Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 651: How to Raise Hell for Hunting, Fishing, Wildlife, and Wild Places with Ben Long

Transcript

Ep. 651: How to Raise Hell for Hunting, Fishing, Wildlife, and Wild Places with Ben Long · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the whitetail Woods. Present it by First Light, creating proven,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand saddler blind, First Light,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Mark Kenyon, and this week on the show, I am
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: joined by conservationist and author Ben Long to discuss the
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: tool skills and knowledge necessary to raise hell. All right,
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: by First Light. And before we get our episode going today,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I want to give you a really quick heads up.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Mediator has got a brand new, big old giveaway in
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: which we are giving you guys the chance to win
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: three thousand dollars in hunting gear from all of our
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: brand that's First Light, FACHF and Phelps, along with a
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: personalized outfitting session with our very own Yannis poutellis co
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: host of the Gear Talk podcast, host of On the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Hunt with Yanni on the YouTube channel There and just
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: a genuine amazing dude, a good friend of mine, an
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: amazing hunter, and someone you definitely do want helping you
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: pick out gear for your next hunting trip. The giveaway
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: runs from now through May twenty first, twenty twenty three,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: so head on over to the meat eater dot com
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: slash giveaway to enter. It's that easy themedeater dot com
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: slash giveaway. The winner is going to be randomly picked
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: and contacted on May twenty seconds, So head on over.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Seems like a great opportunity. Now with that out of
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: the way, I want to tell you a story. So
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: this past weekend, I told my oldest son evert that
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I was going to take him out on a turkey
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: hung Now, historically, I have taken him on turkey quote
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: unquote hunts many times before. And what that entails when
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I've taken my young son is that we are just
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: out there in the field trying to call a burden.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: It's been a lot of fun, but I've not gone
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: out there with a gun. We're not actually hunting. It's
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: just you know, like like a turkey adventure.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: He's been out there doing that with me since he
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: was I don't know, five months old. I remember the
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: very first time I ever took him out, he was
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: in one of those little like marsupial pouches on your
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: chest and we went out and actually just walked into
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: a field behind our house, and we could hear a
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: turkey gobbling off in the distance, and I remember yelp, yelp, yelpin,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: and a turkey goblin and yelp, yelp, yelpin and turkey
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: goblin back and just seeing his little, tiny baby eyes
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: just get bigger and bigger and bigger. He had no
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: idea what was going on, but there was some bizarre
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: sound coming from the woods getting closer and closer. And
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: in the years since, you know, he's continued to get
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: exposed to that heading out into the spring woods, and
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: we've had some some really incredible moments. I think I've
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: probably told you guys this story a few years ago
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: about the time when we had it out onto one
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: of the properties at Hunt and ended up calling in
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: three gobblers. And on this particular day, he brought an
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: umbrella with him and we called the gobblers all the
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: way into you know, their approaching shooting range, and my
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: son was pretending that the umbrella was a gun, and he,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: you know, he held a gun up and he was
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: whispering to me, Hey, Dad, you know, got take him yet,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: And I'm whispering back to him, Oh gotta wait, wait
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: till they get closer. They get closer, and so he's
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: got his gun up, he's already, he's breathing heavier. I
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: can literally see him starting to shake. He's so excited
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: as these three toms coming close. They finally get into
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: shooting range in twenty five thirty yards something like that.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: I said, all right, Everett, take him, and he says,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: all right, Dad, I'm ready, and then he takes a
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: deep breath and then he just yells cpo and the
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: turkeys look up and he says copo again and they
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: go running off. I mean, we just had so many
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: great moments like that in the field and it's never
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: though involved like an actual hunt for turkeys at least,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: so in this case, I told him, hey, you know, Sunday,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: we're gonna go out there and see if we call
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: him burn and range and you can bring you know,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: you can bring your BB gun if you want, and
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: we can you know, hunt for you know, squirrels or
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: something along the way, or you can just kind of
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: pretend holding your gun or whatever it is. And he
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: just started to cry, and I couldn't understand it. He
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: just started bawling and I was so confused. And you know,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: after a few minutes and going to his bedroom and
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: kind of trying to pull him out of his bed,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: he explained that no, he really wanted to be on
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: a real hunt this time. He wanted Dad to have
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: the gun, and we really wanted to get a turkey,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: and he wanted us so so so badly, and I I,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: I didn't even have my stuff ready. I didn't have
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: my license yet. I wasn't playing actually turkey hunting un
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: till next weekend. So we had to kind of explain
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: that and talk through all that, and I was finally
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: able to convince him that we could still have a
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: good time just going out there and trying to call
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: some birds and see what we can see and what
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: kind of adventure we might be able to have. But
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: he was so passionate about it, he was so excited
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: about it. He wanted the real deal. So I convinced
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: him we could still have a good time. We head
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: out there in the field. We worked our way down
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: this field edge and I was like, all right, buddy,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: let's do a little uh, let's do a little crow call.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: And he said, well, day, can I can I do it?
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: So I give him my crow call and he first
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: tries to buzz on it's just kind of like zoo,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: and I tell him, you got to bite down a
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: little more and push through a little more power from
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: your lungs, and he does it again and gets a good,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: you know, good baa. And then from the other side
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: of this hill there's a gobble and it's not that
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: far away. So we're both very excited. I'm so all right. Ever,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: we got to sneak to the tree line, and so
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: we go. We just turn and we've only got twenty
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: yards maybe to get to the edge of these trees,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: and there's a hill between me and where I think
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: this turkey is, and so we start cutting to that
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: fence row when all of a sudden, bam, there's the
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: turkey looking right at us, spins, turns away, runs off,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: and in my head I'm thinking, ah, we just blew it.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: We just ruined this experience that he was so excited
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: about having. He must be so disappointed. I looked at
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: him and he's just smiling. He say, Dad, Dad, Dad,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: look at this. And I'm like, what do you be
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: look at this? Aren't you upset about the turkey? And
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: he points at the ground. He says, turkey poop. And
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: he was so excited we saw turkey poop. He wasn't
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: worried about the fact we just spooked this gobblerway. He
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: was so excited there was some poop on the ground
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: that he correctly, I'll mind you, or remind I'll inform you. Correctly,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: he identified turkey poop on the ground. So we looked
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: at the turkey poop, and then like a couple minutes later,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: we keep walking, say hey, Dad, you gotta look at this,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: you gotta look at this. I'm stressing about the fact
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: we're not going to see the turkeys. And then there's
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: this purple flower and he's staring at this turkey, this
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: purple flower. And I am slowly as we go throughout
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: this morning, realizing more and more that there's something more
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: going on here. Even then maybe he understands, or that
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I understand or expected, because we continue on. We continue
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: our walk, and you know, we're hoping here turkey's gobbling.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: We're looking for turkeys. And then we see off from
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: the pond and here goes a couple wood ducks flying off,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: and he can't believe it. There's ducks we just saw
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: two ducks. And he runs over there to the water says,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: what about frog's dad, there's probably frogs in here. And
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: he's walking down this way and he's walking down this
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: way and he's looking for frogs here, and he's looking
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: for ducks there, and he's got this huge smile on
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: his face. And then we finally just said, okay, we're
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: gonna sit down and try to focus on turkeys for
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: a minute. At least that's what I was thinking. I
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: guess I'm thinking, Hey, we got to get down to
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: the job at hand here, so let's sit down. Let's
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: wait for a second, stop scaring everything and try to
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: see a turkey. So we sit down and I'm just
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: kind of getting him settled into a spot on this
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: tree next to me. He kind of leans up against
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: my shoulder and I sit down there and finally take
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: a deep breath, and then ever it looks over me
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: he says, hey, Dad, you know, I really like to
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: sit in one place if there's animals in front of us,
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: or if we're eating food. And I mean, that's there's
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: something amazing about the the just incredible authentic honesty about
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: a young child. He's five and I mean he's he's
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: spot on that. That sounds about right. That's about the
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: only time he'll sit in one place. Well. Fortunately I
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: did have something I'll pulled out of my pocket too,
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Reese's eggs, these little chocolate and peanut butter filled half
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: eggs that you get for Easter. And I hand him
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: one of those to him, and he just turns and
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: he has this look on his face, just the only
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: you know, only only a five year old or a
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: six year old. There's this little kid that you love
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: with all your heart, turns, looks me in the eye
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: and says, thanks Dad, this is the best day ever.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: And then bam. Turkey gobbled off of the distance back
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: behind us. That that day, that moment, that morning, The
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: whole thing from from his crying because he was so
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: excited about one expectation to us spook and a bird
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: when we finally went to him, not caring at all
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: because he was so exceed about about the turkey poop
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: from the flowers and the ducks and the frogs and
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: the reeses for all of that. That is why I
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: am raising hell for hunting and fishing and wildlife and
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: wild places. That is why we spent a whole month
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: talking about this stuff. It's for days like that with
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: my son Everett and his younger brother Colton. That's why
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: I want there to be clean water, healthy wild landscapes.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: That's why I want there to be well managed public
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: lands and populations of healthy fish and wildlife and birds
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: and bugs and bees, a stable climate, clean air, the
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: continued privilege and the right to hunt and fish and
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: to explore these places. That's what I want for my boys.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: That's why I'm doing this. That's why we're here. Can
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: you relate? Do you have a son or a daughter?
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Do you want one someday? Do you have grandkids? What's
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: the future you imagine for them? What's the future you
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: want for them? Are you willing to fight for it?
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: For the sake of today's episode, I'm going to assume
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: that you are. I'm going to assume that if you
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: are here and listening to this, if you've listened this far,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming that you are, just like I am, willing
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: to raise some hell to protect these things. And our
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: guest today is going to help us better understand exactly
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: how we can do that. The guy's name is and Long.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: He is a journalist and a writer who's appeared everywhere
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: from Outdoor Life magazine to our very own mediator website.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: He's a professional conservationist and a communications strategist who's contributed
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: to permanent conservation of This is pretty crazy. I need
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: to figure out a way to quantify what I do
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: the way they've done here. But he has directly contributed
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: to the conservation of more than one point five million
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: acres of land. And he's the author of a terrific
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: new book, The Hunter and Angler Field Guide to Raising Hell.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: And it's this, this very aptly titled book which we
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: will be discussing today. We are going to dig into
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: the nitty gritty of how we, as hunters and anglers
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: can more effectively raise hell for the things we care
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: so much about. Now. If you are a part, or
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: a leader, or a founder of a hunting or fishing
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: or conservation organization, you're going to walk away today with
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: some powerful new strategies for building a movement, for influencing change,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: for fighting for a cause, for rallying people to that cause.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: But if you are just an individual out there who cares,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: who wants to make a difference on your own, you
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: too will be armed with new tools and insights and
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: specific actions you can take that I think will make
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: you a more impactful individual and an advocate for hunting
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: and fishing in wild places. You know, over the course
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: of this whole last month, we've heard about many different
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: challenges facing all sorts of wildlife across the world. Today,
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: we've learned about, you know, some of the specific things
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: going on with white tails, which is our main focus
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: usually on this podcast, the good and the bad. What's
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: going on? What do we need to be thinking about?
