The Adventures of a Former “DNR Czar”

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This is Raised in the Woods, whether you were raised in the woods or raised in a mere home.

This show is gonna tell you and show you how to take the great outdoors and make it a great part of your life.

My name is Joel Clayfish and you are...

whoever you want me to be this week.

You're Ellie Lawton.

You're an acclaimed certified French Culinarian among other things, but for the purposes of this show, you're the co-host.

Appreciate having you along.

Great to have you.

What an awesome time to be in the Midwest while spring is sprunging, which is awesome.

The geese have their gozzlings,

the turkeys

are out beating each other up.

It's such a beautiful time.

I do love it

when all of the little ducks and geese are rattling around.

They are so cute.

Aren't they so darling?

And it really makes me angry when people accuse...

hunters of not caring about animals.

We are animal lovers and hunting and fishing and angling and foraging.

Those are all things that contribute to the conservation of a state.

Keeping these populations

in check is important, damn it.

Healthy populations mean healthy animals that live happy lives.

Absolutely.

Contributor Megan Salazar is here as usual, as per usual.

Mags, what's going on?

Do you like mags as a nickname?

No, no, no, no, no, no.

We're not doing that.

We're not doing that.

Yeah, like a magazine

for a magazine.

I don't even do mag.

Yeah, no mag.

There's two

people, three people in this world that call me mag and one of them is now a past.

So.

All right.

Well, I might have to fill that in though.

No, I'm Megan.

Well, you can't take place with my grandmother.

That's true.

Salazar is here.

Did you have a good week?

Yeah.

Good.

You have,

I mean, I've got puppies.

So I

mean, you've got 74 literally one week old puppies right now at home.

They're going to be two weeks old.

Oh, they're so

cute.

Put them in

your pocket.

Can they see yet?

No, their eyes are just sprouting out of the potatoes right now.

Hey, can we put an updated

photo of the puppies on

the Facebook page or

one of your videos?

Folks, if you do not follow us, our Facebook page is raised in the woods.

You'll get an insight into what we do during the week.

We spend our time outdoors and you'll get to have little glimpses of the show.

You guys don't

let me see it, but I like to listen to what's on it.

What

do you mean we don't let you see it?

Just because you don't have Facebook, I don't have a personal Facebook either, but I do love the Raising the Woods Facebook page because we get to hear from listeners.

There's some good stuff on there.

And we get to hear from listeners on that and that makes me very happy.

I

want some listeners to tell us what we should cook next.

Oh, I love that idea.

I want

a cooking challenge.

I'm up for, you know, since I've recovered from the raccoon challenge, I need a new cooking challenge.

What do you mean you've recovered from it?

Well, you kind of set me up

there.

How?

What do you mean?

Because you didn't technically win the challenges though.

I did not win.

OK, but your raccoon was fantastic.

I didn't win, but it was awesome.

But the judges knew which raccoon was which.

Yeah, because mine didn't have carrots in it.

Well, if you didn't listen to the show at that time, Chef Lawton went up against.

Lobs is looking at us like, what is going on here?

174 year old recipe for raccoons in a raccoon feed in the middle of Wisconsin in the middle of the Midwest.

and Chef Lawton prepared a competing raccoon recipe.

All the recipes were absolutely delicious, but you know, it was put on by the American Legion and they had their judges who knew what theirs tasted like.

Of

course.

Yes.

But theirs is incredibly good.

Mine

was really good too.

Yes, it was very good.

Yes, don't worry.

Yours was very good.

Oh, I'm not worried.

I mean, I wouldn't be hurt if someone said it was bad.

I mean, why would I care?

There are a lot of people who wouldn't try raccoon in the first place.

It was delicious.

It was absolutely delicious.

But we should have another challenge.

Yes, but I need a challenge.

We need a challenge.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, listen.

I'm sure Joel will come up with one in about five minutes.

Well, I'm going to tell you this.

I know that our number one listener of this show, Gary Fluitt.

Shout out to Gary.

Sorry, George.

And George.

Well, George is our number two listener now because George listens often on the podcast and Gary's got the radio tuned.

If you have a

Thank you, Gary.

We

appreciate

you in your area, uh, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, or Iowa.

You tune it to civic media on Saturdays at 11 o'clock.

You can hear the show live.

If you do miss it, you can follow up on the podcast civic media.us or Apple podcasts

or

Spotify.

