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Ep. 123: The Sportsmen's Alliance · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is the me Eating podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening. Don't meet
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: e podcast. You can't predict anything. Okay, we should probably
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: start with a mega round of of introductions. The machines
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: on right, Honny, Yes, a mega round of introduction. My
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: job is done? Yeah? Anyone Yeah? Anyone out taking nap um? Yeah?
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Can you guys do some introductions kind of what you do.
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  Speaker 1: We're at We're at your world headquarters, national headquarters. Absolutely
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  Speaker 1: Sportsman's Alliance. Who wants to go first? You guys are
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  Speaker 1: all jesting to each other. Go ahead. I'm Brian Lynn,
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  Speaker 1: Vice president Marketing Communications. So website, social media, print, anything
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  Speaker 1: that goes out to the public comes through our department
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  Speaker 1: and edit it and put it out there for consumption.
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  Speaker 1: So the United States Sportsman's Alliance and you guys are
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  Speaker 1: spread out a little bit because you're out west. I'm
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  Speaker 1: out west, yeah, Spolkano, Washington, Uh yeah, so and uh
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  Speaker 1: we're sitting right now in Columbus, Ohio, which is where
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  Speaker 1: it all began, which we'll get into in a minute. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: and go ahead. Sean current Vice president Membership and Development.
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  Speaker 1: So everything from individual members, to business partners, to our
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  Speaker 1: our donors, fundraising events, anything that helps bring revenue to
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  Speaker 1: the organization to fund the mission. Finally, Avenge using Felled
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  Speaker 1: President CEO, I wear a couple of different hats right now.
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  Speaker 1: So I obviously have the leadership role, but I'm also
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  Speaker 1: still in charge of our day to day government affairs work.
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  Speaker 1: So all of our core mission stuff are our legislative issues,
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  Speaker 1: are are lobbying, our balt initiative work, and our litigation team.
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  Speaker 1: Is government affairs mean dealing with government at times? Yeah, absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: So you know it's it's it's for us we call
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  Speaker 1: our core mission, right and so you know when you're
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  Speaker 1: doing lobbying, when you're doing the legislative work, either in
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  Speaker 1: the state capitals or in or in d C. Um,
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  Speaker 1: certainly it's dealing with the branches of government that that
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  Speaker 1: deal with legislation. UM. In other areas, that's dealing with
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  Speaker 1: maybe the judicial branch for our litigation work. Uh. And
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  Speaker 1: then finally, you know, the ballot initiative work, the stuff
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  Speaker 1: that we've done in the different ballot issues across the country.
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  Speaker 1: Historically we've done a lot of ballot to shoe work. UM,
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  Speaker 1: it is dealing with the government. Really it's it's more
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  Speaker 1: of a legislative issue that's just before the people. Then,
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  Speaker 1: all right, and we have, of course, tell us Kevin
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  Speaker 1: Kevin Murphy, the world's greatest small game hunters here and uh,
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  Speaker 1: Ryan Callahan, what do you do? You do you want
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: to introduce yourself, say anything about yourself? No, no, I
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  Speaker 1: don't Ryan Callahan from First Light World headquarters and catch
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  Speaker 1: him ido. Uh all right, So let's say let's do this.
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  Speaker 1: Um give like it. Give me the one liner. What's
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the one liner of the Sportsman Alliance? Like when someone says,
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  Speaker 1: hey man, what's the Sportsman Alliance? We're we're in business
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  Speaker 1: to protect hunting, fishing, and trapping. That's it. That's a
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  Speaker 1: great one liner. That's it. That's why we exist. That's
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  Speaker 1: why we were founded forty years ago right here in Ohio?