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Most recently, we dove deep into the nuts and bolts
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: of you know, what's probably going to be the most
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: impactful conservation related piece of legislation to hit this entire year.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: We've learned a lot, but learning something, hearing something, thinking
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: about something, that's just a first step. It's all just
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: happening up between our ears. It's nothing if it never
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: ends up out of our heads and leading to something
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: real in the world. And that real thing that you know,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: I think we got to hope that all this leads
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: to that real thing is action, action, action, action action.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: We need to take action if we want to keep
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: our hunting traditions alive. We need to take action if
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: we want them to be fish for our kids or
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: grandkids to pull up out of the river of the
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: lake someday. If we want our kids to be able to,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: you know, fall down crying because they want to go
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: chase turkeys for real, we need to take action if
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: we want to keep our forests and grasslands and swamps
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: and mountains and all these places around for us to
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: go hiker crossed or camp on or bike through, whatever
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: it might be. Action is the name of the game.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: It's the necessary final thing that has to come to life,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: and it can come to life in so many different forms.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: There are many many different ways we can take action
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: and make a difference for all of these things we've
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: talked about, but it requires a first step. Any kind
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: of real change requires taking that first step. Any little
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: thing does help, Every little thing does get that ball rolling.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: And I was just actually this past weekend with some
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: folks who were doing that very thing. They were getting
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: the ball rolling. We are up north northern Michigan at
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: an event that was a part of my working for
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Wildlife Tour. This is the second event of our series.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: This was in partnership with mucc A Terrific Michigan conservation organization,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: and there were dozens of people there, dozens and dozens
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: and dozens of folks. I think it was their biggest
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: volunteer habitat day ever, full of folks who love hunting
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: and fishing and the outdoors, who were doing something good
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: with their hands right then and there. They were working
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: for wildlife. We were building, in this case small game habitat.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: There were some cuttings going on to create new wildlife
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: openings and maintain the edges, the kinds like edge feathering.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: There was a whole bunch of creating brush piles and
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: rabbit habitat, small mammal habitat. This was great stuff for
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: all sorts of critters, not just rabbits and squirrels and
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: shoot snakes, grouse, birds, deer, you name it. But more
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: than just the actual on the ground impact we were
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: making on that I don't know, twenty acres, thirty acres,
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: fifty acres, whatever, that ripple effect is out from those
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: actual places. I think what was extra exciting was this
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: sense of building momentum. You could feel literally tangibly feel
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: it when you talk to folks there, and I felt
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: it myself when we were engaging with each other out
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: there doing something. You could feel this energy, You could
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: feel the good vibes coming from taking some action. We
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: were actually doing something that was helping. Who weren't just
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: listening to somebody talk about how some critters disappearing or
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: how there's this threat to our hunting rights in this
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: state or that state. We weren't just hearing it and
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: worrying about it. We were doing something that in some
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: small way was helping move the needle. And that that
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: like switches some it moves some wires around in your
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: head and it reconfigures what seems possible. And I think
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: that action volunteering, you know, this past week, and I
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: think that can lead to the next thing. It can
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: kind of build you up, fortify you, refuel the tank
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: for the next thing and the next thing where you know,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: maybe it's not building small inhabitat. Maybe that's just hate.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Some calls have got to be made. Or maybe the
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: next time it is, hey, we need people to show
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: up at this place and hold some signs, Or maybe
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: the next time is you know what, I really got
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: to tell all your friends and family that we got
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: to get out and support x or y or Z.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: I really do see feel and believe in the power
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: of taking that first step of action and then letting
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: it snowball on down the hill. That's why I hope
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: you know more than anything else that after our chat
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: today you will feel armed and ready and willing to
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: do that, to take some kind of action, to start
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: raising some hell. Because I love this stuff. I bet
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: you do too. I bet you have not listened to
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: me rant for seventeen minutes unless you love this stuff.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: What is your why? What's your version of that story
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: I told at the top. What do you care so
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: much about that it keeps you up at night? What
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: is it about this wild world, wild creatures, hunting, fishing,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: the outside? What is it that you can't imagine living without?
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Think about that? See that, imagine that, and then let's
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: get to work. Let's do the work to keep fish
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: in the water, keep deer in the woods, keep wild
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: places on the ground, and hunters and anglers out there
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: enjoying them. Let's just do the damn thing and keep
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: the good times rolling, because that's our torch to bear.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: There are folks, over many, many decades in our past
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: that have done this work to provide and to have
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: kept what we have now here available. We only have
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: these hunting opportunities, these fishing opportunities, these critters, these places.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: We only have it because other people gave a damn
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: and did the work ten years ago, fifty years ago,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: one hundred years ago. We are those people.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: That's our job now, and that's I guess the message
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: that I want us all to have on our minds today,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: during this conversation and as we leave it, as we
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: wrap up this month of conservation stories and lessons and
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: hopefully inspiration. Let's take this and carry it with us
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: throughout the rest of this year. Let's do that work.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Let's be those people that fifty years from now they
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: can point back to and say, hey, you know what,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: we've got a pretty darn good because of them. So,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: but I all said, let's get to my chat with
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: mister Ben Long, who is going to give us the
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: knowledge and the tools necessary to do it. Here we go,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: all right here with me now on the show for
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: the finale of Conservation Month is Ben Long. Ben, thank
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: you so much for doing this.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Absolutely happy to be here, Thanks for having me.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to get to chat. Finally. You know,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: we've exchanged a few notes over the years, over the
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: over the web, and I've followed your writing for many
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: years now and really appreciated your contributions there. So I
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: just told you before we start recording. But when I
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: saw this book pop up on social media a few
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: weeks ago, I thought to myself two things. Number One,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I thought, dang it, that's the kind of book I
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: wanted to write someday, but I never got to it,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: and now Ben beat me to it. And then number two,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad that you Ben beat me to it
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: because someone had to cover this topic in a book
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: in a packaged way that someone could pick up and
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: get a good idea from beginning to end of how
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: to deal with these kinds of things, and I was
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: too slow to move on it. So so thank you
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Ben for writing this book, The Field Guide to Raising
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Hell for Hunters and Anglers. It's a great read, so kudos.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Well thanks. You know, it's a long time coming. It's
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: been a seat in the back of my head for
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: decades too. I've been lucky enough to you know, put
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: to be involved in various conservation efforts, oh gosh, for
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: thirty years, most of some of that beginning as a journalists.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: And then the last twenty five is well, you know,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: kind of a more of a on the campaigns themselves.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: So I've I think I have never added them up,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: but I've been involved in you know, had a front
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: row CD and about twenty million acres of conservation and
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: you know, and you know, don't mean to brag. I
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: was just part of the campaign. You know, it's not
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: like I did that all by myself. It's parts of
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: ucky to be parts of those campaigns and have a
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: view of how things worked and learned a lot along
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: the way and learned about a lot of things that
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: didn't work along the way. So I just wanted to
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: share that. So that's that's how I put it in
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: the pages.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So was there a moment for you? I mean,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: it sounds like you said this has kind of been
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: slow burning in the back of your mind, but is
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: you know, was there any flash point or an incident
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: or something where you realized, Okay, I can't wait any longer.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: This has to be in the world. Was there any
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: kind of moment or epiphany like that for you?
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: I mean the book itself, yeah, or the idea I think,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: you know, I part of how I make My living
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: is by consulting with conservation groups on on the different
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: campaigns and goals. And I worked with backcountry hunters and
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: anglers on the Lanta Water Conservation Fund. That's probably going
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: back five or six years. And there was an effort
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: to well, they did, you know, reauthorize permanently reauthorized and
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: permanently fund the land of Water Conservation Fund. And I
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: worked with a bunch of leaders in Washington, d C.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: A bunch of leaders from around the country from BHA,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: and you know, did my usual routine of teaching people
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: how to create a message, how to speak to legislators, lawmakers,
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: and one of the you know, I had a little
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: one page handout and unbeknownst to me, one of the
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: one of the leaders went back to Pennsylvania and used
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: the same handout for convincing the legislator in Pennsylvania to
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: loosen up on the blue laws and to increase you know,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: hunting access now hunting opportunities by ending the Sunday Van
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: on hunting and incrementally but made progress on that. And it,
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: you know, it brought to mind that the fundamentals of this,
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: the fundamentals of a good campaign work no matter what
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: you're trying to do. No matter whether you're trying to
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: influence a local county commission or a local hunting and
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: fishing or fishwats and parks commission, or whether you're trying
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: to get a built through Congress, you know, the basics
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: are just the same. And so I thought, well, let's
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: just capture that and something that that people can can
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: put in their pocket and and you know, you can
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: read it on an airplane when you're flying someplace, you
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: can read it on a commute, you can read it
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: in an evening, you can refresh it. It's just supposed
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: to be accessible, and you know, just the fundamentals.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what do you what's the the goal of this?
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Like when you when you look at this book and
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: the materials you you compiled here, I mean there's a
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: lot of different articles and books and podcasts and films
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: that all tackle different aspects of you know, how we
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: engage in conservation work. With this specific project, you know,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: I'm curious what your like dream goal was for this book.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: What are you hoping that actually happens? Is this that
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: you're hoping that individuals use this to do a B
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: and C? Are you hoping that this becomes field guide
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: for organizations to do a B or C. What what
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: is it specifically that you're hoping comes out of this
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: or what does that success look like?