Um, and it is worth it because we have an absolute blast here, but I can guarantee that we will get at least one listener to go on our Facebook page and send.

a cooking challenge, I'm gonna add Megan to the mix for Megan Salazar and Chef Ellie Lawton.

Well, can we do it before my surgery then or else I need a sous chef.

Well, you can have, I'll be a sous chef for you then, that's fine.

Well then, do I get a sous chef?

No.

I vote Todd and Lobs.

You're a certified chef, you get, you already, you got it handled.

You

don't need a

sous chef.

My rules are always different.

When I was growing up, I thought sous chef was soup chef.

Like I thought that was the chef that made the soup.

No, they have a

different name, don't they?

A

soup chef?

Is there a salad chef?

There's a magic

chef.

There's turbo chef.

That's his actual thing.

Is that that device thing that kind of shot out the salad shooter?

That's what I was thinking of.

Every hunter should have a salad shooter, shouldn't they?

But how many people really eat a salad at camp?

Not many, but I also remember

back

in the day,

they did like on one of those consumer shows, they tested the salad shooter because the stuff just kind of drips out of it.

It doesn't really shoot out

of it.

Do you guys remember the shake weight?

Because the salad shooter reminds me of the shake

way.

And that reminds me of that thing that Suzanne Summers used to do the thymast.

No, I don't want to think about that.

I had a thymaster.

Honestly, the only

thymaster I want is like a pile of chicken thighs,

breaded deep fried.

That's my favorite part of the chicken.

That's a thymaster for

me.

We're off the rails.

ready at the beginning of the show.

And we have a couple of very high level guests here who have been, they came to the show before the show, they were friends.

I don't know if they are anymore because we talked about returning this week.

So we did.

We did talk them into coming back, but they, um, they have some turkey camp tails, some turkey tails.

Megan has turkey tails in the freezer.

Yeah.

I just want to preface this a little bit by saying that Eric Loebner, who is here, who's literally one of the highest ranking people in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

He's like the czar of fish, wildlife, and... He's the

czar, Loeb.

Actually, he's more like the emperor.

The emperor might be a better term than czar.

I like emperors.

Czar sounds kind of negative.

I like emperor better.

He is the emperor.

He's the emperor of Wisconsin's wildlife.

When you step out of your home and into the great outdoors, you are under the jurisdiction.

Emperor Eric.

Emperor Lobner.

Emperor Lobs.

Emperor Lobner.

Yes.

Yes.

Just don't forget it.

Yes.

So get in line, guys.

Did you get a crown?

It's a camouflage crown with a little fish on it.

I need one, though.

I don't have one.

We can make you

one

out of

Mandy Lyons.

Oh,

I'm

taking one.

Your kids used to do that.

precious.

Yeah.

I don't know about Danielines, but maybe if we could, if I get enough antlers or something.

Yeah.

An antler crown.

That

would be pretty cool.

And his, uh, his buddy, uh, his friend,

his

former colleague, Todd Schaller, who was literally the head.

Chief Warden, the highest ranking police official in the state of Wisconsin, who now is retired and evidently sleeps in every day, takes a bunch of naps and just kills turkeys, and shows off to his buddies.

What else is he supposed to be doing?

I think a lot of retired folks could take some notes from Todd.

I do

too,

but you know, I knew Todd

even back when he was working.

But Todd's so busy all the time.

And he was having plenty of fun back then too.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah,

so Todd.

Todd's

a

fun guy.

Todd, why does, why did...

lobes start out, like come into the house as buddies and now he's mad at you.

What's going on?

What did we miss of this turkey camp?

Well, that all of a sudden lobner doesn't like you

anymore.

What happens at turkey camp stays a trick.

Thank you.

No,

no, no, it doesn't.

I need to know what you guys ate at Turkey Camp.

Can we talk about that?

First, let's talk

about why they

got into

it.

What's going

on?

Well, first, we have to do our Wild of the Week.

Oh, gosh.

You're getting us back on track.

All right.

Yes.

So who's going to start?

I'll start.

I had one of the most fun and enjoyable turkey hunts personally of my life.

I was driving down a country road in zone two.

between Deerfield and Oconema Walk.

I saw a massive Tom by himself, by himself in the middle of a cornfield.

I drove in the next driveway knocked on the farmer's door.

He was out back.

He was working on grain in one of his barns.

