Mark Turner
Growing up in the mountains of North Carolina, Mark was exposed to the outdoors at a young age through fishing. His first hunting experience was not until the age of 12, when a mentor took him to harvest his first deer. Since no one else in his family hunted, it was not until two years later that he began to learn to hunt deer on his family farm in the Piedmont of NC.
Shortly thereafter, he planted his first food plot and began the journey towards his eventual career path. While experience and education have vastly changed the techniques used on his family farm for wildlife management, trying to improve the property for deer and quail is still one of his favorite ways to spend his time. Additionally, learning to manage the property gave him a desire to help others with habitat management on their properties.
Mark graduated from North Carolina State University with a degree in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, and recently started graduate school at Auburn University. There, his research focuses on managing hardwood forests for deer and turkeys.
Moriah Boggess
Moriah began deer hunting around his house in northwestern North Carolina when he was 13 years old. With no family background in hunting and little knowledge on the subject he began teaching himself and researching every source he could to teach himself how to hunt.
After years of trial and error he was successful both gun hunting and bowhunting, leading to an interest in wildlife management and a desire to become more than just a deer hunter. In highschool he began practicing habitat management on his family’s small property and started looking for a way to build a career as a wildlife biologist.
In 2018, Moriah received a B.S. in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from North Carolina State University. He is a graduate student in the Mississippi State University Deer Lab where he researches interactions between deer, oaks, and their competitors.