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the point of raising hell? And the field
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: guys they're ising hell? Right? Yeah, and so I you know,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: if you look across you know of any any group
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: of people, but let's just say hunters in this case,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: that there's a a a spectrum, right, and there's generally
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: three categories. There's like people who watch, like see what's
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: going on and like it, don't feel engaged. There people
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: who join who care enough to say, Okay, I'm going
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: to you know, become a member of my local rod
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: and gun club or Ducks on Limit or whatever. And
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: then there are people who do the people who like
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: actually go to the meetings, who knock on the doors,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: who raise the money, who do that. And so I'm
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: hoping that this book Field guid They're raising Hell speaks
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: to all those people and like get more people inspired
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: to join organizations. You get the watchers to join, gets
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: the joiners to do, and gets the doers to be
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: more effective and to win. And so it's definitely you
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: know that's kind of the niche. You know, it's definitely
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: a niche audience, but it's this important one and I've
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: seen over the years how you know, the hundred angler
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: conservation voice is really what tips the scales in so
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: many policy issues. I've just seen that happen so many
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: times that you know, I'm a I'm a true believer
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: that this star voice needs to be heard because we
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: have a lot of common sense. We have a lot
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: of you know, boots in the mud kind of experiences
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: that people, you know, the people in power trust and
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: the people who want to make good decisions want to
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: hear from. So just trying to make people, you know,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: spend less time crying in their beer and more time
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: making real positive change.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I one hundred percent agree with you, And
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: I've thought about this a lot. I really do think
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: that the hunting and fishing community has a superpower as
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: far as the impact we can have on, you know,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: especially on conservation or environmental or wildlife related issues. Because
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: you made a great point, we have that on the ground,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: real world experience with the resource, with the animal, with
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: the place. That's and oftentimes unique compared to most other stakeholders.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: But then another thing, I think and you tell me
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: if you think this is true or not as well,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: but it seems like, you know, the other folks that
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: might be trying to raise hell about the environment or
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: a habitat issue or an animal wildlife issue, they might
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: be folks who traditionally fall into that environmentalist camp that
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: might be a little bit more left leaning, and so
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: certainly those appeals would be heard by the left side
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: of the aisle, but I think a lot of times
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: the right side of the aisle might ignore those folks completely.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: And on the flip side though, traditionally, and I'm overgeneralizing here,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: but traditionally the hunting and england community has that right
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: side of the aisle ear has their ear a little
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: bit more. And if all of a sudden, folks are
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: advocating for these environmental or habitat or wildlife related issues
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: to folks in the left from the traditional environmental community,
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: but then uniquely on the right from the hunting and
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: fishing community, that becomes something you can't ignore any longer,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: I think, And that doesn't happen without us, would you?
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Is that is that a fair assessment?
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: That's one hundred percent? I mean, it's it's you know,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: we live in an era where partisanship is unfortunately very high. Right.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: We live in a time of history when when you know,
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: everybody seems to be each other's throats, and everybody wants
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: to say, oh, you know that those guys over there
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: are wrong, they're bad from America and that's not going
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: to go way but they But still even so, like
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: seventy percent of the legislation that passes even these this
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: day and age, has to have by parsonan support, I
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: mean just just in the short term, just to get
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: it over the just to get it done, and in
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: the long term, it's absolutely critical to have broad public
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: support for any kind of conservation measure to be durable,
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: to last over time. Right that this the social buy in,
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: the social support. This is like hunting and fishing laws, right,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: the idea that the chance of you and I getting
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: caught by game board it's a pretty slim. I can't
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: remember the last time I saw a game warden in
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: the woods, you know, away from the truck. But we
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: believe we have followed those laws basically because we understand them.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: We understand why they're good for us, we understand why
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: you know that when people cheat on them, it hurts us.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: And so that kind of broad social understanding, the social
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: buy in, in my opinion, is just as important as
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: as you know, winning at the end of the day,
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: because we happen to get more votes. But you have to,
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: you know, to create these policies. We do have to
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: get the votes, and it's not going to be a
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: good future if the things we care about are only
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: the you know, the venue of one or the other
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: political party. We have to you know, and then keeep,
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: there are people on both sides of the party, in
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: both sides of the aisle who are doing good conservation
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: work today and they all need to be supported for
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: that work. You know. A couple sessions are a couple
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: of episodes ago. You you interviewed my friend Doug Chadwick,
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: and you know, Doug Shawk talked a lot about you know,
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: kind of the big pictures and how a lot of
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: these you know, around the world. You know, there's a
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: lot of you know, the biodiversity crisis, and a lot
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: of nature's in a lot of trouble getting crowded off
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: the planet in a lot of places. But you'll look
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: at America and you look at like, Okay, so across
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: the across North America. A lot of bird species are
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: in a deep trouble. Grassland birds, for example, are in deep,
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: deep trouble. Uh, stage grouse, say, you know, prairie grouse.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: You know, bubble links exists. All those are like on
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: this steep, steep decline. But you look at what class
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: of birds are doing very very well right now or
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: doing relatively well right now, and it's waterfowl, you know,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: it's it's ducks and geese. And there's a reason for that,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: right The reason is hunters and anglers, mostly hunters and
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: duck hunters. You know, early on recognize the value of regulations,
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: recognized the value of protecting wetlands, restoring wetlands. And you
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: know those wetlands are still facing a lot of challenges,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: but we have an infrastructure for conserving them. We have
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: things like the North American Wetland Conservation Act, We had
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: the Clean Water Act, and you know, the duck hunters
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: were absolutely critical to getting that happening. And we're seeing
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: the real world effect isn't just like history. This is
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: like playing out now. This is the bright spot that
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: you know, Doug talked a lot about how worldwide, you know,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: large carnivores are in dire straits and disappearing across the world.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: But when you look at the United States, you know,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: mountain lions are expanding their range, wolves are expanding their range,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: black bears are expanding their range, wolf rings are expanding
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: the range. Why is that? That's because hunters and anglers
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: set the table with the prey species. Right, you're not
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: going to have those predators. And maybe some some hunters
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: wish we had fewer of them. But if you if
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: you like you know, large charismatic megafauna like wolves and
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: bears and lions, well you better be grateful that the
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: hunters and anglers have set the table for them so
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: they can they can thrive. And so I think we
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: do have that superpower you're talking about, and you know,
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: we're seeing in real time the benefits of that, and
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: I think we need to, you know, really celebrate that
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: and tell those success stories because you know, the doom
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: and gloom does not motivate anybody. The things that motivate
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: people are the idea, the empowerment that yeah, we make
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: a difference and we do good things, and these little
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: things we do like putting up a wood duck box,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: we do it enough, and we'll bring wood ducks back
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: from extinction and make them. Uh so that's a story
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: we need to tell it owns.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's so true. It's it's interesting. I we've
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: got a little bit of a shifting baseline syndrome going
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: two different ways that I think can cause maybe some apathy.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: And you bring up a great point that we need
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: to recognize, like what a success we have experienced over
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: the last one hundred years bringing back so many of
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: these animals, and recognize that, you know, right now, we
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: have folks I think there's a lot of folks who
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: are relatively young, you know, let's say, in their forties
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: or younger, who have never known a Michigan or a
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Montana or a Georgia that wasn't filled to the brim
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: with white tailed deer, that didn't have all sorts of
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: turkey hunting opportunities, that didn't have you know, great clean
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: waters and terrific fishing opportunities. Like we are living in
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: the golden days for a lot of these critters. And
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: so I think sometimes if you're kind of stuck in
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: your little silo, like if you're just living in Michigan
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: or living in Montana doing your thing, hunting and fishing.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: You might be feeling like, man, things are great. I
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: don't know why folks are worried. I don't know why
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: anyone needs to be raised in Hell. Because I'm seeing
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: a ton of deer, I'm having great deer hunting. I've
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: catching a lot of trout. And so there's this worry
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: that if we don't remember the past and the hard
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: work it took to get to where we are now,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: we won't keep doing that hard work. But then also
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: on the flip side, it's also easy to get focused
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: on like your you know, you can get stuck in
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: like my favorite species world and yeah, be so focused
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: on how great it is for white tails right now
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: that you completely ignore some of the other things you mentioned,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: like songbirds, like grassland birds, upland certain upland species. You know,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: there are these things going on. So it's this tricky
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: balancing act, it seems like, of appreciating what we have now,
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: remembering how we got here, not being gloom and doom,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: but also recognizing that none of these things last forever,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: none of them are guaranteed unless we stay on it
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: and keep raising Hell. Because even with the good work
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: we're doing. We are seeing these problems in this spot,
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: in this spot, in this spot. How do you balance
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: all that personally? For you, Ben, how do you deal
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: with that kind of phenomena that I'm describing here?
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Right, I mean I think that that, yeah, that
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: they're I mean, they're there. I mean I I'm guilty
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: of it because I you know, I've made a choice
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: and worked hard, been lucky to live in a place
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: where the water's clean, and you know, I mean nine
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: species of big game and living in the county where
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: I live, so you know, it's in a lot of
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: species that are rare elsewhere. So I can kind of
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: get that, you know, that kind of blinkered view too
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: of you know, And I to me that the issue
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: is engagement. I mean, I think that if people get
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: involved at whatever level, and I don't care what level
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: people get involved in the outdoors, you know, it's it's
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: a it's a lifelong process. It's an idea of like
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: oh this, I you know, I enjoy white tail deer.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: I enjoy hunting white tail deer, enjoy watching white tail deer.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: I want to learn about white tail deer. Oh I
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: didn't know that one hundred and fifty years ago, they
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: were almost you know, there was they were almost extinct,
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: but there were very very few of them. Why was that?