I said, simply to I looked at him, I said, Hi, my name's Joel.

There's a turkey in the field across the street.

Do you mind if I try to kill it?

And

he said,

Yes, go ahead.

He said,

kill them all i got thirty of them over there well i only have one tag and god knows in the past i shot two with one shot so i wasn't going to take that risk you don't be on the cover of tmz again i didn't want to be on again so uh... i took a turkey fan that i have and i belly crawled

I had the marks on my legs to show it for it.

I belly crawled about 60 yards to a base of a tree.

And I sat at the base of the tree and I held out that turkey fan.

And I started giving some yelps with a mouth call and pretty soon that a hen poked her head up and she came right over by me and I thought she was going to bust me.

But the Tom was right in tow.

Then I had to reel like I was thinking to myself how am I going to get this let go of this fan and still get

to aim on this turkey.

I'm sure a guy trying to play like 15 instruments right now.

I had three, four or five balls in the air at that point.

I knew this hand was going to come around the tree and bust me.

So I was staying still.

And when you're 250 pounds and you're sitting behind a pine tree, there's not a lot of over there.

That's a big turkey.

That's a big turkey.

But somehow I was able to bring that Benelli Rob Roberts right around the tree and squeeze the trigger with the TSS.

And it was a really quick, good ethical kill, about a 30 yard shot.

And I had a massive trophy.

And that I had never had it like that where I just

knocked and went after the, knocked on the door, went after the turkey right away like that.

And it was successful.

99% of the times if I'm trying to stalk within anywhere of a turkey to get them interested, they will bust you because they see a seven times better than a deer.

They're so smart.

Yeah.

They're so dumb.

Well, they're, they're instinct.

I like to say they're, they're, they're a small brain, but they're instinctive more than

any other animal.

They're survivalists.

They are survivalists.

Yes.

Todd Schaller, former warden.

for the DNR, all-around great guy, fantastic waterfowl hunter.

Yes, see, Lubner's still better.

We're going to get to that.

We're going to have to separate.

Did you get out in the woods this week?

I did.

I had a first.

I've had coyotes come into my decoy.

I've had deer come into my decoy.

I've had turkeys come into my decoy.

I had a hawk come down.

I thought you were going

to

say bobcat.

And hit it.

I've had that happen.

Interesting.

Never had that happen.

Spun around, came back down, hit it again.

The crows were going crazy as that hawk was zipping and diving on my

hand.

Did it knock it off the stake?

It didn't.

That happened to me once.

Knocked the jake right off the stake and it was upside down, ruined my whole hunt because the turkeys were in the field when

they saw it.

Oh, really?

I figured once that hawk came down, if there were turkeys anywhere, sometimes you can't see.

over the knoll or whatever that that hawk.

that action would have moved those birds on.

But yeah, it was the first.

Yeah, that's crazy.

Well, I have a

question.

Did you take video of it and send it to Loeb's while he was at work?

Well, I was working.

Yeah, if you missed that last week, Todd was sending his successful turkey aunts to Eric Loebner while Eric was at work and not killing turkeys.

And that has

caused some strain in the relationship.

It has caused some strain.

So let's talk about this, right?

It wasn't only turkeys.

It was also...

fish.

It was also ducks.

I don't think he can shoot a deer, but so I don't think there's any deer there.

There was.

I'm pretty sure that I don't.

Well, I don't even

know if he can do

ducks because we go duck hunting and he never.

Thank you.

Right.

Well, he's

mentoring.

That's right.

Thank you, Joe.

He's deferring

on our like third year doing this.

He can go hunt.

I'll drive the boat.

OK.

Trust you to drive the boat.

Wow.

We

don't talk more about that

in a minute.

Man, the show goes fast.

We got more Wilds of the Week, and I can't wait for the recipe.

This is Raised

in the Woods.

I say it every week, but raised in the woods is your one stop shop for everything in the great outdoors of the Midwest.

And when I say everything, I mean everything.

I mean, last week's show, we were talking about a taxidermist who collects roadkill and turns it into jewelry and art, which is beyond awesome.

And

I never know quite the direction we're going to go.

This week we've got... We don't even know.

Well, we don't know.

We lost our compass.

Our compass

never worked to begin with.

We used it as a fire starter.

That's

why the show is in flames, everybody.

I love the fact that we have got...

to very high-ranking state officials with us

today.

