Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 414: Where Public Lands Stand with Randy Newberg

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Ep. 414: Where Public Lands Stand with Randy Newberg · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number four
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: fourteen and tay the show. I'm joined by the one
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: and only Randy Newburgh to explore the current state of
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: affairs of public lands in America and the topics, issues,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and policies that we hunters need to be paying attention
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to and taking action on. All right, welcome to the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Wired Hunt Podcast, brought to you by First Light, and today,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: like I mentioned, we've got my buddy Randy Newburgh on
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the show, and Randy is gonna help us kick off
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: what I'm thinking of as Conservation Month here on the
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Wired Hunt Podcast. It's the month of April. Got Earth
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Day coming up this month. You know, we're a long
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: ways off from deer hunting season. It's that kind of
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: time of year, at least for me, when I'm thinking
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: about I don't know, spring, the renewal of the year,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: new growth, new birth of fauns and turkeys and all
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: those different things. It just got me thinking about I
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: don't know about giving back, about the importance of what
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I just mentioned conservation. If we as hunters want to
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: be able to have a good time out in the
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: field and fill our freezers and have wild places to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: explore and deer to chase, well it's on us to
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: make sure that those things are around. And that's why
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: hunters for so long have been some of the most
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: impactful conservationists in the entire country. So this month I
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: want to talk through and explore a variety of different
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: topics along those lines. Today it's gonna be public lands.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Later this month we might be exploring some things like
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: on the groundwork we can be doing to improve habitat
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: and and to help deer another ecs. We're gonna talk
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: about national level stuff, We're gonna talk about state level stuff. Uh,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: explore a variety of different things. But today it's public land.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: If you hunt deer on public land, or if you
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: have dreams of heading out west to hunt for elk
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: or bears or mule deer, pronghorn, if you want to
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: go out to these places, whether being the Smoky Mountains
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: of the Rocky Mountains of the Cascades and and go
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: backpacking or camping, if you want to have places I
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: don't know wild beautiful rivers to go rafting or fishing,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: any and all that stuff. It depends on our public lands.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: We've talked about this a lot over the years in
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the podcast, but this is a topic that evolves every
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: single year. There's new things going on. There's new opportunities,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: there's new threats, there's new policies being proposed, there's new
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: bills being moved through Congress. There's new stuff going on
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: at all levels. And one of the people who is
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: more up to speed on that kind of stuff than
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: anyone else in our hunting community is Randy Newburgh. I
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: think most of you guys and girls know Randy, but
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: if not, he is, Oh gosh, he's all over the place.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: You can be watching his show on YouTube or Amazon.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: You can be listening to his podcast. You can be
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: following him on Instagram, his forum, hunt Talk Radio, as
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the podcast on your Own Adventures Fresh Tracks. He's got
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff out there. He's been doing great
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: work when it comes to entertainment, but also educating folks
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: on the importance of public lands, the importance of conservation,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and and ways that we can actually um you know,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: take action as people on the ground. He's been one
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: of those leading voices and today, you know, that's why
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I want to talk to him. I wanted to talk
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: to Randy about where we stand right now with public lands.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: How have things progressed over the last five years, What
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: are the good things? What are the best things that
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: have happened over the last five years, And what are
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: some of the things that have been done, maybe a
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: little bit behind the scenes, that have been damaging to
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: our wild places. What are those things we need to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: be keeping tabs on and trying to fix what's coming
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: on the line now? You know, there's the pendulum as
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: far as politics has swung again. So what threats do
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: we need to be watching out over the next four years.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: What opportunities do we have over the next four years.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: We talked about all that and a whole lot more.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: It was a great conversation. I really enjoyed this. It
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: was helpful for me. I think you will feel the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: same way, and and I'm just glad that Randy was
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: able to take the time to chat. So I hope
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed this one. I hope you'll be tuning in
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: for the rest of the month, as we're gonna cover
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different things along these lines that
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I think will be relevant to all of us deer
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: hunters and and any one of us that love wild places,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: wild critters, and and all things in between. So that's
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: what's in store to date. Real quick. Before we get
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: onto that, and kind of along these same lines of conservation,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I want to give you a quick update on something
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: new that has just dropped from our pals at first
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: LFE just launched the Camo for Conservation Initiative. The basic
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: gist of this is is, as most of you probably
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: know if you listen to this podcast, First Light launched
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: a white Tail specific camera pattern this past fall. Just
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: this week, that camera pattern is available to buy on
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: some of the white Tail gear, So if if you're
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: looking for that kind of stuff, it is available now
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: on the first website. But what's really cool is that
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: this Camera for Conservation initiative launched at the same time
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: in which First Light is penciling in a certain percentage
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: of proceeds from every sale of specter gear. So if
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: there's a shirt, print, inspector pants, hat, whatever it is,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: a percent of every one of those sales is going
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: to be donated to the National Deer Association. It's going
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: to them to help with habitat, work, to help with
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: their field, the four Hunter Mentorship program, to help with
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: all the different things that in the ND eight is
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: doing to make sure that we have deer and deer
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: habitat and the deer hunting traditions that matter so much
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: to all of us. So I'm personally it's really excited
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: about that because those are things that I really care about,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad to see the first light and the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: company I work for, Meat Eater, is stepping up and
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: you know, putting our putting our money where our mouth
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: is and and I'm proud of that and excited about that.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: So that's uh, that's my little update that I'm personally
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: excited to share. And otherwise I think I should stop
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: beating around the bush. Let's get to my conversation with
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Randy Newberg. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: being here with me, Thanks for tuning in, and here
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: we go. All right with me. Now back on the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: show is Randy Newberg. Randy, welcome back, Mark, thanks so
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: much for having me. I can't believe that anyone would
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: ask me back for a second ord for whatever time.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Oh man, the the thank you
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: goes right back to you. And um, I gotta tell
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: you this is kind of crazy. When I was thinking
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: through this conversation and what I was hoping we could
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: talk about, I thought to myself, and let's look back
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: and see what I talked to Randy about last time,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: or you know, see how far things it comes since
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: we last talked. And I went back to my archives
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: and I'm trying to look, and I'm thinking, man, it
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: must have been last year was on. I was looking
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: through there and nothing, and then I thought, well, maybe
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: two years before that. And I went back and looked,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and I realized, I can't believe this. You haven't been
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: on the show since two thousands seventeen. Unless I'm missing something,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know how that's possible, um,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: but but it's it's it's a horrible overset on my part.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: So I cannot imagine that that much time has passed
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and we haven't had you on the podcast. I'm just
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: glad that you're finally back, and uh, glad that we
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: can talk some more. Because every time, you know, whether
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: it's on a podcast or coffee or whatever. I really
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: honestly appreciate and take something from every one of our conversations. Um,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: so I'm looking forward to this one, righty. Well, thanks Mark.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: That goes both ways. But since two thousands seventeen, your
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: subscriber base in your listening audience probably grew by mounds,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: just master or not my growth since since since I
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: wasn't on there, So I guess I've been. I've been
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: known to ruin a brand in a half an hour. Well,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: we'll see how much damage you can do, Randy, let's
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: test the lit it. But thanks for having me Mark.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I I enjoy the times we do get to catch up,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: whether it's on a podcast or just on the phone
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: or whatever. It's uh, it's always very helpful for me. Yeah. Well,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: you know, since you were first on the show. I
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: think I first hedge on the show back in I
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: don't know, it was probably of fifteen maybe, And at
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: that point was when I was kind of going through
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: a little bit of an awakening of understanding what was
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: going on around me in the world of public lands.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And I was, you know, learning so much about um
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: public land policy and various contingencies and folks that were
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: less uh, supportive of public lands, and I was, and
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: this is when the land transfer movement was really picking
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: up steam, and I was looking to you for a
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: lot of insight on that. And and obviously you've been
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in that world for decades before I had, and obviously
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: are so well versed on it. So at that point
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: we're kind of at this There was this rising concern
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: around public lands and the land transfer movement. And now
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: you fast forward, you know, almost six years and and
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: we're in a a different place. And I'm curious if
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: you were to take a step back and look at
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: how far we have come, whether it be the hunting community. Well,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I'll do a two part how we've how far we've
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: come as a hunting community and as just a public
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: land you know this the oh gosh, I'm blanking on
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the right work here, But where we stand on public
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: lands as far as from now, if you had to
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: take a look back and say, okay, how far have
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: we come? And are we in a better place, a
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: worse place, the same kind of place? How do you
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: feel like if you were to put your finger on
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the pulse of that randy, how do we compare now?
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Pair to them? All Right, I've when you're there doing
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: it and you got your head down and you're fighting
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: this battle and that battle and pushing the wagon up
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: the hill, you you really think, I'm we're not making
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: any progress. This is such laborious, just tedious effort. And
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: now when you get to measure it in five year
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: ten year windows, you look back and say, all right,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: two thousand, two thousand fifteen, the folks who wanted to
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: grab our public lands and take them have pretty much
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: retreated because once again they got their political teeth handed
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to them by thinking the public was somehow going to
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: forget the value these lands have. And if you could
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: have told me in two thousand and fourteen that we
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: would have elevated the public land issue within the hunting community,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: with the within the total outdoor community to the level
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: it it is at right now, that that would have
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: cleared my my greatest wish by a mile. I because
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: it just at the time it seems so daunting and
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: so so much momentum to the other side and so
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: little to our side. And through a lot of hard work,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of people showing how much they care, how
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: much they're concerned, uh getting the attention of policy leaders
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: who said oh, this was not a good idea. Who
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: talked us into this idea? Uh? Here we are six
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: seven years later, and I'm I'm impressed, very very impressed
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: with how well versed the hunting community is and and
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: to some degree, the total outdoor community, but also how
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: engaged we are when we feel that there are issues
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: that are going to hurt or or complicate our ability
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: to enjoy these public lands. It's Uh, it's been an
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: interesting journey, but we've traveled away further than I could
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: have ever dreamed. Yeah. So if if we were I
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: don't know, doing like an award show of the last
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: five years, and you were gonna rank the biggest win
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: of this five year, has half day decade period from
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: a public land perspective, Like, what's been our biggest win?
