03/21/1991

Wildlife Researcher Wins National Wild Turkey Award

AUBURN, Ala.—If you want to talk wild turkey in Alabama, Dan Speake is the man to talk with.

Speake, a researcher working in the Alabama Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Auburn University, has been studying Alabama's wild turkey population for some 25 years. His contributions were recently recognized by the National Wild Turkey Federation.

Speake was awarded the Henry S. Mosby Award in February by the Federation, an organization dedicated to the conservation and management of the American wild turkey. The award is the highest honor presented by the Federation, recognizing outstanding wildlife biologists who have made exceptional contributions to the research and management of the wild turkey. Speake is only the fifth person to receive the award.

According to Speake, his expertise is a product of his research through projects of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station and the Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. "I had never hunted wild turkeys before and had hardly seen any before I started this work. There weren't any where I grew up around Decatur," he said.

Speake has worked with the Fish and Wildlife Unit, a program sponsored jointly by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Wildlife Management Institute, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Division of Game and Fish and Auburn University, since 1955. His first studies focused on the bobwhite quail.

"Around 1965, people had a lot of questions about turkey management," he said, explaining that years of clearing land for cotton farming and subsistence hunting by many residents had severely depleted Alabama's wild turkey population. "We had reached the point where we were pretty well satisfied with the information on bobwhite quail. But the Conservation Department wanted to know more about the wild turkey and I'm glad they did," said Speake, who is also an associate professor of zoology and wildlife sciences at Auburn.

He credits the foresight and financial support of this organization and the support of the Experiment Station with the great strides made in Alabama's turkey research.

Speake's first project was to evaluate the effectiveness of the restocking efforts in the State. He brought in 26 wild turkeys and wing-tagged the birds with colored streamers so they could be identified. He and his graduate students spent seven years keeping up with them. "About all I did back then was stay out in the woods with some field glasses slipping around trying to catch sight of them," he recalled.

The research really took off when, as Speake said, "we had an explosion in technology." The development by one of the research unit's students of a sedative that could be used on wild turkeys allowed Speake and his assistants to capture wild turkeys faster and more effectively than ever before and to outfit them with another technological development, radio transmitters.

"We were among the first wildlife researchers to use radio transmitters successfully on wild turkeys," Speake said, adding that technology has continued to enhance his research. "We are using some now that have a solar panel and are powered by the sun. We have turkeys that have been wearing transmitters for three years and we can still keep track of them."

Through the years, Speake's projects have examined a wide variety of issues and have been self-perpetuating. "You do one project and you find that it leads almost directly to another area to study," he said.

Speake has found that turkeys are very adaptable and do not necessarily require wilderness conditions to thrive. He has also found that management requirements differ in various regions of the state and in different states and he has gained insight into the nature of these elusive birds.

"Turkeys are not very smart," he said. "But they have marvelous instincts, wonderful eyesight and hearing and their reactions are so sharp. They survive by being suspicious of everything."

Speake, matching wits with turkeys both as a researcher and as a hunter, has found that success in either venture requires taking advantage of the birds' weaknesses. "Sometimes they make a mistake and you get one. Most of the time they make a fool out of you," he said with a laugh.

According to Speake, Alabama has the highest population of Eastern wild turkeys in the nation and the highest quality turkey hunting of any state. Speake attributes this to the State Conservation Department's early interest in preserving turkey populations. "Alabama got into effective turkey management before any of the other states," he said. "They have been very successful in restoring the wild turkey."

Many contend that much of the acclaim for Alabama's wild turkey resources belongs to Speake. In presenting the Mosby Award to Speake, the Federation credited him with revitalizing the state's wild turkey population and contributing to the information base on wild turkey management nationwide.

John Pritchett, head of the Department of Zoology and Wildlife Science at Auburn, concurred. "Dan has done pioneering research in many different areas," said Pritchett. "He has demonstrated during his career that he is committed to our wildlife resources. This award recognizes a lifetime of wildlife research. It is a true distinction for him personally and speaks to the quality of the Department's wildlife program."

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By:
Katie Smith