This letter is to those who’ve stepped up to go above and beyond supporting turkey conservation.
From long hours spent in the lab to boots-on-the-ground efforts, together we’re furthering the effort to understand everything we can about the bird that’s so near and dear to our hearts. As Gamekeepers, it’s our job to do everything we can to create opportunities for anyone and everyone to help out.
The annual Mossy Oak Wild Turkey Conservation Stamp is a way to do just that, and I can’t let this opportunity go by without talking about all the ways the turkey hunting community has inspired us over the past year.
When we started this turkey stamp, one of our hopes was that more state agencies would revive their old turkey stamp programs - that the collective impact would be much greater than any one state or group and that thousands of dollars would turn into millions of dollars. Arkansas and Wisconsin have already continued their stamps, our home state of Mississippi currently has a stamp in the works for next season, and more of our friends in other states will have a stamp of their own in the coming years.
There are a few qualities among many more that are harder to define that describe a “Mossy Oak person,” a “Gamekeeper” as we sometimes call it: an old school way of thinking, a reverence for history, a desire to leave the land better than you found it, the lifelong pursuit of woodsman-ship, care for family traditions and passing those on to our kids and grandkids. A life lived close to nature and a care for all of the blessings this kind of life provides. Every day further that we “progress” into the modern tech age... a life lived close to the dirt makes you richer than most folks will ever experience.
When my dad’s generation saved the wild turkey, it wasn’t just any one person who stepped up. It was hundreds or thousands more just like my dad, ordinary hunters with an extraordinary love of these critters we chase and the places they call home, who stepped up and truly changed the world.
The overwhelming enthusiasm and support of the Mr. Fox Turkey Vest was not just about a vest, nor is the support of this stamp just about a stamp, they are celebrations of the generation that saved the wild turkey and everyone around us working to make sure that spirit never wanes. That spirit was captured in our documentary “The Colonel & The Fox” (now streaming on the Mossy Oak YouTube channel), and we hope everyone gets a chance to watch and share it with a friend. These things are fuel to the fire of all the gamekeepers who care about where we've been and know what it takes to get where we're going. If we can enter every spring and the subsequent “off-season” months with the same energy, no generation will ever have to spend a spring morning wondering what it feels like to hear the magical sound of a gobble.
We’ll have many more things published this year that go into better detail than I can describe, but as we continue to work with an outstanding group of friends, Gamekeepers, and leading biologists across the nation, we’re more excited than ever to help move the needle for conservation. More than anything I wanted to use this letter to say thank you. Your support has meant more than you can ever know, and we've never been more confident in our community of gamekeepers.
Pass it on,
Toxey Haas
