Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 884: 2025 State of the Whitetail Union with Nick Pinizzotto and Matt Ross

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Ep. 884: 2025 State of the Whitetail Union with Nick Pinizzotto and Matt Ross · 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, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by Nick Pennzoto and Matt Ross
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: of the National Deer Association to discuss the state of
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: the whitetail Union in twenty twenty five. All right, welcome
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: by First Light and their Camo for Conservation initiative, and
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: today we are kicking off our Conservation Month. We do
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: this every year for about one month worth of episodes.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: We specifically focus on conservation related issue that are relevant
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: to deer hunters and outdoors people of all stripes, and
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: we're kicking it off here today with another one of
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: our annual traditions. I guess you could call it the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: State of the Whitetail Union. I'm joined with representatives from
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: the National Deer Association, the President and CEO, Nick Pennzoto
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: and the Director of Conservation mister Matt Ross. Both of
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: them have been on the show in the past, they
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: are friends of the show. They are terrific. Terrific is
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: the word I'm looking for. Terrific representatives of the hunting community,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: and both have just a wealth of experience and information
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: to share with us when it comes to this set
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: of issues and what we're going to be talking about
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: and what at least is going to lead us off
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: is the Deer Report, which is a document that the
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: NBA publishes every year that kind of reviews the state
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: of deer across the country. It looks at the latest
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: data from state fishing game departments, giving us insight into,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: you know, deer harvest trends, the numbers of deer being killed,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: all sorts of things related to you know, what types
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: of weapons are you used, how many bucks, how many
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: dos aide structure, bon recruitment, a lot of important herd
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: related data, as well as covering some of the latest issues, trends,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: current events, different things impacting deer, deer habitat, and deer
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: hunting in the future. So we get a review of
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff, We get the headlines of
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: that most recent report, and then maybe the most interesting
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: part of this at least from my perspective, was the
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: conversation that Nick and Matt and I have around what
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: the future of deer hunting, you know, what that might
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: look like over the next ten twenty thirty years. What
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: could we as hunters have as a role in the future.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: What are our obligations, what are opportunities, what are the threats?
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: What are these major things that we need to be
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: keeping tabs on to make sure that you know, these
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: aren't the good old days of deer hunting that someday
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: they're looking back on and wishing they had. Hopefully things
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: continue to get better and better, right, And that's what
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: we talk about here today, taking a clear look at
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: where we stand as a deer hunting community in twenty
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: twenty five and where are we going. So we've got
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: a lot to come on this on this series over
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: the next month, we're going to talk about deer related issues.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: We're going to talk about public land related issues. We're
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: going to be talking about ways that we can make
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: you know, issues around nature and the environment and wildlife
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: and public lands, how we can make all of that
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: more bipartisan. I think that's really important these days as
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: things seem to be getting more and more ugly with
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: this party against party fighting. I hate to see that
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: splitting the outdoor community or pitting different groups against each
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: other when really, for many of us, we just love
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: this stuff. We love deer, we love deer hunting, we
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: love wild places, wildlife, the opportunities to hunt, the opportunity
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: to have public landscapes to recreate on. That stuff really matters.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: We can be a part of keeping that stuff around
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: well into the future, and so this month we'll be
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: covering exactly how we can do that. So, without any
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: further ado, the first episode of our Conservation Month series,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: my chat with Nick Penzoto and Matt Ross from the
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: National Deer Association as we discuss the state of the
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: white tail Union. All right with me now this Monday morning,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I am joined by Nick Penzoto and Matt Ross from
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: the NDA. Thank you, gentlemen for chatting with me today.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having us, Mark Greait to be here.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's always it's always great to have an excuse
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: to catch up with the two of you, and we've
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: got a good one here today because this is an
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: annual check in that we've had for a long time
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: running now, but a little bit different because usually it's
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: myself and Kip here for the usual State of the
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: White Tail Union. But we kicked Kip to the curb
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: this year because he was just on the show like
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: a month month and a half ago, and I didn't
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: want to bother him again so quickly, so I thought
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I'd pull in top Dog at the NDA and you,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: mister Ross, to have a good chat here. So there's
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: a couple of things I'm hoping to achieve. Number One,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I'd love to cover some of the headlines of the
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Deer Report that came out this year in twenty twenty five,
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: get a sense of some of the most important trends
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: and issues and numbers when it comes to deer and
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: deer hunting. And then I also want to look forward,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: kind of take a glance into the future, especially since
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: we have you here with us, Nick, to see what's
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: on your mind and what's on the organization's mind when
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: it comes to the future of deer and deer hunting
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: and our role in the you know, in the conservation community.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I guess. So that's kind of our gen to the
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: itinerary here and maybe I'll throw it to you first,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Mass since I know you you get to be kind
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: of involved in a lot of the Deer Report things
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: and pulling this data and putting together this thing every
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: year with Kip. When you look at the twenty twenty
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: five Deer Report, what stands up to you as as
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: issue number one or data point number one that was
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: most interesting to you?
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: You know, I've been thinking about that being the first
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: time kind of doing the state of the Union on deer.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: There's certainly some headwinds and obstacles that we focus on,
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: and it's it's really easy to think about that, and
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: I'm sure we're going to get into some of the issues,
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: but kind of big picture, you know for folks if
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: you hadn't read the report or if you don't follow
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: what we do with that, and it's a it's a
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: team effort. So like basically our entire company is working
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: on that. I I think we are in a really
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: good place today. You know, there's looking forward, there's some concerns,
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: but if hunters don't recognize, you know, the North American
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: Deer Hunter is at a pretty good spot right now.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: We're shooting a lot of deer, like record number of deer,
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: and the h structure is excellent. It's like one of
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: the best we've ever had. And so when you think
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: about deer hunting, obviously a lot of us think about
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: what we accomplished in the past season or in the
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: last couple of seasons. But by and large, nationally, we're
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: in an awesome place and deer hunters are reaping the
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: benefits on some really amazing you know, demographics when it
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: comes to deer hunting and the composition of those deer
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: that we're killing. So we should pat ourselves on a back.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: We should be excited that things are so good right now.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: You know, we do need to look forward. We have
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: to pay attention to the things that are coming towards us.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: That's what we do here at the National Deer Association.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: I know that you provide that platform for us to
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: talk about it, and those things are important, but they
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: shouldn't take away that we should celebrate how well things
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: are going right now in the big picture. That's kind
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: of what I think of. You know, we're shooting record
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: number of bucks in terms of total numbers, and then
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: the eight structor is amazing.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what are we at as far as I
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: think we're right at the record for most three and
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: a half plus zero bucks shot, right, we've kind of stabilized,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: right in that's it's almost almost a third of the
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: bucks harveston now average across the nation are three and
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: a half plus, right, something like that.
