Collier Receives National Conservation Award
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Bret Collier, Ph.D., professor of wildlife ecology at Louisiana State University, was awarded the NWTF’s Henry S. Mosby Award for his far-reaching contribution to wild turkey restoration efforts.
“I am both honored and humbled to have been selected for the Henry S. Mosby award,” Collier said. “It has been a rewarding experience to have worked with the Technical Committee and the National Wild Turkey Federation on conservation and management of wild turkeys for the entirety of my career. Words cannot express my appreciation to my current and former students, agency collaborators and academic colleagues over the last two decades, as those interactions underlie the science driving ground conservation actions supporting wild turkey conservation across the southeastern United States. I am so very appreciative of the National Wild Turkey Federation for the recognition of my contribution to turkey conservation, and I will be forever grateful.”
Collier accepted the Henry S. Mosby Award during the NWTF’s 48th annual NWTF Convention and Sport Show, sponsored by Mossy Oak.
The award is named for Henry S. Mosby, Ph.D., whose research during the mid-1900s set the standard for wild turkey management. Mosby also helped found The Wildlife Society and won its highest honor, the Aldo Leopold Medal.
Collier’s research and outreach activities are focused on wildlife population conservation with a primary interest in linking animal interactions with each other and their environment with population demography and using data to support long-term policy and management decisions at the state and federal level.
His students use a suite of computational methods to link field-based data to contemporary conservation issues, including topics such as impacts of land use change and management on habitat conservation, impacts of regulatory actions on harvest management, and spatial modeling of group dynamics.
In his free time, he co-directs a Collegiate New Hunter Program where he trains and takes college students hunting, he contributes popular articles to Turkey Call magazine, has been a prominent guest on NWTF’s Cocktail/Coffee and Conservation series and serves as the editor-in-chief for the Wildlife Society Bulletin.
“Bret is not only a leading wild turkey researcher helping ignite the fire for future wildlife managers and researchers, he is also making some of the nuanced aspects about wild turkey management and research more accessible to the general public, bringing the importance of science-based management and conservation to the forefront,” NWTF co-CEO Kurt Dyroff said. “We are proud to honor Bret with the Henry S. Mosby Award.”
About the National Wild Turkey Federation
Since 1973, the National Wild Turkey Federation has invested over half a billion dollars into wildlife conservation and has positively impacted over 23 million acres of critical wildlife habitat. The NWTF has also invested over $9 million into wild turkey research to guide the management of the wild turkey population and to ensure sustainable populations into perpetuity. The organization continues to deliver its mission by working across boundaries on a landscape scale through its Four Shared Values: clean and abundant water, healthy forests and wildlife habitat, resilient communities, and robust recreational opportunities. With the help of its dedicated members, partners and staff, the NWTF continues its work to provide Healthy Habitats. and Healthy Harvests. for future generations.