4-5-26 - Guest Wild Turkey Research Biologist, Dr. Mike Chamberlain

Tonight's guest is nationally renowned Wild Turkey Research Biologist, Dr. Mike Chamberlain. Dr. Chamberlain has researched turkeys for thirty years and shares his data and turkey hunting experience.  For more info, go to wildturkeydna.com.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
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(01:25):
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Speaker 2 (01:31):
Good evening everyone, Jim Straighter here, and I'm pleased to
announce that tonight Scott and I will be interviewing nationally
renowned wild turkey research bilgist doctor Mike Chamberlain. Mike's been
honest before and he is an absolute mountain of knowledge

(01:51):
about the wild turkey. Doctor Chamberlain is the National Wild
Turkey Federation Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia Warnell
School of Forestry and Natural Resources, and he's research turkeys
for over thirty years during time at the University of Georgia,
Louisiana State and Mississippi State Universities, and has done extensive

(02:16):
research work here in the state of Kentucky as well
as other states, and he's a passionate wild turkey hunter.
In addition, we're going to talk to tonight about that scout.
I know you and I are both really excited to
have Mike back on.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yeah, no doubt, Doctor chamber Chamberlain is a phenomenal turkey
hunter as well, and that's something that really makes him
stand out as we start to look at data and
research anymore. It's always important to me, Jim, that the
biologist and the scientists behind the data are the weather
sportsmen and women. I think that's a very important part

(02:54):
of the scientific method and the scientific research that goes
behind it, because they're out there and they're talking with
hunters and they understand what hunters.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
Want, and that's a good experience.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
And so I always think that that's a good twist
to have whenever you're looking at any type of data
when it comes to game species, that the person behind
it is actually partaking into sport itself when they're off
work or maybe sometimes before they go on to work
or knock off a little early.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, I couldn't agree more. And to tell the truth,
you know, as you and I think Mike knows, I
helped the wild Turkey restoration here in Kentucky with George Wright.
And a supreme compliment to doctor Chamberlain is he reminds
me a lot of George the way he looks at it,

(03:46):
his passion for the wild turkey, his understanding of some
of the nuances of the breeding behavior. It's just a
very broad expanse of knowledge. And his research is outstanding.
So without I've heard of the dow, I'm gonna break here.
We'll get back and get doctor Chamberlain on and explain,
you know, how he got into the field, a little

(04:08):
bit about his background and his research and findings, and
we're gonna talk turkey tonight. So I'm really excited about it.
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(04:29):
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All right, folks, as we mentioned, we're talked tonight with
doctor Michael Chamberlain while turkey researcher and longtime turkey hunter. Mike,

(04:51):
thanks so much for agreeing to come on with us
to night. I'm really looking forward to this.

Speaker 5 (04:57):
Absolutely good to be with you, Jim.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, sir. I think to start out, Mike, I'd like
for you to have the opportunity to explain, explain to
people your passion for wild turkeys, why you got into
the field, you know, why you pursued that and some
of your university work, and why you you know, why
you are who you are today.

Speaker 5 (05:20):
I guess yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Before I do that,
I do want to thank you for that. The comparison
to George, right, that's that's quite that's quite humbling. George
was a pioneer in the turkey world. Be mentioned in
the same sentence with him is something that's very humbling

(05:40):
to me.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Well, I will tell you, I don't think I've ever
said that about another biology just before, but your body
of work and what I've seen you do here over
the last several years and some of the things that
you've shared with us, uh, I think you're very deserving
of that compliment, and I know George will be here pad,
you're on the back. If we were here today, I
promise you that.

Speaker 5 (06:04):
Well, well, I appreciate that. Yeah. So, I mean I
grew up as a suburban kid with a with a
dad that worked. He worked all week and so I
didn't get to see my dad until he got home
after dark. And I grew up in Virginia. We couldn't
we couldn't hunt on Sundays at the time, and my

(06:25):
dad was a hunter. And so I basically became a
hunter as a child because I wanted to spend time
with my dad and Saturday was the day that I
could do it. And and so he he gave me
a passion for the outdoors and to hunt. And I
hunted everything, including turkeys, and and that's where my passion

(06:46):
for the bird first originated. It's just as a kid,
you know, bouncing around in the woods in the fall,
because that's typically what we did in Virginia back in
the day, was we fall hunted because spring hunting really
wasn't really wasn't a thing. It was. It was just
starting to get its legs. And yeah, so I grew

(07:07):
up chasing turkeys and that's that's kind of how my
passion started.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Okay, And then of course you went to college and
that's where I think it all really started to come
together in a big way. Share that with us, and
and I'd like you to dive into you know, you've
worked at so many different universities and been involved there.
Tell us a little bit about that evolution and things
you learned along the way, if you would.

Speaker 5 (07:36):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So I went to Virginia Tech
and did my undergraduate degree there, and I was blessed
to get an opportunity to go to Mississippi State to
do a graduate project that was focused on turkeys, and
the first rocket net I shot over a bird, I
was hooked just getting the bird in hand, tracking it,

(07:59):
you know, putting radio transmitters on them. Just tracking the
birds and learning how they behaved was really fascinating to me.
And so I ended up doing my master's degree on turkeys.
I stayed at Mississippi State and did a PhD, also
studying turkeys and the predators that influenced them. And I

(08:23):
was blessed. I left Mississippi State and was offered a
faculty position at Louisiana State University, and the day I
walked in the door there, I was able to work
with Louisiana Apartment of Life of Fisheries and get some
turkey research started, and the rest is history. I've been
studying turkeys ever since I left LSU about fourteen or

(08:47):
fifteen years ago and came to the University of Georgia
and picked up kind of right where I left off
at LSU and continued to study turkeys. And yeah, so
I now kind of look at the bird through the
lens of a turkey hunter. Before I was a turkey scientist,
and I've been blessed to have opportunities to study turkeys

(09:09):
all over North America and also hunt them, and I
think that gives me gives me a lens to kind
of critically evaluate some of the science I do because
I'm a turkey hunter first and foremost. And yeah, I
cherished the bird and I cherished the opportunity to work
with it.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yes, sir, if you don't mind talking about during those
early years when you were doing those studies, some of
the things that you learned that were kind of groundbreaking
at the time, and because I do want to talk
to you at length about your current studies and some

(09:50):
of the recent stuff, but I think the background of
what you learned early on is important too. Would you
mind sharing some of that? Sure? Yeah.