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: It was a record last dear season. So the twenty
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: twenty five Deer Report uses data from the most recent
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: when we published it, which comes out, you know, a
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: month and a half ago or two months ago. At
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: this point, seasons were still open. So it's for the
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty three twenty twenty four deer season, and that year,
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: for that season, we killed forty let me try to
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: think about it. I think it was forty three percent,
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: which was a record. In terms of eighth structure, we
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: killed about twenty six percent of that buck harvest was yearlings,
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: so much more three and a half year old plus.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: And in terms of total number of bucks killed that season,
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: it was forty three percent of three and a half
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: or older. We killed over three million bucks, which has
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: only happened in terms of a total buck harvest three
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: times since since two thousand and seven. Two thousand and
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: seven was the most we've ever killed, but you know,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: it was it was close to the record. Last the
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: last full deer season so lots of bucks. Forty three
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: percent of them were three and a half or older
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: and only twenty six percent we're one and a half
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: year olds.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's incredible and what a wild change with There's
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: a chart in the report that shows that trend for
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: the year and a half harvest, which used to be,
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: you know, the vast majority of deer killed were a
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: year and a half old bucks, and that has just
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: plummeted over the years to you know, the reverse, which
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: is great for the deer herd. Right, Nick, what's your
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: take on all that? And when you look at these
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: data points, what does that tell you?
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'll take a little bit of a different
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: I guess the reverse angle view and what Matt just said,
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: And it's interesting. We are shooting record numbers of deer
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: and so this will sound like I'm talking out of
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: both sides of my mouth, but we're not shooting enough deer.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: And when I say enough deer, the biggest one is antler.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: This deer.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: And you can see the trends you mentioned charts in
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: the report. If you're someone who doesn't like to really
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: read and you just like to look at pictures, we
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: put a lot of them in the report. Check out
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: the chart where you can see doe harvest over the
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: decade since we've been doing this report, and you can see,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: you know, in the earliest days of the report and
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: back in the earliest days of the Quality Deer Management Association,
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: there was a huge emphasis on shooting ant list deer.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: I remember it as a young hunter, you know, I
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: used to I remember the days we used to had
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: to get in a lottery to get one antler list
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: deer tag here in Pennsylvania, and the idea of shooting
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: more just seemed crazy to me. But we became educated
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: as hunters about that. But then what happened was this
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: is sort of a maybe an unintended consequence, because people
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: do enjoy chasing those older age class bucks. You start
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: to hear the rationale of things like, well, the big
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: one was probably right behind her, so I didn't want
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: to shoot the dough or I didn't shoot them early,
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: and I didn't want to shoot him during the rut.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: And then winter comes and the holidays come, and everybody
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: gets fat and tired and they don't want to go
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: back out in the woods, and so the next thing
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: you know, they may have three or four ant list
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: tags and they've maybe filled one of them, and so
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: I think that's another big part of this. We are
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: killing record numbers of deer, record numbers of bucks in particular,
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: but we need to shoot more antler lists here for
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: a lot of reasons, everything ranging from habitat the disease
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: management to frankly, being a good neighbor and helping feed
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: people out there. We have a lot of hungry people
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: in the country and so hunters can provide There's no
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: better story you can tell as a hunter than that
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: you helped somebody put some food on their table while
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: also providing a conservation service. So yeah, I mean it's
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: it's sort of the best of times and the not
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: so best of times, depending on how you look at it.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll come on that. That is certainly one of
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: the headwinds. And I know that you mentioned Ki being
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: on the podcast recently and that was the topic of
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: that podcast. That's a big deal and I know I
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: would like to talk about that and hunters can do
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: it that we can fix the composition of what we're shooting.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: We did it before and if you look at that
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: chart that we published that shows the reversal of not
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: only h structure. But we have another one that shows
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: numbers of bucks and dolls being shot. From two thousand
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: ish to twenty fifteen, we were shooting anywhere between five
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: and thirty percent more doze or ant list deer than
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: we were bucks, and that changed around twenty fifteen. In
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: the basically the last decade, we've been shooting about the
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: same number of bucks and does or less doze than bucks.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: As Nick just said, that's something that is an easy
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: I say easy, but it's it's something we can change.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: We can shift that. But you know, it's good to
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: celebrate too, And where I started starting on a positive
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: right and paying attention to look at the things that
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: if hunters want to think about. You know, both sides
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: are our mouth talking about good and bad. There are
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: some great things happening right now. There's some bad things
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: that I know we'll talk about that we can't control,
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: and there's little parts of that we can control, like disease.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: But in terms of the composition of how many dos
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: versus bucks being shot, that's something hunters can change, and
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: we can change it in a season or two. We
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: just need to educate ourselves about the importance of it.
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: But you know, by and large, I think hunters are
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: enjoying some really good things that are happening. And certainly
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: the number of mature bucks out there is important, not
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: not to everybody, but it's an important thing and it
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: gets people to sit a little bit longer, maybe spend
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: a little bit extra money on that gear, which helps everything.
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: And that's that's one of the things that I look
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: at when I look at the Deer Report is that
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: things are great in some ways.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think I think an interesting thing to
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: consider here is the fact that you know, to large degree,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: the QTMA and everyone who followed the best practices and
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: management objectives and ideas that you guys shared over the
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: last twenty thirty years, they influenced a dramatic behavior shift
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: over this time period, Right, And I think one of
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: the keys to that behavior shift, and the key to
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: any kind of behavior shift related to any issue oftentimes,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: is looking at what are the incentives, Like, how do
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: you line up what we want to have happened with
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: you know, the incentives that this user base has. How
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: do we make sure it lines up with the things
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: they care about and helps them achieve their goals? Right?
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: And I think when we looked at age structure of
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: buck harvest. That was a big one, right, and we said, hey,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: here's something that if we change, if we go from
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: killing mostly year and a half old bucks to instead
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: trying to manage more towards an even age class and
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: an older age class, here's how that's going to benefit
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: you. You're going to have all of these different benefits to
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: the deer herd, to the deer hunting experience, to the habitat,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: all of these other things, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: And that led to people realizing, oh, hey, if I
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: do this, it's going to lead to me having a
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: lot more fun and seeing big and having these great
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: encounters and seeing running behavior that I never saw before.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: And because it clearly benefited the hunter, they made these changes.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: When it comes to the antler lists harvest issue, I
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: think some people are not there's not as clear of
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: a connection, or people aren't seeing that as clearly. It's
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: very obvious that if I don't shoot that year and
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: a half old buck and I give it two more years,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to see him again as a three and
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: a half year old and he's bigger, and I like that.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit harder for someone to go out
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: there and not kill a bunch of does this year
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: and then think to himself, Oh, that's going to damage
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: my hunting in the future. If anything, the opposite seems
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: to sometimes make common sense. If I don't kill a
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: bunch of doughs, if I keep the dos around, that
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: should bring in the bucks. Or I want to see
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of deer because a lot of deer makes
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: my deer hunting a lot of fun. So yeah, why
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: would I want to kill all the does? That seems
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: to be a continued challenge for a lot of people
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: get excited about doing that when they think it might
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: actually negatively impact their experience in some kind of ways.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Can can either one of you, whoever's whoever wants to
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: jump in first on this one, tackle that a little bit?