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  Speaker 1: Was it forty years ago? Nine seventy eight? Yep, there
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  Speaker 1: was a ballot issue in the state of Ohio, the
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  Speaker 1: band trapping, which and that was like the Great fur
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  Speaker 1: that was the beginning of the Great fur boom. Yea,
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  Speaker 1: so it put people like the great fur boom, meaning
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  Speaker 1: like fur price is kind of skyrocketed late seventies early
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: eighties and what it put trapping kind of it made
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  Speaker 1: like people aware of trapping. Somehow, it didn't get coincided
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  Speaker 1: with the rise of the animal rights movement, the radical
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: animal rights movement, and and and these folks who who
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: are obviously diametrically opposed of those kinds of activities, and
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  Speaker 1: so those who things kind of emerged about the same
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: time the late six late seventies and into the eighties,
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  Speaker 1: and that's that's kind of the genesis of where we
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  Speaker 1: came from. Was was working on those types of issues.
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  Speaker 1: What was that band? Was that a comprehensive band. It
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  Speaker 1: was kind of like a whittle in a way band. Know,
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  Speaker 1: it was a pretty pretty comprehensive band. It was a
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  Speaker 1: statewide ballot in missive hearing on how that would have
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  Speaker 1: banned trapping, So, I mean it would have been kind
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  Speaker 1: of the first entry into the the all out banned
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  Speaker 1: world for the antics. Was that the first state they
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  Speaker 1: ever went after? You know, I don't know if it
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  Speaker 1: was the first one, um it was certainly the first
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  Speaker 1: major one following the victory. We weren't even an organization
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  Speaker 1: at the point, right, were just the founders of of
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  Speaker 1: what has become the Sportsmen's Alliance were the folks who
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  Speaker 1: kind of organized sportsman in the state of Ohio, ran
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  Speaker 1: the campaign, raised the money, did the work needed to
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  Speaker 1: beat that thing at the ballot. Uh. And then after
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  Speaker 1: after winning, you know, they started getting phone calls from
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  Speaker 1: all over all over the country. I wondering how they
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  Speaker 1: did it, How did you do it? Can you come
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  Speaker 1: out here and help us. We've got these guys trying
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  Speaker 1: to do this. These guys are trying to do that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, And and that wasn't I mean, the animal
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  Speaker 1: rights movement hasn't gone away, and they're not gonna go away.
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  Speaker 1: You know. Just because they lost, he doesn't mean they're
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  Speaker 1: not going to try it in California or Oregon or
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  Speaker 1: Missouri or where else. So why Ohio back then, I
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: don't know. It's a good question. There's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: famous trappers that came out of Ohio. When I when
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I started for trapping UM and set my first muskrat
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  Speaker 1: trap in fur. And remember like so many of the
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: books I would have about trapping would be from guys
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  Speaker 1: down here. I mean, Ohio was an interesting state, right
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  Speaker 1: We've got a lot of um, We've got a lot
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  Speaker 1: of open spaces, but there's still a lot of urban
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  Speaker 1: communities in the state. There's still a lot of major
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  Speaker 1: metropolitan areas that that might not understand trapping, that might
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: not understand the benefits to wildlife and the benefits to
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  Speaker 1: uh two people even of of those kinds of practices.
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  Speaker 1: And so it's a natural natural target has been a
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  Speaker 1: target a number of times from the antis over the years.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I heard explain to me one time that
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  Speaker 1: Colorado lost, you know, some of their trapping rights. And
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  Speaker 1: it happens sort of at the minute that Denver and
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Fort Collins comprise of the population, like just speaking rough terms,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: it sort of like this tipping point where Denver and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Fort Collins sort of like made up the majority of Colorado,
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  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you started to see the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: tables turned against sportsmen absolutely, especially as you talk about
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: ballot initiatives, right, I mean, you're talking about trying to
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  Speaker 1: convince fifty point one percent of the people to vote
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  Speaker 1: a certain way, and and you're already starting behind the
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: eight ball when you when when it comes to trapping issues,
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to big predator issues, those kinds of
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  Speaker 1: things on the ballot. You know a lot of times
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  Speaker 1: you do the pre pre issue polling. Sportsmen are way down,
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  Speaker 1: you know, hunters are way down. You've got to call
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  Speaker 1: your way back. And you do it through through advertising
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  Speaker 1: and television and and word of mouth and all these
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: different tactics that are are used in a campaign. But
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: oftentimes you're you're starting underwater. Yeah. It's funny that when
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: you when you see, like if you go to people,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: if you pull Americans or go to different states and
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  Speaker 1: pull people and say like, do you support regulated hunting?