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Do you think? Um, there's been a lot, there's been
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of good things have happened, But what ranks
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: up to the top for you? Um? Boy? That's that's
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: interesting that you say it in a like an award show,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: because I would be like, okay, Rookie of the Year,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: a defensive mb P, m v P offensive m v P.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Can your whole team if you want, Okay, I'll start
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: with the defensive m v P. And what I look
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: at there is there are Senate elections, at least in
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: there in the West, where the balance of those elections
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: hang on those swing voters in the middle and how
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: they're going to vote based on public land issues. And
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at uh, Montana, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada. Right
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: there are eight senators who we've we've seen them all
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: cycle through their elections in the last six or seven years,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: and those eight Senate seats have all bent over backwards
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: almost tried to prove who's the most pro public land.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, you know, from a defensive standpoint, we've
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: built a pretty good wall here now in some parts
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: of the country, and and we see it even expanding
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: to other states Washington, Oregon, UH to some degree in
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the Dakotas. And you know some of our greatest public
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: land at the cats have been from the south. Uh.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: You know, Senator Richard Burr was he he doesn't get
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: enough credit, I don't think for how much of a
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: stick in the mud he was when many others wanted
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: him to fold his tent on public lands issues. And
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: here he is a guy from North Carolina, it's like, what,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: why is he this passionate about it? So I look
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: at that and I think from the defensive side, Uh,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: whether we're giving ourselves the trophy or we give it
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: out to someone else, the award goes to how good
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: of a defense we have put together? Two force the
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: other side to really think hard about why or how
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: they would approach this. And when you're dealing with the Senate,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: that's fifty and your issues are now elevated enough in
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: some states where you can sway an election in the
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: US Senate. I could have never expected our issues to
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: become that powerful on a national scale. It's it's a
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: weird alignment of the political planets, but it's the reality.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: You look at the Colorado Senate election last year and
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: it was almost how can we prove which senator is
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the greatest public land advocate? And in those instances, it's like, well,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: even if the lesser, you know, the one who isn't
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: quite as good at public lands were to get elected,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: that's a whole lot better than ten fifteen years ago
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: when it was let's bury the needle and see how
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: bad we can be on public lands. We've spun that
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty degrees. So that's uh, that's been
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: really really interesting to see. Probably the offensive m VP
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: award goes to the fact that we finally got Land
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and Water Conservation Fund permanently protected and fully funded, and
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: that piece of legislation is the same age I am, Mark.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I think about that. It's like who the yep, yeah
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: exactly and not fine, Randy, sorry about that. That's fine.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And so I first went my first trip to Washington,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: d C. Was in there was a bill called partners
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: in Wildlife that the next year got converted to a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: bill called Conservation and Reinvestment Act. Don Young, a kind
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: of a bit of a no net gain public land
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: dude from Alaska, is the sponsor of the bill, and
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: that bill would have done the same thing, would have
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: permanently and permanently reauthorized and fully funded LWCF. It got killed,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: and I've been at EC quite a few times since
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: then asking for renewal. And I'm just telling this through
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: my eyes. I don't mean it in a way that
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I'm the only one doing it. There's hundreds of people
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: carrying the load here. Uh, And just out of some
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: crazy political alignment in the summer of we have a
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Montana Republican Senator Senator Steve Gaines, and we have a
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Colorado Republican senator who was Senator Corey Gardner. They were
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: both up for re election in November just whatever, four
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: months ago, and the President and these two senators get
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: together and they throw the ball out there that we
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: are going to permanently reauthorize and fully fund l w
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: CF with this bill called the Great American Outdoors Act.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: When that came across my news feed, Mark, I'm like,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: where's the catch. We've been fighting this for I don't
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: know what do the map twenty two years? Something's up that.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: That's what went through my head, and uh it got
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: passed and ties right back to what you're saying about
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: our defensive MBP situation, right. It was the fact that
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: we had put so much pressure that folks fighting for
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: re elections saw this is as their gold and goose
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: to get in votes. Right, Yeah, exactly. And so that's uh.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: If you would have told me that we would uh
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: in in that we would have seen the Great American
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Outdoor Act come forward and get passed by a big
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: man majority in both houses and get signed by the President,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I would have said, in what world are you living?
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Because I just didn't see it coming, but it did,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and it's I don't know if people understand what a
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: remarkable accomplishment that is and how beneficial that will be
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: going forward. If I look in the rear view mirror
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: of all of the great work that has been done
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: because of that program and the funding it provides, we
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: could be on a podcast for a week and I
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: don't think I could explain every piece of access that
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: is out there that's been it's either new access, improved access,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: expanded access that was brought forth because that pool of
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: money is there. You know, I just I'm still laughing
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: at myself doing how did that get pulled off? Well,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: you know, an interesting illustration of just how powerful we
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: the people can be in this is. And I might
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: get the exact number wrong here, maybe you remember this, Randy,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: But if I remember correctly, back in January or February,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the administration came out with its kind of budget proposes
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: for the year, and they were recommending something like five
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: percent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. I mean,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it was basically nine less than it's supposed to be,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: is what they're proposing. And then months later, you know,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: after what you just described, after the two senators said hey,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: we need this as a win for us, all of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: a sudden, now the administration comes out in support of
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: one funding. Uh. And it wasn't like there was this
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: huge change of heart all of a sudden there wanted
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: to support public land. It was it was we need votes.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: And that's because of us. That's because of hunters and
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: anglers and folks that care about these places making a
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: concerted ruckus. I mean, and that right there proves the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: power that we can have. Yeah. And some people will say, well,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: it only happened because uh, people were seeking their political salvation.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Oh well, I'll take it that. That's kind of the Unfortunately,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: you know, the unfortunate way it works in today's world
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: is very often do both sides get together and say, hey,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: this would be great for America. There's so much political
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: calculus they go into it, so much paying of political
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: favors that you try to now play the game to
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: position it. So, how do we make sure that when
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: political favors are being repaid, or when political calculus is
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: being put on the white board, that our issues are
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: part of the consideration and take the win when you
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: get it. So, I mean you were young during the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: time period and ask you abous. I don't know how
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: much insight you have or not. But back in the
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: you know, late Sick Seas in early seventies, a lot
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: of these environmental and public land related issues were at
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: least if you believe the history books, they were They
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: were by Parson, they were supported by most everyone. It
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: was a fight to show who was the best for
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: these things. It was you know, a lot of these
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: really important piece of legislation were passed it or signed
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: underneath Republican presidence, um, Congress, etcetera. Um. Was it really
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: hunky dory back then? And it will never be able
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: to get back to it? Or are we actually getting
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: back to what was present last year? Which or not
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: last year? But back in the sixties and seventies, which
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: was it was just a political necessity, like is the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: will we ever get back to something like that? Or
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: are we getting there? I think it comes and goes. Uh.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: And I remember being five years old when the Cuyahoga
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: River in Cleveland, Ohio started on fire, and you watched
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: that on Back then you had three news network and
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: were tuned in for the six o'clock news, and here
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: are tugboats floating on the river trying to put the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: fire out on the river. That was such a powerful
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: image and such a powerful event that even at five
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: years old, you didn't really understand it, but you sure
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: heard a lot of people talking about it. There were
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: jokes about, you know, this river started on fire, or
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the joke of you know, only Americans can figure out
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: how to burn water. And so from that you see
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: these things like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, uh,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: you know, public land management acts. It was really the
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: tenor of the times in the late sixties through the seventies. Uh,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: and then it started changing some again in the in
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the eighties. And I think you see a generational you know,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: every twenty years or so, you see these ebbs and
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: flows in it. And I think we're in one of
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: those times where we're going to start seeing some of that,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: hopefully go back. I mean, how many times do we
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: have to see algae blooms kill off hundreds of thousands
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: of fish. How many times do we have to have
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: waterfowl or migratory birds land in a place and they
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: all die from some chemical exposure. So we're seeing some
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: of these same symptoms that come and go. Uh, and
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping. I mean, look at all the work we
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: now have found out about, at least in the west
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: migration corridors, and that migration corridor work is some of
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the most compelling, some of the most interesting, and some
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: of the most valuable work that has been done in
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the wildlife sciences in my lifetime. And so here we are,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: we're back to that, and people are paying attention to it,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: and we're making landscape changes, we're adjusting human behavior patterns
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: and human uses on the landscapes to address that. But
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: there's always going to be the other side of the coin,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: where if you read the most recent study on sage grouse,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: we've lost eight of our stage grouse since so there's
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: always the one, you know, the old canary in the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: coal mine. Uh. And so there's always more to do,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and the urgency of doing it gets to be greater
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and greater and greater. And just about all of it
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: comes back to the use of the land, the habitat
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the land itself. Uh. You know, all the loophold was
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: written about that in the thirties and forties, and here
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: we are today it still applies and so we've got
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a ton of work to do, but I think we
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: are building more and more of a resolve to do
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the hard work, and I'm seeing it in all this
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: stuff related to migration corridors. I think we're gonna have
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: to get there with sage grouse. And sometimes the big
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: club that gets used is the threat to you know, hey,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: we're gonna put them on the endangered species list. Well,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: that that's the last thing you want you if you're
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: in that situation, you now are in such a bad spot.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: You've you've let yourself get in in hot water. So
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: how do we change landscape issues to improve the future.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: For in this example, I'm using sage grouse, how do
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: we get them back up to where they should be
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: so that someone doesn't have to come and bring the
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: big club. And I do think that a lot of groups,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: whether they're industry, extraction, resource businesses, the general pub black
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the even down to the local level, they have examples
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: to look at, to say a boy, when someone comes
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: in and says this is now an endangered species, we
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: really are out of options and we're gonna get told
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: what to do. And hopefully people have learned those lessons
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: along the way, and this awareness uh will continue to
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: grow and and we'll have a better place for our
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: public lands and our waterways and stuff like that. I
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: know it doesn't happen quickly, it doesn't happen easily, but
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: I do think America, if we're unique in some ways,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: it's that we do have a lot of value on
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: our wild things and wild places, and we just got
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: to give that voice and and some political uh priority.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: And I think I've seen it in the last few years.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: I'm keeping my fingers. Hey, we're the pendulum is coming back,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and let's keep it there as long as we can. Yeah,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: you mentioned how you know so much of what's most
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: important is you know what's actually happening on the ground,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: how these places are being used. And you know, over