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: And then in my in my journey, you know, I
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: educated myself on that, read about that, learned about that.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: That led me to other writers, That led me to
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: other history books, other you know, that led me to conservation.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: And so I think that, you know, to me, like
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: the most radical thing you can do, if and the
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: most important thing you can do as a conservation is
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: just get young people engaged. You know, I've volunteered for
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: the first time this year as a hunter. Education in
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: structure is a great experience, and you know, I want
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: to do that to you know, make sure kids have
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: a safe experience, make sure we hunt on the US
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: on the hunting legacy. But I also do it because
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: I know it's so important. What's so important for me
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: to have time outdoors as a kid and as an adult,
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: and so to me that the I don't people are
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: going to explore this as their own journey and they're
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: you know, and be interested in what interests them, and
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: you know, if that leads them to you know, a
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: deeper understanding of one species, whether it's ducks or whether
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: it's white tails or whether it's you know, songbirds or whatever,
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: it leads them to so much the better. I mean,
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: there's plenty of work to be out there for everybody.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: So I think, you know, to me, it's just like
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: get people started on the right track and good things
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: will happen. But it is, you know, I think if
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: there's a there's a real I believe in like strategic optimism.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: I think that uh, you know, there's a you know,
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: we're it's a scary time, but it's always been a
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: scary time. Every generation has, you know, something looming over
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: over that. When I was a kid, you know, everybody
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: is concerned about transcontinental ballistic missiles in nuclear war, you know,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: and now we have other concerns that are kind of
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: rising to the top. And it's easy to let those
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: things make us pessimistic or like cynical or like just say, oh,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: how with it? It's unfixable. And maybe it's a personality thing,
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: but I just can't live like that. I just believe
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: I've seen that's like good people getting together make you know,
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: make a huge difference, and not like heroes, not big
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: rich people, not big powerful people, but just like every day,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: every day folks.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's one of the most one
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: of the best things about studying the history of this stuff,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: of the hunting and fishing community, of our conservation past.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: One of the best things about learning that studying that,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: as you mentioned, is just all of a sudden realizing
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: that real regular people have made a difference. Like none
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: of these things we have here today happened by accident.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: They are not here by chance. They're here because folks,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: that's like you or me and a whole bunch of
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: our buddies and a whole about bunch of folks who
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: cared about this stuff did something that's that's very encouraging
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: to me. That's empowering to when I'm feeling ever doom
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: and glow, I remember that.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it can be. I mean yeah, you
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: have to have like what's the right scope to look
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: at things, right, I mean? And and if if we're
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: all like read the media and like doom scroll all
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: day long, and that's that's great, that's the world we
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: live in, that's our society. But you know that's not reality, right,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: That's that's not what's really you know, wait to know
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: reality you got to get out and look at it.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: You got to go and you know, tromp around and
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: you know, smell what's going on and look at the changes.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: And I think that as soon as you get older,
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: I mean you'll see those changes. And you know we
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: all have. You know, change can be hard for anybody.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: But there's like changes I see. I mean I can
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: just around here. It's you know, it's it's you know,
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: I can see a lot of things have changed, like
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: you know, like there weren't any wolves in Idaho when
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: I was growing up. Now there's speak of and now
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: there's lots of them. So there's changes like that. But
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: the habitat has changed so much, you know, so much
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: of the land has been the winter range has been
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: gobbled up with with subdivisions. The the weeds are much different,
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: the forest fires are you know, changed it. And so
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: you know, the changes will be in your face, you know.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: I think, I don't think just the times we live in,
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: it's just like a very unstable time. So I think
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: there's there's always gonna be things that people can get
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: engaged about. And some of them are really big and
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: some of them are are not are more really local
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: and you know, different people are different appetites and different
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: levels for for grappling with however it is. But you know,
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: I believe in making it fun. I believe in like,
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: we're not going to do this if it's not rewarding,
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: and winning is a lot more rewarding than losing. And
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: that's that's what the Field Guide a help about it.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: I want to get into how to win, how to
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: make a difference. But I do have one last kind
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: of foundational question, because you know this book is about
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: raising hell for it seems like you know four categories
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: of related issues that are important to our community. That's
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: you know, and you correct me if I'm wrong here,
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: But right, we could maybe bucket the types of things
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: we're talking here into something that might influence hunting and
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: fishing opportunity, something that might influence wildlife populations in general,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: and something that might impact habitat. And so there's a
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: whole bunch of different possible targets out there. You brought
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: it up. These are unstable times. There are plenty of
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: things if you do them scroll enough, there will be
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: plenty of things you can find to cause you to
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: lay listlessly in bed at night and worry if you
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: let yourself.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: So I'm curious, as you were writing this book or
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: as you're sitting here now starting to talk to people,
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: talk to people about this book, what's keeping you up
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: at night? Is there anything that in your mind you're thinking, Man,
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: I sure hope this book helps tackle X because I
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: personally am worried about this in our future. Is there
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: anything that stands out on that front?
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah? You know a lot of people worry about you know,
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: like you know, the environmental is too far this way,
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: or you know, hunting rights is too far that way.
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: And you know, the thing that worries me is like
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: just people won't give a damn. The thing that worries
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: me the mo I don't think we're going to you know,
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: the thing that's gonna that's you know, just destroyed the
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: caribou and Idaho during my lifetime. That is destroying the
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: salmon in the steelhead that I grew up around. That's
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: you know, that potentially is going to destroy sage grouse
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: for example. You know, isn't that people that they just
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: people care, but most people don't. Most people, you know,
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: don't think about it all, don't know where their electricity
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: comes from. And would rather, you know, save a few
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: bucks at the gas pump or a few bucks on
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: their electric bill, and and would write off a species
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: or an ecosystem because of that and change our hunting
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: and fishing opportunities forever. It just because they're ignorant or
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: because they just don't care. To me, that's the thing
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: that It's like, I just want to like get people outside.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: I want to like grab them by the sort of collar,
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: drag them out of their cars, drag them out of
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: the city, and say, look at this, you know, look
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: at this place. You know, how can we squander this freedom?
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: How can we squander this beauty? And I think most
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: people don't want to, but they just they either feel
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: they're they're overwhelmed with the you know, the basics of life,
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: which I get it. They don't feel they feel like
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: the system is rigged. And I get that too. I
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: feel like that or they've just never been introduced to it.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: And so that's to me, that's the saddest thing of all,
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: is just like people are just gonna just squander what
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: we have as far as our freedom to to hunt
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: and fish, as far as the habitat, you know. To me,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: it's like the habitat is the foundation of it all,
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: just because they'll we stopped to say no, no, we
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: had a better vision.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that that's on my mind a lot too.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: And I guess that that I think sets up perfectly
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: this next portion of your book. I feel like our
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: conversation kind of mirrors your book in a way. Is
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: you kind of set that foundation in context at the beginning,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: and then you move into the tactics, that being the
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: steps to success for tackling one of the issues or
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: mounting in defense. Yeah, I'm curious, first clarifying question of
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: sorts would you find that or when you were when
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: you're putting this together and you were developing these steps
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: for success? Is this equally applicable to an individual and
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: an organization?
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: Is this is this something that me, Mark Kenyon could
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: do something with this or is this more like, hey,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Mark Kenyon, if you want to get your local rod
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: and Gun club to tackle this problem, or if you
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: want to get your chapter of NDA or BHA or
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Trout Unlimited to tackle this issue, or if you want
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: to you know, do something like that. You know, what's
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: the who are these steps most applicable to? Or how
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: should we think about these differently if we are in
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: one of those groups of the other.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that it's both. I think the one
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: individual action is actually critical and like understanding strategy, you know,
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: just like not wasting your time on you know, on
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: rabbit holes, you know, but like focusing and all that
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: is super important if you want to make a difference
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: as an individual. At the same time, you're not, It's
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: just the nature of politics is you're not going to
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: get very far if you're only operating as an individual.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: And you know, there's a lot of ways to do conservations.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: The Field Guide focuses on, you know, policy, how to
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: change policies, which are powerful, powerful things. But it's it's either,
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: it's it's both. It's like, we need to act as individuals,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: but we are social creatures and we are trying to
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: change social structure, social norms, and that requires working with
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: other people, whether you know it's an ad hoc a
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: bunch of friends trying to do something for their local
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: you know, the backyard, or whether it's you know, something
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: larger that's you know, pushing a bigger agenda across with
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: larger geography.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. So so with that in mind,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: then could could you walk me through these steps for success?
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: And if you if it's if you think this makes
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: sense to you, could we maybe walk it through with
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: an example as if like, okay, let's imagine that. I
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: don't know, like either you an example, imagine anything.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I don't have to imagine. We got we
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: gotta get pullsed them out.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: So we talked through through.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: That and like these steps are and this is kind
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: of like the real meat of the book, Like you said,
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: the book has kind of some some you know, throat
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: clearing it first, which is kind of like a lot
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: of people in your audience probably know that already. Some
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: of the history kind of the you know, the fundamentals
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: of the North American model and the history of conservation.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: And then the middle of it is this the steps
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: to successes, Like what is like the roadmap, right, like
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: how do we get to where we want to get
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: to and how do we get there? And this steps
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, I've just like I said, over twenty twenty
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: five years, this has really evolved. It's changed over those times.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: But it's like these are the fundamentals. These are a
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: real good way to think about it, and you know,
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: the First, the first thing is is like deciding what
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: you want right, And a lot of campaigns fail because
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: the goal is just too amorphous, people want to do
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: too much, or people don't have agreement of what they
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: want to get done. They don't know what success looks like.