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  Speaker 1: Overwhelming majorities of people we'll always say they'll say yes, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But then when you start getting into when you start
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  Speaker 1: pulling down, the more specific you get, the more people
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: are like, wow, yeah, I don't know about that. Right,
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  Speaker 1: they agree with the concept, But then you can, depending
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  Speaker 1: on how you articulate these particular activities, they start becoming like, um,
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  Speaker 1: they start doing sort of a moral triage on each
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  Speaker 1: issue and sort of like casting opinion on it, even
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  Speaker 1: though it might not reflect like the main point they
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  Speaker 1: were trying to make that they support it. Um was
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  Speaker 1: the Ohio Okay, so when the Ohio band came out,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: here's what here's what I want to get that I
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  Speaker 1: want to get that that that you your organization primarily
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  Speaker 1: goes head to head with Humane Society United States. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: is that generally like that's the general adversary. Yeah, that's
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  Speaker 1: certainly the biggest. I mean, they're certainly the most well
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  Speaker 1: funded um animal rights an anti hunting organization nationally and internationally.
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  Speaker 1: And was that the case even in the late seventies. No,
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  Speaker 1: they they've grown. I mean they've been around for a
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  Speaker 1: long time, but they've grown and they've swallowed up other organizations.
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  Speaker 1: They've they've combined with Doris Day Animal League, they've combined
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  Speaker 1: with I believe the Fund for Animals and others over
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  Speaker 1: the years. But today they they certainly are the biggest
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  Speaker 1: and the most well funded. There's like it's I think
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  Speaker 1: it's a ton of confusion that people have, Like your
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  Speaker 1: average Joe Blow has a lot of confusion about what
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  Speaker 1: the Humane Society does. I think if you go to
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  Speaker 1: most people, they think it's about like taking care of
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  Speaker 1: of sheltering cats and cats and dogs. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: I hate to give credit where credits due, but they
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  Speaker 1: did a masterful job of mainstreaming their immage, right, They've
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  Speaker 1: done a masterful job of co opting that term the
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  Speaker 1: local humane Society is the guys who rescue cats and dogs.
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  Speaker 1: Like you said, it's where you go to get a
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  Speaker 1: shelter animal if you if you need a pet. They've
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: taken that and they've they've they've they've used that to
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  Speaker 1: wrap their radical agenda, and so they use that moniker
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  Speaker 1: to use that name as a way to cover up
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  Speaker 1: really what the true agenda of the organizations. They don't
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  Speaker 1: run animal shelters, you know, they don't run pet shelters.
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  Speaker 1: They they're hardly doing that kind of work at all.
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  Speaker 1: They're they're a policy driven an organization that's based in Washington,
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  Speaker 1: d C. But when people say the local if someone says,
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  Speaker 1: like the local Humane Society is that fundamentally distinct from
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  Speaker 1: hs US. Absolutely, they're not associated at all. There's no association. No.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of the local he made sides actually are
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  Speaker 1: are are frustrated by by h s U s by
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the by the funding side of it, right, because you
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: get people who see their commercials on TV. Right, you
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  Speaker 1: put a sad dog, mangy dog in with some sad
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  Speaker 1: music and you run a commercial. You get nineteen dollars
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  Speaker 1: a month out of it, and all this money flows
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: up to Washington, d C. It's not flowing into local shelters.
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  Speaker 1: It's not it's not saving cats and dogs. It's pushing,
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  Speaker 1: pushing these these these policy agendas. See here, I am
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: talking about how it's annoying that people are confused about it.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: But I'm confused about it because I thought there was
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: some of So there's none there. It's little h in
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: capital h. You know, your local shelters are dependent upon
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: donations and local taxes, That's it, and they're struggling society.