You're only laughing now because you retired Todd Scheller, the

former

chief warden, and Eric Loebner, the administrator, the emperor of the fish, wildlife, and parks for the state of Wisconsin.

We gave him that title,

emperor.

Because emperor of the wild.

But if you think about it,

He's actually like in charge of everything in the outdoors of the entire state.

Yes.

I

don't

think they're going

to let him change his business card though.

We don't have

the budget for that.

Yeah, the budget doesn't exist for that.

What if we just do it and you start handing him out and this is Emperor Eric.

If we started handing them out and then he get, I don't know who's above you, just the governor probably, right?

The governor says, Eric, we need to talk.

What is this?

You're not getting a salary increase with that anyway.

So

yeah.

You're

not

getting any bonus.

It's called fake it till you make it,

Eric.

That's like a company when they give somebody, they try to convince them to do more work and give them a different title, but no more pay, right?

Yeah.

That's like when you're a state representative and you run for Senate, you still call the Senator then, but you still get the same pay.

So there's really no benefit to it.

It's just cloud.

I, Megan, I don't know if I should be like,

if you should be embarrassed by your wild of the week coming up cause he gave us a little hint over the break or proud of the fact that you're doing something about it because there's a ton of people who cannot do this and then they act like they can.

Now I'm one who admits I can't do it and it's really tricky.

I have to admit, I don't know what you guys are talking about.

I went to a trailer backup clinic.

Oh yes.

Backing clinic.

They teach you.

This is a clinic where they teach

you how

to back up a trailer.

Well, so the

Women's Hunting and Sporting Association, we

do it every

year.

What a great idea to teach it so

that we're not teaching it at the boat ramp.

There's no

pressure.

We're just like in an open parking lot.

When you have people screaming

at you.

I was going to say, I've been to the boat ramp and they kind of just need that in general for everybody.

They're mean

to everyone.

Yeah, like everybody needs that.

You don't have

to be a girl.

You could

be a

person.

Yeah, you just need to be a human.

Well, I can, for one, tell you that backing up a trailer when you start to do it as one of the most, it'll mess with your brain

like

nothing else.

Because the opposite direction you're turning your vehicle is the direction the trailer will go.

And so while you're trying to get the trailer into a certain spot, you got to watch out where your car or truck is going because I have seen people looking at a trailer backing it up and they run their car into something else or their truck into something else.

It is definitely not easy.

Did it help?

Well, I have backed up a trailer before.

I just needed more practice and I have a harder time with the smaller ones than a larger one.

I was just gonna say, my tip is, if you have a choice in a lineup, always take the biggest

trailer.

It's always the easiest.

Yeah, because

I mean, I've trailered like 40 foot trailers across the country by myself and I'm fine.

Easy.

That's not so

easy, especially if I'm going to

put it in a specific space.

See, I totally have a habit.

Anytime I take my goose trailer somewhere, I make a habit of finding where I can continue driving straight.

So I don't have to.

Everything is forward.

Actually, there's a cul-de-sac at the end of my journey.

Everybody's

calling you.

You're like, why are you in Kenosha?

I

couldn't find a

turn around.

So I just kept driving.

I couldn't do it.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Lopes,

the

emperor lobes.

Do you have?

a wild of the week?

Were you out in the outdoors?

I was out in the wild.

It had a great week.

You know, it's always a great week to be out in the wild, right?

Whether you get something or not.

And unfortunately, yeah, no, I've been struggling a little bit as of late.

But I was Central Wisconsin Mead Wildlife Area, if you've ever been there, but it's beautiful.

It's beautiful

property.

We had great lots of birds of variety, different types.

We had lots of waterfowl.

We had

Swans, you name it.

And I saw lots of stuff, didn't harvest anything, but you know, like it isn't being outside, it's always great.

Ooh, aren't the prairie chickens up that way?

They are.

They're a little bit south of Mead on Bonavista.

How do you

see Eric knows everything?

How does Meghan

know that?

She's not the star of anything.

Meghan

researches stuff.

I just

read things.

Yeah,

Meghan's a reader.

She's a natural resources person.

Yeah, she's a natural resources reader.

She's a natural resource.

There you go.

Yes.

Todd Schaller, what about you?

Uh, yeah.

Did you have a nap?

I did.

I did.

My wild of the week was

a

nap.

So my wild of the week and who hasn't done it.