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the past few years, we've had these big wins like
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the Great American Outdoors Act and the Dingled Junior Act,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: which was the year before which UM did a lot
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: of good things on these same lines. But at the
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: same time, there has been what you know, you and
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: I have talked about in the past, this kind of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: death by a thousand cuts, little things happening behind the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: scenes a little bit, and if you weren't really paying attention,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't realize that stuff like the stage sage grouse plan,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: like there was all this work done over a number
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: of years to develop these compromises around trying to keep
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the sage grouse off the endangered species list by having
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: some really um I don't know if innovative is is
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the right word, but like some strong ideas about how
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: everybody can proactively um move forward with conservation efforts, whether
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: it be ranching or energy or uh development. There are
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: all these things put in place to make sure there's
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: a conservation plan to keep stage grouse from going further
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: into decline. These were agreed on back in I can't
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: remember the year twenties sixteen or something like that. And
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: then over the last few years the previous administration cut
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: back on a lot of that stuff, and and so
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: we went we went down, or we went kind of
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: backwards on that. We've gone backwards on things like the
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge being opened up for leasing on
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the coastal plaine m We went backwards on protection for
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the boundary waters as they started moving forward, or allowing
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: permitting on a mine right on the edge of the
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: boundary waters. There's a bunch of things like that that
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: have kind of moved in the wrong direction. So we're
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: seeing like some top level things that looked really good
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: as far as headlines, and then there were these other
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: things that were much more related to land use, um, etcetera, etcetera,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: that or less. So do you feel like, I guess
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: how do you feel about that side of things, because
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: we have some some legislative winds, but we've had a
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: lot of things when it comes to the quality of
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the environment or how some of these places are being
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: utilized that have been more discouraging. Um. Where do you
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: feel like things are going on that front? Uh? I
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: think in this is the nature of our political system
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: is there are things that can be done by executive
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: or administrative governments, and then there's stuff that requires actual
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: act of Congress. As much as we joke, you know
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: how taking Act of Congress. Uh, some of that legislature
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: or some of that administrative executive stuff, those are danger areas.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: That's where we can quickly use ground can lose ground
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: because there's there's not necessarily the political pressure that can
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: be brought to bear. There's a lot more. I don't
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: mean this in a bad way. I could have so
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: many great friends who work for land management agencies, but
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: it's easier for someone to exercise their will in that
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: scenario versus something that requires an Act of Congress to
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: change it. Uh So we have definitely taken some steps
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: back as it relates to that. And it's it's also
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: a function of our system. Um I do feel that two.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: And this is just an observation of my life and
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: how we as our citizens interact in this stuff and
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: how we look at topics and issues. You know, I'm
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: gonna say, in the last ten years, we have lost
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: most of our local media and you know, whether it's
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: your local newspaper, your local TV station, and we can
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: more of our media online. Well, the online media sources
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: we get are more national and not local, not regional,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: so our issues get framed in these big national our
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: versus D left versus right binary discussion and so people
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: start either ignoring their local issues or they see their
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: local issues for or through the lens of what team
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: am I on. And that's really damaging to a lot
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: of those things you're talking about. Where before we we
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: started having that, if someone were to come and say,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna significantly manipulate this huge piece of
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: wildlife habitat or this water shed, and it was done
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: by an agency or an executive order, I'm pretty sure
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: that people wouldn't have cared what quote unquote team they
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: were on. They would have showed up, piste off and
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: they would have stop that. Now it's almost like, well,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: I'm on this team, so I can't say anything. And
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: a big borrow. What I spend my time trying to
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: convince people is if you are on that team, that's
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: even more burden upon you to be the one who
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: speaks up. Uh. And I don't like to make these
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: political discussions and and such, but they really are mark
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: you and I see how this plays out that these
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: groups who want to manipulate either landscapes or species or whatever,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: they've realized that the best way to do that is
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: through our political processes. Because if you do it over
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: here in our fish and wildlife commissions are you know,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: state environmental quality boards. Those people have trained scientists, they
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: have they know their stuff, and they're more accountable to
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the citizens. So what do you do. You take the
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: issue and you bring it to a state legislature, or
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: you bring it to Congress, and there you've got a
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: citizen legislature. Right, they're mostly attorneys or they're whatever else.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: They don't they're not subject experts on any of this stuff,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: so they can easily be swayed to go that direction.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: And all of the work we've done building our mechanisms
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: are institutions to protect and promote and advocate for things
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: of wild places and wild things. We've got it all
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: set up for commissions and you know, all the fish,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: wildlife parks or whoever it is, the Clean Water Commission,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden they do at one eight
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: on us. And we got to fight these things in
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: legislatures and in Congress, and we're just really bad at it.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: And so right now, uh, we got a lot of
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: uh we need some uh what do the NFL call
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: it O T A s uh organized team activities and
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: the off season we got a lot of O T
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: A time here that we gotta get up to spat
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: because right now we're not fielding a very good team
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: when it comes to combating that stuff. Uh. And you
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: see it and how some of these steps, how we
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: lost a lot of ground over the last few years. Yeah,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: So yeah, like you mentioned this much too, you know,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: our dismay. A lot of this stuff has become political
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: and like you said, one team, I mean right, historically,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: at least over the last handful of decades, when the
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: pendulum swings Republican, we're really good on guns, We're good
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: on hunting rights and that kind of stuff, but we
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: are less good on things like the environment and public
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: lands when it was the other way. If it swings Democrat,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: bad on guns and hunting rights, stuff like that, but
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: good on public lands and the environment. Um, so we
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: can have a whole another conversation about gun rights and
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: hunting rights. But but sticking on the topic of public
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: lands and environment for now. Right now, right we have
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: a Democratic president, Congress, etcetera. Um, that's where the pendulum
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: is right now. So at least on the public landing
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: environment side, do you do we have an opportunity there
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: for those specific issues? And if so, you know, what's
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: are you optimistic about that over the next few years?
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: What's the opportunity? Um? What what should we do to
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: take advantage of of this this good part of things
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: maybe if if if I'm right on that, Yeah, Um,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: that's one that's shaking out right now as the new
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: administration is putting together their leadership and who's going to
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: fill a lot of the under secretary positions and in
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: the actual people who oversee the departments and the agencies.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Uh some of that stuff. As I'm watching who's coming
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: through the door, it's like, man, can we ever hit
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the middle? You know? Before four years ago and we
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: go on through this process, it was like the first
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: credential you needed is you had to be a lobbyist
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: for one of the resource industries. And I say that
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: with full disclosure that I come from a logging background.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: I mean my family we were resources people. But that
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean that's the only voice that gets you or
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the only credential that gets you a position to represent
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: our land management agencies and all the things that go
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: with that. And now I'm looking at some of the
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: nominations are not nominations, but some of the appointments at
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: the lower these mid levels, like below the secretary, and
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: it's like, Wow, some of these people don't have a
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: very favorable opinion about hunting or what role hunting plays
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: in some of this stuff, and so I don't I'm
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: always let's give everybody the benefit of the doubt. And
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: judge based on the actions. So I'm I'm a little
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: bit of a wait and see on this at this point.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I'm hopeful like that I've always been hopeful. I'm I'm
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the optimist I thought four years ago. Okay, let me
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: see what are the good values some of these people
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: will bring to the table, And hopefully they'll this or
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: they'll that, you know, And then if they don't, I'm
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: gonna have to you know, me and and all of
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: us and involved in this and concerned about it, we're
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: gonna have to push back. And the same will be
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: the case here. There will be some of the places
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: where they swing the pendulum. Uh. It's like, no matter
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: the issue, when we have a change of administration like
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: this from one party to another, the pendulum on every
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: issue is going a hunter navy degrees the other direction.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: So our job is to make sure that pendulum doesn't
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: go all the way out, you know, where it just
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: has such a wide stroke that no one's going to
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: be happy because then the next time it comes back
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the other way even further. And I think if they're
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: one thing, hunters, anglers, those of us connected to the
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: land and landscapes the way we are we've been more
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: of that moderate level of Hey, we don't need to
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: go way over here, we don't need to go way
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: over there. Let's focus on the land, the water, the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: clean air, the habitats, and let's find a way to
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: do it. You know, people, if you say we want
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: some restrictions or some better mitigation or whatever, instantly people
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: want to say, oh, well don't you drive a car. Well, yeah,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: I drive a car. I eat my house with natural gas.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: What I'm saying is I would pay more to reflect
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: the true costs of what my gas tank and my
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: natural gas and my air conditioner, my electricity. I am
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: saying I'm willing to pay more because I see the
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: impact out on the landscape, and I think my generation
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: has a responsibility to pay for rather than abuse it
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and hand a desolate landscape off to the next generation.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: That's what we're saying when we asked for restraints and
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: guidelines and and actual science and consideration for the bigger picture.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: And that's a harder place to advocate for because the
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: fringe on either side can just say, oh, you're against
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: this or you're against that. You're no, I'm I'm I'm
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: here for the same middle I'd like to thank Uh yeah,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: a party that rarely gets hurt unfortunately. Right yeah, And
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: so what's that look like going forward? You know, if
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: we have this conversation in four years, it'll be interesting
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: to look back in the rear view mirror and say,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't see that coming. Are yeah, I knew that
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: was coming. Are all right? Yeah, we got that problem fixed,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: or we put this in place. And uh, the thing
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: I realized in my years to do in this is
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: that the and this goes back to this nationalizing of
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: our issues, right you. You framed it very well marked
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: where the Democrats are known to be uh friendlier to
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: the landscape and the water and the air, and the
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Republicans are want to be known as you know what,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: we protect your guns. You're blah blah blah whatever. I
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: work with a lot of people who almost cross that divide,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: you know. Give an example, Congressman Mike Simpson from Idaho
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: submits a bill after twenty some years of work to say,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: let's breach the dams on the Lower Snake River because
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: it's ruining salmon and steelhead habitat. It is We're gonna
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: lose these species and these runs if we don't do
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: something more. And we've skirted around the edges for so long.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm willing to introduce a bill that's going
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: to cost US already billion dollars over the next I
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: don't know, decade or two. So if we were to
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: say all Republicans are, you know, painted this way, where
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: does that leave what? Then then there's no place for
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: a Mike Simpson in the world. In the flip side.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Senator Martin Heinrich, Senator John Tester, You're not going to
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: pass any gun control through the Senate with those two
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: in a sate with those two guys there, because they're
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: very good on guns. So if we say every Democrat
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: is whatever on guns, where does that leave Tester and Heinrich?