Speaker 5 (10:00):
So So when I was when I was doing my
graduate work, I was actually looking at interactions between turkeys
and and a lot of predators. I actually I put JEEP,
I put VHF for these basically backpack units on turkeys
that you had to go listen to a beep, which

(10:20):
we don't we don't do much anymore. But I was
putting radios on turkeys, and I was also collaring coyotes
and bobcats and raccoons and and looking at how they
interacted with each other. And it made me realize how
complex predation is and how many predators can be in
the environment at one time around a turkey. That really

(10:45):
kind of opened my eyes to the importance of managing
habitat and and understanding kind of what this bird is doing.
And I paid a lot of attention to their roost locations,
and again I just kind of looked at the bird
as a student, basically as a turkey hunter first and

(11:07):
then as a student second. And then as I transitioned
into academics, I tried to recruit and train students that
thought about turkeys as hunters, because I think to really
study the wild turkey intimately, you need to think like
a turkey hunter. And so that's kind of how I

(11:28):
transitioned into academics. And some of the things we learned
early on in my academic career, you know, particularly how
birds respond to hunting pressure and hunting activity has really
kind of been has been something that's stuck with me
through time. It's just how this bird is adapted to
navigating risk on the landscape. That's something that I learned

(11:51):
early on that's transcended until today.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Well, you know, one of the reasons I gave you
a compliment about your's right was George predicted a lot
of things way back, you know, when we were stocking
birds here in Kentucky. And one of the things that
he told we were very close personal friends. He Harold Knight,
David Hale, and I we're kind of spearheading the reintroduction

(12:18):
in Kentucky by networking things out. You know, we were
in a position to put George in contact with a
lot of landowners in different parts of state or not.
And one thing he said to me was, Jim, there's
gonna come a day in a time when every critter
that's a predator in the woods is out there. They're

(12:40):
gonna have wild turkey on the menu. And when that happened,
things are going to change, and they're gonna change drastically,
and that's gonna lead to all kinds of complications of
situations that will have to be addressed. We may have
to reduce limits, we may have to redirect our thoughts

(13:00):
about when the season opens. We definitely are going to
need to pay attention to habitat and I'm going to
take a deep dive into those things with you a
little later in the program. But it was amazing to
me the way back then George knew that. So the
reason I pay you that compliment is everything that I

(13:22):
hear you say today, everything that you're learning, everything that
you're interfacing as a hunter first and a biologist. Not
I shouldn't say first and second, but there's a tremendous
interface there. I guess it's a proper term I'm looking
for that enables you to definitively say, all these things

(13:46):
are things we have to consider. There's not one thing
that's holding the turkeys back today or hurting the turkeys today.
That's the old death by a thousand cuts and how
in the world George had that crystal ball. I had
no idea. I don't have a clue, but he sure did.

Speaker 5 (14:05):
Yeah, it's interesting you say that, because tomorrow I'm actually
I'm doing a film series this spring on James Earl Kinnemer,
who worked who was the conservation director and director of
research for NWTF for many many years. He and George
were close friends, and I remember as a graduate student

(14:28):
attending meetings where George, you know, where all of the
kind of the big sticks in the turkey world were present,
and I remember people talking about this bubble is going
to pop, and when it does, we need to be prepared.
And this this series I'm filming about James Earl, I

(14:50):
want to talk to him in depth about that because
we kind of, you know, there were people like George
that were telling us this is going to pop at
some point, and when it does, we need to be prepared.
And I think in a lot of ways, we lulled
ourselves to sleep as turkey hunters and turkey managers, and
we thought the good days were going to last forever.

(15:12):
And when they when those good good days kind of
went away and we started seeing declines, which prompted a
lot of the work I do. Now, we were kind
of blindsided, but they were people like George that weren't blindsided.
They were prepared. They were trying to prepare everybody because
they knew that at some point populations were going to

(15:34):
level off and it started to climb.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
I don't think there's any question. And you know there's
old saying. I'm sure you're familiar with it. Mother Nature
hates a void and she will fill it. Well, the
Turkey filled the void. But then along came avoid where
here came counts into the eastern United States, for example,
and the habitat that's so drastically different than and their

(16:00):
initial habitat. And oh my, have they emerged as a
horrible predator in our environment. You know, I talk to
younger people today and they think houts have always been here. Well, no,
they here in Kentucky, they come across the However, when
it froze in seventy eight out of Missouri and Illinois

(16:21):
and pretty well exploded all the way across the Eastern
United States, and bobcats of course are proliferating at it
very alarming great and here in my region, you know,
in Kentucky and Indiana. So there's just there's a lot
of challenges and again we'll dive deep later in the

(16:44):
program about predator management and habitat and now those do
you know interface And I listen to your seminars and
your podcast, I'm very aware of how you feel about
it now. I think it's I think it's spot of Scott.
I'm sure you have a question or something you'd like

(17:06):
to post to doctor Chamber here.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
Well, I guess the main thing is, with what little
time we've got before the break, since we've talked about
his leadership, where do you see in doc as far
as young leaders coming up with students. Our turkeys a
little bit more popular now amongst the student body and
our folks wanting to kind of get their hands, you know,

(17:32):
in I guess get dirty with turkeys instead of some
other wildlife species.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
Like how does that rank in popularity?

Speaker 5 (17:40):
Yeah? I mean, you know, Scott, I mean it's tough
to recruit students that want to study game species because
our society has changed so much in the last ten
to fifteen years. What I've ended up doing is I'm
recruiting students now that are interested in and kind of

(18:01):
focused areas, whether it be behavioral, ecology, or you pick
a topic, and I'm getting them into my lab and
giving them access to the largest data set that's been created,
you know, for turkeys, and then I'm giving them free
rein to intellectually expand themselves. So yeah, it's tough to get.

