I can tell you this.

If you start managing your fields in that way, you will never go back.

Welcome to Wild Turkey Science, a podcast made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow.

I'm Dr. Marcus Lashley, Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Florida.

And I'm Dr. Will Gulsby, Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management at Auburn University.

We're both lifelong hunters and devoted scientists who are passionate about hunting, managing, and researching wild turkeys.

In this podcast, we'll explore turkey research, speak to the experts in the field,

and address the difficult questions related to wild turkey ecology and management.

Our goal is to serve as your connection to wild turkey science.

Music goal is to serve as your connection to wild turkey science. We're here today with Dr. Craig Harper.

So the reason, you know, we really wanted to have you on today is, is you shared some statistics

from your ongoing work in Tennessee that I think really

resonated with people because of they paint a picture of brooding and nesting cover

being severely limited across the landscape but highly selected for and they also the conditions the conditions that we're being selected for,

conferred a significant increase in nest success.

So I was kind of thinking that we could start with rehashing that, if you don't mind sharing

that information.

And then we can go into more about, you know, how common is that across the landscape

and these common situations that hunters and land managers encounter and more specifically the things that they can do to implement better brooding and nesting cover across their properties?

Yeah, I think what you're getting at is I shared with you the countywide data from those counties that we were working in or still are.

And in particular, early succession and shrublin only represented about 7% of the counties, but about, well, nearly, I think it was mid 40 some percent of the nest,

45, 46 percent of the nest were in early succession and shrubling. And that was, you know,

...