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: And so you know, dreaming is strategic, right, So like
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: the first thing that any anything is like oftentimes is
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: catalyzed around some a threat or a problem people see.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: But you know, but the biggest successes are you know,
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: dreaming are like things that we want to see in
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: the future. And so that's you know that. And if
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: you if you haven't done that, if you don't know
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: where you want to go, you're never going to know
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: when you get there. And so I often tell people like,
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: imagine yourself sitting around a campfire in five years, you know,
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: having beers with your buddies and say, wow, we did that.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: We really this is different and the world is different,
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: our state is different, our county is different because we
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: you know, because we cheat something and so what would
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: that something be? Yeah, and so uh, you know, you
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: can I guess. One example I'll use is and I
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: touched on it at the beginning of the book it's
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: a real place here in in northwestern Montana. I call
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: it Hubble Basin. In the book was really called Haskell Basin,
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: and my buddy Steve Thompson and I have have used
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: it for thirty years now. It's kind of mid elevation habitat.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: It's timberland. It's right next to a booming ski town.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: It's got you know, because it's you know, fairly early successional,
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: but really well managed. Timberland is good for whitetails, just
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: a really reliable place to find white tails. It's always
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: been open to hunting and fishing and trapping. It's it's
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: just a it's it's also a habitat for grizzly bears,
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: elk moose, black bear links. It's just it's just a
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: really neat, rich piece of habitat. And it's like I said,
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: it's like it's got the ski town that's just booming
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: with a you know, big trophy homes, big no trespassing signs,
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: big like I said, death by a thousand driveways, strip malls.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: You know, you can you can see all around what's
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: going to happen to this land and around here. A
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: lot of the timber companies became real estate trusts and
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: have been selling their land as real estate. And we knew,
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: and Steve knew as a leader in this community, that
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: this this land was going to be on the chopping
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: block soon because everything around it was and it was
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: going to get sold. It's going to get sold for
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: you know, very high sk high scale what's the word.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: I'm looking for upper scale trophy homes, you know, seasonal
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: trophy homes. And we're gonna get locked out, and it
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: was gonna lose a lot of havebat value and so
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: you know, so that that came Steve's goal, and it
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: turns out other people in the community had shared similar concerns.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: But the idea is how do we maintain what we've got.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: The goal would be we want this piece of ground
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: to stay as you know, roughly as it is. Of course,
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: change happens. You can't stop change. But we wanted to
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: remain open for hunting and fishing. We wanted to we
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: wanted we wanted we want to be well managed, we
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: want you know, to be to be taken care of.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: We want to we want to be a forest, not
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: a subdivision. And so so that is the goal, right,
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: That's what the goal wanted. I mean, that's what the
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: what Steve wanted, and that's what his friends and I
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: wanted and so did. So that was the important thing
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: is to have that vision, you know, paint a picture
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: of the world that you want, and then lead to people,
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: show a path to lead people to that world. That
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: was the path we wanted was Haskell Basement remains in
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: tim in private ownership, but in in production. Yeah, the
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: working landscape. So that was the that's the first step.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense, Yeah, it does. I like the
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: analogy used in the book about flock shooting about how yeah, right, right,
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: if you just try to shoot into the flock of
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: ducts coming through, you're you're oftentimes going to miss. You
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: need to be very particular. You have to pick one,
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: very specific target aim at that.
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: I learned that hunting truckers in northern Idaho. You know,
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: it's like you'd work all day climbing up out of
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: the canyon and you'd flush a you know, somebody twenty
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: five fifty birds in a flock sometimes and it's just
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: like the first few times I did it, I used
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: to just point the shotguns and start shooting and nothing falls,
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: you know, and then be with someone who knows what
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: they're doing, and they're picking a bird, picking a bird,
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: picking a bird, and they drop a triple and so
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: you know, that's that's totally right. I mean, it's all
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: the flock shooting, you know, is is is exactly what
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: people tend to do with you know, they are They
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: just have these kind of grandiose if we want to
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: educate the public about the importance of hunting, fishing, or
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: we want to you know, protect habitat and pass on
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: our legacies, like Okay, that's all great, those are all
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: great visions, but like, what does that look like in
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: the real world? Yeah, and people, you know, that's the
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: number one reason all these campaigns, a lot of campaigns
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: fail is because yeah, you know they they people don't
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: know what they want.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah I heard something.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: But in that situation, basically we know what we want to.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah I heard something, I don't I'm I wish I
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: could attribute this quote correctly, but I can't remember where
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: I heard it, So for forgive me if you're listening,
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: But I heard someone say once they you know, to
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: do something like this to make a difference, to tackle
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: an issue, you need to have a compass and a map.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: So by that, you need a compass which points to
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: true North, so you know, like what you're what you're
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: actually shooting towards, what are you dreaming for? What is
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: your end goal? So you need that compass to always
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: make sure you're pointed in the right direction. But then
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: you also need a map, and the map gives you
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: the actual step by step directions of how do you
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: get to this place you're trying to go, Because if
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: all you do is follow true North, you're gonna hit
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: the canyon at one point and you're not gonna be
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: able to get across it. Or you're gonna hit a
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: river and you're not going to realize there's actually a
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: spot you could forward that river, you know, half a
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: mile down. So the map is like, okay, what do
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: I do next? What do I do next? Because I
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: know this absolute destination and here's the right way to
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: get to that destination. So you need these two things
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: and you need them to be explicit. And I think
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: for any kind of campaign like this, any kind of
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: whether it's a local you know, fishing hole that you're
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: worried is going to get bought up and you know,
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: become a pond of a trophy home, or if it's
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: you know, just trying to participate in some larger issue
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: that an organization is doing. I think thinking about this
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: and helping, you know, talking to leadership or as you
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: the leader, being very clear about defining that goal, defining
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: those steps. It just seems so so crucial.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is. And it's amazing how much you
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: know people just they you know, they know something's wrong,
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: they know that there's something that can be fixed, but
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: they don't know that something is yet. And this distraction
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: is such because these things take time. It takes a
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: lot of patience. There's so many corollaries between conservation and
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: hunting and fishing in general, but you know, patience is
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: one of them destroyed. I went on a I've saved
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: up my money and went on a backcountry elkon, you know,
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: hired out through with horses to go way back deep
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: in the bob something I always wanted to do. And
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: you know, there's Mulder up there too, and I'm like,
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: you should, you know, try to tell my buddies to
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: buy a mule tag. He's like, no, this is an Elkhon.
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: You know, Mulder season will be open, but we are
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: focusing on elk and you know, it's a lot like that.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: It's easy to get kind of oh, I'll do this,
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: but they need missed the whole point of the trip.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so true. So so we define very clearly and
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: explicitly what our goal is, what we're trying to change
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: in the world, what threat we want to address, whatever
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: it is. And second step is then knowing your target audience.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: Can you can you talk about that?
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: That's right? Sure, I mean, that's that's the thing is,
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: we don't don't have to convince everybody. You know, our
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: campaigns do not have to be like household names. We're
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: not like McDonald's trying to sell Hamburgers on every on
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: every street. Warner. It's the idea that we just have
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: to talk to the people who we need to talk to.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: And so the key is, and it's really key and
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: almost as key as knowing what you want to do,
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: But it's like who matters, Who are the decision makers,
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: Who are the people who have their hands on the
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: levers of power, who have the who are going to
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: make these changes? And that varies compared depending on what
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: you want. If you want to create a ballot initiative,
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: which we did in one of my first campaigns was
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: a state wide ballot initiative in Montana to reform enforcement
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: for game farm reform, and we try to reform you know,
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: the game farm industry in Montana. You know, we had it.
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: We our goal was to pass a statewide initiative. In
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: order to do that, you have to convince fifty of
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: the voters that year plus one to vote your way, right,
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: So our target audience in that case was everybody who's
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: going to vote in that election. I mean it's like
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: two thousands and so that's a bit of you know,
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: in the United States, if it's a larger election or
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: a congressional thing, it's an even bigger scope. Right on
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: the other hand, if like other campaigns I've worked on
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: are like trying to get a county. You know, Montana,
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: we have a lot of beautiful trout streams. People like
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: to build their homes right next to the trout streams,
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: and a lot of counties have created setbacks. So like's
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: created a rule that in this county you have to
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: build your house so much so far away from from
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: the stream. There's a lot of good benefits from that,
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: you know, for trout habitat and all flood control and
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: all sorts of things. But let's let's get a county
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: county zoning rule to pat to create this this this benefit. Well,
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: in that case, your county commission is who you're trying
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: to convince, and all you need is a majority of
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: county commissions, and much of Montana and much of the country,
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: county commissions are three people, so they have an enormous
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: amount of influence in local communities. All you have to
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: convince is two people that this is a good idea
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: and they have the power to make it happen. But
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: everything else funneled out of who are we trying to
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: talk to, Who do we need to to, Who do
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: we need to convince? Who is the decider who has
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: the power? Sometimes it's Congress and the President of United States.
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's you know, two people on the local county commission.
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: But that's that's absolutely critical because then that forms everything else.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a great point and easily missed though.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, like you said, it's so easy
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: to all of a sudden think that you need to
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: shout your message from the mountaintop to everyone. And I
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: think there can be a lot of wasted effort and
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: energy if you do that, and that being.
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: Huge wasted energy. I mean, it's it's expensive, whether it's
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: effort or money to get your message out there, to
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: talk to people, and like you're gonna it's it's it's
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: like one of the most time consuming, exhausting things of
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: any campaign, and is the communications part. And if you're
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: doing it to people who don't care, don't matter, you're
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: just wasting your effort. And then the other thing people
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: often do is is spend a lot of time arguing
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: with their opponents. They spend a lot of energy. You know.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like our opponents sometimes are the the
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: guy with the laser beam and where the cats chasing
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: them around. You're chasing a little red light around. You know.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: It is like you waste a ton of energy and
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: a ton of time doing that, and it's just a
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: waste of time to it's and it's disrespectful and it's
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: just it's just it's just not a good idea. It's
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: it's they spend a lot of your time trying to
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: convince somebody who's already made up their mind. Right. It's
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: like I say, in the field, guys like it's like,
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm not going to convince you to eat
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: a lot of tofu or to give up venison for tofu.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: I may not convince somebody that, like, you know, it's
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: fun to sit in in a tree, you know, on
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: a cold November morning when nothing's happening. I might not
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: convince them either. But if you're looking for the open
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: minded people, your audience is like this spectrum is like,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: you got your base of support. The people who know you,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: love you, will will follow you where you want to go.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: The people who are you know, who get it, who
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: are inspired that. Those people are really important because you
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: need those people to to do a lot of the
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: hard work. But you also need the the the open
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: minded people in a political contact often call that the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: swing voter. So the people who did it's getting smaller
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: and smaller in politics, but it's different in conservations, like
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: the people who just haven't thought about it yet, who
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: just who who? Who? Who might be with you? It
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: might be you know, might follow your way, might fall
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: another way, depending on who who, Who's whose argument's best,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: who they feel most the inspired buyer compelled by and
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: so those two people your base of support, and those
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: kind of open minded people in the middle of the spectrum.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: Those are the people you need to spend time talking
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: to the the people on you know, your dead set
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: against that's just wasting your time.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So we clearly define what we're trying to do.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: We then clearly define who is this target audience that
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: has some level of influence over our issue and or
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: who is this movable middle who is open to what
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: we're trying to talk about the next thing that you
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: talk about of importance is building coalitions. Can you can
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: you expand on that?