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: So I I used to it's so much easier to
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: view it through the binary good or bad, you know,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: left right R D. But every piece of progress we've
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: ever made, whether it's moving the ball forward or keeping
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: the dozers from pushing us back, it's been because we
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: had people on both sides who who were willing to
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: to listen. Yeah. The rub then is how do we
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: create more people like that and get them to get
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: them in office? That's what I'm always that. I would
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: say that occupied more of my time right now, Mark
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: than any of this policy stuff, because right now we
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: have state legislatures in session. In Michigan, are you guys
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: a year round legislature. I'm honestly not sure about that, right, Okay, Well,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: in Montana we're biennial, so every two years they meet
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: for ninety days, and we wish that they met for
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: two days every ninety years because it's it's always chaos.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: And I look at the legislatures are in session in
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Idaho and my only Colorado, and you know, pretty much
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: every state I look around, legislatures are in session and
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: we have this tenor this this extremism on both sides
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: that is not reflective of what got us here. And
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I don't care if it's our issues, whatever issues it is.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: And so you're back to your question of how do
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: we get more of those people to the table, or
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: how do we get more of those people elected. That's
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: the riddle we have to solve, because we can fight
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: this game to the ends of the time, but really
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: we've got to get to the core of it, and
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: the core of it is how do we get the
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: elected people to understand our case and represent our cause,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: or how do we I mean, if they don't already
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: understand it, how do we get them to understand it?
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Or how do we get people elected who bring that
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: perspective with them when they go there? So easier said
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: than done, considering how much it costs to to play
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: in the election space I mean, today's world, from from
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: my uneducated perspective at se, seems like what you get
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: is when you get down to like the primary level
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: or the state legislature level, the the majority of the
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: voters that are active when it's at that level tend
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: to be those that are really really engaged, and that
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: might mean that they are a little bit farther left
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: or farther right. So the people that are making the
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: decisions about who gets into gets to that level of
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: the conversation, the people that are voting at that level,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: they're pushing it farther and farther to the outside. And
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: by the time you can if you can get through
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: that filter, the only people that made it past that
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: point up to the national level have already been screened
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: by the extremists on either side, and so you only
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: get people that are catering to the far of far
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: side of each base. You never get the moderate. A
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: moderate can really rarely or less common than otherwise. You
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: can't get with a moderate set of positions up to
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: the level we're talking about. Um. Not that they're on exceptions,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: there are, as you described, but it just seems harder
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: and harder to do that. So is the solution that
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: we have to start getting really active at that local
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: or state or or active in the primary level of
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: things to start getting something going there. Yep, it does.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: And that's that's what hunters don't want to hear. They
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: don't want to They don't like politics. First of all,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: their common sense people who say, why should we even
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: have to fight and argue about this stuff? It's common sin.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: But that's the reality we're faced with. And then if
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: you look at a map, I beture if you took
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: a map of Montana, I have I've looked at the
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Montana on and if you looked at a similar map
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: in Michigan, you would say, how did they come up
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: with this geographic boundary for House district whatever or Senate
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: district whatever. Well, through jerrymandering, they all get together and say, well,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: we need the next number of districts that are just
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: super safe Democratic districts and super safe Republican district Well,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: as quick as you do that, you don't need any
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: bait in that district. You know who's going to carry
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: the day. It's going to be the R or the
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: D just because of how they got together and and
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: arranged the district. So again you get the craziest fringe
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: people possible. And that's why if if there is any
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: place of moderation in our politics, it probably is the
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: US Senate. As much as someone believe that because US
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: sentence races aren't gerrymandered, you have to appeal to the
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: entire population of your of your state. And so uh yeah,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: they now cost fifty uh fifty two hundred million per side.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: But your point of are we going to have to
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: start getting more engaged, Yes, absolutely, it's it's going to
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: become part of the the it should almost be part
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: of training in in hunter education, and I mean on
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: our platforms. This spring we started a series called Civics
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: for Hunters. Because I've been spending so much time on
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: this stuff. I've been to Hell on a multiple times,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: phone calls, meetings, It's I'm in my head I'm like,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I don't have this much time, and I feel like
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: it's David and Goliath for all of us who are
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: trying to fight this. And I'm thinking, all right, how
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: do we educate our audience? Is about one, what's at stake?
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: How we got to where we are today, and how
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: we can get out of this and get every answer
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: involved some of what you referred to, and that's hunters
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: are going to have to become more political, politically active,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: al right, So would that be the case? The term
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: is always like knowing where to focus because I try
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: to stay pretty darn up on all this stuff, and
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: even I can't and and it's my job. Um, the
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: average person out there has got a million other things
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: going on and they can only devote so much time
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: to reading about these things, getting educated, spending time calling people, etcetera, etcetera.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: So so if we're just looking at the next three
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: and a half years, let's just focus on like what's
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: happening now, who's who's in office right now? And continue
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: with the kind of football analogy. Um, I'm curious about
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: what is your top priority from an offensive perspective for us? So,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: what's one opportunity that we can focus on going out
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: and getting and then what is one defensive priority? What's
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: one thing we really need to be careful to make
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: sure we don't get attacked on or get a big
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: loss on. Is there two things that may pop to
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: mind that we can think about. Yeah, I think offensively,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: if we could get back to more uh CRP Conservation
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Reserve Program National or NAH Wetlands Conservation Act funding for
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: wetland these months. Uh, those do unbelievable things for our
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: egg producers. Uh. You know, when you get in a
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: trade war with China, you don't lose your CRP payment,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: you know, your shoybean or your corner your grain payments
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: might go down. And you look at the amount of
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: money we've spent in the last however many years propping
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: back up prices because of trade wards related to agriculture,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: and now producers because of those super thin margins, have
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: to farm every single inch. There's no fence rows, there's
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: no hedgerows, there's there's nothing left at there. You can
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: see that in White Ceil country for sure. Yeah. And
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: so how do we convince are elected officials that this
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: is good for small town, this is good for the
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: farmer and the egg producer. It's good for the land,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: it's good for the water, it's good for wildlife, it's
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: good for all of us. Somehow along the way, these
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: type of conservation programs got thrown under the bus in
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: the politics, got run through the political machine. So if
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: I was if I was allowed to diagram what our
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: game plan would be, I would say, let's get let's
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: go on offense with more conservation funding that helps the
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: people on the ground. Let's pay them to do the
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: right thing and and right by everybody, right by the land,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: right right for themselves. And let's quit having to spend
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: so much money on tariff or to uh price supports
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: because of tariffs and all the I mean, that's such
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: a complicated discussion, but suffice to say, and it's simplified manner.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: It costs US billions and billions of billions of dollars
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: when we get in trade wards that involve egg products.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Are there other ways we could be reallocating some of
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: that money, taking some of the land out of production,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: which would bring prices back up in just about every model.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: We'd have to pay less in price supports that could
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: go to CRP And you know, whatever the program is
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: there's wet lens. There's there's the old what is it,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: the whip program. I think it was called w R
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: E P. There's yea, there's all kinds of those programs,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: and we have lost so many of those over the years.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know CRP. Everyone says, oh, that's really
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: good for birds. Guess what, it's some of the best
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: deer program the best deer habitat in the northern plains,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: the foothills of the Rockies, A lot of that was
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: CRP ground. That's when we had our best deer hunting,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: best bird hunting, songbirds, you name it, our water quality,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: the whole work. So from an offensive standpoint, that's where
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: I would like to see us go. And that's a
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: that's a farm bill conversation for for folks that aren't familiar.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: That's those programs are all part of the farm bill,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: which which I think the next farm bill UH comes
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: up in Uh is that right? Ready? Do you know?