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Can we? And we did this with Kip. We've talked
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: about it year after a year for a number of
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: years now, but it seems like it's not something that
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: we can step away from yet. Can Can someone speak
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: a little bit about how this will improve our hunting experience,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: improve our habitat for better deer hunting in the future.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: If we prioritize this. So let's clearly make the connection
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: between being more aggressive with dough harvest and how that
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: equals better deer hunting and a better deer hunting experience. Nick,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: maybe I'll let you tackle that because you look primed.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: I see you as you were talking.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I wanted to. It's like a bird dog.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: It just couldn't hold my point.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: So it's it's like the person that was out of
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: shape and they worked really hard and they got in
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: shape and it was great, and they know exactly how
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: they got in shape, and then they took their foot
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: off the gas a little bit, and now like, yeah,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: a couple of years ago by, and they haven't really
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: done the things that got them to where they were
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: needed to be, and they'll take a look in the
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: mirror and their clothes don't fit as well, and they're like, well,
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: what the heck happened? And so I know deep down
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: what happened, and so it's just coming back to reality.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: So I think it's two things. I think it's the
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: group that came up through and these are people my age,
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: by the way, and Matt's not much younger than I am,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: and you're the young guy in the group, Mark, But
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: we were, as we were emerging as very dedicated hard hunters,
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: we were being brought up in this approach that you
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: need to shoot more dos, and so we learned what
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: it took to get in shape, okay, deer shape. And
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: then seeing is believing. When we started. It's one thing
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: to talk about seeing mature deer, but it's another thing
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: to start seeing them when you've never really seen them.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: People used to think they saw a big buck, right,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: and it was like a two year old that just
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: happened to somehow survived the previous season. When they see
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: their first three or four year old, it's like, man,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: the light goes on like that is not even the
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: same animal. And that's whenever people started to catch on that, like, okay,
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: this is worth a pound of flesh here. We need
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: to do a B and C if we want d
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: to happen. And so I think our group has taken
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: our foot off the gas a little bit. We're like, ah,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: we shot a bunch of dos. Now I just want
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: to wait out because we got addicted to shooting big bucks,
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: which doing who wouldn't. I don't blame people for that.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: And then the group following behind them sort of already
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: grew up with nice deer. Okay, they kind of got
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: to skip the part where like Matt and I both
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: have a big box in our basements of eighteen month
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: old bucks that we shot and we were kids, right,
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: they don't have those. They've only known big deer and
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: they don't remember what it took to get there. So
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: it's like basically being born and being in shape and
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: being an Olympic athlete. They skipped all the steps that
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: it takes to get there, and so I think we
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: have to sort of re educate again and have people understand.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, I can tell you this. The year previous
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: to this, I didn't shoot as many doughs on my
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: land as I wanted to, and it come back to
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: bite me this year in buck season because you couldn't
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: see a mature buck if it wasn't on camera or
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: moving at night, because they didn't have to go anywhere.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: There were too many dos. Even just one or two
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: extra doughs in an area can dramatically impact your chances
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: of seeing a mature deer. As soon as that mature
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: deer finds a dough that he connects with, he's going
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: to take her to cover and he's not going to
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: move for two or three days, and if he doesn't
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: have to go far to find the next one, he's
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: going to do the very same thing. And so Mark,
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: you've had you know, so many people over the years
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: on your show and people that listen. You know, I
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: hear you and Tony talk about it all the time.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: You can be in the prime, but first ten days
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: in November and go nine of those days without seeing
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: a buck, the more does you have, the more likely
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: that's going to be. So we have to re educate
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: people on those points.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Matt, would you add anything on that front.
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a couple things. I was thinking. You know,
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: there's the why it happened, and you know that the
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: last decade or so, I think Nick's right, there's there's
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: more opportunity at more mature bucks. And so people are
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: limited on their time, right and twenty five thirty five
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: years ago they were limited on their time, and as well,
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: you know time time doesn't change, but there's just more
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: opportunity at more mature buck. So there's that part of
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: the why is just the first year they see maybe
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: a mature buck or the third year they see or
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: something because there's more of them. I think also people
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: are a little bit gun shy literally and figuratively because
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: there were some shifts ten years ago in terms of
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: some issues happening, and people backed off on shooting dos,
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: and we just haven't pushed hard to get them to
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: do that. From the benefits standpoint, to answer your question
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: at a personal level, and then also at the you
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: know the system level, at the you know what's good
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: for the herd, what's good for the environment, there's both
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: of those things. You know. I make it a personal
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: responsibility on myself to shoot dose because I know it
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: achieves success for both of those things. It will make
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: my hunting better. And it's hard to say that when
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: a few minutes ago I just told people how great
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: things are on the h structure side. But it is
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: a it's a moving target every year. And if you
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: aren't shooting at least in most in most places in
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: the country, unless it's low productive you know, areas extreme North,
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: extreme South, drought, laid in heavy winters, those kinds of things.
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: But for most hunters, like nine out of ten hunters,
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: you should be shooting at least a dough for every
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: buck that you take on a property or in a
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: county and that will keep things balanced. And if you
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: don't do that, the heyday that we're enjoying right now
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: will go backwards. And so that that's really that's a
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: real risk. I mean, for the past seven years, five
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: of the last seven years we've shot more bucks than
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: does nationally. It doesn't take that many years. We will
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: start seeing a shift. And I if we don't change
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: it from a hunter perspective and start shooting more, does
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: that forty three percent of mature bucks in the harvest
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: will start dropping and the you'll start seeing the change
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: in it. I mean, that's that is going to happen.
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: I can you know, mark my words. So we need
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: to start shooting dose And there's those benefits at the
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: at the property level and for the person. But then
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: it's also you know, at the system level, we have
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: to balance deer herds. That's what hunters do. We can
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: provide food to other people, there's the benefit of that too,
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: But if we are not managing deer, I mean, Kip
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: Adams says this. You know, hunting is not our right,
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: it's a privilege, it is, and if we are not
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: managing deer herds hunters would become obsolete and there's going
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: to be another way that we have to manage deer.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: And so I mean not to get super serious about it,
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: but hunters got to wake up and we have to
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: start shooting more dos, and we need to start doing
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: it soon. Didn't want to start the podcast that way,
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: but honestly, we do need to and you will feel
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: it personally and we'll see it at a system level
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: too if we don't. And so, you know, five out
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: of the last seven years, shooting more bucks and dos
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: is not a good thing. But that's the thing that
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: I was saying earlier that I know that's a thing
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: that we can fix. CWD you hopefully will fix, and
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: I'm sure we'll talk about that, but that's something that's
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: unachievable to most hunters. But all you have to do
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: is decide to shoot a doe because they're out there
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: just as much as they are are buck. So hunters
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: can fix that. We can start shooting dose. I know
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: we can.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: We've done it before, and I feel like for a
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: lot of years, when we have looked at what's the
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: existential threat to deer hunting in the future, for a
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: lot of years. It's we've looked at disease as being
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: you know that that boogieyman, that that very serious concerning
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: red flag issue. But am I wrong to start the
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: vibe shift for me? Or at least when I'm looking
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: at things and hearing about things, and looking at data
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: and looking at the way things are trending and bigger
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: picture system level questions like you're talking about, Matt, I'm
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: starting to feel more and more like antler list harvest
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: and deer numbers are increasingly becoming that big red flag issue.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: There's a data point in the report that showed that
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: I think the number was that in the last five years,
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: deer depredation tags have gone up fifty eight percent. So
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: we're seeing deer management increasingly being outsoured to other methods
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: other than traditional deer hunting to manage that issue. We're seeing,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: you know, over the last ten years, more and more
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: communities looking at alternative approaches to managing deer herds, sterilization, sharpshooting,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: things like that. You know, our state deer manager here
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: in Michigan basically is pleading with the hunters of Michigan
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: to please start killing more analysts deer because if we
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: don't do it, we will lose our management privilege as
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: deer hunters. It sure felt like an existential threat coming
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: from him emailing the entire state hunting populations saying we
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: need you to start killing more does otherwise we will
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: not be able to have that opportunity as hunters because
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: other means will be pulled in. Am I wrong when
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: I start feeling like this is the issue? Now?