Napped while they're at the tricky turkey train.

Oh,

my gosh.

Yeah.

The turkey blind.

Shining down.

It's so

peaceful.

The best sleep.

It is.

That is a good nap.

Best

concentration of

oxygen too.

Yes.

I took a nap.

On the corn stalks in a blind woke up to the Tom attacking my decoy Shouldered the gun and missed my shoulder and shot and the bridge of the gun went right between my eyes I had two black eyes for three months with no scope with the bridge.

Yeah, that's a bad

one

chef Lawton

Well, I'm patiently awaiting a turkey hunt soon for me, but I got my horses out and groomed them in the sunshine, and it was lovely.

They were so ready.

That does sound fantastic.

Well, we've got the emperor of everything outdoors for the DNR, Eric Lobner along, and I cannot wait to get into some of the things.

I want to talk about endangered species, too.

Oh, yes, please.

And the comeback, which you have witnessed for 30 years in that department, the comeback of the Wisconsin Eastern Turkey in the Midwest, which is a

fantastic thing to talk about.

And we're going to touch a little bit on what folks can expect for species and numbers as we don't blink.

We're only a couple of ways for months away from the opening of fall hunting here in the Midwest, which is always exciting.

Plus, we have our very exciting recipe of the week, which I'm not sure Chef Lawden or Megan know about yet, what they're going to talk about.

Are you having consults with each other?

We'll figure it out.

That's for sure.

Oh, I have two.

Find us on Facebook on Raising the Woods.

But stay tuned, you're not going to want to miss the rest of Raise in the Woods.

Welcome.

Thank you for joining us on raised in the woods.

My name is Joel Clayfish I love hosting this show along with co-host Ellie Lawton and contributor Megan Salazar Shout out to Sarah Marinas our homesteader for the show.

She has the week off And I can't wait for her to come back and get us some of those summer Homestead tips.

Yes, we have some awesome guests on this show.

There's so guests so nice

They did the show twice.

They were here last week and they're back because we have a fascinating group of questions and the show flies so fast.

We hope that when you join us, you get as much out of Raising the Woods as we try to supply to you how to enjoy the outdoors of the Midwest, how to put food on your table from the outdoors and just

really get off of the three inch by seven inch two dimensional devices, leave them at home, go spend some time in the outdoors, get off the video games, turn the television off, breathe some fresh air because not only will it improve your quality of life and I'm not one of those people who says I'm going to wait till I retire to do fun stuff.

And oh yeah, don't do that Midwest states really are

sleeper cells of enjoyment in this country.

It's so wonderful.

And this

time of year and going into the summer, oh, it's wonderful.

I can't wait till it's 90 degrees and

it's beautiful.

Oh boy, that's too hot.

Whoa, easy, easy in the intersection.

I know, did you see all the men were booing?

Yeah, Megan's like, yes, she started glowing.

I just want to

open my window.

We're so

lucky.

I love it up to about 74.

And then it's great, like 55 to 74 is my temperature.

But come on,

we have all the lakes and the parks and the festivals and the custard shops.

Oh, my

gosh,

you guys, we are 74.

Yes, all those things.

Yes.

You know what,

Todd, you are right.

Yes.

But if it gets 90, we're still going to enjoy them all.

We'll even enjoy

more

custard then.

I kind of curl up like an amoeba shivering in the corner when it's 90 degrees.

Well, then you got this quandary, right?

If you eat your custard fast enough before it melts at 90 degrees, you get a headache.

Yes.

That

just doesn't work as well.

My problem

is

I needed so

fast I have to go buy another because I feel like I didn't have one.

We're really lucky.

We are very fortunate in this United States and in the Midwest to have just an incredible gamut of things to do in the outdoors.

If we are the impetus for you to get off the couch and use the outdoors, that will make me incredibly happy.

We've got Eric Loebner.

Along in all seriousness, it's hard for me to even say that because we've been laughing so much He is the administrator for fish wildlife and the parks of the state of Wisconsin and

research and endangered species

research and endangered species That is a massive time.

There is a lot under your jurisdiction.

Yeah.

Yeah, there is you know what and isn't it great?

It's

great when you think about as you were talking about earlier, right?

The Midwest has a lot to offer we have 1.6 million acres of

DNR managed lands, you know, there's an additional two million acres of county forest lands.

That is

incredible.

Isn't it?