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: I think I'm pretty sure yeah, I should know that. Uh.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: I think you're right on that mark. I would have
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: to look it up and see. UM. So to me,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: that's that is where we should be on the offense. Uh.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: On the defense. I think we're gonna have to think
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: about and I'm trying to think of how to say
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: this without it coming across weird. But uh, we have
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: so many instances where people are going to try to
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: chisel around the hedges, whether it's let me divert some
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: of the land and water conservation funds, let me change
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: how funding of Pittman Robertson happens, or how the money
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: can be used. Let me divert some of this, let
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: me do some of that, let's get let's change the
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: tax code so that conservation easements are no longer allowed.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: Right now, in the Montana legislature, we are battling all
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: kinds of conservation easement restrictions that and you look at that,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: and you say, where does this come from? Well, where
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: it comes from is there are groups on the national level,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: very very conservative groups who do not like what they
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: call the law of perpetuities. Uh, in a conservation easement
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: is I'm going to restrict the use of my property
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: and perpetuity. Some people say that's just a complete violation
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: of everything they believe to be the case for property rights,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: because whoever inherits or buys that property or takes it
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: over takes its subject to that perpetual restriction. And so
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: I I use that as one example where the tax
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: code is used to chisel around the edges. UH, budget
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: processes are used to chisel around the edges. Those are
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: things that it goes back to that death by a
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: thousand cuts mark where people are like, well, how do
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: I know about all this? How how am I supposed
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: to stay informed? Well, that's part of what the value
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: you get when you become a member of the many
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: many national or state groups. And I know people don't
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: want to check that box that says keep me informed.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: Please check that box when you sign up with your
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: membership to say please keep me informed, because that's part
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: of what they're doing. They're making you aware of these
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: kind of things. Yesterday I got an email from the
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain ol Foundation that said, Hey, alert, there's a
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: bill in the Montana legislature that says nonprofit organizations cannot
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: buy farm ground of more than eighty acres. I just
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: reading about this today. Yeah, Well, that means every public
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: land access program we had and that we've built in
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Montana that got us UH new Force service access, new
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: BLM accesses, UH whether and here's how it normally happens.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: Army F goes and buys three hundred acres that has
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: access to thirty thousand acres, and Army F takes that
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: three hundred acres and gives it to a state agency
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: or gives it to the federal you know, the BLM
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: or Force Service. So they only hold it momentarily, but
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: they're the actual transaction party who puts it all together,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: brings all the funding sources, and as quick as they
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: get it done, they immediately turn it over to an agency.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Same with the Nature Conservancy, same with the Trust for
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Public Lands. And we're talking about hundreds of thousands of
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: acres of access that we have lost or that we
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: will lose if bills like that happen. And it's great
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: that these groups, whether it's Army F, b J, TROUT, Unlimited,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: t r c P, it's great that they're notifying of
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: a note buying us of this stuff because we got
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: to act, we've got to speak out. And that always
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: brings the next question of all, no one's gonna listen
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: to me. Yeah they will if you and enough of
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: your friends email or call your senator or your legislator,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: your state legislator, your your congress person. It doesn't take
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: too many to get their attention. And I would tell
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: everyone in your phone you should have the capital switchboard
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: number at the US capital two oh two to two
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: four three one two one, and you should have the
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: same capital switchboard number in your phone for your state legislature.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: And don't give them a break. And I know people say, oh,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: they're not gonna listen to me, They listen to you.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Trust me on this. It's just that if we have
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: this defeatist attitude that no one's paying attention, no one
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: cares about what I have to say, So I'm not
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: going to call, I'm not going to email. Well, they're
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: not mind readers. Why do you think Jason Travitz withdrew
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: his bill to sell all that public land and one
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: once at two thousands, seventeen or eight two because people
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: picked up the phone and people made it or send emails.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: So don't don't say that they don't listen. They do.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: It's just that we too often have the defeatist attitude
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: that they're not going to listen, and we use that
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: as our excuse or why we're not going to engage.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: You know, the interesting thing is you know, you mentioned
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: how it's how it can be painful for us as
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: hunters to have to get involved at the local level
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: or at the state level because we don't want to
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: get into this nasty civics politics kind of stuff. But
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: the one upside is that at that level, each individual
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: voice matters more. You know. I mean at that level,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: these people, if they hear from a tho some people,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: that is overwhelming. Let you know, compared to at the
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: national level, maybe they hear from hundreds of thousands of
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: people at times. You know, we do have greater influence
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: at this level. Um, But you brought up these examples
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: in Montana, and I don't know if it's just because
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: I'm tuned into it more or if it's for real.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: It just feels like there's a lot of stuff coming
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: out of Montana right now, stuff like that that bill
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: you just mentioned, all the things related to two Predators, um,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: everything around the the Game Commission right now with these
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: different hunting you know, uh, whether yet non resident allocations
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: of tags and outfitter um preference and there's a lot
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: of stuff happening. Um, what's going on in Montana? Well,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, Andrew McKean was denied a commission. Um, what's
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: going on in your state? Right? Yeah? So Andrew, you know,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: he was appointed to fill one of the positions of
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: one of the five positions of our Montana Fish, Wildlife
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: and Parks Commission. U great guy. I mean those of
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: you who know Andrew from his days he was the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: editor at Outdoor Life, just such an articulate, thought thought out,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: well spoken guy. So, and I'm gonna use Andrew as
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: the example that that is the symptom of the disease
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: we have here in Montana. And it's not just in Montana.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: I think when I explain it this way, people will
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: see it's widespread. Uh. Andrew the getting new governor, get
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: a new legislature, and they have to renew Andrew's position.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: The state Senate does, Uh. So it goes to the
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Senate Fishing Game Committee. There's a hearing on his appointment,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: and there wasn't one single piece of testimony either in
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: person that we're doing zoom testimony here. Also, Uh, that
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: was against Andrew, not one. And I don't know of
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: anybody who wrote the commission or wrote the Senate and
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: said I don't like Andrew. He lost on a purely
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: partisan vote. Seven Republicans voted against him and four voted
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: for him, four Democrats. And after the vote, the chairman
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: of that committee gets up and says, it's a new
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: day in town, and we're going to do what the
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: governor wants us to do. In other words, hell with
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: all you people, let's send us here, Hell with all
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: of you who commented and testified. We're we're here to
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: do what we want to do. And some would say, Randy,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: that flies in the face of what you just said
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: a little bit ago about they listen to us, Well,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: they listened. They listen to you more if you're active.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Let's put it that way. Uh. And so what's the
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: what's what's the reality of what we're dealing with in Montana. Well,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: what we're dealing with in Montana is we have over
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: the course of years where you were talking about how
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: you know, you can get very active people and you
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: get the far fringe of one side and the far
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: fringe of the other. And that's what we have in
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Montana right now. We have a supermajority of one party
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: that has a supermajority in the House, supermajority in the Senate,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: owns the governor's seat and all of the other four
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: statewide offices, and so the crazies are having their go
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: of it right now. But even within the supermajority group,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: there are some same people. I'm talking to them all
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: the time and they're like, Randy, we're trying our best, man,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: but your people got a way in. Where are the
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: hunters on this? We need emails, we need phone calls,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: get them here. And these are people within that party
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: who are saying, we're you know, there's only eight or
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: ten of us. We're on your side, but you better
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: show up or you're going to get wiped out. So
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: right now we're seeing the whip lash effect. And some
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: folks would say, how is it. Montana used to have
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: two Democratic senators and you had sixteen years of democratic governors.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: What we saw in the election was the trend identified
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: earlier of the nationalization of our elections. We had are
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: the any local news coverage that people were consuming. I
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: mean it was there, but people aren't consuming it. People
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: are watching the national cable news networks. There. They believe
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: that Facebook is news, so they're getting it from social media,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: and so we've lost all the nuance of how this
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: stuff applies to Montana, and it became an election of
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: anyone with a D next to him was the reincarnation
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, when most of our
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: D s here in Montana would be considered pretty right
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: of center folks in Connecticut or New York or California
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: or wherever. But and I'm not saying that, you know,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: woe was me or this or that. I'm just saying
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: these are lessons we can look at and say, this
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: is what happens when we lose any local or regional
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: media of substance. This is what happens when we get
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: lazy as a voting public and say, someone make up
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: my mind for me. Let the algorithm of Facebook tell
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: me what news I should consume, which most of it
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: is not even news, it's paid sponsored bs. And on
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: both sides, that's what we in We kind of got
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: the government we voted for, the government we deserve, because
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: if we're going to be that lazy that we're not
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: going to go out and find our own into pennant
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: media sources. If we're that type that we'll spend a
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars a month at the coffee shop. But we
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: won't spend five dollars for a subscription to our local newspapers.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: That's actually talking about the issues that are going to
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: affect us. If we're so lazy that we're gonna let
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: Facebook or Google or whoever tell us what really is
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: the news or how the news should be spun, well
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: we're gonna end up with these kind of outcome. So
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: I know some people be like Newberry that is way
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: out in the weeds, but it's it's what I saw
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: happened here in Montana, and so yeah, everyone outside of
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Montana is calling what what what are you guys drinking
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: out there this legislative session, And it's just we it's
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: a perfect storm of where we have gerrymandered our districts,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: we have disengaged from the primary process, something you brought
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: up earlier as being per important, and now we got
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: the crazies. It's crazies on one side against crazy as
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: on the other. And I'm not saying they're all crazy,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: but the ones who the ones who get voted to
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: the leadership within these caucuses are pretty fringe, whereas the
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: the rest of them are you know, they're they're trying
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: to do what they think is good. But there's some
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: very politically ambitious people who get into this process for
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: the power that they can obtain, and they've realized the
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: farther out on the fringe, I get in an in
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: an environment like this, the greater my voice, even though
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: the rank and file person on main street is like,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: what the heck is that person thinking? Yeah, I voted
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: for him, But man, I don't get it. Well, if
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: you voted for him and you're having that feeling of
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: what is this person doing, please call them and say
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: or email them and say, hey, I voted for you,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: but I think this is a stupid idea. Uh, just
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: because you vote for someone. This is another thing in
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: the American tradition that is new people are of the
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: opinion that if I voted for this person, I can't
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: push back on them. My comment is you're the one
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: who should push back on them. You're the one who
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: can hold them more accountable than anybody else because they
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: know that you're the You're part of the reason. You
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: and people like you who think like you are how
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: they got elected. So I think it's more important for
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: people within those groups to push back on the folks
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: they voted for you. So, yeah, so so a lot
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: of the stuff we talked about, it's it seems like
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of where things are headed is needing to
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: get more engaged at a deeper level sooner than maybe
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: historically we have. So I want to talk I want
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: to kind of shift to a few more issues or
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: more specific issues that might be things at least that
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: have been on my radar that that maybe we could
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: just learn a little bit more that folks can keep
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: tabs on when it comes to public land stuff. UM.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: One of them you brought up earlier, which is migration
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: corridor UM issues. And there's been a lot of interesting
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: studies you mentioned. There's been I think a lot of
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: insights as far as how animals use these wider landscapes