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: Well, no, there's a couple of reasons why it is
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: the issue. It's related to disease. You know, chronic wasting
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: disease is spreading. It's in thirty six states now. Prevalence
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: rates are getting to the point in some places where
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: it's been the longest where we're seeing population effects and
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: having too many deer is a major major problem with that.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: Related to that though, and you know I just said this,
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: We can write the ship on that. Hunters have control
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: over that. We just have to be inspired and educated
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: to do so. And so it's it's it becomes the
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: lowest hole in the bucket because you can see it
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: change quickly. You know, along those lines. There's not just
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: one data point in the deer report. I actually just
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: give a presentation about ant Lilis's harvest issues across the country.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: It's not only depredation permits, but we're seeing faun recruitment
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: rates nationally drop, which means that deer actually producing more
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: of or sorry, producing less of themselves because deer densities
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: are getting to the point where faun recruitment is low,
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: which fun recruitment is a measure of how many deer
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: recruit did into the population. That's a sign. You know,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: there's more than that. I can dive into all the
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: points if you want, but it's become the topic because
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: more seats are dealing with it, and it is related
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: to some of these other things. And I'm sure Nick
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: has some views on that as well, but I think
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: that's why we're talking about as much as we are.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll throw on one other thing on top
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: of that before I toss it to you, Nick. This
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: idea of bringing back market hunting to try to incentivize
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: people to kill deer. That's the thing that keeps popping up.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Just a handful of weeks ago, I heard about Indiana,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: someone in Indiana, a legislator proposing that possibly, so there's
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: another huge threat to the North American model of wildlife
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: conservation and everything we've achieved here in America, because again,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: if we aren't managing deer herds, there's all these other
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: trickle down effects that that has on people who aren't
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: deer hunters, who are going to say, hey, we need
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: to deal with this deer hunting thing. And if that
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: means putting some dollars on top of it to get
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: these deer killed, or giving depredation tags to anyone, or
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: hiring sharp shooters, yeah, sure, go for it. We don't
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: care about deer hunters. We just want this deer gone.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: That's what's at risk if we don't handle our own
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: business ourselves. So Nick would like to add anything on them.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate you teaming up on that one, you
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: being on our board. Mark just got an email for
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: me about a week and a half ago saying we're
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: looking for some help from the board to work on
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: some of our position statements, and one of those position
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: statements is the sale of wild Venison. I never had hoped,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: ever I've been here over nine years now, believe it
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: or not, that I think we'd be having meetings about
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: positions on the sale of wild Venicon. I just thought
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: that was always a protected thing. And so yeah, it's
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: not just Indiana. Other places in New England and other
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: places are starting to put out feelers about what it
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: might look like to allow hunters to sell venison. And
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: so you know, we're not just this is not a
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: scare tactic to get listeners to say, oh, they're just
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: you know, trying to raise our hackles here. This is reality.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: We're having meetings about it at the NDA. We're having
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: meetings about our focus really being shifted toward antlerless harvest
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: for the reasons we talked about. That's not to say
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: we still don't care about good age classes and bucks
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: and mature deer and habitat. If you follow all of
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: our stuff, you see that it's all still very much there.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: We care about it. I just personally posted a habitat
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: video from yesterday running a chainsaw Ali day. Okay, so
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: we still care about that. But good habitat also is
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: an important disease control as well, because the better habitat
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: you have, the less congregated deer have to be, and
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: so it all goes hand in hand. And that's what
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: we're about at the NDA is sort of teaching that
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: comprehensive style of management that's good for all the things
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: from hunting all the way down to herd management, habitat management,
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: management of other species. And so, yeah, we're concerned about
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: those things. We're not just making them up. We wish
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: we didn't have to talk about them, but these are
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: conversations that we're having, you know, sort of a behind
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: the scenes look at the NDA. We're having these conversations
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: about how do we make sure people understand our position
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: is we don't support the sale of wild benison.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, A lot to tackle then, and we haven't
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: even really I guess, Matt, you alluded to it a
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: little bit. But I'm increasingly seeing papers or articles exploring,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: you know, threats to biodiversity and whitetail deer being pointed
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: to as one of the major threats against biodiversity. So,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: because of the overpopulation of white tail deer and their
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: impacts on habitat, it's negatively influencing other species. What a
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: crazy thing to think about when we as deer hunters
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: who consider ourselves tremendous conservationists and people that really care
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: about the natural world, when the thing that we care
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: about so much is negatively impacting the rest of the
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: thing we care so much about. That's not a good thing,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: and it's also not good for the future of this resource.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: If you have the conservation community split where you have
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: the deer hunting world saying hey, we want lots of
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: deer and we want great deer hunting, and then you
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: have other folks who care about the natural world saying, well, yeah,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: but there's so many deer it's negatively impacting the habitat
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: for all these other critters. And we don't want that happening.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Either we're losing allies there or possibly losing our opportunities,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: as we've already discussed. So we need to take care
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: of our own business. We need to right. We got
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: to clean our bedroom right before we can worry about
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: all that other stuff. And that seems, like you said, Matt,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: the great thing about the antler list issue and the
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: deer population issue is that the connection between problem and
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: solution is so clear and so actionable and so much
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: within our hands. While disease some times feels like golly like,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: CWD is one of those deals where it seems so
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: much more challenging to wrap your head around, how do
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: we you know, how do we really fix us? In
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: the long term, so so so yeah, like you said, Matt,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: I hate to hate to start on a downer on
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: that front, but since we are, let's keep on rolling
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: with downers. The natural transition is to disease and that
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: has been a major issue we've talked about over the years. Nick,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: can you update us a little bit on where we
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: stand with CWD? Is the is the is the concern
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: level at the same place it has been in recent years.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Are we trending positively or negatively? Where we at? Real quick?