(18:23):
It's tough to get young people that want to study
the wild turkey.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Okay, all right, we got to go to this break,
and coming back from the break, we're going to talk
about some of the doctor Chambers research projects in the
past and how they've been very revealing, and we'll plunge
into the rest of this stuff about predators, management, habitat
things that I think you need to know, So stick

(18:51):
with us. We'll be back. This break is presented by
Mossil Property's Heart Realty. Paul Thomas is a broker. Check
out the listings m P H G R T realt
dot com. Mike, if you would, I'd like you to
talk about some of the revelations that your past projects

(19:13):
revealed to you that we're either the surprise or that
really kind of, you know, kept you galvanized into moving
forward into the new stuff. Because we're going to talk
about some of the new research a little later, but uh,
some things that caught fire with you. For example, I

(19:35):
remember you talked to us about wild turkey's ability to
identify each other aby looking at each other and meeting
around each other the way we use humans do. And
when you remove a mature, dominant gobbler out of the mix,
that really can scramble the eggs on the breeding cycle

(19:58):
for a bit. Would you care to share some things.

Speaker 5 (20:00):
Like that with us, Yeah, I mean, I think one
of the one of the things that stuck out to
me when I first started studying while turkeys was just
how kind of complex their their mating system is and
and their interactions with each other. I mean, they're their dominance.
Hierarchies are very rigid. They they each have their place

(20:24):
within that hierarchy, and they those hierarchies really shape their lives.
I mean, when you watch birds and flocks and you
see how they interact with each other, it's really telling
to be able to study an animal that really kind
of has a pecking order, which you often hear hierarchies

(20:45):
referred to. That's that's so rigid and has so much
impact on how they live their lives, which is why
they you know, why turkeys seem so calm all the
time until until they're not, you know, and until you know,
erupts and fights start. But it's because dominance matters for

(21:06):
this animal. And so you've got you've got a bird
that lives, you know, gregariously. They live in flocks, and
within those flocks, there's something very rigid that dictates how
all of them, not just the dominant bird, but all
of those birds live their lives. And dominance, we've learned
through the years, isn't lost until the dominant bird dies,

(21:27):
and so it's something that's really impactful to the structure
of the flocks that we see. That that's one thing
that I that I've learned that really kind of has
stuck with me through through the years. Another thing that
really we continue to see, which is really interesting to
me as a hunter, is that these birds change roost

(21:52):
sites so frequently, and you may have you know, ten
or fifteen roosts, you know, in a in a small
area of let's say four or five farms where there's
there's turkeys every year that are gobbling from those those spots.
And we as turkey hunters know this we you know,
you have properties where for the last twenty years, I

(22:13):
always hear turkeys right there. Well, what we've learned is
that there are generations of turkeys that use the same
roots repeatedly, and they switch those roosts. So you may
have individuals in a population, like there may be gobblers
that are using you know, five or six different rooft

(22:34):
sites in their in their home range, and they're interchangeably
using those. So in other words, you may have one
bird one night that's here and he leaves, and then
another bird replaces him. And what that's told me through
time is that these roofs locations are really really important
to this bird. That if we if we can identify

(22:56):
those roost locations and conserve them, that's going to matter
from multiple generations of turkeys.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
Uh, that raises an obvious question, what do you see
in their needs when they choose those locations? What what
drives that train? Generally speaking?

Speaker 5 (23:17):
Yeah, I know it's half So I have a student
that's actually in fact this past weekend. Last weekend, I
went out visited some of these roofs sites. We're we're
trying to quantify what's different about these sites right now
actually and it appears that they are. They are quite unique.

(23:39):
They have a they're on certain slopes in other words,
north south, east west, they have certain aspects, they have
a certain slope, they have vegetative characteristics that are that
are different from other places. And what's really interesting to
me is that Eastern subspecies, you know, most of us

(24:03):
or most people that are listening to this, there's trees everywhere, right,
I mean where you live and where the Eastern subspecies live.
There's trees everywhere, but that doesn't seem to really impact
exactly where they're roosting. They're selecting these areas that, yes,
have trees that they can roost in, that are large,

(24:25):
that have sprawling branches, but they're actually roosting in areas
so they're not they're not necessarily coming back to the
same tree every night. What they're actually doing is using
a spot, and that spot is I think, you know,
forty to fifty sixty hundred and fifty two hundred yards.

(24:46):
Versus say, when you go out west and you have
turkeys that are coming back to literally a certain cottonwood
and roosting in that tree every night. That's not what
we see with the Eastern subspecies. And what that tells
me is as you know, the complexity of how they
select their roofs changes as you go from the east
out west, and it tells me, at least here in

(25:09):
the eastern United States, that we need to be identifying
these quote unquote areas that are important to the bird
from a roost perspective, and we need to target those
for conservation as we move forward.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yes, sir Scott, Well, you know, as I listen to this,
I'm I'm thinking about these generations of birds.

Speaker 4 (25:32):
What are you seeing as far as.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
The timeline there, doc as far as how quickly or
how long this will will last, even if there's no
habitat change to the area that's being you know, drastically,
you know, impacted by cutting timber.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
Or utilization of land.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Is there like a window there that, especially on the
eastern species that you're seeing.

Speaker 5 (25:58):
Yeah, that's exactly what we're trying to trying to get
out now, is like, Okay, so when you when you
come into these areas where these roosts have been used
for let's say the last twenty years, what can you
you know, what can you do that doesn't impact that roost?
In other words, so you know, I'll give you a scenario.