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: than maybe we realize. Like a prong horn or mule
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: deer or an elk does not realize that the borders
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: of Yellowstone National Park only go to here, or that
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: the national forests go there, right, they don't operate on
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: that kind of scale. UM. Same thing with bears or wolves. UM.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: But there was there's a piece of legislation, that legislation
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: that passed the House last year UM called the Wildlife
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: Quarters Conservation Act. UM I'm curious if you know anything
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: more about the future of that or or anything else
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: related to migration corridors or the protection of you know,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: these connective tissues that that allow animals to move from
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: this protected area to that protective area, or anything on
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: your radar related to that, because I think that it's
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: seeming like that's becoming more and more important for the
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: long term health of wildlife, as as so much of
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: our wild spaces are being developed or cut down or
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: or or whatever, just as human pressure pushes on all sides.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: You look at your home turf there in the Greater
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: Yellowstone ecosystem, right, I mean Bozeman and Idol Falls and
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: all these different towns, more and more people growing, growing, growing. Um,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: you're just seeing these spaces slowly being chipped away at
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: and finding ways to to allow wildlife to still be
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: able to move where they need to seems increasingly important. Um,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: what's what's on your radar on that front? Yeah, you
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: bring up a really cool piece of legislation, mark the
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act. The benefit of it was it
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: was it had a answer from each side of the aisle,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: so it was not a real contentious bill but it
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: died due to the bigger picture of politics of well,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: we don't want this person to have a win because
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: if they get a win, you know, we got an
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: election coming up in the fall of So I'm hopeful
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: that either this bill or parts of it will end
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: up in possibly the infrastructure or the transportation bill that
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: the current administration is going to put forward, because a
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: lot of these corridor things are related to highways, bridges,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: stuff like that in development. Uh, there is already talk
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: at the federal agency level to move corridor studies and
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: funding and planning to higher levels so that get that
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: part of it can be done just through administrative ruler,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: through management of the agencies, but actual funding for more research,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: for more mitigation that's going to come from Congress. And uh,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: I think that that bill there. Uh even if there,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: you know, there's always some piece that somebody doesn't like. Okay,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: if we got to get rid of some little piece
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: of that. Okay, let's not let perfection get in the
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: way of progress, and let's get it past because we're
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: talking about so many critical things here and the the
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: amount of uh, what would I say, elasticity to the
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: landscape and to these migration corridors is not very high.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: And the margin for error that we have today compared
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: to thirty fifty years ago, is nowhere near what it
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: was back then. We gotta get this right, and we've
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: got to do it quickly. So with a bill like that,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: I just if anyone's interesting, go google the Wildlife Corridors
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: Conservation Act. Uh, see who the sponsors were, and uh,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: you know, reach out to your legislative, your your caucus,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: or your delegation and tell them that you support that bill.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: And however it gets, whether it's that bill itself or
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: it's something similar to that, you know, in the transportation bill,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: the infrastructure bill, let people know. And uh, he'd be surprised.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: How often, you know, eight or ten people email on
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: the same thing, and all of a sudden you get
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: his staff or calls and says, hey, what's going on
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: with this? You know, all of a sudden, we started
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: hearing that people are concerned about the migration corridor for pronghorn. Oh, well,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: here's what it is. Oh if we didn't know that,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: let's let's make sure that gets put in the highway
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: bill or the transportation bill. Uh, how that stuff works.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: I know it sounds like ninth grade cymmics, and it
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: really is. But uh, it's a bill like that or
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: and because often what we see as a bill comes
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: forward and any time you introduce something, that's when you
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: identify who are the people who don't like parts of it,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: and you hear why they don't like parts of it. Okay,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: maybe we didn't get it past this Congress or the
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: next congress or this legislative session. There are parts in
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: it that are not controversial, so let's get those pieces
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: going forward. Because wildlife corridors, once they're gone, all the
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: study shows that animals don't relearn their migration. They stop
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: once the corridors are gone. Usually the population disappears and
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: you can you know, relocate or translocate new members of
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: that species, but they don't have the learned behavior to
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: conduct the migrations. And so once they're lost. If if
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: a migration was an organism, it would be extinct once
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: that corridor is gone. And in some of these corridors,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: we're talking, you know, a half mile wide. So when
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: we're allocating our conservation funding dollars that half mile wide gap,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: we're ten thousand alk migrate out of Yellowstone. We might
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: want to think about that, because if that half mile
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: wide gap disappears, so does that migration, and so does
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: probably that heard about and all the other species dependent
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: upon them. So if I remember right, Randy, and I
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: want you to fill the gaps here. But if I
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: remember right, some of the things included in that bill
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: would have been funding for stuff like wildlife overpasses, you know,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: the bridges that go over highways to the animals crossroads.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: There would be uh funding for conservation easements I think
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: on private land would make sure that some of these
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: important areas didn't get developed and they stay open for wildlife. UM.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: I think there was something in there about prioritizing, like
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: if we are going to do any land acquisition for
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: growing public land pieces, these connective tissue kind of areas
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: will be prioritized. I think there's something like that. What
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: else is in that bill or that type of bill
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: that we should be thinking about advocating for telling our
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: our representatives like, hey, we support this tactic or this
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: specific thing. Is there anything you can recall? Yeah, I
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: didn't think it was enough money. I think it was
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: only fifty million dollars and people are gonna be like,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: what that's a lot of money. But when you think
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: about the cost of doing this, Uh, you earlier showed
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: that wildlife when it leaves, it doesn't know when a
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: cross one boundary to another. A lot of these critical
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: migration corridors go through private land or through tribal lands
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: or whatever. If there's a private land steward out there
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: who has done a remarkable job of maintaining their landscape
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: and preserved this migration corridor, seems to me we should
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: We would be well served to go and buy an
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: easement from them to say, this corridor here, we want
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: you get to keep the land, but we want to
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: buy any development rights, any any surface impact rights for
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: you to keep that open for wildlife and and we'll
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: pay you a full market value and you get to
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: keep the land. That So that was one of the
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: things that was in there, and it got some blowback
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: of well, you know, if they don't allow us public access,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: we shouldn't we shouldn't be spending the money. Yes we should,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: because that might be a meal there heard or elk
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: or what you know, who knows what it might be
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: moves or that are migrating from this winning public lands
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: to the summering public land, and the critical pinch points
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: in their migration might be on private So, uh, that
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: was one of the things that was in there. A
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: lot of it was building a database about wildlife connectivity,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: and some people are concerned about a big national database
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: about wildlife connectivity. In other words, how do migration corridors
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: connect wildlife species to their winter rangers, their summer rangers.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: What are these transition rangers? Because they're like, well, if
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: they do that study and my private land ends up
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: being one of the critical corridors, you know, is that
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: gonna put me on some target list or you know,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: am I gonna no longer be able to exercise my
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: property rights? Stuff? Stuff like that. It's some of those,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: in my mind are strawman arguments. Uh, but that's it's
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: stuff like that that was in there. Uh. A lot
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: of times. There's also just fencing where you can put
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: fencing along these places where there's known migrations to keep
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: them from crossing in random spots and you force them
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: to use an underpass or an overpass because of the
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: fans act like a funnel, and you keep them you
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: reduce collisions significantly, which affects the population in the survival
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: of the population, but we also got to look at
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: the bigger picture of what are we doing to allow
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: them to naturally go where they've always went. Uh, their
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: studies going on in Arizona about Interstate forty and how
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: their pronghorn used to move a lot, and now that
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: they call her them, you see where they're moving north
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: and south until they hit I forty and then they
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: just move east and west because it's that much of
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: an impairment impediment to their trail. So uh, that bill
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: would have had stuff like that, and it was money
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: and directive to say, let's not allow for any more habitat,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: fragment at or loss. And it would have provided a
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: lot of granting to states because a lot of the
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: state highways and and stuff like that, or a lot
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: of the state wildlife agencies know where this stuff is.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: So uh like that it's interesting stuff, and it it
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. And and and I've been
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: reading a lot about this idea called island bio geography um,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: which which your you might be already aware, but for
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: folks listening just it's it's kind of looking at the
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: way that wildlife populations thrive and evolve and and um
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: move forward in constrained areas like it like an island.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: But when you study wildlife on an island, you see
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: something that's very similar to what happens in a region
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: that functionally is an island. Like we'll say the Yellowstone ecosystem,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: which is uh a central ecosystem of of all this
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: protected lands surround did by you know, development cities, open
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: country that's used in other in other ways, and so
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: certain wildlife species essentially can't connect with another island of
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: other protected land. Let's let's say it's the island of
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: Yellowstone and then the island of the Northern Rockies um
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: up in Glacier National Park, bomb Marshal, that kind of thing. Like,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of talking about how do you
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: connect these places so that there can be transfer across
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: from one to the other. Because if if we get
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: these islands like that that keep getting cut away on
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: the edge, just death by a thousand cuts, they keep
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: getting smaller and smaller, and the border on the outside,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: while not a physical wall, becomes a stronger and stronger
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: border because now instead of you know, thousands of acres
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: of open range land or farms that the wildlife would use.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe now it's becoming little ranchets and housing developments and
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: malls and all that. So this whole thing with migration
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: and connectivity, it just seems like, you know, twenty years
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: from now, it's just gonna get more and more important
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: as we see people racing to develop our areas around
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: public lands, racing to live in these places. Right, the
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: whole COVID migration, when we're talking migration, like everyone who's
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: leaving the cities and moving to Montana and Idaho and Wyoming,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: like this is only going to get worse. So I
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: think that that's something at least that I personally am
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: like following much more closely now and and and hoping
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: there can be some positive movement on because of those pressures. Yeah,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: And you know that a good example of those are
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: the they call him the Sky Island Mountain Rangers of Arizona.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: You have all sorts of different species of squirrels there
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: because they've not been able to connect to the other
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: mountain rangers. Uh, that's because they're here to ten thousand
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: foot mountain with a few other ancillary peaks, and then
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: you've got nothing but desert for fifty before you get
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: to the next mountain range, you go down there and
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: you see it in a fact in Arizona in a
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: big way. But the other thing that that theory applies
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: to is the resiliency of the species in changing conditions,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: whether it's climatic change, whether it's changes to invasive species,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: plant species, or other species on their small island landscapes,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: even it's it's not truly an island, like you said,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: from the standpoint of Oh, it's surrounded by water, it's
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: surrounded by non favorable habitat. And the smaller it is
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: and the less access they have to other islands, the
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: more vulnerable they are. Two other other pressures and other
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: changes that are happening. Yeah, So what happens when uh
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: fires get worse? What happens when you know, ecoregions within
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: a habitat start moving higher and higher in elevation because
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: it's warmer. Um, there's all sorts of things that become
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: of concerned. Then Yeah, um, kind of along sort of
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: the same lines at least when it comes to you know, focusing,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: where do we focus our protective efforts or where do
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: we try to grow conservation easements or public land whatever
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: might be there's another big, fancy initiative that has been
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: talked about more and more recently, especially the last few months,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious about your take on it. Uh. And
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: that's the thirty by thirty initiative. Um, could you give folks? Uh?