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: I do want to say it's not a complete downer
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: to shoot more antlers there. I mean, it's a heck
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: of a lot of fun. Yeah, we have more opportunities
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: and tags than ever. Matt and I we walked the
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: walk and we were I think I shot the most
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: doze in the NBA team. Matt was right there Cole
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: out in Missouri. So we actually are trying to develop
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: contests and things even within our team because it's so
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: much fun too. So it's not the end of the world.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I just want to say that, yeah CWD,
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: then I go right right to the end of the world, right, Okay,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: So yeah, we're as Mad had said, we're in thirty
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: six states now, recently out of Georgia, uh, seeing in
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: some seeing it pop up in some other states where
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: it hadn't been before. Yeah, I mean, it's it's out there.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: It's obviously we can't deny the fact that it's growing
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: and spreading in different areas in the country. There are
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: some really what I would call, you know, white hot
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: fires of CWD in a few places in the in
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: the country. Obviously some areas in Wisconsin. We have in
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: south central Pennsylvania one of those spots where you know,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: at this point you can you can start to see
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: some population level decline. The things that people said would
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: never happen are actually happening, and there's real peer reviewed
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: signs that shows that. And so it's it's frustrating for
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: us because we have of you know, there's some folks
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: out there who you know, have a platform that talk
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: down on the NDA because we talk about CWD and
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: we're the gloom and doom and it's funny because it's
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: the last freaking thing we ever want to talk about.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: And so it's just amazes me that people will take
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: that position on it. Listen, it is our responsibility is
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: the is the country's premier conservation organization for deer to
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: talk about CWD and to talk about what hunters can
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: do to help. And that's the one nice thing about
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: the disease, if there is one, is that hunters can
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: actually help. They can do things like fill their antler
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: list tags. They can do things like filling their antler
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: tag even you know, but a lot of states, of course,
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: are like one buck state, so that's just one deer.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: So definitely fill your antler list tags if you can.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: They can do things like be careful about how they
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: handle their their deer when it's down and not drive
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: it across the country, and you know, not do a
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: number of these other things, not feeding deer. If you're
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: in a disease area, that type of thing, those best
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: management practices are out there. We talk about them a bunch.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: We help several states in the country communicate about CWD,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: and it's just about people doing their part and helping
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: more so than it is just getting in the fetal
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: position and you know, hoping it goes away. That's not
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: how it works. And so as much as we can
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: slow the spread, and it's not everywhere. I mean, if
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: you were to just put the little pins in the
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: map where it is versus where it's not. It's still
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: not as far as we know in most places. That's good,
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: and so let's sort of hold it at bay until
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: the science can catch up and we can come up
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: with some real, realistic and feasible ways of addressing it
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: out there in the wild. So, yeah, we wish we
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: didn't have to talk about it, but we have responsibility.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: We just can't pretend it's not there.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So one of the things that for a number
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: of years now we've talked about is what you just
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: ended with there, which is we need to follow all
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: the best practices. We need to try to manage her
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: numbers and make sure we are dealing with carcasses properly
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: and not transporting this to somewhere else, because we just
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: need to slow the spread, stem the bleeding until the
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: science catches up, until solutions arise in some kind of way.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: And a couple of years ago, I don't remember what
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: year it was, but recently the CWD Research and Management
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Act passed, which is going to help us get some
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: funding for some of this research and hopefully fast track
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: some of these things. And that was viewed as something
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: that would you know, hopefully help that science catch up.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: I'm just curious, are there any updates on what's happened
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: coming out of the passage of that bill and or
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: any updates when it comes to research or science or
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: possible solutions. Is there any good news on that front?
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Are we making progress? Yeah? I think we are.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: I mean I think we learned something every time a
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: new research project is done, you know, whether it be
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: an actual biological research or even a human dimensions project. Right,
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: you know, the Research and Management Act remains a good idea.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: It still only gets funded. It's slightly over half of
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: what it's authorized. The funds we're getting like seventeen million,
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: and that gets split between wild deer conservation type research
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: and you know, farm deer research. And on the farm
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: deer side, they have primarily been focusing a lot of
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: their money and attention on genetics research. On the wild side,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: we're looking at a whole bunch of other things. It's
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: a lot broader than that. And so, you know, genetic
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: research that's been a hot button issue lately. There's some
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: states that put forth some legislation. Oklahoma last year went
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: as far as to authorize people to start putting genetically
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: altered deer out into the wild. And so before you know,
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: anyone listening to this, don't take this as me being
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: against genetic research, because that's not the case at all.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: I think that CWD is very complex. I think there
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: are a lot of different things that we have to
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: learn about and in order to come up with something
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: to actually address it. But also we can't put all
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: our eggs in that basket because number one, there's still
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: no matter how much genetics work has been done, nobody
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: has come up with a deer that is immune to CWD.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: All they've been able to come up with is some
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: that are a little more resistant to it, and then
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: when they get it, they keep it longer. Well, anybody
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: that's been paying attention to anything about CWD knows the
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: last thing we want is a deer with CWD on
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: the landscape longer. Okay, So that doesn't mean that we
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: just quit looking at it. Maybe we're onto something and
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: that's sort of a step in the process. I don't know,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: it's well above my ability to understand it. But that's
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: a far far reach from saying we need to start
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: modifying deer that are a little more resistant and then
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: put them out in the wild and see what happens.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: Like any credible scientists will tell you, you just do
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: not duct conduct those types of experiments and put it
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: risk wild deer, which is held in the public trust.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: They belong to all of us. That's a gigantic leap.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: And so we're behind smart research. We're behind smart paced research,
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: peer reviewed, let's sample and controlled ways and see what
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: we can learned. But we are not behind just throwing
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: deer out on the landscape before we even know what's
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: going to happen. Everybody, you know, the creator of Frankenstein,
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: thought it was a great idea until Frankenstein became alive
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: and then it was like, well, crap, what are we
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: going to do with this. We can't do that with
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: our wild deer resource. It's just irresponsible and we're not
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: there yet.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you brought up how you know federal funding for
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: that research has not reached the levels we hoped it had.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: There's been all sorts of talk in recent weeks and
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: months about federal funding. Super hot topic, very fun to
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: talk about. Is there anything related to that that might
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: impact CWD research or any other federal funding tied to
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: deer deer research, deer habitat. I know there's been a
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: number of conservation organizations that had federal grants tied to
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: habitat work that are now losing that or those those
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: funds are frozen, and those concerns about that and the
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: implications that could have anything related to that front. When
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: it comes to deer, you.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Know, there hasn't been any direct impact on things like
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: the Research and Management Act, although that has to be
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: authorized every year. It's not unrealistic to think that something
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: like that could, you know, get to the floor and
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: they don't appropriate the money and look at it as
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: government waste. I don't know, or the opposite could be true.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: So we're all sitting here. We wake up every day
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: and we don't know what we're going to see in
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: the news. And then what you see in the news,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: we don't know how much of that will actually become reality.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: So I'll just speak to what we have seen so
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: far and not try to project too far into the future.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: What we've seen so far is we certainly know some
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: folks in partner organizations that have lost their jobs. We've
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: seen that happen in a few spots. Has it impacted
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: us directly you it probably will in some sense maybe
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: the pace of things said. But then on the other
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: side of it is we have been doing and this
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: Matt is the best qualified person on the planet to
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: talk about our work that we've been doing with the
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Forest Service and direct you're taking trees off the landscape
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: building habitat. We see reasons for optimism with that. You know,
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: this is an administration that believes in the extraction of resources,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: and a renewable resource like trees is right up our alley.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: And you know, mattch leading that work for us, and
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: we have reason to believe that we may be doing
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: even more of that work. And so I think it's
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: a day by day for us. And I don't know,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: you know, if Matt wants to speak further on the
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: forestry part of it, but that's that's kind of what
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: we see.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Matt, can you can you updates a little bit
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: on what the public Lands Initiative looks like? How any
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: recent current events influence that? Yeah?
