NWTF Outreach Efforts to Become Hunting Heritage Programs

The NWTF’s Save the Habitat. Save the Hunt. initiative is committed to creating 1.5 million new hunters to help ensure the future of conservation.  Achieving this bold goal means the NWTF needs to go about its business in new, more efficient ways.

In an effort to improve the cohesive implementation of programs designed to create new hunters, the NWTF is streamlining the management of a number of programs.

Effective September 1, the NWTF Outreach and Education departments will become Hunting Heritage Programs, to more closely align with the organization’s Save the Habitat. Save the Hunt. initiative.

All three existing outreach programs – JAKES, Women in the Outdoors and Wheelin’ Sportsmen – will remain intact. In fact, these key programs position the NWTF to succeed when it comes to recruiting 1.5 million new hunters.

The management of these efforts is being restructured to help the programs work in concert with one another instead of operating independently.  Not only will this improve the coordination of the NWTF’s hunting heritage efforts, it will make life simpler for NWTF volunteers and event coordinators.

Mandy Harling will become the Manager of Hunting Heritage Programs and will oversee all Hunting Heritage Programs activity in the Eastern U.S. and Canada. Teresa Carroll will become the Hunting Heritage Programs Coordinator – West, overseeing all Hunting Heritage Programs activity in the Western U.S. and Canada. Christine Rolka will remain in her role as Director of Education.

This positions the NWTF to not only grow its existing hunting heritage efforts but also to evolve the programs to improve effectiveness. A few examples of coming improvements include:

• Hunting Heritage Programs staff will lead a national, non-event fundraising effort to enable our volunteers to focus more on creating hunters.
• The NWTF will identify, train and empower a volunteer Save the Hunt coordinator in each state to serve as the local Hunting Heritage Programs leader.
• Deploy systems that enable our volunteers to register and report events, tracking how many hunters have been recruited through NWTF activity.

For more information, please contact Hunting Heritage Programs staff at Hunting.Heritage@nwtf.net.

National Wild Turkey Federation

The National Wild Turkey Federation is the leader in upland wildlife habitat conservation in North America. The NWTF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving the wild turkey and preserving our hunting heritage.

Through dynamic partnerships with state, federal and provincial wildlife agencies, the NWTF and its members have helped restore wild turkey populations throughout North America, spending more than $331 million to conserve nearly 16 million acres of habitat. Wild turkeys and hundreds of other species of upland wildlife, including quail, deer, grouse, pheasant and songbirds, benefit from this improved habitat.

The NWTF also brings new conservationists and hunters into the fold through outdoor education events and its Women in the Outdoors, Wheelin' Sportsmen, JAKES and Xtreme JAKES youth outreach programs. Our dedicated NWTF volunteers introduce about 100,000 people to the outdoors through these programs every year.

Founded in 1973, the NWTF is headquartered in Edgefield, S.C., and has local chapters in every state and Canada. According to many state and federal agencies, the restoration of the wild turkey is arguably the greatest conservation success story in North America's wildlife history.