(26:19):
So you've got you've got pine, hardwood forest, there's a
lot of clear cutting. Turkeys are have been roosting for
generations along a slope, whether it's predominantly hardwood, and there's
upland pine around it that has been harvested, but they
stayed there, right, They continued to roost there, versus you know,

(26:42):
perhaps a roost that was used for five, six, seven,
eight years of a particular field study and then suddenly
it was abandoned. That's kind of what we're trying to
tease out now, is like what factors are influencing these
areas to the point where turkey's abandoned using them, Because
at that point, to me, as a turkey hunter and

(27:05):
as a scientist, I've seen that with my own eyes, right,
I've seen situations where I've been hearing turkeys right there
since I was a kid, and now I don't hear
turkeys there. Everything else has changed, but that roost location
looks the same to me. That's the point. Everything else
around it has changed, and so we're trying to figure out,

(27:27):
you know, what can be altered around that roost location
to cause that breaking point because obviously, we want to
try to identify that and figure out how not to
do that.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Okay, Mike, back to the turkey's ability to identify each other,
I think that points to the shuffle that happens when
a mature gobbler is harvested. And one of the things
that I've had concern about in this dynamic where we're,

(28:06):
you know, having population fluctuation in negative way, is when
seasons should be open, and I think they should be
opened later than sooner. I know that's a can of worlds,
but it definitely changes. A shuffle can affect the dynamics.

Speaker 5 (28:25):
Correct, Yeah, that's that's the question that that agencies are
grappling with. So what we do know is obviously they
have dominant hierarchies and when you when you go in
and you remove a dominant bird, it obviously has some
type of impact to the other birds in the packing order.

(28:50):
What exact impact that has it is a bit unclear.
So what you see through time is that you know,
research is show and if you go into a population
and you harvest a lot of birds, a lot of
males early in the breeding season, that can be a problem.
It disrupts breeding activities, It can slow down nesting activities.

(29:14):
Some of our own research now is showing the same
that when hunting starts, you kind of slow down the
process of hens initiating nests within a breeding group. And
what I mean by that is, you know, imagine a
scenario where you've got you've got a group of toms
that are hanging around with a group of hens. Those

(29:37):
hens are copulating, they're breeding with one of those tombs,
if not multiple tomes, and then suddenly hunting starts and
some of those birds start getting removed. What our own
data and data decades ago showed the same thing that
it slows the process down. So the breeding process kind
of slows down. And that should make sense because if

(30:01):
you think about it, it's hens are they're selecting dominant
birds because those birds are dominant for a reason, right,
They're they're the most fit, They're they're going to be
better than the birds around them, Otherwise they would not
be dominant. So when you when you start removing a
lot of birds, then you kind of disrupt her ability

(30:24):
to to select the best mate, if you will, and
kind of the thinking that you know, well they'll just
breed with another tom. Well that I mean if you
think about turkeys, that's illogical because they have dominant hierarchies
for a reason, and so it's illogical to think, well,
she just breathes anybody that that's kind of not how

(30:45):
their mating system works. So so yeah, we're we're trying
to better understand that. But it is clear that once
you once you start hunting, the breeding process and the
nesting process in particular, slows down. And and the reason
that should matter is we've seen clearly for decades that

(31:05):
early nests matter. In other words, the earliest nests that
are laid are the most likely to be successful because
they're laid by dominant hens. And so when you start
slowing the nesting process down, you typically are going to
expect lower nest success. And that's what the research shows.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
That is fascinating stuff. Doc, That's that's that's huge. All Right,
I'm gonna go to break here where you continue the conversation.
Right after this break, it's presented by SMI Marine. They'll
see them. They'll take great care you get there before
the rush to get your boat ready for spring fishing. Remember,
you never get soaked by my friends at SMI. Mike,

(31:55):
I know you've got this DNA project going here and
very fascinating, the Turkey Lab project. Can you tell us
some about that and how hunters can participate? Sure?

Speaker 5 (32:09):
Yeah, So we we launched Wild Turkey DNA in the
spring of twenty twenty five, so last year. And we
started this project basically trying to understand the origin of
these odd looking turkeys that you see all over social media.
You know, these birds that that have plumage colors feather

(32:30):
colors that are odd, and we were curious, you know,
are those wild turkeys? Are they not? And then we
ultimately wanted to go where we're where we're headed right now,
which is to expand the project and start asking bigger
questions about you know, genetic diversity and hybridization across subspecies

(32:53):
and inbreeding potential in turkeys and and this is a
this is a large project. We we we got this
project started between the Wild Turkey Lab at the University
of Georgia uh NWTF Ducks Unlimited, who had has has
done a sister project, if you will, or basically the

(33:15):
parent project to Wild Turkey DNA, which is Duck DNA
if if listeners are familiar with that. We also got
some funding from Low Country Gameberg Foundation and and of
course my my genetics colleague at at University of Texas,
El Paso. And so we put this project together and
we started soliciting kind of samples from from hunters that

(33:39):
had shot birds that looked odd and and what we've
realized is genetics and wild turkeys are really complex. Uh,
They're super complex. And and so now we're expanding the
project across the entire species range. We're asking hunters to
go to wild Turkey DNA dot com. You'll see a

(34:01):
tab right there that says register to participate. You can
click on that tab and if you're selected, we're going
to send you a kit, and that kid is postage paid.
It's going to have one or several vials in it,
depending on how you answer a few questions that we'll

(34:22):
ask you about how much you hunt and how active
you are. And then once you harvest your birds, you
take a little piece of their tongue. Actually, which is interesting.
A lot of people scarf at it, but at the
tip of the tongue has a ton of DNA in
it and it's never something that a turkey hunter would use.

(34:44):
So we'll we'll ask folks to clip the tip of
the tongue off, put it in one of these vials
that we will send you, freeze it, and then when
you're done for the season, you can you can drop
the vials in the kit that we send you supposed
to paid and it goes to UTEP and we will
evaluate that sample and we will look at all kinds

(35:07):
of things related to genetics.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Cool. Well, we'll give you an opportunity to repeat how
people can participate in that at the end of the
program here tonight. And it's a fascinating project and who
knows where that's going to lead. You know, as you mentioned,
the genetics and wild turkeys are all over the place
for a variety of reasons. So that's that's something that's

(35:33):
going really begun to look at going down the road.
All right, go to go to break here. This break
is presented by Montial Properties. Check out their current listings
at m O, P H g R T dot com.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
Dot there's a lot of data out there to chase,
but there's also a lot of turkeys to chase too.
And I want to go into this second hour just
kind of talking with Michael Chamberlain and seeing kind of
where your heart and passion is right now with your
turkey travels and your turkey hunting.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
So I'm going to start off. If you had no.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
Budget and you didn't have to worry about work commitments,
where would you like to start your spring off this year?
Everybody's always trying to bounce to one state or another
to get.