You want to get out and do stuff, right?

Two million

acres.

You want to go forage, you want to go trout fishing, you want to go, you know, turkey hunting, deer hunting, um, waterfall, water, waterfall hunting, pick a predator hunting, pick a, pick a sport, right?

There's lots of activities, lots of places to go.

Um, and all that takes management, right?

It doesn't

just happen on its own.

And.

You know, I can say it as, you know, kind of the division administrator for fish wildlife parks.

It's really been, we're fortunate that we've had this culture and this heritage of getting outdoors, hunting, fishing, trapping.

That's really provided a lot of that up to this point.

So, go, Agil.

Well, I want to talk about

one of your massive successes

in

the state of Wisconsin.

And frankly, neighboring states have worked with us on this.

And that is the reintroduction and the flourishing of the Eastern Turkey.

You've been in this gig for 30 plus years.

And you were around when it wasn't,

there

were no turkeys to kill.

How did that happen?

Fascinating to me.

Yeah, totally.

Let's talk about that because it is a great success story.

And there's a number of them that we have here in Wisconsin, but let's talk about Turkey.

Nineteen eighties is when they brought him into Wisconsin and ultimately Southwest part of the state worked with some of our adjacent states, specifically Missouri, ultimately trading rough grouse for turkeys and ultimately bring them here.

So interesting.

Yeah.

And then I can remember, too, you know, growing up in Central Wisconsin, we did not have

Turkey's there, period, right?

And it wasn't really until I was, so one of my first, it wasn't my first job.

I worked at Mead Wildlife Area first, but one of my earlier jobs in my career was I was the assistant upland ecologist.

So I really worked hard.

The very first Turkey Learn to Hunt was something that I worked very closely on to put all the material together.

What

year did that happen?

So that had to be 1990.

It wasn't four, so it must have been about 1996, I

think.

Look where we've come.

Oh, my.

It's unbelievable.

That's so recent.

That's

so recent.

Yes.

We didn't

have turkeys, and now everybody's hunting

turkeys.

Yeah, the DNR at that point, and one of the main things that I did was help put on these Learn to Turkey Hunt programs because nobody knew how to do it here in Wisconsin.

Yeah.

It was a new activity.

We were deeply concerned about safety, right?

people out there with guns and camel.

But, you know, again, hunting is one of the safest sports out there.

Yes.

But nonetheless, you know, still just trying to train people on how to get involved in it.

How did it go from no turkeys to so many turkeys?

Well, what did you do?

How did that happen?

So we

first we brought them into the state.

Did you

start with one rafter of turkeys, 10 rafters of turkeys?

What did

you do?

Yeah, they brought in.

I don't know the exact numbers.

I'd have to look that back up again.

But brought birds in from Missouri.

And as that population naturally grew, we then took birds

based on, you know, we looked at all the habitat types and the key indicators of what turkeys needed for survival and brought, looked around the state where we're good places where we could put birds.

And then we moved them.

So we would literally trap birds, uh, rocket nets, kind of like we do with, uh, waterfowl now, we shoot nets over, capture those birds and move them to other locations.

And we did that.

How cool is

that?

I love this.

I just, I

remember being in high school and

So like two years ago

She's

using the Mayan calendar, but I remember okay 20 years ago you guys It would be crazy if I saw Turkey like you'd be driving down the road and if you saw Turkey You would stop and be like that is not supposed to be here That is so weird to see and now it's strange if you drive around and you don't see

A whole bunch of turkeys, especially right now in the spring.

Yeah, we're talking about turkeys.

It's incredible.

It is incredible.

And turkeys are one example, right?

You can also take a look at...

Well, we've got elk now, right?

We've got Trumpeter swans here in the state that, you know, depending on where you go, there's a

lot of swans around.

There are.

There's a lot of elk.

There's a lot of

elk.

There's a lot of elk.

The elk population

is doing great.

Doing

great.

You know, that was a great, another great success.

Yeah, I don't

know

if

we're going to agree about the greatness of the wolf population growing, but.

That's one that moved in on its own, right?

They came in from Minnesota and Michigan and ultimately repopulated the state.

But yeah, for sure.

So when you look at the species of wildlife that we have here, it is really incredible.

Just tremendous opportunities that come with that.

So can we take a walk on the dark side and talk about our endangered species

here in

the state?

Because I

think that's really important for people to know.