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: Sure, so, you know a lot of it is at
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: the current level. I haven't seen any direct impacts that
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: has slowed us down on the agreements and contracts that
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: we already have. I do know forest staff that have
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: lost their jobs. Unfortunately, most of those people did not
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: oversee the timber management programs that we are involved with,
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: some of the volunteer programs that we are doing with
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: forced staff, where we have people go out and help
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: and do projects. Was was directly impacted or will be
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: in some cases. But Nick just said it really well,
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: and there's not you know, a ton that I can
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: add other than I'm going to wait and see mode
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: uh we. The only thing that I that has really
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: directly impacted our program is we have some agreements that
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: are in the queue waiting to be executed, which would
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: be new or modified old agreements that have not been
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: signed off on. And that's understandable because there's just a
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: lot of things coming through that they're not signing off
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: on new things. But we have a lot of contracts
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: in place and have work ongoing today. I had an
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: update this morning with one of our contractors, and we
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: have people doing things active management right now today on
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: uh the you know, on multiple for us, so still
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: doing work. We just may not up, you know, upload
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: new new work for the time being, but I anticipate
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: that being a temporary thing and at some point we
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: will have those moving as well.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: So that's good, that's great news. What what about I
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: guess this brings me to another one of these larger
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: federal programs that impacts deer habitat that I was going
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: to ask you as about a later point, but maybe
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: makes sense now. That's the farm Bill. We've we've had
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: a farm Bill that has not been renewed for several
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: years now, keeps on getting pushed and pushed and pushed.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: As I understand it, some of the funds for those
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: programs within the conservation section of the farm bill might
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: be withheld, frozen, or you know, all sorts of questions
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: around that. While we're still trying to get this new
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: one passed, where you can either one of you speak
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: to where things stand with the Farm Bill in regards to,
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: you know, the ways in the program the impact deer
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: and deer hunters. There's stuff in there that's really important
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: to deer hunters and a lot of folks that are
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: wondering what's going to happen there. Anyone have thoughts or
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: anything that you have heard on that front.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: Yet, there aren't many political volleyballs bigger than the Farm Bill,
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: So there are so many elements of the farm Bill
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: that the average person doesn't even realize their farm bill programs. Okay,
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: and so yeah, it's I think it's responsible for government
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: to take a hard look at it and see what
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: belongs and what doesn't. It's probably not responsible though, for
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: it to have gone this long without a resolution. We
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: joke as an organization with Kathery Nappling pull Or, our
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: director of policy, as an organization it works on the
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: farm bill, we joke that as soon as you get
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: one to the finish line, you're starting on the next one.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: And that's the reality of it. So, you know, in
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: terms of deer programs, things that impact deer, I mean
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: any conservation program or title that could impact the farm landscape,
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: for example, could have profound impacts on deer and deer hunting.
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, some of the best deer hunting that people
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: talk about and legendarily have written about is done off
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: of CRP land, right. You hear that all the time
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: in the Midwest, right, just as one glaring example for
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: deer hunters to any of these habitat projects that an
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: uneducated person may look at and say, well, that doesn't
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: impact production agriculture. So we need to quit funding it.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: It's a hypothetical, but you know, there's are the types
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: of conversations that are had that has a profound impact
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: on deer hunting. So I don't think you're going to
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: see any resolution anytime real soon on the Farm Bill.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: One of the things that's in the Farm Bill though,
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: that's interesting, there's a program in there that actually can
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: fund venison processors. Their fund states to fund venison processors
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: to help get deer cut up and also donation programs.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: And so we're talking about the need to harvest a
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: bunch more deer. And one of the reasons people give
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: often for not shooting more deers that they don't need
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: it or they don't have an easy place to get
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: rid of it. Well, one of the major initiatives at
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: the NBA we're working on one is we're trying to
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: connect more states with that federal program that's in the
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: Farm Bill to have them take advantage of it. But
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: the other thing is we've created this it's about to
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: be launched here. Maybe by the time this hits the
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: airwaves it'll be out, but we're launching a National Venison
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: Processor map, or anybody anywhere in the country can go
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: on the web and find their local process, or they
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: can determine whether or not they take donations. Nothing like
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: this exists out there. We've got a lot of partners
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: on it, so we're excited about that. But programs like
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: that one in the farm Bill as well, just at
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: the time when we're trying to lead people to it
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: and connect them to those dollars, we would hate to
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: see that go away. And we say, oh, that's one
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: tool that we thought we had, Now we don't have
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: it anymore. And so that's why groups like ours participate
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: in the farm Bill. It does have far ranging implications.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: And I don't mean to ramble, but we could go on.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: We could do a whole show on farm Bill habitat.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we could. Would you add anything that?
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, one thing that I was thinking Nick was
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: talking about. It was related to the ant lilist harvest
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: issue that we met were discussing earlier. One of the
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: causes of hunters to go gun shy, you know, fifteen
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: ten years ago was reduction if and basically deer populations.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: There was a drop in deer numbers. It was really
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: hard for hunters to be successful in those couple of
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: years and that's why a lot of states were backing
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: off on their quotas, and there were questions at the
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: time of what was the cause of some of these
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: harvest drops. And at that time CRP was reduced by
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: like twenty percent or more, and so me a lot
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: of land was put back into row crop that had
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: been in a type of condition that was conducive to
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: good food and cover for deer because it was you know,
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: waist high or neck high brush that deer like to
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: bed in and eat in and spend time. And so
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: that was a direct result of seeing deer numbers dropping
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: and then states backing off on their analysts harvest, and
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: then hunters have really not returned to that. Now CRP
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: went in a different direction, and there's more land in
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: that currently than there had been at that time. But yeah,
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, it can have far reaching implications from many levels.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we're talking millions of acres of habitat there,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: and it seems like, even though it did go up
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: a little bit from the previous lows, from everything I've understood,
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: we're still below demand. There's still probably we're below what
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: it used to be at one point. It's been kind
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: of arbitrarily capped, and it seems like people would like
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: to get into the program that can't. And so yeah,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: we're talking millions of acres of a land that could
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: be in this great deer habitat, which is not just
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: great deer habitat, it's great habitat for upland birds, pollinators,
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: grassland birds, small mammals.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: That's the kind of habitat that provides tremendous benefits for
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: you know, cleaning our water, sequestering carbon minimizing erosion, a
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: lot of a lot of good stuff there that that
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: were missing out on unfortunately. So certainly hope a new
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: farm bill has passed here soon with with with positive
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: conservation title programs. But but yeah, a lot of questions
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: around it and and on that front though this habitat thing.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: I was reading an article a while back by uh
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: by the one and only Craig Harper on your website,
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: and he was looking forward towards the next thirty years
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: of deer and deer habitat management in America, and he
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: was kind of thinking about how things have changed over
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: the last thirty years and what that might mean for
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: the future. And one of the things that he was
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: predicting slash. Maybe hoping for was maybe less traditional food
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: plots and farming practices for deer and less supplemental feeding
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: and more of this kind of holistic ecosystem management for deer,
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: that being managing for early successional habitat and old fields
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: and timber stand management and all these different things. And
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: he was pointing towards how there's benefits to your deer hunting. Obviously,
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: it's more cost effective in many cases, and it's better
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: for the larger ecosystem and other species in many cases too.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: I'm curious what your thoughts are nick on on the
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: future when it comes to deer habitat management and kind
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: of the role that we as hunters can play. This
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about recently,
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: and I just see that there's this this opportunity for
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: the deer hunting community to make this really significant impact.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Like I feel like we are a conservation army that
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: has only been just like just barely tapping into our potential.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: We've we've started to see what we can do, but
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: there's so much more we could probably be doing. You know,
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: this number I've been citing a lot. There's something like
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty or three hundred and eighty million
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: acres of land that are owned or leased primarily for
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: hunting in America. A study showed that a handful of
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: years ago. So there's this massive swath of America that
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: we as hunters have influence over. We could probably be
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: doing some spectacular things with that, and in many cases
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: we are. There's lots of examples where we are, but
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: probably a lot more. So I'm just curious, Nick, if
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: you've thought about that at all and what you see,
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: you know, as the as the leader of America's deer
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: hunting organization, you know what potential there might be for
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: we as the deer running community to really influence things
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: for the better.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: I suddenly feel a lot of pressure now that you
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: just said that the way that you said it.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Jeez.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: Anyway, I'm want to tease out a couple of things
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: that you said there, you know, so we'll go back
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: to the Craig Harper article. I'll just say that we're
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: we have continued to evolve as an organization. You know,
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: back in the earliest days, we talked about things like
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: food plots, and you saw some big, beautiful ones that
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: are on television, right, and everybody wanted one of these
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: made for television food plots. I'm gonna be honest with you.