Speaker 4 (36:22):
A early jump start. Where would you go and why
would you go there?

Speaker 5 (36:29):
I like the no budget. I like the no budget
and get off work. That sounds great, yes, sir, yeah,
I mean, gosh, man, I enjoy going so many places
that I go. I mean, I visit Florida every year.

(36:49):
I do a Wounded Warriors hunt down there every year.
That's kind of it's either the first or second hunt
that I make. This year it'll be the second. I
really enjoyed going down there and seeing such a different
part of the world. And of course, I mean, I
you know, I hang out around home and hunt a

(37:11):
little bit here, and but I guess where I really
like most enjoy going now, at least in the last
four or five years, is it's going out west and
seeing places that I guess as a kid, I thought
I'll never get to visit, you know, Montana or Idaho

(37:33):
or Colorado or where you pick a state. I just
you know, as a kid, I was like, I'd love
to go out there and see different places. And I
love I love to be able to see And of
course I live in a place where it's densely forested,
and so seeing is not something you can do, at
least long distance. And so I really look forward every

(37:55):
year to going out west and seeing different states and
visiting with people that in many cases don't see turkeys
as that relevant. Uh. That's one thing I've seen as
I go out west is you know, there's a lot
of people that that don't look at turkeys like we do.

(38:16):
And when they realize that, you know, I flew halfway
across the country to come see a turkey and get
some video and and harvest one, they're they're dumbfounded. And
so that that's something really cool. If you if you
ask me where, if I could go to one place

(38:36):
and stop and that was it, it would be Mexico. Uh.
And that may that may sound crazy to people listening,
but if you ever get the opportunity to go to
Mexico and hunt the gold subspecies, you'll never forget it.
It is it's magical to watch a bird that's that

(38:57):
stunning exist in such an the rugged, dry landscape that's
at high elevation. And to me, you put all that together,
traveling from the east to the West and then down
to Mexico, it just tells me how resilient and adaptable
the wild turkey is and it's something.

Speaker 4 (39:18):
I cherish no doubt.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Chasing the Goulds is definitely an awesome thing to get
to experience, whether it's.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
You know, the people, the culture.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
It seems like every time I go into Mexico that
it seems that the jeep Jamboree has some competitors when
it comes to those folks that work in and around
the Golds turkey hunting, whether it's outfitters or folks that
are just selling a few hunts to manage some income
fur their properties.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
Are they seeing any type of population.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
Swinging dynamics in Mexico. I know, out west or what
I consider Big Sky Country, it used to be pretty
much an annual trip to go into the Black Hills
and then go and buy some prairie tags at South Dakota.
But where is our turkey numbers in Mexico And where
are our turkey numbers actually not having issues, what states

(40:18):
are hot to where the flock's actually growing.

Speaker 5 (40:23):
Yeah, so the Mexico question, I'll start with that we
really don't know, and I actually I have some research
starting this spring in the Sierra Madres on a bunch
of different properties where we're trying to get some pretty
solid population estimates and figure out what those flocks look

(40:43):
like and try to answer that question, what does productivity
look like for the Gould subspecies? It does appear that
Goulds in many ways behave like rios in that their
precipitation drip and you get super droughts that persist for
years and you have no production, and then suddenly you

(41:06):
get one wet spring something you know, late spring, early summer,
and boom, you've got turkeys, you know, figuratively popping up
out of the ground. And so that's what that's one
thing we're trying to study now is you know, is
the Gould subspecies as a mountain bird by default, are

(41:27):
they just kind of boom and bust And when they're boom,
they're you know, they're doing quite well. And when they're bust,
you know, are you looking at a situation where you
need to change your management strategies, you know, more like
you would with the with the rio. And to your
second question, you know, where are where are the areas
of the country that are the turkeys are doing quite well?

(41:50):
There's there's there's a number of places that turkeys at
least have have decided kind of the declines we've seen
in parts of the southeast, actually most of the southeast,
uh and parts of the Midwest. If you if you
look at some of the western populations, they appear to
be stable in a lot of cases. There's actually some

(42:14):
Southeastern populations that have started to recover, which is quite
I guess rewarding to me having watched populations in Arkansas
and Louisiana that that got to really low levels harvest
had dropped, and now you've seen consecutive years over the
last handful of years where harvest has increased and productivity

(42:37):
has increased. And so I think it just speaks kind
of the complexity of of how this bird operates. And
there's there's places that are doing okay, there's places that
are doing well, and there's still places, particularly in the Southeast,
where where declines are still ongoing.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
Mike, what are the states that are that are in
better shape. I guess I would say, can you deliinate
those in the you know, in the south southeast region. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (43:11):
So if you if you look at harvest just solely harvest,
which is I'm I'm not going to say it's dangerous,
it's it's just you have to you have to look
at harvest numbers through a certain lens. What we've seen
clearly with with turkeys is that harvest is a good
indicator of of activity. We know that most most turkeys

(43:32):
are shot the first ten days of a season, no
matter when it opens, and and we know that harvest
can outtrack the population. What I mean by that is
harvest can continue to increase when a population is decreasing.
And so you.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Could pound the hell out of the money you really should.