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: Could you give folks a really quick rundown of of
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: what I'm assuming your fingers on the pulse of this,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: what what your thoughts are, like? What it is and
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: what your thoughts are and and kind of where should
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: we be thinking about things as a hunting and fishing community. Um,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: what's what's your take? Yeah? And what it is? The
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: thirty by thirty comes from thirty percent by the year.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: Is that what you're referring to? Yeah? And uh, it's
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: an effort that says we would want to conserve thirty
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: of the U. S Land mass by And it's like
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: okay right now where it depends on how you look
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: at it. Uh, Yeah, I don't know what percentage you
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: Here arguments about how much we've currently conserved. Some people
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: say there isn't even enough remaining land to get to
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: I think those are just critics here. Instead of finding
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: the way to yes, they want to find the way
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: to know uh uh. But it's ambitious and instantly. Because
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: it's you know, the current administration, it's a policy they support.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: You're gonna have some people who just hate it by default.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: Well whatever, But we're talking about conserving large landscapes, and
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: we're talking about some of the most endangered landscapes in America.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: Aren't the Rocky Mountain West. Yeah, they might have the
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: largest host of our real you know, warm and cuddly's megafauna,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: But some of the most endangered landscapes are in the East,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: the southeast, the Midwest, and the low hanging fruit of
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: conservation has already been plucked. And most of that is
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: our public lands. We had a ton of work that
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: needs to be done to protect critical conservation on private lands.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: And if we have to give incentives or do whatever
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: to help meet this thirty by thirty. As aggressive as
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: that is, I think in today's political environment, we're gonna
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: have to look at how we do some of this
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: on private land too, because that's where it's harder to do.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: You have many multiple stakeholders. Private landowners have property rights
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: you've got to consider. Uh. I think it's a cool idea. Uh.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: I'd like to see more details of you know exactly,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: how the how does it get funded, how they get implemented,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: How do we figure out what places are the you know,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: the the next uh on the on the list? You know,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: how how do we prioritize uh? Stuff like that. But
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: it's it caught some people off guard because I think
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: there's been a an acceptance that the pie is that
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: is going to shrink. So let's figure out how we
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: fight over a shrinking pie and how along comes this
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: idea that is more of a let's not accept the
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: fact that the pie is gonna shrink. Let's try to
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: make the pie bigger, the pie of conserved lands. Uh.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: And I don't care what part do you come from.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: I don't care what your political basis is. The United
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: States in its history of the last hundred and fifty
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: years has definitely been a country, a culture, society that
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: believes in building the bigger pie. Now we can say
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: we've had our like our stock portfolio, right, we've had
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: times where it's flipped down and pop back up. I
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: think you'd have a hard time because the corollary to this,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: or the flip side of it is, Okay, let's try
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: to get to five percent by forty five. You know, let'
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: let's see if we can destroy more of it by
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: or forty five. And so when you say it in
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: that context, it's like, well, that'd be stupid, right, it
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: would be. So if that's stupid, why isn't it smart
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: to try conserve more and you know, thirty by thirty
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: I get it. You know, you gotta put some markers
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: out there and have some goals and whatever. But the
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: fact that we're talking about it and trying to conserve
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: more land, more water, more water sheds, and we've said
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: let's be aggressive and try to do it by some date. Hey,
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: even if it doesn't meet all that, for those of
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: us who love wild places, wild things, want cleaner and
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: clean water, it's an effort that is headed the right direction. Yeah,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: I really, I really am bullish bullish on it, I think,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: And like you said, there's a lot of a lot
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: that has to be sort out in the details, and
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: we have to be I think, really vocal in how
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: this stuff happens, to make sure that you know that
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: the hunting and fishing communities perspective has heard on whatever
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: ends up happening, Right, I think that's important. But for
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: so long we've been on the defensive. Here's a chance
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: to be an offense. Like, let's run with that, let's
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: push the ball forward. Because you look at the big
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: story of you know, America the last hundred and fifty years,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: and it's just less and less and less wild places,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: less and less wilderness, more and more development, more and
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: more species lost. Um. You know, we gotta verse that,
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: we got to reverse the trend. We gotta at least
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: try And here's a proposal to to try to do that. Um.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: I think that's someplace that you know, we hunters are
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: perfectly positioned to to lead on. Um. Given the fact that,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: as you've said, like oftentimes we are kind of middle
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: of the spectrum. We can speak to the realities of
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: both sides, and we can speak to a middle ground
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: that can take us forward. Um, it's just harder to
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: do that. It seems like it's really easy. I think
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: the thing we saw with the and you tell me
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: if you think I'm wrong on this, because you're way
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: deeper into this than I am. But it seems like
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: with the land transfer movement and everything there, it's really
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: easy to get people piste off and fired up enough
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: to do something when you say we're gonna take something
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: away from you. Like right, that's easy to get someone
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: fired up at It's it's harder to get someone fired
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: up when we say, hey, if you work really hard,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: you can get this new thing. Um, that's a harder
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: thing to sell. Um. If we can somehow move in
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: that direction, though, like God, there's some good stuff that
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: could come with this. Um, I'm just I'm hopeful. I
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: hope that we can't. Hope it's something that we can
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: put some concrete details around it. We can have a
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: voice at the table that we can try to staunch
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: the bleeding that's happened in a lot of different ways
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: over the last hundred years. Um, you know we can
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: be the solution, oh for sure. And anyone who doubts
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: that that sentiment is not there to do better and
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: to improve the landscapes and conserve more. Uh. Colorado College
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: hardly a bastion of you know, Ivory Towers. This is
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: known to be uh. You know it's where a lot
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: of the mining and engineering and other graduates coming out
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: of the Colorado systems and uh they do a survey.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: Uh it's uh called this I think it's called conservation
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: in the West Pole. They've been doing it for quite
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: a while now, and uh, seventy two or seventy three
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: percent of the Western residents and or the residents of
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: Western states said that they are in favor of the
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: ideas that underpinned this thirty by thirty. Well, that's that's
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: the I mean, when you're at over seventy percent of
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: support for something, that's you don't have to worry about
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: a pole having a bad margin of air at that point,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: you know. That's so the the sentiment among the people
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: living on the landscape is there. The question is can
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: we convert that to action among our elected bodies in
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: our institutions. And I hope we can because I you know,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: when people tell me I don't know about that, that yeah,
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: I don't trust those people. It's like, okay, so you
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: want dirty yer air, you want dirty or water. You
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: want fewer fish, you want fewer elk, you want less
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: public land, you want worse habitat the Usually they're like,
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: can we talk about football? Yeah? You know, it's it's
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: it's there's that Leopold quote when he said the danger
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: of uh, you know, having an ecologist education is living
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: alone in a world of wounds something like that, which
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: basically is like the more you paying attention to this stuff,
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: the more you realize how much damage has been done.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: And and you know, over the last decade, as I've
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: started studying more and more of this, and you know,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: you just see how much stuff has changed since fifty
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: years ago, we're eighty years ago. And I don't know,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: I just keep going back to if, if we don't
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: take a stand. You know, our kids are not going
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: to have the same opportunities we had. They're one of
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: the same places we had. Um. And and I think,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: coming kind of full circle our whole conversation, like, here's
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: this opportunity, but because it's being presented by one side
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: of the aisle, the impulse is no way this is
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: gonna be you know, this is gonna be a poison pill. Um,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: let's make sure it isn't. Let's be so damn loud
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: and involved. Let's make sure that this is just as
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: much of a republican plan as a democratic Like, let's
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: push on our side or whatever side do you feel
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: like you are on and say, hey, no, own this,
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: you own this, let's all own this. Let's make sure
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: that this is a biparson thing. Let's make sure that
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: this is something that three years from now, Democrats and
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: Republicans are fighting over who can be the best on
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: conservating more Land, Um, so they can get elected or reelected. Um.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: We're kind of at the stage in this whole issue
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: that I think that we can still influence. You know,
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: what it actually looks like on the ground. So it
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: seems like a great opportunity. Oh it is. And and
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: even if it doesn't become thirty by thirty, if it
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: takes some other name or some other form, I don't
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: really care. You can call it the you know, blue
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: Skies and Rainbows bill. It doesn't matter to me what
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: I care about. And I don't care who sponsors it.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: I care about the fact that it would put priority,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: it would put funding, It would give guidance to agencies
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: that this is something we need to consider in all
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: of our lane management decisions. And we are going to
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: make the affirmative statement that we're here two. Instead of
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: play defense on these conservation issues, we're gonna play some offense,
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: you know. And I like that, you know, Yeah, it's uh,
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's on us. I mean, all these things,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: all these places if we if we fight the fight
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: in and win, we'll probably have to fight the fight
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: again five years from now or ten years from now.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: If we fight the fight and lose, it's usually gone forever.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: So when it comes to these places or or these protections,
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: it's it's something that we just have to keep on
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: keeping on. And if you ever have the opportunity to
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: switch from defense to offense, like gosh, it just seems
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: like you gotta jump on it. And it seems like
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: there's a little sliver of opportunity in this area to
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: go on offense. Now with that right, as we talked
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: about earlier, there's all these other places that now we
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: have to play heavy defense. Um. And that's a whole
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: another story. But in this case, let's let's move on
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: this one. Now. There's one other kind of pivot that
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: I want to get your thoughts on real quick before
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: we run out of your time. And thank you for
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: for for letting me drown on and ask pick your
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: brain about all these things. Um. And this isn't really
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: as much maybe it's a little bit. It's not as
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: much like public policy, but it's more publicly in use.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: Something that a lot of people saw over the last
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: year with the whole COVID impact, But I think it
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: was just, ah, this is something that's been happening over
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: years and years, but COVID just emphasized it's it's the
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: fact that we're loving our public lands to death. In
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: some cases, right there was this overcrowding in a lot
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: of places. There was more new people coming to these landscapes,
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: which is great, but also maybe not understanding the etiquette
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: of some of these places and leaving toilet paper everywhere,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: trash everywhere, different stuff like that. Um, there's all sorts
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: of debate right now within uh my own little universe
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: around hunter recruitment and um, that whole thing. Um. So
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: I'm just kind of curious about your take on where
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: we stand now and overcrowding. I don't know, maybe over
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: overcrowding implies a position, so I would say, are we
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: at risk of loving our public lands to death? Or
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: how do we handle increasing use. I'm just kind of
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: curious on what's the Randy Newburgh unfiltered opinion on all
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: things related to that. Uh well, I thought, like you
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: did you know, last summer in Montana, we did not
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: close the state, So anyone who had at a vacation
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: plan to a state that was closed. I think they
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: came to Montana. I've never seen that many people on
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: our rivers ever, and I thought, oh, they'll go away
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: once labor Day comes. Nope, they took up hiking and
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: backpacking and mountain biking and everything else. Some of them
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: took up hunting. Uh so, a pandemic once in a
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: hunter year, once in a century pandemic did more to
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: increase the interest in outdoor activities than all the recruiting
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: we've ever done in my lifetime. And that comes with
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: its consequences, and it it's like everything, nothing is all
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: good or all bad. There's some good that comes of this.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: Some of these people will stick with the outdoors and
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: it will become their lifestyle and they'll become the next
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. They will become the next you know whoever
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: conservation voices and leaders, or they'll just be you know,
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: someone who participates. But they help fund the system and
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: the majority of these people the next time some other
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: cool fad comes along. Skiing has seen these peaks and valleys,
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: as has you know, golf and all kinds of activities. Uh,
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: it will come and go. There will be their fair
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: weather folks um. But what it does illustrate is the
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: absolute critical importance of access. And I don't like talking
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: about these issues of crowding or hunter densities or whatever
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: in the single context of densities or hunting pressure or
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: their single context of this or that. It's multifact set it.
