Mossy Oak Unveils Wild Turkey Conservation Stamp

Could 03, 2022
By Lynn Burkhead

In case your inbox was something like mine just lately, there have been a variety of new messages noting that Friday, April 22, 2022, was the 52nd anniversary of Earth Day. And to make certain, that’s fairly an accomplishment.

However whereas the date itself is noteworthy, the adoption of a life-style that seeks to place again greater than we take out is much more worthy of celebrating.

In two cases during the last a number of days, I’ve seen proof of that giving again mentality, one from a widely known determine within the open air business and the opposite from an individual that few will ever know exterior of a small North Texas city.

Within the case of the previous, numerous folks celebrated late final week when Mr. Fox Haas, the 91-year outdated father of Toxey Haas — the founding father of Mossy Oak — saved a streak going that has captured the imaginations of many in recent times.

“Congrats to Mr. Fox on an iconic milestone,” mentioned the West Level, Miss. firm’s social media platforms final Thursday. “This morning at 91-years outdated, Mr. Fox together with his son and grandsons referred to as on this superb Mississippi lengthy beard, and he has now killed a turkey 75 seasons in a row. Thanks for everybody who’s despatched prayers our method and cheered him on. This morning was one we’ll bear in mind endlessly.”

Mossy Oak intends to maintain these reminiscences going for Mr. Fox and plenty of others for years and years to return, just lately introducing its personal Wild Turkey Conservation Stamp to assist lovesick toms strutting via the woods for a number of extra generations. The $15 restricted version Mossy Oak stamp — which brings again reminiscences of the U.S. Postal Service’s personal wildlife conservation stamp that includes wild turkeys in 1956 and the Nationwide Wild Turkey Federation’s wild turkey conservation stamp program in 1976 and past — options the paintings of Dan Morteon and is an precise stamp that measures some 1.5” x 2”.

“In line with our motto of leaving the world higher than we discovered it, Mossy Oak will donate 100% of the cash raised from the sale of the Wild Turkey Conservation Stamp to assist straight fund wild turkey analysis tasks to make sure the wild turkey inhabitants is round for generations to return,” states the well-known open air business firm, which can depend on tasks chosen by Dr. Mike Chamberlain and Dr. Marcus Lashley, gamekeepers and advisory board members with Mossy Oak.

Whereas Mossy Oak definitely isn’t the one firm that’s involved with the idea of leaving the world a greater place, particularly within the open air house, the concept is greater than a slogan or e-mail header for the Haas household.

“My dad taught me a variety of issues rising up within the woods with him,” states Toxey Haas of Mr. Fox. “From an early age, he instilled to all the time go away my piece of dust higher than I discovered it, and to like and respect all critters we hunted, however particularly wild turkeys. Later in life, we began calling that being a gamekeeper.

“The wild turkey hasn’t all the time been right here,” Toxey continued. “In West Level, Mississippi, my residence and the place Mossy Oak stays, we didn’t even have wild turkeys after I was born. I needed to drive right down to Choctaw Bluff in South Alabama to hunt them. I can’t think about a spring morning spent with out the possibility to listen to one of many sweetest sounds in all of nature — a wild turkey gobble. And we dang certain need to do all the pieces we will to make sure our youngsters and grandkids don’t need to surprise what that feels like. No disrespect to so many different animals we love, however the wild turkey is the grandest of birds.

“With out wild turkeys there can be no Mossy Oak. And it’s our accountability to do all the pieces we will with the time we’ve on earth to make sure the turkey looking neighborhood leaves the wild turkey higher off than we discovered them. Turkeys are a valuable useful resource, and so they’re extra susceptible than many of the animals we hunt.

“We’ve all the time helped take care of them, however we’re actually proud to create our first wild turkey conservation stamp. Each cent we elevate from this stamp will go straight towards conservation analysis tasks with nothing else left over. If we will enhance the dust we’ve been given and everybody studying this does the identical, we’ll have left it higher than we discovered it.”

Preserve that final assertion by Toxey in thoughts — extra on that later.

Actually, the oldsters at Haas’s camo-making firm know one thing concerning the idea of placing again greater than you are taking, as do many different firms within the open air business. In Mossy Oak’s case, the corporate that Toxey based when he walked right into a textile mill with a fistful of dust, twigs, and leaves and a flaming need to get nearer to wild critters, the eagerness and dedication are core values of their on a regular basis life and enterprise endeavors.

Those self same values drive many different outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen across the nation, individuals who like to get exterior and revel in — and deal with — the third rock from the solar that all of us stay on.