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go. Let's go back to that example up
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: up in here in northwestern Montana with my friend Steve
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: and Haskell Basin. Steve likes Haskell Basin, I do too,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: because it is good hunting and you know, you can
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: find huckleberries in the summertime morel's in spring. But you know,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: it's a good it's a good close spot where you
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: can go after work and you know, right in the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: book the but but not everybody cared about that, right,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: that's just you know, but so okay, So the goal
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: they set was to create They talked to the timber.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: Timber company wanted to keep that that land in timber
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: production because they had a saw mill to feed. But
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: they were under a enormous amount of an economic pressure
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: to sell the land because the profits were just that's
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: where the profits were. So they figured out, well, if
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: they got some piece of land, they could keep their
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: board their directors happy, if they got some compensation for it,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: and then they could put a conservation easement on it.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: They could own the land but basically sell the development
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: right so it would never be developed to the city
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: of the local city there. So the goal was to
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: create they have a local option tax, a local sales tax,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: and the goal was to create a local sales tax
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: where the city would pay you know, everybody who shopped
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: there would pitching a penny for every dollar to help
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: support this conservation easement to basically pay the timber company
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: so they could put it and it could afford to
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: keep it to conservation easement and they could still use it.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: So that's the goal came about over a lot of time,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: a lot of discussions. So what are the different reasons.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: So if you if you just got the deer hunters
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: to support it, that's not enough to get us to
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: that crisp that threshold of fifty percent plus one. We needed,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: we needed more people, and so what did other people
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: care about? And that again is like the key of
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: knowing your audience, and then the challenge is to put
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: yourself in the audience's shoes and say, why would they care?
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: So what what's the big deal? And for the timber company,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: the big deal was that needed the timber supply. For
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: the people who worked in the sawmill, and the people
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: who sold you know, trucks to the logging companies, and
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: the people who you know, the bankers and all that,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: they they are very interested in keeping that sawmill going.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: The local municipitality was very interested because that watershed, that
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: basin actually was the source of their drinking water for
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: this entire little city which was going under a lot
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: of growth pressure, and they just pure, pure clean water
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: comes out of it. If they had to like create
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: another water filtration system and develop another water source, that
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: would cost taxpayers millions and millions of dollars. So you
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: had these So you had the timber companies, You had
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: the the hunters and anglers. You had the other recreationists
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: who you'd like to use this land for mountain biking,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: across country skiing. You had the timber companies, and you
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: had the city and the local taxpayers, and they all
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: had their own reasons for supporting this plan. But they're
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: all different, they're all individual and they don't necessarily have
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: anything to do with anybody. But they developed the camp
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: pain that wrapped their arms around all of those different
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: viewpoints and they put it to the to the to
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: the local voters, and the local voters support that proposal
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: by like the first time they did it was like
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: seventy percent, and then the second time they did it,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: it was eighty five percent of the voters supported to
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: tax themselves penny a dollar to protect this watershed. So
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: that was a pretty cool example of like, you know,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: knowing what you want, knowing who has the power to
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: make the decision, and then understanding how those people are thinking.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, power, strength, and numbers. When you build those.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: There's absolutely absolutely that.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: Group of folks, diverse voices, who are all working towards
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: that same goal. All of a sudden, you know, the
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: possibilities expand dramatically.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: Yep, And yeah, we just don't have the numbers. It's
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: a simple mathematics game. I mean, there's a lot of
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: people who hunt fish it's about fifty million people who
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: hunt fish in the United States, but there's you know,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: hundreds of millions of voters, and even if we rallied
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: all the hundreds of fishermen, we just don't have enough
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: to get over that threshold of you know, fifty percent
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: plus one. And uh, that's why we just just need you,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: just need you. Just there's no other way that we
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: have to to build alliances.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I feel like also like when when it
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: comes to trying to influence policy makers too. You know,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: if there's only one contingent of folks who are advocating
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: for an issue, you might be able to, you know,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: give them a cold shoulder. And maybe that's just a
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: group of people that doesn't matter to that policy maker
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: or to that commissioner, or to whatever. But if all
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, you are hearing the same thing from
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: this group, and then this different kind of group, and
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: then this surprisingly new perspective of you know, from a
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: different group of people. If all of a sudden, you're
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: hearing from here, here, here, and here, it becomes really
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: hard to ignore because one of those groups or some
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: of those will be in one way or another influential
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: to you. And what your personal goals are as this
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: decision to maker or whatever it might be. And I
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: feel like this side, this coalition building step to success
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: ties in really closely to the next one on your list,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: which is building and maintaining trust. I think those two
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: things have to happen hand in hand to make it work.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: Can you expand on that next one and how it
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: kind of pairs with this, because if we're trying to
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: build a group of people to address you know, this
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: this issue, this challenge, whatever it is, you know, we
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: have to build some cohesion within the group and then
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: ultimately with that target audience too.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right, it's all about credibility. And you know,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: credibility obviously is like the basic currency of communication. If
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: if people don't trust you, you're sunk, right, if people
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: think you're a weasel, you're not going to get anywhere.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: And so it's really easy to blow credibility. But that's
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: you know, a crucial thing, and that's a crucial thing
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: for like these where these relationships ships come up because
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: not everybody is going to be credible on every perspective
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: of He never underestimates the power Hunter's anglers. That is
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: the side story we we worked in the Montana legislature
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: this year, there were some some bills that would have
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: handcuffed the local Fishing Game Agency, Fishwife and Parks from
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: owning conservation eastmans, some you know, kind of small government
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: Republicans thought, you know, physical conservatives that was like, why
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: are we putting money into this? And so there there's
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: the bills that were gonna gonna you know, really cripple
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: our ability to protect access through conservations. And the legislator
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: who well, my local legislator said, you know, he voted
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: for the he voted against the bill. Is bad bill.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: He voted against the bill, and he said, you know
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: I would it was just up to me. I would
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: support this bill, but the hunters and anglers, the hunters
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: are against it, and I am too old about run
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: the hunters, so I got to vote with them. And
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: so it was like, you know, he they had credible
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: that he cared about about that constituency enough on its own.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: But in that case, we you know, again we like
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: these conservation diseasements are hugely important. They're huge important, hugely
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: important for for for ranchers, for who you know, and
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: family farms and ranches are under a lot of stress
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: in a lot of places. They're extremely important for the
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: timber industry. If the timberan trees can survive in Montana,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: these these easements are are key. And so we built
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: this coalition of of you know, the people who came
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: a support on our side on this was you know,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: Montana Docroad Association, Montena Woodroduct Association, Montena Logging Association, Rocking
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: A Mount Elk Foundation, back countree hunters and anglers along
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: with you know environmental groups like the Wild Montana, Montana
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: Conservation Voters. All those kind of groups try to limit it,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: you know. So we brought all these different groups together
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: and that together they had the credibility. And it's like
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: I couldn't say as a as a a conservationist, writer, hunter,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: and you know, I can't say, oh, this is important
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: for the timber industry. You need the timber industry guy
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: to say. They're the guy with the sawdust and and
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: his you know on his shoulders, who like works in
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: the woods and as you know, makes a payroll because
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: he's cut in two by four us. We need that
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: guy to make that case. Nobody else can make that
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: case for him, for her, And so you know, and
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: and then and you have to have your facts right.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: We had that, We did the research. We we knew,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: you know, the how many acres, how many individual operators,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: whether there you know, AG operators or timber operators support
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: these things. We knew how how many hunter angler days
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: are used on these lands. You know, you get your
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: facts right, but couch them in a larger story with
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: compelling characters.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's there's no substitute for the credibility of
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: real on the ground experience and having different voices that
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: represent those aspects of the issue.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: And to me, that's why it's one of the reasons
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: it's so important to that we all as hunters be
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: good ambassadors of the sport. Yeah, because people have a
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: perspective often you know, misinformed about what h what hunting
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: is all about. And and you know, hunting is supported
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: by most people, you know, things that we do hunting
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: deer for example, for food and recreation, it's support like
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: seventy five eighty five percent of America. It's hugely popular.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: So we have credibility, but we don't want to blow it.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: And people do trust us, but but they don't you know,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: But we need.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: More than just that yeah, and this really nicely than
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: dovetails into the last of your major points, which is
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: one that I spend a lot of time thinking about,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: uh personally, which is how do we communicate about these things?
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: I have so many questions around how we communicate all
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: these things because because everything I mean, figuring out how
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: to reach a target audience, figuring out how to build coalitions,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: figuring out how to build and main trust, all of
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: that is dependent on what your communication strategy is. How
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: you're going to speak to people about this, how you're
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: going to reach them, how you're going to educate them
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: or inspire them or activate them. There's there's so much.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: They find them right, Yeah, No, He's really complex, and
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: again it depends. Every campaign is unique. I think generally,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: the the rules of thumb are that the most personal
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: communication is the most effective communication. Right, there's no substitute
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: for one on one sitting down and you know, face
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: to face. That's just that's the best. That's just how
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: human beings are are wired to be, you know. But
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: then we can't reach very many people that way, so
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: and we have to use the mass media, and of
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: course that mass media is changing all the time. You know,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: everything from email change to social media platforms to you know,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: old old school media media like newspapers and opas and
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: letters of the editor. Does are all have a have
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: a role, But it all comes back to where do
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: where do my where do my deciders? Where's my audience?