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: I got three or four small plots on my place.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: I like to grow a couple of those and take
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: pictures of them and say look at me, right, yeah, exactly.
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, like yesterday, I
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: had so much time available to go out into a project,
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: and I took the chainsaw instead. Okay, And so Craig
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: is absolutely right. We should be building the longer term habitats,
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: not forgetting. I mean, there's definitely a place for food
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: plots and that type of thing for sure. However, it's
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: the longer term stuff you can do on your land
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: that makes it better for all species, which is something
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: we've really tried hard to do here at the NBA,
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: because we do, you know, because deer is in our name,
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: and deer have such a profound impact on habitat, we
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: care about other species as well. We recognize that what
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: we do will help not just deer, but other species.
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: And so if you're doing like a clear cut betting
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: area like I was working on yesterday, it's not just
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: a betting area for deer. That's going to be early
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: successional habitat for the next several years. It's going to
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: be brows, it's going to be nesting ground, nesting bird cover,
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: it's going to be all types of things and so,
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: and it can be cheaper, as Craig also would point out,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: it's a lot cheaper to do something like old field
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: management that already has tons of things that deer want
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: to eat in it than it is to go out
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: and kill it all and use herbicides and equipment, labor
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: and time to put new seed in the ground. So
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: that's that part of it. The other part of it is, yeah,
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: you're right, Mark, there's no bigger army than deer hunters
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: when it comes to people willing not just buying land.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: You don't just buy anybody listening to the snows, you
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: don't just buy a piece of land. You could buy
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: a piece of land a deer hunt and then you're
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: just all done. I mean no, that's when the work
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: really starts. All you're doing is buying yourself a lifetime project,
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: and so you have to continually be working at it.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: And so we have hunters, whether they own the land
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: or whether they're leasing land or whatever. Or volunteering on
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: public land, going out and manipulating habitats like no other hunter.
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: I used to be in the duck world for a while, right,
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: and duck hunters do a lot of stuff too, But
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: a lot of times it's like redirecting water so that
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: they've got water at the right time that has benefit
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: as well. I'm not picking on duck hunters. I'm just
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: saying that deer hunters, in terms of manipulating landscapes, buying land,
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: manipulating private landscapes, or they're an army of people that
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: can make a huge difference. And we're trying very hard
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: to educate people on you you don't want to cut
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: down all your trees and make big five acre monocart
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: culture food plots. There are better ways to do it,
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: better ways for your deer hunting, better ways for other species, frankly,
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: just better ways for the planet and conservation. And so
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: we're trying to be much more holistic in our thinking
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: that way.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Matt, would you add anything on any of those fronts?
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: You know, as I look back at my career, have
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: been with the organization a long time, I think that
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: is perfectly said that it's this resource you know, not
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: only is it an iconic species that a lot of
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: people care about. You know, a lot of impassioned people
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: care about deer, whether you're a hunter or not. They're
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: just so visible and people align with the image of
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: a white tailed deer. But from a hunter standpoint, I mean,
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: we've talked before about having you know, the majority of
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: hunters are deer hunters, and they they are more educated today.
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: And I as I think about my career in this
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: organization's history, there are a lot of successes in terms
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: of teaching hunters what you know might be right versus wrong,
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: or what would be helpful versus not helpful. And there's
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: some amazing trends out there shifting aid structure. You know
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: that that came through education, not through regulation. There was
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: there's regulations out there and in you know states where
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: states are provinces where they're forcing hunters to do one
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: thing but buy in large. That's an education based campaign
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: that hunters changed what they were doing. Habitat. You know,
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: we have been teaching about habitat management since day one
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: because it's one of the cornerstones of managing deer. And uh,
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: I do see shifts and changes based on Craig's wit
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: you know article that you're talking about, but just in
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: terms of people asking questions and we get, you know,
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: requests on how to do certain things. There's a lot
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: of information out there about different habitat management techniques. But
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: you know, there's a growing trend over the past decade
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: or so of these techniques that we're talking about in
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: terms of managing holistically and managing ecosystems. And when I
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: talk about all of this, do you report data, you know,
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: big issues, the big picture stuff coming down the pike.
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: I generally do have a positive view because I do
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: think that hunters will take action once educated. They hear
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: messages coming from a lot of different places, now, not
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: just NDA. They're hearing it from mass media like yourselves
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: and others. They hear from their state or provincial wildlife agencies.
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: They hear from their friends, you know, and generally the
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: messaging that's coming across is more uniform, although there's there's
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: mixed messaging out there. Of course, you know what's good
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: or bad about certain things. But I do have a
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: positive view that we can change the tide because I've
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: been part of it. We've we've changed hunter's attitudes about things,
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: and I get a little bit in passion myself about
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: you know, hunters need to wake up about this or that.
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: It's because I know we can do it. I've seen it.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's a perfect way to kind of segue
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: to the last thing I want to ask you about.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: I want you both to imagine a future, let's say
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: twenty years from now, and I'd like you to imagine
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: two different versions. In one version, we have been wildly
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: successful and we are living in a golden age for
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: not just deer hunting, but also the landscape that surrounds
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: deer hunting, wildlife, the natural resources. That's option A. I'd
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: like you to also imagine option B, in which our
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: deer hunting resource and the natural resources and wild world
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: around it have deteriorated, Our hunting opportunities have deteriorated, and
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: we are now looking back on twenty twenty five, I
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: even saying, golly, we had no idea, how good we
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: had it. How do we screw this up? What would
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: lead us to option A and what might lead us
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: to option B if you were to be in that
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: future world. And I'll let Matt go first, and then
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: Nick you can you can close us up, Matt. If
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: option A comes to be true and we are living
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: the golden days and things are great, what got us
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: to that point? And then part two would be then
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: what got us to that dire situation? What would you
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: expect would have happened in that case?