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  Speaker 1: The United States, less than one percent of their budget
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  Speaker 1: goes to grants or any kind of support for local shelters.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Theres opting this message, Yes, less than one percent according
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: to their tax returns, and they've co opted it, and
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: they've they're using to fund ballot initiatives or lobbying to
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: stop hunting, trapping and big egg cal How familiar with you?
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: How checked out are you on that enough to not
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: object to anything that's being said. I'm not asking, I'm
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: just doing a guy. I'm doing a man on the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: street right now. Yeah, I'm like stopping you on the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: street to say, hey, man, well I guess I do
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: want to know, like where the no kill shelter comes in. So,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: you know, local shelters a place where you go get
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: your your you know, discarded puppy. Um, some are kill shelters,
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  Speaker 1: some are no kill shelters, and I know that's always
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: for funding, A big uh, a big issue, you know. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And so is is a no kill shelter associated with
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  Speaker 1: any organizations specifically or is that just something done on
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  Speaker 1: the local levels or local levels decisions. You know, there'll
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: be parent groups that will run shelters is no kill.
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  Speaker 1: But you know, as far as the Humane Society, they
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: have zero connection to any shelter the h So let's
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: say that we're saying this is our little rule here
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: when we we'll say h s U S how's that?
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: And by that we mean upper case Humane society like
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the legal lobbying group and not where you go down
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: where you take your kids down to get your get
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: your pup. Yeah, that's their hs US has as zero
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: connection to any shelters. That's not to say that those
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: folks aren't aren't necessarily philosophically aligned at times, but they're
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: but they're not necessarily related organizations either. So I want
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: to talk about how um, how anti hunting fishing trapping
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  Speaker 1: initial atives, how they usually work in a state, just
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: in a general sense, then we're gonna talk about a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of different or a handful of different scenarios
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: ways in which they work. But and I pull this
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: from some materials, materials that you guys provide with me,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: that there's basically three ways to work on the state level,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and so the introduction of legislation, and maybe you can
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: give me a quick run through on these the introduction
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: of legislation, you know what, let's do this? Is it
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: appropriate to do this? Through what happened in Maine a
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago around black bear hund Okay, and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: by this I'm talking about that in your materials you
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: explain that there's like a sequence where you introduce legislation,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: did be weighed by the state legislature. You can conduct
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: lawsuits where you sue state fishing game agencies, and you
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: can do ballot initiatives. Is what happened around bear hunting
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: in Maine? Was was there something from all three of
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: those that you could point to or only two of those? Well, yes,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: there were all three, but not necessarily in that linear order, right,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: so laid out for them. So typically what you see
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: is is hs US looks to build a case and
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: and other groups that push ballot is ships look to
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: build a case for public support. Right, so oftentimes will
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: throw a bill into the legislature, start to get media
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: coverage about to create an issue, um where there might
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: not be one right now, you know, there's not there's
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: not a need to ban black bear hunting and ming.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Obviously their population has tripled over the last ten years.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: They was voted down to two thousand four, but they
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: decided to bring the issue back, and so you see
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: him introduce legislation first as a way to drum up
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: some support, drum up some um of their supporters, and
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: then also drum up the media attention. So they lost
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: that an anti bear hunting thing in two thousand four. Yeah,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: it'll probably just to test the waters too, right, I mean,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: if it goes dead, they might go all right, it's
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: not a time or place yet. Yeah, I mean, they
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: can see how much interest there is. I mean I think,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I can't attest to this, but I think
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, uh, these issues, these ballot
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: initiatives they run are probably net net fundraisers form even
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: after all the money they spend. You know, they're advertising nationally,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: they're advertising and getting money sent from all over the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: country to work on these kinds of issues. Um. And
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: so the more that they can drum up, bang the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: drum on on the need to ban these cruel and
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: inhumane and barbaric practices as they call them, the better
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: job they're going to do on the fundraising side as well. So, yeah,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: there was a there was a baltoniution of two thousand
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and four that they lost. Um. You know, they went
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: away for four different cycles, they didn't come back, and
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: then they came back in two thousand thirteen looking to
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to start the issue again. Um. And so there was
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: a lawsuit that was was wrapped into that. I don't
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: know if you want to get into the campaign itself,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: but there was a lawsuit that they brought during the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: campaign that they tried to sue us to get our
