CEO Notes – May/June 2024

As this issue of Turkey Call magazine hits our members’ mailboxes, turkey seasons across the country are in different phases, some closing, some wide open and others just beginning. Wherever you are, we hope you are connecting with the life-changing power of the outdoors and all that our favorite season has to offer. For the second year, we shattered our Convention and Sport Show attendance record with 72,243 folks attending! Never before have so many people joined us in Nashville to celebrate all the great things the NWTF stands for: wild turkeys, conservation, the soul of the American hunter and an unfaltering desire to leave the land better than we found it.

People often ask us, ‘What is your secret recipe?’ We simply say, ‘Our people.’ Our volunteers, partners and staff are the most dedicated and passionate people we’ve ever had the pleasure of working alongside. They inspire us daily to poise this extraordinary organization for another 50 years of mission delivery, and that is precisely what we are doing. Over the last two years, we have invested over $1.2 million in critical wild turkey research. The third year of our national Request for Proposals is live. Our conservation leadership, in concert with our National Wild Turkey Technical Committee, will evaluate proposals and ensure our members’ dollars are going to vital projects that guide the future management and sustainability of the wild turkey. Watch for more details on the NWTF’s investment in wild turkey research this year on NWTF.org. And while we will continue our robust investments in wild turkey research, we are also expanding our approach. We know that research is essential, but so are the talented people who conduct it. We must ensure that wild turkey research remains a perennial activity for management applications, policy and overall ecological discourse. We will look to create endowed wild turkey programs at key universities across the country, creating a national mechanism whereby wild turkey research will occur into perpetuity by a network of leading experts. And while we will always invest in the wild turkey, we must expand our on-the-ground impact and remain relevant in an ever-changing sociopolitical landscape. We must unite people like never before with our work, and it truly has the power to do it.

Everybody appreciates clean water, safe and resilient communities, healthy wildlife habitats and robust recreational opportunities. Our landscape-scale initiatives are tackling specific conservation challenges while uniting communities through our shared values. NWTF’s Habitat for the Hatch is focused on bolstering wild turkey populations, but poults are not the only thing hatching from our work… pollinators, songbirds, insects, gopher tortoises and more will all “hatch” from this initiative. Likewise, NWTF’s Waterways for Wildlife is increasing the health of vital riparian ecosystems, but the work is improving overall water quality for Americans and wildlife alike. Both of these initiatives benefit wild turkeys, but they also enhance entire ecosystems and bring in diverse and unique stakeholders. There is immense opportunity to continue to bring people from all walks of life into our mission through our all-encompassing work and unite a nation that relies heavily on our natural resources.

As we steer the helm and aim to increase our mission delivery like never before, we know that you, the members of the NWTF, are essential. We thank you for your continued involvement in this great organization and look forward to what we will accomplish together. Whether you’re reliving the gobbles from a now-closed spring turkey season or know where birds are roosted for an upcoming hunt, we hope the 2024 spring season inspires you to join us all year as we work to create healthy habitats and healthy harvests.