Towards that backdrop, there’s a lot to have a good time, proper? Take, for example, the graphic put out by Mossy Oak final week that exhibits a “Then to Now” timeline of the recoveries of a lot of North America’s high large recreation species.

The white-tailed deer is on the head of that record, transferring from 500,000 or so within the early 1900s to greater than 25 million at the moment. The Lone Star State of Texas — residence to greater than 5 million whitetails ultimately rely — had a latest annual harvest of greater than 850,000 deer and almost 450,000 of these being bucks!

The success tales don’t cease there, both. Across the time of Pearl Harbor, the nation’s elk inhabitants had dwindled right down to round 41,000 animals nationwide. Right now, there’s greater than 1 million wapiti bugling their method throughout a September mountainside. And staying out West, by 1950, pronghorn antelope numbers had declined to round 12,000 or so, rebounding at the moment to greater than 1 million.

Not the entire large recreation success story information is confined to the American West, both, since black bear numbers east of the Mississippi River have rebounded from close to extinction within the early 1900s to greater than 300,000 bruins at the moment.

Birds have additionally been an integral a part of the success story too, a narrative born out of the North American Mannequin of Wildlife Conservation. The wooden duck, so prevalent in lots of swamps and wetlands of the southern and jap U.S., was going through close to extinction within the early 1900s. However at the moment, because of numerous wooden duck nesting packing containers and the conservation of the watery timber habitats they want, woodies quantity some 4.6 million.

After which there’s the wild turkey, a fowl that retains Mr. Fox heading into the springtime woods, and a creature so fantastic that Benjamin Franklin needed it to be the avian image of our nation as an alternative of the scavenging bald eagle. Whereas turkeys aren’t thriving in all places nowadays, the species nonetheless has seen its personal success story in years passed by.

How so? Nicely, in 1940, not too lengthy earlier than Mr. Fox started his Ironman turkey looking streak, merely listening to a gobble within the spring was much more of a problem if you stepped exterior because the wild turkey numbered solely about 30,000 birds again then. However at the moment, there are greater than 6 million turkeys roaming the wilds of America, though the species is declining in locations and way more conservation work stays to be completed.

For wild hens and gobblers, that work contains becoming a member of conservation organizations just like the NWTF, which has simply introduced its personal pressing “Assist the Yelp” initiative.

And if turkeys aren’t your factor, there are quite a few different onerous working conservation organizations worthy of becoming a member of too in case you need to go away this open air world higher than you discovered it. Such organizations embody Geese Limitless, Delta Waterfowl, Pheasants Perpetually, Quail Perpetually, the Ruffed Grouse Society, the Rocky Mountain Elk Basis, the Mule Deer Basis, the Nationwide Deer Affiliation, the Boone and Crockett Membership, the Pope and Younger Membership, and Bowhunters United simply to call a couple of.

Remember that whereas the idea of leaving the wilds of Creation higher than we discovered it might probably definitely be embraced via the acquisition of a wild turkey stamp or in becoming a member of a conservation group placing cash into the dust and water, there’s one other way of life all of this out.

And that’s to be like my good friend Tommie, a retired widow who repeatedly visits a lake I prefer to fish in North Texas. Whereas she’s by no means been turkey looking to my information — or trying to find another critter or fishing for something that may chunk a hook — she loves the outside world and does what she will be able to to go away it a greater place on her every day walks.

A lot in order that this very morning, I noticed her strolling alongside the lake’s shoreline, pushing and rolling logs again into the water after a weekend flood occasion. Why? As a result of it’s fish habitat and she or he is aware of the bass I prefer to catch love to sit down subsequent to a laydown within the water.

She was additionally carrying a few trash baggage together with her to haul out refuse and particles like comfortable drink bottles, leftover bait containers, and different gadgets that had floated in on the heavy inflows set off by greater than 5 inches of rainfall.

Why is that necessary? As a result of for Tommie, and for Mr. Fox and the Haas household too, the idea of Earth Day isn’t an occasion to mark and have a good time on the calendar yearly. Neither is it an e-mail that one makes certain to get into the Inboxes of consumers and shoppers each April.

As an alternative, the very concept of caring for this planet and leaving it higher than we discovered it’s an on a regular basis life-style that folks like Tommie and the Haas household readily embrace and can carry with them to the grave.

If our wild locations, wildlife, and fish have any probability of surviving one other century as our nation grows and grows and grows, it’s a mindset and life-style that all of us should be sure that is fastidiously tucked away in our personal again pocket.

And that’s to go away the dust we stay on a greater place, particularly underneath that outdated Mossy Oak tree.