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: TV ads taken off the air. Yeah. I wanted to
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: ask about that, but let's let's get into the let's
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: get into the campaign. Sell. So they introduced some legislation
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: didn't go anywhere, meaning that that the that the state
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: legislators that elected individuals would outside of bringing it directly
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: to voters that they would have decided to pass them
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: bill doesn't go anywhere. That's typically the m O right.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: They try to do it legislatively. For you've seen it
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: in in Maine, we've seen it in Montana, we saw
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: in Arizona this last cycle one on mountain lions. So
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: they typically try to do legislation first. It's much cheaper
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: than running a ballot initiative. Typically ballot initiatives, and especially
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: on wildlife related issues, are one and lost on dollars spent.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Can you say specifically what the ban is just? I mean,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: so it wasn't go ahead. In the state of Maine,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the ballot initiative was on running black bears with dogs
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: using traps and bait. Uh And in the state, I mean,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I want to say it was of the bears they
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: take each year are taken with those three methods, bait
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: being the biggest of the three, but all three account
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: for roughly of the harvest. Flat, very very dense, flat,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: thickly vegetated country. It's just that's just how it's That's
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: is how you do it. So you you're kind of
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: you're pushing for a sort of into basically you're effectively
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: banning it. Yeah, and that's what we've seen on these things.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: And you know, we can get into other can gential
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: issues like right the hunt amendments and stuff like that that,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: but the issue comes back to they don't typically try
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: to ban bear hunting like like you said, they don't
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: try to ban deer hunting. They try to ban means
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and methods. So they're going to go after the most
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: inhumane as they call it, means and methods. And so
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: in this case, they targeted trapping, they targeted baiting, and
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: they targeted hounds. But it's funny when I shouldn't. Funny
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: is not the right word that they'll use words like
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: inhumane um when it really doesn't conform to like a
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: definition of what's humane. But it's sort of like a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: way you can do it would be it would be
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: almost like it would be almost like they're saying, like
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: we view it as unsportsmanlike. And then because it's not,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're gonna if you're gonna say like no,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: and it's okay to shoot a bear, it's okay to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: shoot a bear of the bow or gun, but it's
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: inhumane if it's over bait. But if you think of
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: like the humane part one would assume meant like the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: method of kill, right, like is it a clean method
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: of kill? So there you have a lot of people
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: say like, well, over bait really winds up being a
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: cleaner method of kill because you're getting a short you're
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: getting a shorter range shot, you're better able to identify
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the target, you have a longer window you know, in
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: which to place your shot. So one could feasibly argue
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: to be like like this, you know this practical argument
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: that is more humane to do it that way if
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: you're really interested in parsing out what humane is. They're not, though,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: but it's like a term that they grab onto because
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: it means something, and I think that what they're like.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Another way that they would put it out be like
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: what's unsportsmanlike? And then you put like, so you're you're
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: concerned with sportsmanlike practices, like you're you're concerned with enforcing
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: a code of ethics. You turned it around on them,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: like so you know, at the end of the day,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: they're not gonna be okay with black poter hunting at
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: all if they're using that because in a ballot is
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: ship specifically, you're you're not dealing with with the legislature,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: you're not dealing with a finite body. You're dealing with
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the public. And so they're trying to convince the soccer
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: mom in Portland or Augusta or in bangor that that
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: they need to care about this issue. And so gonna
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: pick out on those things. Right, they're gonna they're gonna
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: isolate those things. But if you've got if you got
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: them into a one on one conversation, they're not gonna
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: be okay with with with blackber hunting at all. Exactly exactly.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: So they in that state in Maine, with the ballot initiae,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: with the vote, yeah, fifty point one one one more
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: vote than yeah, okay, And how did it go? We
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: we won. We won by a bigger margin they want.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: In two thousand four, h they spent a little bit
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: bigger margin. Yeah, they spent. They spent three million dollars
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: in the state two point seven two point yeah, two
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: point seven and change. How much was spent on the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: other side. That's what they spent. They spent. HSU has
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: spent their their group spent two point seven Where are
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: our campaign raised about two point three and about it? Yeah,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: about two point three. Well, so that doesn't conform to
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: your idea that it's dollars spent, you guys underspent. You
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: have to be good too, I mean you have to
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: put the right stuff on TV, you have to put
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the right campaign plan in place. Uh. And it's it's