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: That's a great question, you know, Option A. I think
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: we can get there through collaboration. Everybody working in unison
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: towards you know, a single or you know, a uniform feeling.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: So if we're all messaging certain things around disease management
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: or population management or abbaitat management, and not every but
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: the majority of hunters are working towards that and are
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: hearing the same message come from their state agency and
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: their cousin and you know NDA and meat Eater and
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: Wired to Hunt, and we're all saying the same thing,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: and they listen and they do it. That's how we
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: get to option Option B is where chaos ensues and
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: people believe things that are counter to what the science says,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: They are counter to what the right thing to do is.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: And unfortunately there are mixed messages out there and we
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: need to quell that as much as possible. Option B
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: to me is the dire condition is where people don't
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: value deer anymore the way that we value them today,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: whether you're a hunter or not, if there is a
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: future where the dire condition is people see deer in
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: a negative way. They're vermin, They're a problem. They're not
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: something we can maybe not just utilize, but they're there
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: for us. They're a valuable natural resource for everybody to enjoy,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: to look at, to harvest and eat, you know, to
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: just recreate around, and they make our lives better. That
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: is the dire thing that I think would end up happening.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: And unfortunately, there are things that might get.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: Us there.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: Too many deer, them ruining the environment because they eat everything,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: you know, invasive species issues, disease issues, zoanotic disease issues
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: where we might come down with something, and market hunting
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: where they're just valued as something that might not be
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: but they are. But I believe in us, I believe
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: in society. I mean, as crazy as things are today
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: in twenty twenty five, there are some uniform things that
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: I know that you know, the hunting and conservation community
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: can come together, and I think the people and the
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: systems and the organizations that have the loudest megaphone as
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: long as we're all on the same page and saying
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: the same thing when it comes to these issues, we
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: can get to a that's what I think.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: Love it, Nick, What are your thoughts on those two?
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad you made Matt go first. He did
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: such a good job. I can just sort of coast
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: in here. Yeah, I mean, I'll take a little bit
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: different swing of it. Swing at it. We're probably going
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: to say the same thing, maybe just in a different way.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: We were just.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: Talking about habitat a little bit ago. And I think
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: if we can accomplish a the sunshine scenario, if people
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: begin to understand that a good quality deer and good
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: quality hunting, a good quality deer are actually a symptom,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: They're a symptom of something else. There are a symptom
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: of being a good steward of the land and good habitat.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: And so I think unintended consequence of the earliest days
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: of this organization was I think that the animal became
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: the focus. Not from an organizational standpoint. QTMA from day
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: one talked about like build habitat, YadA, YadA, YadA, but
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: from the outsider perspective myself included when I first heard
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: of the QTMA and this idea of older deer, Like
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: I was so focused on the deer that I failed
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: to understand everything around that deer, and that's what really matters.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: It's everything around the deer that matters. And so I
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: think that we will continue to educate to people to
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: help bring people around to this idea that good deer
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: are a symptom of good habitat and good stewardship. And
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: I am, like Madam, very optimistic. Hunters have shown forever
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: that they're willing to rise to the occasion and do that.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: And also that you don't have to you don't have
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: to own land to do this. We've done many projects. Frankly,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: all of that's work in the Forestry Initiative is all
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: public land. We've done through our branches and personally been
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: part of many mark you as well, you know from
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: from uh You know, all of your great work and
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: messaging is done on land that we all own collectively
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: private their public land. And so you don't have to
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: own land to do it. You just have to say,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: you know what, I want to be part of what's
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: really at play here, and that's good habitat, good stewardship,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: and a symptom of that is going to be good
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: deer and good deer hunting. And then the other part
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: I'll touch on more on the uh. You know, if
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: things don't go well, there are sort of negative anti
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: messaging against things like we're talking about there against CWD,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: about anything that's bad news. There's a segment out there
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: that they want to just downplay it, and it's not real,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: and it's really sad, and it's really short sighted because
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: like you know what, it might might we might sell
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: less magazines or write less articles, or we might you know,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: less people might listen to what I have to say
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: because they don't hunt anymore. They're mad about CW. That
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: is so short sighted and so sad in my view,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: Like we can have all the things. It is plentiful
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: out there we can talk about. We do it. We
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: do it every single day at the National Deer Association.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: We talk about the stuff that we don't want to
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: talk about necessarily but have to, and we talk about
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: all the fun stuff too that you can do. You
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: can do both, and I would like us all to
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: do both and do both together. It can be tough love,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: right Like your parent probably shouldn't be your best friend.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: If that's the case, there's probably not a whole lot
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: of parenting going on. So I think you can have
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: tough love no matter what platform you have. You know,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: if you're a writer and you're concerned about selling articles,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: I think you can sell a heck of a lot
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: of articles being able to talk about all the things
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: and people will still love you and respect you for that.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: And so I would say that if we start falling
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: into these traps like we don't need to care about
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: CWD or this is all or that. One of that
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: always blows my mind is like this is a big
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: money maker, Like, dude, I'm telling you right now, CWD is.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: We would be working on far better things if we
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: didn't have to work on that, Okay, And so that's
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: what we want to do. We want to work on
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: the fun things and do the fun things. So it
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: can be tough love sometimes.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: We're not always the sexiest, flashiest message. At times. We
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: can be sort of the no fund zone, you know,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: because we don't always tell people what they want to hear.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: But I don't think we'd be responsible if we were
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: just you know, being everybody's best friend is a sort
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: of a parent to dear organization, So a little bit
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: of a soapbox rant, but I think your question sort
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: of led me right to that.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: Point, important, important point to make, and I will you know,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: as a deer hunter myself who learned a whole heck
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: of a lot from your organization over the last twenty years,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: I can personally say that while there's been the occasional
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: not so fun topic, I've had a whole hell of
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: a lot of fun along the way too, and much
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: of it has been because of the great work that
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: you guys have been doing, so so thank you for
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: that over the many long years, and thank you for
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: sharing all of this here today. Real quick, Can you
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: Nick give us a quick reminder of where we can
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: connect with the NDA, how we can become a member
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: or see the twenty twenty five Deer Report and.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: Full Yeah, absolutely deer reports freed everybody. By the way,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: you can just download that on our website. Just type
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: deer Report in the search Boxdear Association dot com. Whether
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: you become a member or not, that's freed to anybody.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: We encourage you to check that out. If you were
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: so inclined to become a member, you can also just
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: go to our website and there's a real easy to
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: find join button there. You can join for as little
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: as zero and become just a basic member and get
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: our newsletter every week, or you can become a Premium
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: member you get some other benefits, and you can become
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: a life member too. I got one of those in
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: my inbox over the weekend. I'm looking forward to responding
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: to and so yeah, I mean again talking about symptoms
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: and whatnot. I think us being good stewards of our
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: mission is the most important thing. A symptom of that
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: is we get people that join us and want to
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: do a little bit more for deer hunting than just
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: go out and pull a trigger and release an arrow.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: So we're going to focus on being really good at
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: our mission and we hope that compels you to want
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: to be part of it in some bigger way.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: Amazing. Well, I appreciate everything you guys do. I appreciate
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: you being here today and look forward to another chat soon.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: We appreciate you Mark, thanks for the opportunity.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: Absolutely Thanks Mark.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: All right, and that is a wrap. I appreciate you
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: being here with me. Thank you for joining me and
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: being a part of this community until next time, Stay
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: wired to hunt,