Yeah, absolutely.

So yeah, at the Wisconsin DNR, we have the Natural Heritage Conservation, which

Previously, it was known as our endangered resources program.

And so they generally work on species of greatest conservation need is kind of the new terms that we use.

They

develop the wildlife action plans.

And those species then ultimately the goal of that wildlife action plan is to try to keep those species from ending up on the endangered threatened species list, because nobody wants that.

Right.

So

what are we talking about?

What are the animals on that list or that we're working with right now?

Yeah.

So there's, there's a number of them.

We have Martens.

Oh, yeah.

Sure.

That makes sense.

Yep, no.

Salamanders on there.

There's

a number of different salamanders and there's turtles.

Megan, you know the weird stuff.

Hey, she's kind of going on.

Yeah.

Well, Salazar, Salamander.

Yeah, that makes sense.

It all goes together, right?

It all rings together, right?

It kind of rolls off your tongue.

The salamander, Salazar, Salazar, the same.

Anyway.

Yeah, there's a variety of different species and we really try to focus in.

There's a number of turtles that ultimately, you know, they're...

And we see, like, slender glass lizards.

That's another species, right?

I don't even

know what that is.

Slender glass lizards.

Lizards, yeah.

Okay.

It almost looks like... People are gonna...

curse me for this, but it looks a little bit to me like a cross between a salamander and a snake in a way.

Oh,

I think I've seen a

picture of one.

How about you

have Megan?

That's not like a,

is it like a healer monster a little

bit?

I'm not really a healer monster, not a chupacabra either.

No.

They're not anywhere really

close.

I think munchacks look like chupacabras, but

okay.

But yeah, so those, you know, working with those species ultimately, and there's a lot of other.

like more insects, invertebrates, you know, butterflies that we have in the state, monarchs being one that they're not on the endangered threatened list, but certainly we've been seeing their numbers decline.

And so again, it's trying to work to figure out ways, what can we do to help prevent those species from ending up on the endangered?

I assume a lot of that work is in habitat, working on the type of habitat that allows them to flourish.

Absolutely.

It is a lot about habitat.

Some situations, you know, it might be just changing some chemicals that you're using for spraying something,

right?

A monarch, as I mentioned earlier, one of the big things they were seeing is a kind of a general decline in milkweeds.

Some of you might be thinking like, oh, monarch

seed milkweed.

That's a primary host plant, right?

And so you need that plant out on that landscape.

There's a lot in the southern cattle.

I just can't imagine.

There's a lot of milkweed there.

It's beautiful.

Yeah, it is absolutely beautiful.

I can't imagine what's got to be in your brain to know a little bit about every one of these species

and all

of the things we're trying to save and all the things we're trying to reduce numbers of How how do you decide when something's

huntable and how much of it is huntable?

Yep, absolutely.

So you there's a variety of different things that we look at so I'll use an example Of the sharp-tailed grouse here in Wisconsin.

We you know, we have a stable

sharp-tailed grass population, and most recently, it's been increasing.

But there's a limited number of those birds here in the landscape.

But when you look at something from a biological perspective, it's ultimately about the number of species, a number of individual animals that you can take

in

many situations.

You can biologically harvest an animal as long as it's a limited number.

And so the way we look at it, when they do the endangered, they're threatened species list that gets regularly updated.

We have different experts, some of which are maybe within DNR, Wisconsin DNR, as well as others, maybe private groups or even other states.

And so one of the key indicators that we look at, first of all, is what's that population doing?

And then, is it critical here in Wisconsin, are we like the national population of a certain species, like Rusty Patch Bumblebee, right?

Rusty patch bumblebee has been one.

I don't even know what that is.

It's a

bumblebee with a rusty patch.

Thank you.

You're on to it.

Yeah.

So what we found here, you know, that was a species that was federally listed.

And what we found here is that here in Wisconsin, we have a very healthy population, same with corner blue butterflies.

Like if you go up to the central sands, corner blue butterflies are a species that

we have a pretty stable population of here in Wisconsin.

And so they look at them from a variety of, you know, like, okay, what's the habitat type that they're dependent on?

What's their population trends?

You know, whatever data we have on that.

And then of our populations here in Wisconsin, how critically are they on a, on a state or a globe or a national or a global level?

And that level is the priority.

What about the other side of that though?

Like having too many Canada geese.

Oh, for sure.