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: not equitable either, right, because you know, if you look
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: at the two point seven million dollars at other side
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: raised two point six and change came directly from DC,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: came directly from hs US, but it was under the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: guys of Mayners for fair bear Hunting. That's the name
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: of the campaign. It's it's called a front group. Right,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: we're there, yeah, but we're there bear hunters in Manners
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: for fair bear Hunting. Well they found a few, yeah,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I mean they found some guys that could trot out
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: there to say, you know, hey, we're we don't we
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: don't like these practices either. I mean, that's that's typical.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's it's a misnomer to think that
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: we're gonna carry hunters, you know, lock stock and barrel,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: and you know, you look at these things. And Brian
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I were just talking about this the other day though,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the Montana trapping issue. Yeah, they found some they found
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: some bird doggers that come out. Well, if you if
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: we did pulling on the thing before we ran the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: campaign of hunting licensed buyers, guys would hunt in the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: last year, would have voted for it because it's worried
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: about the dogs. Yeah, so it was the same. It
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: was a similar kind of pulling in Maine as well.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: We were losing of hunting licensed buyers who were going
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to vote for the black Bear band. So it's it's
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: all those things that you can't always assume that those
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: folks are gonna be with you. You gotta do the education.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: You gotta put the right kind of TV commercials together
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: up with the right kind of campaign plan together. And
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: we talk about it in two senses, right. We talked
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: about messenger and messages. You have to have impactful messengers.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: You have to have believable messengers. But if they're not
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: saying an impactful message, if they don't have an emotional
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: message to drive home, it's not going to be impactful
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: in terms of pulling and moving the needle. So when
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: you when you look at one of these ballot issue campaigns,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: the entire thing is built around the idea of how
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: do you change the way that fifty point one percent
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: of the people are going to vote in that twelve
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: hour window on election day. Nothing else matters. Doesn't matter
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: how they feel the day before, It doesn't matter how
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: they feel the day after. It all comes down to
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: how are they going to vote on that day? And
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: that's what your campaign has to be built around. What
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: was the split on votes? It was pretty sound defeat,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: wasn't it. I want to say it was fifty seven
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: forty three? Is that right? I can pull it up here? Right?
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I can't. I can't remember off the top of my head.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: That's bad. I should know that. I can't believe that
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: did better than in two thousand four. Hut about a
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: percent of point point and a half better than, uh
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: than it was in two thousand four. Okay, so you
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: guys are talking about, um, the messaging and the messenger.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Can you explain a little bit like what exactly what
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: that means, like what's sort of like the message or
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: who the messenger was, and use either example, whether it's
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Spontana or Maine. Yeah, it's uh, you know, you look
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: at voting and what the other side is doing. What
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: we're doing as hunters, we love to say, we got
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the science, we got the facts, we can prove all
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: this and we can. But the other side uses pure emotion.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: You know, the soccer moms in the cities. It's a
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: battle for those urban areas and the people that don't
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: understand it. And what moves the needle there and with
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: those people is emotion. And it's the simple emotions. You know,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: you're killing these things unethically or inhumanely or whatever they
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: want to say. Trophy hunt, you know, they throw that
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: term out there, and that sways everybody um and so
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: that message and messenger we have to counteract that. We
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: can use facts, we can point out that there's going
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: to be an increased barre attacks or more depredation permits
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: or more issues or whatever, but we also have to
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: tap into that emotion, you know. And in Montana and
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: in Maine, that's what we did. You know, we had
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to slowly ramp up that emotional argument and make them
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: realize that eight these are apex predators. You're going to
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: have issues, you know. And here's the other side, and
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: it had to flip that coin and use the same thing.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: We still have all the facts, but you have to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: make somebody who doesn't care about wildlife management, care about
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: this issue. You know, I can let Evan talk about
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: how we slowly ramped up those emotional things. But you know,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: using polling and data and being able to get into
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: get into the populations that are going to move the needle,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: you know, the messaging can work for all these different
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: groups and age classes and you know demographics, but you've
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: got to find where it's not moving. And that's where
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Evan and his team do a fantastic job finding out
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: what's going to move that needle and sway that vote
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: and how do you find that out polling? I mean,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: obviously we want to do a high level of public
