and a strong cup of coffee

There are a few less turkeys in Maine to hunt this year. A few months ago, Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife in partnership with the National Wild Turkey Federation , captured and released more than 50 birds into East Texas with the hope of rebuilding their population.   “Eastern turkeys are where the restocking efforts originally began,” explained Shawn Roberts, Director of Field Operations for the National Wild Turkey Federation, “We tried in the 1920’s but it didn’t work.  We tried pen-raised birds and that didn’t work either. The only thing that was successful was to trap birds and relocate them to good habitat.” “We started this current effort in the early ‘80s and we had to begin looking outside the state to see if we could get them moved in. We didn’t want to violate The Lacey Act so we had to come up with a way to compensate the states that were giving up a resource either by trading other wildlife or paying them monetarily,” said Roberts. Texas is on the ve...

Nate Webb has researched and hunted animals I can only dream about; wolves, cougars, grizzlies and even Big Horn sheep. I first met Nate when we worked on Maine’s bear management plan for MDIFW. An avid outdoorsman, Nate is incredibly knowledgeable about all things wildlife in Maine and beyond. So, I was not surprised when I saw the notification that he had been named the new wildlife director of the department. I sat down with Nate to go over some of his goals and reflect on all of the impressive animals he has studied so far in his career. I asked him the question “ Now that you are the wildlife director, what’s on your priority list ?” and we went from there. “I want to make sure that we are working towards the broader vision for IFW and following Judy’s direction and initiatives,” Nate started, “Obviously, we want our staff to be well supported and get the trainings that they need so that they can be the best at their jobs. We have a lot of people coming up for retirem...