):
and the real natural ofArkansas.

TJ (58:55):
Is there anything that you want to plug for AGFC or
yourself before you get off here?

Tyler (59:01):
The big one is our Facebook page.
So when you get on Facebooktonight, go to Private Lands
Habitat Division Facebook pageand anything that we do as a
division, we post in there Anyclasses we teach, landowner
workshops, qualified prescribedburner classes, funding
opportunities, you name it.
If we're doing it, it's goingin that Facebook page and then

(59:24):
we've kind of started trying tothrow out some, you know,
habitat tips.
You know, I think yesterday onegot posted about the benefits
of prescribed fire, so there'ssome good education
opportunities in there as well.
So definitely, definitely, geton that Facebook page and, uh,
see what all we got going.
We're we're teaching, teachingsomething all the time and and

(59:45):
we're never more than six monthsor so away from some funding.
So try to find that stuff andget plugged in.
That's awesome.

Daniel (59:52):
Well, we really appreciate you coming out and
giving us your time here.

Tyler (59:55):
Oh yeah.

TJ (59:55):
Thanks for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Man, you bet Yep.