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: opinion polling to not only understand the messengers side of things,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: who who is a credible messenger, but also what what
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: messages actually move the needle? Right. You know, we go
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: into these campaigns and we've we've got a lot of
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: history of doing them. We have a pretty good gut
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: sense of you know, message X gonna work well here,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: and message why might work well. They're based on demographics
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: and past history and past campaigns, like in the main
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: campaign where you know, ten years later down the road
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: we're doing the second second round of this thing. So
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: we have a pretty good idea where to go, but
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: that's not always right, and so we want to pull
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: test those messages. We want to pull test the arguments
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: not only that we believe will work, we also want
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: to pull test what the other side is going to use.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: What messages do we believe they're going to use against us,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and see what that does to the general public, right,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Because it ultimately, at the end of the day, it
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter what message I think is best or what
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: message volunteer why thinks is best. What message that works
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the best is the one that changes the way people
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: are going to vote. And when you're trying in those out,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: do you feel that you have to enter into like
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the dirty pool world? Like do you do you catch yourself?
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Because I think hunters do this all the time. Man.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Hunters are always using rhetoric that that they don't actually believe.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I think you have to be willing to to say
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: impactful messages, right. You have to be willing to tell
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: an emotional story because you're gonna be going up against
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: emotional as from the other side the mede. You say
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the word heritage, you're talking about emotion, right, And I
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: think that's that's one of the things that we saw
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: in in Montana specifically, is you know the heritage message
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: in Montana that you clarify what had because or just
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: keep it focused the Maine for now and then because
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I don't we haven't talked about like what actually happened
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: in in the Montana's story. So we could either introduce
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Montana yeah, like, well we can, okays the same message. Um,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you know the bottom line at the end of the day,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: talking about these are these are historical practices, these are
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: things we've always done, These are these are these are
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: methods and means that that we've always used. It doesn't
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: mean a lot to to you know, a mom with
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: three young kids in in suburbia. At the end of
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: the day, you got you gotta find a way to
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: to impact her what what what matters to her, And
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: so sometimes you have to look at messages that are
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: a little bit stronger. You know, those folks are concerned
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: about public safety, those folks are concerned about what's going
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: to happen to the bear population if it's left unchecked
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: moving forward. If you take away on the way we're
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: harvesting bears in the state of Maine. What's gonna happen
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: to a population that from two thousand four to two
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, damn near doubled with the take. You know
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: that they were already talking inteen about about expanding main
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: seasons and expanding the opportunity there and potentially going to
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: two bears to account for the rise and bear numbers. Yeah,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: so now you take away ninety three percent of the
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: way you're taking bears. What's going to happen moving forward?
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: We already had you know, one of our TV commercials
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: was filmed in downtown Portland where they had a bear
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: in the backyard. They warrants had to come down and
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: remove the bear. Yeah, well that, Yeah, I mean I
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: think that there's a fair way to I think it
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: would probably be statistically, it's probably like a little bit
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: unfair to say bears are gonna come kill all your children,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: because I don't know when Maine's last black bear fatality was.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: But they're not that often. No, but but but the
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: thing about but, the thing about just conflict and the
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: costs of tax payers of doing all that conflict work
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: is enormous. But that might not be something that registers
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: as emotional. No, No, absolutely not, and so you look
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: at like you know, you look at the deaths are
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: are extremely rare nationally, but there are there are instances
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: where there are bear attacks. You know, we had one
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: in Florida that happened right before UM, right before the
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: main campaign. There's there's text there was one in Colorado
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: here recently, a couple of years ago, I believe, UM.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: There are some of these attacks that happened, and so
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: you ask the question of its bears start to move
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: back down into the Portland suburbs. In Portland's growing in
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Portland's becoming a suburb you know now almost of Boston, right,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've got people that are moving up into
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: southern Maine. The demographics have changed dramatically over the last
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: ten years. There are gonna be a dish conflicts moving
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: forward as the air population increases unchecked. So it's it's
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: about how do you keep those checks in place? How
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: do you how do you how do you convince voters
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: that they need to do this for their own good?