Why doesn't the

limit increase with having

a

huge population of them

around.

That might be one of those topics that we have to come to after the break, but it's because there's a lot there in that question.

Well, I also

want to, when we come back, talk about how we work with our neighboring states on these things as well.

Yeah, that's fascinating as well.

We've got Eric Loebner here, administrator for the DNR for wildlife fishing parks, parks, fishing wildlife in whatever order.

Todd Schaller, the former chief of the DNR.

And we've got a recipe of the week coming up.

This is Raised in the Woods.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Time stands still here on Raised in the Woods.

Man, I wish it did.

Don't blink or you'll miss this show.

It goes so fast because we've got so much fun.

My name's Joel Clayfish.

This is Raised in the Woods.

We air on Civic Media stations throughout Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa.

If you do not,

catch us live at 11 o'clock on Saturdays.

Co-host Chef Lawton, where can they find us?

Well, you can find us on Apple, Spotify, or civicmedia.us, searched Raised in the Woods, and you can listen to all of our past shows, get recipes, have a few laughs, maybe roll your eyes a few times.

I promise you'll do that, but you will definitely learn.

And I am, this show has gone so fast because there has been so much learning.

It has been

Yeah.

Fascinating to me.

And one of the reasons it's fascinating is that we've got Eric Loebner, the administrator for Fish, Wildlife and Parks for the Department of Natural Resources for Wisconsin, literally one of the highest guys up in charge of trying to keep it all in balance.

And that is- We appreciate you, Eric.

That's a big job.

Dicky Wickett.

Yeah.

And

we've got former Chief Warden, Todd Schaller with us, who is a veritable wealth of knowledge.

when it comes to the outdoors, and a true sportsman himself who gets out there and hunts waterfowl and turkeys, and you name it, and loves to send in his retirement pictures to everybody to make him jealous, which brings us to one of the most exciting times of the week, our recipe of the week.

Simple and easy yet always delicious, Chef Lawton, take it away.

So I'm going to do a little bit of a brunch recipe today.

I love it.

It's

very, very easy and it's going to feature.

As long as it has eggs, I'm rolling with it.

Well,

how do

you know you have to have eggs in your brunch?

You said brunch, I don't know.

No, it

doesn't have to.

Well, this one does have eggs.

Gosh, Joel.

Well, I didn't ruin anything, did I?

I feel like you did, but I'm going to bring it back anyway.

All right.

So this, I don't really have a name for this dish.

I don't know.

Turkey toast?

That works.

Sure.

So you're going to do some nice sourdough bread or whatever kind of bread you like.

Put some olive oil or butter on it, toast it up.

Then you're going to do some avocado.

So you can do some avocado pulp or you can do some fresh slices.

I love avocado.

I could eat it at every meal.

Drizzle that with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.

And then you're going to take your wild turkey breast that's been roasted, thinly slice it.

You can do this with chicken or really any protein that you'd

like as

long as you want to eat it for brunch.

I'm gonna shingle those slices over the avocado.

I'm gonna poach two eggs.

I'm gonna put that on top of the turkey and then top it with pomegranate seeds and pickled red onion.

And if you want like a spicy mustard with it, so good.

Wow,

that sounds absolutely, that sounds like something you'd get for breakfast in some foreign country.

Yeah, probably.

I

would also, Joel's gonna roll his eyes here.

I would throw some feta cheese on it.

You're happy.

You even got me through the pomegranates, but you lost me at Feta.

How about blue?

Blue cheese?

Can I buy some Wisconsin beer?

No, to be fair,

this is from a beautiful Wisconsin turkey, so I think we should put some nice, beautiful

sharp white cheddar cheese.

All

right,

that I can do.

Get it all melty.

This is a good little brunch thing that you could pack

and take in the blind.

It's

super easy.

I mean, it might be a little messy if you put it in the blind with your poached eggs, but who cares?

You could make this in the blind very easily.

If you're not in the blind in the Midwest, you're gonna have a Bloody Mary with that,

aren't you?

Oh, for sure.

Absolutely.

If you're not in the blind.

Leave it to the warden to say if you're not in the blind, because I'm sure no one's ever had a Bloody

Mary in the blind.

That

would be fine.

Yeah, that's true.

I do.

I enjoy virgin blood.

So we have a couple

of minutes and I want to take the time to talk about what was made and eaten at turkey camp.