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: Where did they get their information? And so like I
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: try to understand that, try to understand like where, so
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: who do these people trust and where do that? What
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: what sources of information do they trust? And then go
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: there and and you know, so that's the first thing
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: is like personal communication is best. Meet people where they are,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: you know, don't try to meet them halfway. Understand their language,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: understand their their values, understands their hopes and fears, understand
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: where they're coming from, and go there, you know, don't
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: try to you know, if if people don't understand why
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: this is so important, we have to explain why it's important.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: Don't assume that they know what we're talking about. You know,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: use the kind of language that they can understand, and
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: try to avoid you know, the kind of jargon, the
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: kind of stuff that we can fall into.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like just jumping in really quick this
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: and maybe I'm actually interrupting you before you bring up
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: the next point.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: But but when when.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: It comes to this, I think it's such a great reminder.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: It's so easy to not do this. Like I think
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: it's very easy when you have an issue you care
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: about and you're trying to advocate on behalf of it's
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: so easy to want to like bulldoze everyone with your
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: perspective and be like, here's this thing, and this is
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: why it's so important to me, and this is how
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: it's going to mess up my life, or this is
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: how you can fix this thing in my life, and
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: and and the person on the other side of that feel,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: you know, like you're running him over and why does
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: this matter to him or her? And I think one
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: example where this probably plays out, and I think something
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: that is really important for folks listening who want to
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: try to start taking action, like this is like what
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: we do and what we say when we talk to
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: a congressman or woman, when we talk to one of
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: our representatives, and we're if we're worried about an issue,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: we want to reach out and share our perspective. I
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: think it's tempting to just be like, hey, Senator Danes,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: I think that you are doing this thing wrong. Or
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: this thing or this thing, and I think that you
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: should do X, Y and Z because this matters to me,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: and that making that phone call or sending that email
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: is better than nothing. But there might be a better
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: way to do that, which is meeting this person where
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: they are and recognizing what shared common values they have
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: with you. So maybe thinking about is you just described like, Okay,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: what does Senator Danes say he cares about or what
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: does Senator Stabanaw say she cares about? And maybe let's say,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: well with Senator Stabanaw here in Michigan, let's say, all right,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: Debbie Stabinow, you have talked so much about how you
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: support agricultural interests, and you talk about the importance of
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: you know, helping folks on the ground, you know, with
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: private land conservation and this thing and that thing. I've
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: heard you talk about this, it's in your platform. Well,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: let me tell you about this issue that directly impacts
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: the well being of the farming and agricultural community and
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: also supports private land conservation of wildlife in our state.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: And this is why the farm bill might be something
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: that you know, you should be looking at. A B
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: and C. You're speaking to speaking to someone about the
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: things they've already said they cared about. You're talking to
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: them in their language, and all of a sudden, on
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: the other end, they might be all to say, well
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: to shoot, you know how, yeah, he or she's right,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: this does matter to me. And if that's a thing
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: that matters to this other value I have, then I
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: need to take this seriously and look at this. It
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: just seems like a much more effective way to reach people,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: not pounding them over the head with what we think,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: but discussing about what.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: They care about, what they care about. That's exactly that's
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: what I mean by he really encapsulated that. Well, it's
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: like meet people where they are. I remember being at
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: a cocktail party with the with the U. S. Senator
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: and he's no longer in the US Senate though we
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: were talking about some issue and the guy next you know,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: we're like trying to get him engaged, and he just
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: said the point playing because how votes to all this
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: bring me? And we hadn't we didn't have an answer
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: to that question, like maybe a couple of I don't know,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: you know, And it was just like this and this
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: conversation guy walked away and talk to somebody else. I mean,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: he was, he was just they are that they want
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: to know how this represents, how this benefits their constituency.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: How can they bring this home and say, this is
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: one thing I did for my constituency. My voters, you know,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: are concerned about the plight of family farms and ranches
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: in Montana. So by god, we got this provision in
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: the farm bill that is going to or you know,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: this is going to help that, or they you know,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: got rid of this bad thing, you know whatever. They
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: you got to be able to translate it back to
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: their constituency. And so that's that's that's exactly right. Like
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: think about It's like back at Haskell Basin again. You know,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: if we went to the city council and said, hey,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: we need you to put millions of dollars. We're gonna
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: tax a bunch of people because we really want our
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: white tail to your spot protected, we would have gotten
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: laughed out of the room who had never gotten in
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: the room. But when we could go, hey, do you
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: know where your water comes from? Do you knowed to
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: how much that would cost to replace if you have
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: to replace that watershed? Have we got a parade for
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: you to get ahead of you know, we got to
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: you know, make it look like this is going to
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: be a winner for you guys, you know, not like
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: this is going to be something we want you to do,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 3: something so onerous for us. But this is going to
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: make you popular. This is going to solve problems for
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: you and your constituents. That's that's how you get people engaged,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: like so what you have to answer that question, so what?
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: And when the other thing is it's not all. The
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: other thing people tend to do is dump a bunch
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: of facts on people's heads, right. I remember the first
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: came pain I go game farm reform campaign. I was,
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: you know, I had been a journalist before that, and
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 3: I got hired onto that campaign. And the first thing
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: I did is write, we'll started writing white papers. You know,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: I like wrote white papers on game farms and chronic
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: wasting disease. And like I had white paper. I had
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: a stack of white papers that like thoroughly research. And
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: the guy who was the leader of the campaign, Doug
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: Mitchell I learned a lot from you know, took them
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: all and said thank you very much for this hard work,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: and like put them on the corner of the desk.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: They stayed there. He says, Remember, he's got to speak
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 3: to the heart first, it's the head second. And a
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: lot of us are like trained a certain way. You know,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: we're trained to produce an essay and layout facts and
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: here's the here's the data, here's the counter data, here's
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: the conclusion. You know, we're taught to think that way.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: And you know, but that's not how people generally think.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: That's not what people People are motivated by their hearts by.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: I'm not just talking about like, you know, exploitably, you know,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: pushing hot emotional hotbuns, but by understanding that people want
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: to engage from uh, from the place of their values,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: from the place of their emotions, and that's where that's where,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: you know, you have to get people to open the
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: door for the even will consider the facts. And that's
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: just that's just human psychology. We need to know as
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 3: part of meeting people where they are.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's that's uh, something I've had driven home
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: in recent years, just the power of story and that
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: connecting through the heart. You know, there's uh, I don't
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: know if this quotes exactly right, but it says something
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: along the lines of, you know, the the greatest argument
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: in the world, the greatest set of facts, the most
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: white papers, none of that's ever changed. In mind, the
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: only thing that ever really has is a good story.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: And and there's a lot of truth to that. Now,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: you can you can use facts and threats and tactics
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: and different things to build that story. But if there's
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: not a narrative, if there's not the connective tissue of
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: emotion that tie or values that tie into that, it's
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: really hard to get someone to actually care and do something.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you think about it. It's just like
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: it's how human beings share information. It's like our you know,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: and I think I think it ties directly to hunting.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, with you imagine yourself as a hunter,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: you know, in the beginning of our species on the
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: on the savannahs, like Okay, we're going to teach this
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: person how to survive, you know, we're going to tell
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: them stories. And it always follows that same arc, you know,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: like here's a problem, here's the rising, you know, the plot,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: the rising, drama, the characters, the setting, all that there.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: And you know, not every culture has you know, peer
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: reviewed our journals. Not every culture has bar charts or
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: Iambic Pintamodra. But every single culture has stories. So we
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: you know, that's part of a good campaign has a
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 3: good story, and you let your audience become part of
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: that story, invite them to be a hero in that story,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: and that's that's a hugely powerful thing.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: I really like this formula that you end your section
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: about communication with you describe, you know, kind of how
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: to develop your messaging, and I think this is something
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: that you know, an individual could use when trying to
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: develop an email to a senator or a phone call,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: or this could be used if you are trying to
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: reach out to the general public to to engage your
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: chapter members, or to engage you know, your community, or
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: to even as simple as a social media post and
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: you're trying to get your friends and family to rally
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: around this thing. Can you walk me through your your
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: formula for that message.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: It's it's sure, sure, so like like what is a message?
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: And you talked about compass and to me, a message
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: is is kind of like a compass to keep point,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: keep you pointing the way I want to go. And
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 3: it's every campaign has to have a message. It's just
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: it's just the fundamental part of every any any campaign,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: and it's it's a it's a statement that's designed to
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: influence the opinion or the action of your target audience.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: And you need to hear that all the time. And
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: political walky talk it's like you know, are they on
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: message or off message? And the idea is like you
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: have something used to say and you want to get
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: it across and you need to repeat it over and
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 3: over again. And so basically the components you have to
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: answer the question of so what why does this matter?
