Sep 29, 2026 · 1 hr 8 min · 12 segments
It's been two spring wild turkey seasons since Wild Turkey Lab, The NWTF, Ducks Unlimited, UTEP and Low Country Gamebird Foundation launched wildturkeyDNA — a collaborative project designed to…
Michael ChamberlainGuestPete MullerHost
these traits can lie dormant for several generations and then be expressed.
We don't know exactly why these birds are expressing some of these, these patterns.
These other traits are, are largely recessive traits, right? And so we're, we're trying now to understand, you know, why are certain birds within populations expressing these traits? What does that mean? Is it a bad thing? Does it not matter at all? And so that's kind of where we're headed.
We have a postdoctoral researcher that's now about to be hired to work on the project, which will greatly expand kind of the analytical power that we have to get information out more quickly than we can now.
And we hope to add even more staff in the future to really kind of delve into these questions.
For I've had fun being a part of the group that's helping to get all these things out on social media.
What's your reaction from folks that, you know, that I feel like people really seem to like it.
I mean, you see some comments on there like this is my new favorite page to follow.
But, I mean, what are the things that people have told you or just anecdotal things that you feel like people seem to be enjoying it, though, from what I can tell?
I've gotten hundreds of comments directed straight to me on social media.
And I've also had hundreds of conversations with people talking about their perceptions of this project.
Uh, and so, and that person, and, and I'll tell you the question that, that he asked, um, and his, his, his outlook changed when I gave him the answer.
And that is, he's like, what in the hell is this going to tell us? That's going to help us put more turkeys on the ground.
I said, uh, If I told you after doing some DNA work that your local population in the counties that you live in and hunt in and around, that that population was suffering from very low genetic diversity and had high inbreeding potential.
And as a consequence of that, that population was less resilient and was more likely to have reproductive consequences, negative reproductive consequences, and that moving forward, I could provide state agencies with information that would help them understand if they needed to augment that population genetically, what source of birds in North America would they need to go to to have the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time? And he said, oh, I get it.
these traits can lie dormant for several generations and then be expressed.
We don't know exactly why these birds are expressing some of these, these patterns.
These other traits are, are largely recessive traits, right? And so we're, we're trying now to understand, you know, why are certain birds within populations expressing these traits? What does that mean? Is it a bad thing? Does it not matter at all? And so that's kind of where we're headed.
We have a postdoctoral researcher that's now about to be hired to work on the project, which will greatly expand kind of the analytical power that we have to get information out more quickly than we can now.
And we hope to add even more staff in the future to really kind of delve into these questions.
For I've had fun being a part of the group that's helping to get all these things out on social media.
What's your reaction from folks that, you know, that I feel like people really seem to like it.
I mean, you see some comments on there like this is my new favorite page to follow.
But, I mean, what are the things that people have told you or just anecdotal things that you feel like people seem to be enjoying it, though, from what I can tell?
I've gotten hundreds of comments directed straight to me on social media.
And I've also had hundreds of conversations with people talking about their perceptions of this project.
Uh, and so, and that person, and, and I'll tell you the question that, that he asked, um, and his, his, his outlook changed when I gave him the answer.
And that is, he's like, what in the hell is this going to tell us? That's going to help us put more turkeys on the ground.
I said, uh, If I told you after doing some DNA work that your local population in the counties that you live in and hunt in and around, that that population was suffering from very low genetic diversity and had high inbreeding potential.
And as a consequence of that, that population was less resilient and was more likely to have reproductive consequences, negative reproductive consequences, and that moving forward, I could provide state agencies with information that would help them understand if they needed to augment that population genetically, what source of birds in North America would they need to go to to have the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time? And he said, oh, I get it.
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