Speaker 5 (43:55):
Yeah, Yeah, bottom line is you you can you can
continue to harvest a high percentage of the population when
the population is still in decline. But if you look
solely based on harvest, you know, North Carolina's had had
had stable in good harvest, Tennessee has had stable and

(44:15):
good harvest. Like I mentioned, You've got a couple of
other states Louisiana, Arkansas that really got quite low and
populations seem to have responded. Virginia's harvest has has increased
quite a bit. But again, if you just look at harvest,
it it's kind of a dangerous metric because eventually harvest

(44:37):
can can outtrack, you know, population abundance, and that's in
particular what we see as a turkey hunter. It's important
to understand that the male population and the female population
can act independently. In other words, you can have the
male population might be declining or increa at a different

(45:01):
rate than the female population, and so you could have
harvest that is trending upwards or is stable, yet the
female part of the population is declining. And what happens
through time is the female part of the population gets
lower and lower and lower. But it takes a while

(45:23):
for the harvest to trend down low enough to where
you and I would look at it and go, oh man,
we got a problem. And so you have to be
careful with harvest in and of itself. If you just
look at harvest and you see states that are like,
you know, we're killing a lot of turkeys, We're killing
more turkeys than we did four or five years ago,

(45:45):
that might be an indicator of a population that's doing okay,
or it might be an indicator of a population where
you've got some disconnect between the harvest trends, if you will,
and the actual population abundance.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah. And that's where the interface, honestly, between land predators
and man gets to be a conundrum. And too many
people don't understand that. And man is the ultimate predator
on male turkeys. I mean, anybody doesn't understand that's probably
a little bit delusional. I think. Whereas the land predators,

(46:25):
the bobcat, the coyotes, etc. Or do they work on
the hens? You know, the it's like George Shed They're
all on the menu. The eggs are on the menu,
the hens are on the menu by the coyotes and
what have you. And then you know, man comes in
with the male birds. And so I'm like you, it

(46:46):
needs to be looked at as a complexity, not one
one simple facet. You agree, I do.

Speaker 5 (46:55):
I do? And you know, predation is what we've We've
called us to a bunch of work on this recently.
And if you're interested in some of this stuff, you
just go to wild Turkey lab dot com Wild Turkey
lab dot com. At the top there's a tab that
says research. If you click on it, you can scroll
down through a bunch of peer reviewed articles we've published lately.

(47:20):
And what we've trying to tease out is, like, how
does hunting activity and harvest affect the bird versus a
natural predator? And what you see is wild turkeys are
making a decision. It's a trade off. They're basically trying
to navigate around parts of the landscape where they're threading

(47:42):
a needle. They've got all kinds of predators in their environment,
whether it's cayos, bobcast great horned owls, and they've got us,
and they're trying to navigate around all of that. And
so some of these birds are putting themselves in situations
where they're more likely to be harvested. And some of

(48:02):
these birds are putting themselves in situations where they're more
likely to be killed by a predator because they're predictable.
In other words, they're trying to avoid us, and in
so doing, they're becoming predictable to predators. And what that
tells me is the landscape is just risky for this bird.

(48:23):
You got a bird that a lot of things he eats,
Like George mentioned years ago, eats their nest, eats their poults,
eats the adults, and so you've got a bird that's
trying to navigate a lot of risk. And that's one
thing that we are continuing to study is that, like
what does that look like for a while?

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Turkey they run a hell of a gauntlet. There's no
doubt I've got to go to break here. This break
is presented by Bostil Properties, Heart Realty. Check out the
listings of the m O p h A R Trealty
dot com.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
Golk is the Turkey research goes on, or also is
a little bit of research going on with alloys and
folks that are maybe going to revert back to lead
and some folks are going to continue with.

Speaker 4 (49:08):
The newer trend of TSS.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
And like I said, I want to spend a little
time doing Q and A with you, what your shotgun
or optics set up?

Speaker 4 (49:19):
What mo you shooting?

Speaker 3 (49:21):
Kind of tell us why from the Turkey hunter side,
in the Turkey biologist side, why you choose to hunt
with what you hunt with?

Speaker 5 (49:35):
I changed a couple of years ago. I shot an
eight seventy pump just showing my age for years and
years and years and I don't know how many turkeys
I killed with that gun, and I was completely comfortable
with it. But a few years ago I started noticing

(49:55):
that I wasn't able to focus on the bead as much.
I had intentionally not caved in the pressure of a
red dot or anything like that, but I just started
noticing my vision was different, and so I actually upgraded.
I've I've got a retay and I shoot a red

(50:17):
dot on it, and I shoot TSS mostly because of
the fact that it shoots really good through that particular gun.
And yeah, so I've I've had to evolve the eight seventy.
You know, never let me astray until it until it did.
And it wasn't because of the gun. It was because

(50:38):
of my own my own failings as a human being.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
Yeah, has the TSS I had a negative impact on
our perky numbers when you put your turkey hunting knowledge
and turkey hunter experience into the actual fact of and
I'm talking everything on the good side. And there's a
lot of youth that are able to shoot subgage guns
and fourteen and especially there's a lot of young people

(51:03):
that I think shooting an optic is a lot better
form than teaching them fit and form at such a
young age. Pop up blinds. What do you what are
you singing on? The past forty yard part of it though,
the negative part that could come to the harvest of
the turkey.

Speaker 5 (51:21):
Yeah, that's a really it's an almost impossible question to
answer from a science perspective, like what impact that that
has because it's just again it's impossible to study. I
think just logically thinking about it as a turkey hunter
and what you see, you know, as you interact with

(51:42):
people and god forbid, go on social media as you know.
I don't think there's any question that the TSS has
has prompted people or facilitated some people to take shots
they probably shouldn't take. Has that been ongoing for years? Maybe?

(52:03):
I just remember as a kid and a young man,
you know, if the bird wasn't twenty twenty five yards,
a shot didn't ring out. And now you know that's
not the case in many situations. And I'm guilty of
it as well. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. I've
shot birds with these guns and these loads that at

(52:25):
distances that I would not have considered shooting a bird
when I was twenty years old with that effect. You
know what effect that has on like total harvest and
harvest rates. We don't know, and it's very difficult to study.
I think from a social perspective, I think what you're

(52:47):
seeing is basically situations where hunters may be putting them
themselves in a situation where you know they're taking a
shot that might not be ideal. But what effect that
has on populations we don't know.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
Well. I think the cogent thing to say here is no,
you're gun, Know you're shot. Know you're gonna be lethal
when you pull the trigger, because the wounded turkey is
a waste, and we owe it to the bird to
know that when we pull the trigger it's going to

(53:25):
be a clean kill. I mean, that's that's kind of
a old Honting Bible story. If you would not, I
think we ought to part here, all right, folks got
to go to break. This break is presented by smun Marine.
Get your boat in there before the huge rush spring
fishing is upon us. Remember you never get soaked by

(53:46):
my friends at SMI Mike, this is kind of a
curiosity question. Is a gentleman that's hunting all over the
country and beyond any little secret tips you'd give people.
Let's stay with Eastern Turkey. I think would be the

(54:09):
best way for me to ask this little secret tips
about working a bird or get into a bird's head,
which in a lot of people say, well, it's got
to brain the size of a pee, But boy, have
they got instinct and do they respond to certain things?
Is there any little, maybe subtle tricks that you would
share with the audience that you feel like, through your

(54:32):
research and through your years as a hunter enables you
to handle a troublesome bird.