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: And that's that's that's like the opening, like the bridge
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 3: to you to this person. I mean, I I like
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: the example I use is like, uh, somebody came and
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: knocked on my door the other day because this is
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: a long time ago now, but knocked on my door,
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: opened the door and they said, hello, you have did
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: you have? You look like you have kids and there's
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 3: toys all over the front or yes I And he
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: said and it looks like that do your Uh did
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 3: you know that the kids in the neighborhood walking to
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: school like because of this new subdivision, we have so
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: much more traffic on the street, and then that the
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: kid and the kids are almost getting hit on their
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: way to school. So no, I didn't know that. I said, well,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: we want to have a crossing guard at this intersection.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 3: So that sounds like a good idea, And will you
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: please call the school board and call the city council
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: to make sure we get that crossing guard. Here's the
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 3: number to call. Absolutely happy to do it. Thank you, goodbye.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: That kind of exchanged. Okay, that message had that all
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 3: the elements. It started out speaking to heart first, to
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: core values. That is, you know, my family, right, what
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: what we the week? That's something we will go to
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 3: the wall force and thing we care deeply about. You know,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 3: there are things like that freedom, our community, our family, o,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 3: our prosperity. You know, those are the kind of like
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: what's the what, what's what matters here? Right? Opening with that,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: the second thing is what's the problem we're trying to solve.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: What's the threat? It has to be clear, it has
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: to be understandable, and a certainly I could understand more
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: traffic going down the street, and so you know that's
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: the that's the problem I can relate to. I've seen it.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: I not I have thought about it, but it's something
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 3: that makes sense to me. Then it's like okay, so
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: what do we do about it? Well, we have a
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: solution again, a common sense solution that's easy to understand.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: We're gonna put across the guard. It works, works all
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 3: over the town. We just need one here. And then
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 3: what are we going? Okay, great idea, what do you
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 3: want me to do about it? We want you to
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 3: call the city council, call the school board and make
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: sure it happens, which are easy for me to do. Happy,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 3: happy to help. So had all those four components of
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 3: the values, the problem or the threat to those values,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: the solutions, how we're going to fix the problem, and
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: then the the ask, the empowerment, like what what can
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 3: I do about it? And if you don't have all
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: those four components, you don't have a message. And you
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 3: need to go back to the drawing board and think
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 3: it through. And it just again take it through from
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: the perspective of your audience and that that's that's the
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: those that's the component of a message. It's and you know,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: so do anyway that's that's that that works. And if
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 3: you don't have them all, it doesn't work.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: It's such it's a simple thing like when we when
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: I hear it out loud, or when I saw it
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: in the page, it's like, yeah, of course, But I
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: don't think that we think that all the way through
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: most of the times when we're developing a piece of
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: marketing materials or a social media post, or or have
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: planning a podcast or calling whoever. Like I think explicitly
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: calling out each one of those things is powerful. Like
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: that little formula right there, I might get it tattooed
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: on my arm, ben because because it's so important.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And like in a campaign, like I will, like
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: if I'm talking to a lot of reporters or a
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: lot of bloggers or whatever about it, I will like
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 3: take that as four bullet points value threat solution, and
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 3: and I will put on an index card and tape
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 3: it to my you know, to my phone or keep
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 3: it in my pocket. You know. So no matter what,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: no matter you know, I'm I know what to say,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 3: I know where to go. And again, you need to
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 3: tailor it for the audience. A lot of groups in
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: a particularly kind of waste, these classic environmental groups, you know,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: have a have a habit of over emphasizing the threat
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 3: of like pounding the drama of like, you know, and
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: it kind of becomes the sky is falling kind of thing.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, yeah, people just tune it out. Yeah yeah,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 3: we know there's those sorts of bad things in the world.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: But what do you want me to do it. It's like,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 3: so you have this, people over emphasize the threat and
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: underemphasize the solution. It's like, no, we have you know,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 3: and we don't have to solve the whole problem all
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: at once. We're not going to solve all of the
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 3: biodiversity crisis at once, but by god, we can protect
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 3: this habitat, and that habitat is important. You know. We
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 3: may not clean up the entire Mississippi River of uh,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: you know, runoff and pollution, but we can protect this stream,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: we can protect this this headwater, we can connect this
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: stream to that stream, and so you know, make it,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 3: make it less overwhelming, make it, make it solvable. So
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: that solution. I I really think it's important that we
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: spend more time emphasizing solutions in less time, you know,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: drumming bad news into people's heads.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so so true. And that's that's something I've I've
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: thought a lot about, as you know, wanting to discuss
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: these things, wanting to bring these things to folks attention,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: but trying to figure out how do you do it
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: without losing people? How do you do it without issue
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: fatigue setting in? How do you do it without apathy
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: and folks tuning it out because Hey, I just want
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 2: to see big deer, I want to do this thing
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: or that thing. And it's natural for all of us
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: to get war out by these things. But it's funny
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: you mentioned the same thing, and Jim Poswitz mentions the
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: same thing, and you cite one of his essays in
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: your book. And I talked to Randy Newberg about this recently.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: He mentioned the same thing, and and it's this importance
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: of of hope. You cannot effectively advocate or communicate about
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: any of these things unless you also can can bring
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: hope to the table.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think yeah,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: doom and gloom inspires people. Dooming gloom inspires people to
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 3: change the channel and turn you off doing gloom. If
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: dooming gloom inspired people to save the world, we would
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 3: have saved the world a long time ago, you know.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 3: But that again, that gets back to the superpower of
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 3: hunters and angles is you know we've done this ship,
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 3: you know, we were in the you know, the bottom
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: of the ninth on so many species and we you know,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: and we lost some, but we have showed how, you know,
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 3: if you protect habitat, if you you know, get some
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 3: manners about how you treat these creatures, we can win.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 3: And that is you know, that that was you know,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: poss I don't know if you never knew pause, but
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: you know that's just his personality too. He was just
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 3: a glowing, optimistic person and he just it was just
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: a jolly fight for him every time. I'm sure in
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: private moments that wasn't the case, but that's he just
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 3: ex he just he just kind of bubbled with like, yeah,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: we can, We've done it, people have done it. Here's
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 3: a story. I'll tell you how somebody did it. Here.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 3: You know, this is what really matters.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so powerful.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: As with kids, you know, I'm really I'm really concerned
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: about kids these days and the messages were sending them
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 3: about their future and you know, I know there's a
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 3: lot of data behind a lot of doom and gloom,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: but it's it's not going to it's not going to
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: change anything.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I've been hearing about this phenomenon now they're
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: calling like doomerism. I think, yeah, and just this this
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: idea that there's a growing segment of folks who are
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: just throwing their hands up and saying, ah, forget it.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: What can I do? There's nothing I can do. Everything
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 2: is going to hell and handbasket in this way and
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: that way and this way. So I'm going to bury
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: my head and sand and play my video games or
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: or you know, just do my one thing, or just
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: hunt and fish and ignore everyone around me. And unfortunately
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: that might be therapeutic to ignore everything that's going on
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: around and not do anything about it, but it's it's
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: not going to lead to a practical outcome that's going
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: to be good for in the future either.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 3: You remember that, You remember that Far Side cartoon where's
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 3: like the guys are fishing in the little rowboat and
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: there's like a mushroom cloud going off in the horizon
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: and goes you know what that means, Joe, It means
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 3: screw the limit. It's just like I think it was
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 3: like people kind of do this like that kind of
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 3: end of the end times kind of nihilism, and it's
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 3: just so cheap and easy, you know, it's so easy
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: to be cynical. It's just like it just gives you
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 3: an opt out. This is like I don't have to
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: work hard, I don't have to think about it because
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 3: this is you know, and we all you know, we're
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: all born to our point in history. We have no
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: control over that. But I do believe the best is
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 3: yet to come.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think I think history can guide us
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 2: and can inspire us. Like you said, like we're we're
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: right there on the precipice, and we pulled out of it,
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: and we saved a lot of these things, and we
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: are we have a much better situation than we could
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 2: have if folks didn't stand up and raise some hell
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 2: one hundred, one hundred and thirty years ago. And now
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: it's it's our turn, you know, we I think I
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: think there's something powerful in your identity and as a
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 2: hunter and angler, we can proudly point back to our
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: history of doing these things. People just like us, our grandparents,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: the folks who lived in our community ten years ago,
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: fifty years ago, one hundred years ago, the people that
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: did this kind of stuff, cared about these kinds of things,
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: stood up, they raised hell, they acted, they did something
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: about it. And we have these amazing wild places and
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: wild critters and hunting and fishing opportunities today only because
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: of that, And we are the same people. We've got
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: that same DNA, we've got that same culture. We are
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: those people now that I really hope fifty years from
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 2: now people will be telling stories about us. And I
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: think it's true. I think it can happen.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 3: It's true. I've seen it, you know, and I'm getting
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 3: up there, but I've seen it in my I mean,
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 3: I've got local heroes, national heroes, and it doesn't have
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 3: to be huge, you know, it doesn't have to be
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 3: Teddy Roosevelt. You know, I think sometimes we get in
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: trouble like, well, it's it's the job of the president
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 3: to do this. It's like all of our jobs to
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 3: do this, our job to create the pressure to force
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: the politicians to do it. Yeah, you know who uncle
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 3: Robbie Roosevelt was. Yeah, you've heard the story about rob Roosevelt. Right,
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 3: It's like Teddy's uncle who was kind of a philanderer
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 3: and kind of a playboy and not really very well respected,
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 3: but he took Teddy fishing, and he took Teddy birdwatching.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: When Teddy Roosevelt was a little boy and got Teddy
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 3: Roosevelt interested in the outdoors and went on to become this,
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 3: you know whatever. It was, conservation giant, President, Meglo Mayac,
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 3: all those things that Teddy Roosevelt was, But none of
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: it would happen if if Uncle Robbie hadn't taken him
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 3: out fishing. And so it's not always the big it's
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 3: not always the the big powerful people who are important.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, they are important, we need them, but it's
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 3: you never know, you never know how these things we
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: do are going to play out and how they can
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 3: like have huge benefits for for generations to come. You know,
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 3: that's just that's just beyond our ability to conceive sometimes,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: and to me, that's a hopeful thing. Yeah.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: And uh, and I'll say I'm very glad that we've
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: got a tool like this book to help us do that,
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: to help raise some hell you old.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 3: Guide to raise them hell. And it's fun. I mean,
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 3: it's it's it's conservation is fun. It's it's fun. It's
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 3: like a funny word. Maybe it's not the best word,
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 3: but it's rewarded. It's like it's like it's not fun
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 3: to elk hunt and and you know, get up in
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 3: the middle of the night to climb them out and
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 3: then to pack eighty pounds of meat off your bag.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 3: That's always fun. But when you slam the tailgate shut,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 3: it's enormously rewarding. And it's the same thing with conservation.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 3: There's a certain amount of work to it, there's a
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: certain amount of drudgery to it, but my gosh, when
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 3: it works and you can sit back and say, hey,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 3: you know, this place would be totally different, this little
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 3: piece of nature, this mountain range. And I've worked on
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 3: like six million acre projects up in the High Arctic.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 3: I've worked on one square mile projects in the outskirts
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 3: of Los Angeles, and you know, it's you're making a
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 3: difference for people in the long run, no matter where
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 3: you are, what scale you're working on, and it's a
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 3: damn cool.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: Thing, awfully rewarding, that's for sure. Well, Ben, I wish
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: we had another hour or two talk, because there's there's
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: a lot here that I love talking about and it
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: is fun. But in the interest of me getting my
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: son to school in time today, we've got to it up.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: But uh, I thank you, that's thank you so much
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: for your writing.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 3: Sometime we can get together and talk talk, talk hunting
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 3: my tails more. But right now, I really appreciate it again.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 3: The book is called The Field Guide to Raising Hell
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 3: Hunter and Angler Field Guy to Raising Hell. You can
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 3: find it on Amazon, and I appreciate the chance to
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 3: talk about you.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: You're very welcome and I can't recommend it enough. I
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: think it's a great tool for folks to look back
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: on to be reminded how to do these things in
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: a smart, thoughtful, strategic way, how to really make a difference.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: This book gives you the tools to do that. So
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: go out, buy a copy and get to work.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 3: All right, Thanks a lot man, keep up the great work.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: All right, Thank you, my friends. I hope you enjoyed
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: this as much as I did. I appreciate you being
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: with me on this journey. Over the last month. We've
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: learned a lot. I think we've had to think about
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 2: a lot of things. We've hopefully been armed with the
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 2: tools and the ideas and the knowledge and the skills
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: to know what that next step is that we can take.
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 2: I think, as we talked about on the front end
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 2: of this conversation, that to be a deer hunter today
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: or a hunter of any kind, to be an angler
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 2: of any kind. It's going to require more than just
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: being good at shooting stuff or scouting or casting a
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: line or set in the hook. That's all great and good,
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: and it's fun, and it's what gets us fired up
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: and out there. But none of it, none of these
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: six hundred and fifty some podcasts I've done in here,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: none of it's possible unless we have the resource, the places,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: the deer, the creatures, the opportunities, the privileges, And none
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: of that is guaranteed. We are owed none of it.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 2: We've got to fight for it. So let's raise some hell,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: let's do some good work. Let's have a good time
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: until next time. Let's stay wired to hunt.