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: We have the issue of access. Every time we lose
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: access to development, two bad hunter behavior and a landowner
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: closes their land to somebody comes in and forms a
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: hunt club. Where ten people used to hunt this farm,
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: and now two people hunt this farm. You've displaced eight
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: people over to the public lends. Some rancher gets you know,
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: something goes wrong there, some bad hunter behavior. He used
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: to let forty people a year hunters place, and now
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: he closes it. Those forty people are now on public lands.
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: So we are seeing in increase in hunter densities because
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: of many things. Yes, we've got this pandemic. I don't
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: think our three has really been that effective, and in
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: my this is my personal view, it has not. For
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: the amount of money spent. The results aren't that great.
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: And some would say, oh, come on, you're you're being
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: too critical. Maybe I am, but I built my platforms
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: based on the idea of access and advocates for public
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: land and public access, and every study we ever read
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: about why hunters quit hunting, why they don't hunt as
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: much as they previously did, or why they didn't get
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: into hunting when they come from a family or background
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: where they normally would be inclined to become hunters. The
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: top answer given to those three questions is access. So
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: if we don't have a place to hunt, all the
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: R three in the world doesn't do us any good.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: And the other pronged to that is conservation. If we
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: have access, but there's no remaining wildlife there because of
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: how we've managed it, how we've managed the landscape, and
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: the wildlife has all moved to other places that are
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: inaccessible where we don't have anything going for us. So
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: I get that some are looking at last year and saying,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, what a tide of people. Yeah, I
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: don't know how much trash I picked up last year.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many camps I had said at
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: Trailheads were non hunter just campers, and you know, public
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: land user just average citizens game and set up a
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: camp next to us. And I'm with you, Mark, there
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: they must be new because what they understood about etiquette
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: with left a lot to be desired. But I think
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: we can look at some of this and say, even
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: those who lee, who view this and they come and
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: try it and they say it's not for me, even
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: those who have come and experienced it and leave, Having
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: that awareness in our citizenry is useful in the bigger
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: picture of access, of content, servation of clean air, clean water,
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: of all the things we love. I I can't look
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: at it through just a one dimensional window. To me,
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: it has way more pieces it. Yes, it has the
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: number of people on the landscape, and it's not just
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: on the landscape, but on the landscape. At the same time,
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: fishing was crowded, hunting was crowded, camping was crowded. But
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: if that doesn't show us the importance of maintaining every
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: bit of access we can and hopefully expanding an increasing
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: more access, I don't know what kind of an illustration
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: we need to convince us of the importance of access
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: and access to places that are good habitat with good
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: amounts of game. Yeah, that's that's the Randy Newberg version
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: of that. Well, I I appreciated it. I um, I'm
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: right there with you when it comes to the fact
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: that it's this interesting kind of chicken and egg deal
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: because we need enough places, we need enough access for
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: people to go out there and have these experiences. But
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: to keep those places and to keep that access, we
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: need people that care about them to fight for them
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: and make sure they don't keep getting tipped away at
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: So where I fall on this is that, man, I'm
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: all for more people getting out there and seeing these
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: things and and hiking or camping, or learning to hunt
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: or learning to fish or experiencing that, like you said,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: whether they stick with it or just come and go.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: Nobody watches, at least not many people in my experience,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: watch a Netflix documentary about Yellowstone or something and then
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: become lifelong advocates for wild places and really give a
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: damn after they watch something on TV. But if you
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: go out there and experience it, you know, you hear
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: an elk bugle at night, or you get out there
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: and a bear walks up on your while you're fishing
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: and you have that powerful experience, or you you kill
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: your first ear and you eat that. You have experiences
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: like that that transform you and change you from someone
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: who watches something to actually becoming someone who does something.
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: And I think the more people we can get that
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: care enough about these places to do something, the better
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: it is for all of us in the long run.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: So I'm for it, and I think the I think
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: the one thing I would say that I think this,
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: and nobody will. Nobody likes to hear this, Nobody likes
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: more responsibility. But I think with this it comes with
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: more responsibility for us that already know what we're doing
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: out there, that already have had these experiences. It comes
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: on comes down to the responsibility we have now to
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: not bitch and moan about them, but instead to educate, like,
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: let's help. Let's let's help someone, like, hey, you came
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: out here, you set up camp right next to me,
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: and you know I could be an irritator. You pull
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: up your boat right next to me while I'm fishing
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: this riser here in the corner and you started casting
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: the same fish. Like that might be like something where
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: I could get piste off at you. But instead, let's
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: let's teach people. Let's share our experience. Let's say, hey,
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: you know what, maybe that's not what I would recommend
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: to do, but here's something to try. Over here, or
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: let's teach people about and leave no trace ethics, or
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: teach people how to how to hunt. You know, I
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: don't know. I just I just think there's an opportunity.
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: Let's let's look as an opportunity and teach versus this
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: threat that we're gonna bemoan. I'm a hundred percent on
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: board with you there, Mark, That's one thing I I
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: was trying to bring forth in in my wandering way.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: I think this is an opportunity and if we view
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: it as a threat or an encumbrance or you know,
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: messing up my way of doing things, we're gonna miss
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: that opportunity. So I'm I'm a hundred percent with you.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: This is an opportunity. And I don't think we'll ever
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: get this opportunity again, and I know we won't in
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: my lifetime. I hope we don't in my lifetime. I
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: hope we have no more pandemics. But yeah, uh so
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: are we going to squander it? Or are we gonna
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: find the benefits in it and take advantage of those
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: and move forward? Yeah? Well, Randy, I uh I hope
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: that's the case. And uh man, I'll tell you one
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: thing that makes me confident that we have a chance
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: of doing that is that we have people like you
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: who are fighting the good fight and spreading the good words.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: So I appreciate your Randy, Thank you for talking with
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: me about this stuff and sharing your perspective and everything
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: you're doing well. Thank you, Mark. And that goes both
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: ways that I you know, you and I get to
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: talk a lot offline, and I have so much respect
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: for what you're doing and in the voice you provide,
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: in the audience you have. So I'm I'm honored anytime
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: that you'll have me on and uh, please keep doing
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: what you're doing well. Thank you. I'm gonna say one
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: thing that I promise I'm not gonna wait four more
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: years to get you back on the podcast. That's insane.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know how that happens. You're gonna You're gonna
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: have to get used to me calling any more often
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: here because this just needs to happen more and more.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should do it in a duck blind or something. Hey,
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: I'm all for that. Would that be cool? I wonder
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: what your audience would think. I follow a sudden you
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: and I both went silent, and they hear take them.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: I think they'd probably like a lot better than hearing
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: me job all the time. At least one last thing,
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: Randy for for people that want more of what you've
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: got going on, um, can you point people in the
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: direction of either the more you know generic platforms or
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: any specific things that might be of interest. Are there
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: any really interesting podcasts you've dropped recently or video projects
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: that you think people should seek out that are relevant
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: to some of the things we talked about. Anything like
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: that I'd love to hear about. I appreciate that, Mark. Uh.
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: This spring has been really really busy, uh with legislative stuff,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: so a lot of our content has been focused on
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: policy legislation, how to be engaged, how to be involved.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: We've got YouTube episodes coming out on that on our
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel. I think we've dropped two podcasts already on
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: the topic, and we're gonna be doing more of that. Um. So, yeah,
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: you've been on my Hunt Talk radio podcast before. Pretty
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: easy to find that. And then our YouTube channel is
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: Randy Newburgh Hunter and that's the same for Facebook and Instagram,
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: and so uh yeah, if people want to go there
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: and find it, we love the feedback. If they want
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: more of this, less of it, And what we're finding is,
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: as much as people may not want it, they're saying, hey,
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: thanks for putting that out there. It's it's it's helpful
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: to to understand it and to realize how important it is.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: And I've seen so much more active engagement this year
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: than I have in previous years. I'm really encouraged by
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: how people are getting after it. So that's great. Well,
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: I uh, I would certainly encourage anyone listening to to
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: go and check all that out. I can tell you
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: from personal experience, everything that you've put out there, Randy
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: has been both entertaining and helpful to me personally and
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of folks and know so uh so, thanks
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: to that, Randy, and thank you for thanks for this.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: It was a fun chat. Yeah, thanks Mark anytime. Take care.
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: All right, that's a rap. I hope you enjoyed this one.
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. You know, if this kind of
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: stuff intrigues you, if you're interested in learning more about
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: public lands, public land history, public land policy, public land
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: challenges and opportunities and all that kind of stuff, there's
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: a book on all this. I don't know if you
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: ever heard of it. It's called That Wild Country an
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: epic journey through the past, present, and future of America's
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: public lands. And I wrote it probably nine percent of
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: you are rolling your eyes because you've heard me talk
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: about a million times. So thanks for baron with you
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: on this. But if you're new and you haven't heard
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: of that book yet, I gotta recommend you check it
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: out because is uh. I hope all the time I
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: put into it is reflected with it being actually helpful
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: and uh and I think I think, I hope it is.
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: So that's all for me. Appreciate you, enjoy the rest
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: of your week, and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.