Speaker 5 (54:50):
Mike you there, Yes, I am sorry, Oh, I'm.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Sorry, you have question?

Speaker 5 (55:00):
I did? I did? Actually I had a graduate student
come into my house to pick up some camo that
we're doing roots surveys tomorrow. So mythologies I a muted
you so she could come in and get those clothes,
but out yes, yes, so I think, based on on

(55:22):
the research we've done in my own experience, is basically
the idea that if if you know, our bird heard
you right, so you called he gobbled, he flies down,
he goes away in some different direction, he's going to
come back to that spot. He's going to come back

(55:44):
to that area, and he's going to check out that sound.
It was. You were not part of his agenda when
he flew down, but you might be part of his
agenda at nine o'clock or at ten o'clock. And so
what I've want learn myself from looking at the spatial
data we've collected when we monitored birds and hunters, when

(56:06):
we had hunters wearing GPS, is sometimes they fly down
and you're not on their radar screen, but you've become
part of their day later in the morning. And so
what that's taught me is just patience. It's just stay
in the game, be willing to sit and let the

(56:27):
bird walk off because he's going to come back. And
what we've seen with turkeys very clearly with Tom's in particular,
is they revisit areas repeatedly. In other words, they may
walk the same movement tracks over and over and over.
And so if you know he heard you, don't quit,

(56:49):
you know, stay in the game, If you're willing to
sit and just kind of become part of his day,
then I think that's going to improve your success, and
it has it has mine.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Well. The old time turkey hunters that I met back
when we were hardly had eight turkeys. I'll give Harold
Knight as the perfect example. Have all agreed. If there's
anything to have in your pocket, written down or carved
into your gunstock, it's patience. And that speaks to what

(57:24):
you're talking about, because they are creatures of habit and
they do have a memory. You know. You may not
think they do, but you know, if they've got some
hens over here and they've bred out it daylight and
then to your point nine or ten o'clock rolls around,
it's like, you know what, I heard a receptive hen

(57:46):
back here this morning. I think I'm gonna go back there.
And I'm a guy I will tell you throughout my career,
the hundreds of turkeys that I've killed, I've killed a
lot more late in the morning than I have heard
off the roost. And well, I say a lot more.
It's it's closer to fifty to fifty than not. It's

(58:08):
strictly because our seasons and most of the states I hunted,
it opens at a time when they're still end up.
They tend to do their deal with their hens. And
I'm the kind of guy I'm pretty patient about that stuff.
And if I know where he is and he's in
the area, I'm confident that I can use my call.

(58:30):
Once he's gotten that lust out of his way early
and he's you know, revigorated, I've got a chance at him.

Speaker 5 (58:40):
Yeah, I agree. And the way you know, I understand,
you know, people listening, you've got young kids, you've got
competing interest, you've got all kinds of things going on
in the spring. But the way I look at it is,
if I'm willing to spend an extra thirty minutes or
an hour, for an hour and a half in the field,

(59:02):
Let's just say I had a hard set that I
need to leave by nine, and he blew me off
at eight, and maybe I could stay till ten. What's
the worst that's going to come from that. You're going
to spend time in the outdoors. You're going to be
in silence, you're going to be listening to the spring woods.

(59:23):
You're going to be at peace, enjoying yourself and immersed
in the world that this bird lives in. And to me,
that's time well spent. Whether you're whether you're successful or not,
it's worth spending that extra time outdoors in the places
that they call home. And so that that's what I

(59:44):
tell people that that's my only sage advice is slow down,
you know, be willing to spend more time chasing the bird.
Sometimes that's going to work and sometimes it's not. But
when it doesn't, I think you're still going to be
warded with the benefit.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
You know. You know, Mike, I want to pass this law,
and I suspect you put an amen on it. I
love hearing those gobbles at sunrise. They make my blood boil.
The buddy, you give me a gobble about nine or
ten o'clock, I'm very confident that there's a real good
chance I'm gonna have some spurs hanging over my back

(01:00:23):
walking out of the woods at that time.

Speaker 5 (01:00:26):
Oh, I completely agree. Yeah, yeah, sir, No. I mean
we all love hearing them screen their head off on
the roost. But man, you give me one about ten
o'clock that answers me, and particularly if he answers me twice.
And you know that that's.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
The mornings I'm looking for, you bet you, you bet you.
I'm gonna go to quick break here coming back from break,
Scott's got a question for you, and this break is
presented by SMI Marine. Go see him before the spring rush.
They've got all kinds of new boats for sale, and
some real good deals on used boats as well. Remember

(01:01:05):
you never get soaked by my friends at SMI.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
Dock hunting several states for several years now. My turkey
hunting really started hot.

Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
And heavy in the early nineties.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
The amount of gobblings changed, And that's kind of back
to that experience part of when do we open seasons,
and maybe some perspective from the predator side of things
and some of your older research with the soundboxes. But
what I'm getting at I have really good friends of mine.

(01:01:40):
Of course, on public ground, you don't always want them
goblin because everybody can hear them, but you do want
to gobble or hear a little spitting and drumming something
that you know that they're getting closer or further away.
But folks aren't complaining, they're just talking, and they're talking
from experience.

Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
And I'm one of those people too that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Yes, there's certain days and weather conditions and parts of
the breeding cycle that gobling's really good and birds are
working really well to a call.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
But overall, what.

Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
I considered die hard turkey hunters and folks that give
it a world down in Florida and they go out
to the big Sky country and we finish out in
the northeast.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
We have seen a.

Speaker 4 (01:02:24):
Little bit of reduction of that goblin.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
It's taken away a little bit from the enjoyment of
the hunt. We still love to hunt them, but goblings changed.
What can you share with us on that? And why
are we having so much reflection amongst a population of
turkey hunters in their thirties to say sixties that seem

(01:02:49):
to be in the majority from my experiences that are
saying the same thing.

Speaker 5 (01:02:55):
Yeah, I mean, what the research clearly shows is that
this bird perceives risk, they perceive pressure, and they reduce
gobling in response to it, both at an individual level
and a population level. So it's I mean, we've we've

(01:03:16):
clearly shown this. As soon as hunting season starts, gobbling
starts to decline. If hunting pressure is really high, then
gobbling drops drastically. If hunting pressure is a little lower
than you see a more you know, kind of slow
decline in gobling, but it declines period as soon as

(01:03:39):
as hunting starts. And I think part of what you're
seeing is is just that across the bird's range is
turkey hunting inclusive and popularity, and we all visit places
that turkeys are living, we're seeing birds that are starting
to get used to pressure. And the other thing that

(01:04:01):
is becoming more clear, although it needs to be studied more,
is potential that some of these behaviors are heritable. Right.
In other words, there are behaviors and animals, not necessarily
just turkeys, but many other animals that are traced down

(01:04:22):
from generation to generation. And so is it plausible that
gobbling activity is something that can be influenced genetically through
time as you're selecting birds in other words, harvesting birds
in a population that are gobbling more, could you actually
be selecting against birds that are going to gobble in

(01:04:46):
the future. We don't know the answer to that, but
it is plausible if you look at many other harvested
species across the globe. And that's just something we need
to continue study. But I'm with you. I hear the
same thing. I see the same thing with my own
eyes and my own ears. It does beg the question

(01:05:09):
that you know, as turkey hunters, we we cherished the gobble, right,
I think most of us listening. If we hear bird
and can get in the game, then it was a success, right,
the harvest is you know, it's important, but it's to me,
it's it's secondary to I heard him, I responded to him.

(01:05:34):
He responded to me, I got in the game and
it was a great morning. So through time, are we
seeing situations where birds are less likely to gobble at all?
And if they are, is that going to have some
impact on the quality of the hunt as you and
I see it? And to me that that's something we
certainly need to keep our eye on because at the

(01:05:56):
end of the game, at the end of the day,
we I mean, we want to be satisfied, right, I mean,
we want to have good experiences as turkey hunters, and
that's going to dictate our willingness to stay engaged in
the sport.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Mike, you know, that points at something that I don't
a house to say it other than the way they
say it. Plainly. This is where predators really come into play,
because what gobbler that has hit the ground, you know,
let's leave out on the roost, that's had a cott

(01:06:32):
to bobcat jump at it because it was gobbling through
instinct isn't able to discern that that's a bad idea.
And I love your generational you know, instinctive pass along

(01:06:53):
if you will, about what happens there. I mean, we
know how turkeys in Florida are different, and obviously that
was through I think generational situations with the amount of
bobcats and what have you down there, that they became
that way. But predator controls something I'm bigger one. I

(01:07:15):
don't mind saying it. I know that you have seen
what predators can do. However, it has to be balanced
with the right habitat, and it's hard to balance. You know,
how well are we going to be able on a
long term basis to control predators versus how are we
best served to have habitat that helps? What's the right word?

(01:07:38):
Spread that out? In closing here? What are your thoughts
about that? I mean, I've seen some real drastic turnarounds
in turkey numbers, in some big acreach here in Kentucky
and in southern Indiana where guys are really serious about
trapping and shooting kyots okay, and trapping coons. How sustainable

(01:08:01):
is that versus habitat closing thoughts?

Speaker 5 (01:08:06):
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, if
you've got decent to good quality habitat, already in place,
and you are interested in a trapping or predator management program,
then by all means pursue it. If you're in a
situation where you have really poor quality habitat, then you're

(01:08:31):
less likely to see a tangible benefit from predator management scenarios.
So if I guess where I'm at is, if you're
in good quality habitat and you're interested in predator management,
then pursue it, particularly if you're trapping yourself, because it's
it's a rewarding, beneficial practice. I trap for many years myself.

(01:08:54):
It teaches you an attention to detail you'll otherwise not have.
But if you are sitting on poor quality habitat, then
I would encourage you to try to seek ways to
improve the habitat because predator management in those situations is
going to be expected to have a much less impact

(01:09:15):
than it would if you had better habitat. So it
really depends on the scenario that you're sitting in.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Yes, sir, we got just a very sharp period here
going forward. But tell folks again how to get in
touch with you through your research and a little bit
more about this Turkey DNA if you would.

Speaker 5 (01:09:42):
Yeah, so the Turkey DNA project. If you just go
to Wild TURKEYDNA dot com you can register to participate
in that. If you're curious why you should even care.
What we're seeing in many populations is really low genetic
diversity compared to what we would expect to see. And

(01:10:04):
when you have load genetic diversity in a population, that
the population is less resilient and you would expect them
to have reproductive issues, survival issues, and so we're trying
to figure out if those issues are more pervasive across
the landscape and perhaps could those issues have influenced the

(01:10:26):
declines we've seen in many populations. If you're interested just
in the research that I do, go to Wild Turkey
lab dot com or follow me on my socials Wild
Turkey doc on Instagram and x and you can just
email me. If you go to a UG university George's homepage,

(01:10:48):
you can just type in my name email me if
you have questions, If you want to connect, then I'll
be happy to engage with you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
Mike, thanks so much for all the time effort in
your lifelong pursuit of sharing knowledge about the Turkey and
what you've done. I deeply appreciative of your valuable time
here on the program tonight, and God bless you for
everything you've done for the Turkey and the Turkey. All right, folks,
that's a ramp. We'll be back next week, same place,

(01:11:20):
same time, God bless everybody.