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: A lot of people are going to vote their own
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: their own perspective, and so what's in it for them?
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: There's a public safety aspect to this, you know, the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: message isn't necessarily bears are gonna come eat your children,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: But there is a public safety idea that you've got
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: bears running through schools, you've got bears in backyards, you've
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: got bears wandering around suburban neighborhoods. There can be problems
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: that arise from that. But but one of the things
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: you guys did, uh that want of causing more trouble
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: and causing another lawsuit wasn't really an emotional peal, is
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: that you were using the state. You had State Fishing
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Game Agency people who were opposed to this ballot initiative
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: speaking about from their perspective why they didn't support it.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Can you tell that story? So that's that gets back
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: to what we're talking about earlier with the third leg
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: of this, which is the lawsuit side of it. So
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: we our campaign. When I say we as, I mean
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: our campaign paid for the TV advertising that we filmed,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the commercials, we wrote the scripts, we did all the polling.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: The state wasn't doing any of that. The state wasn't
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: involved at all in in that part of the process.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: You know, the state was obviously concerned about the the
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the issue. They had concerns about the implications of what
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the what it would look like on the management side
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: moving forward if it were to pass. But they weren't
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: involved in the campaign. They weren't involved in any of
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: that because they could not be, or they just weren't
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: both yeah, both, um. But we did have them in
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: the commercials, right. These were These were state employees on
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: their own personal time. They had clearance from from the
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: administration to appear in the ads. They weren't instructing people
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: how to vote. They were just telling people that they
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: were concerned. They had they were opposed to the measure themselves. Um,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: because they were being they were they felt as though
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: they were being stripped of their management authority. Yeah, and
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: so what would be like Can can you give me
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: an idea of what just one example of what a
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: state employee might have said about the ballot initiative? Yes, oh,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: we've got actually right up there on the wall that
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: you can see the picture from the TV shoot we did.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: But they may Basically the message was mains game wardens
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and bear biologists supposed measure one the bear biologists. Yeah, yeah,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: they're both together. And and that piste off hsu Oh,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I'm sure. Yeah, And so that you know, they obviously
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: thought that there was misuses. That's hard to argue, man, Yeah, well,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: yeah exactly, and that's a very effective tool for us
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to have to be able to play. But they felt
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: like the state was spending money to produce these TV ads,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and so they actually sued the state to basically take
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: the ads off the air in our in our campaign,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: which is not an unusual tactic. You're talking about a
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: campaign that is is being voted on in the early
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: part of November, right, so you back that up six seven,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: eight weeks, that's really when your TV ads are running.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: So it's a very short period of time that you're
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: actually on TV with your political ads. So if you
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: can sue us and you can get our ads taken
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: down for a week or two weeks or three weeks
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: while we figured it out in court, that's a pretty
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: impactful way too to take take our messaging and remind
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: it um. So obviously we went to court, we suit
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: or we we and we enjoined in the lawsuit ourselves
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: because there are ads, there are campaign it's not the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: state's ads, and we ended up winning. We ended up
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: winning the lawsuit and all that kind of stuff. We
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: kept our ads on the TV. But so did you
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: ever have to pull the ads? No, did you feel
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: that those ads are effective when you did a polling? Yeah, absolutely,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: you can see it in the now. That's to me
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: feels like that to me feels such a solid thing.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: But then I have a lot of, um, you know,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of sort of like like like
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: a native faith in state wildlife management. So that would
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: speak to me. But I'm not the I'm not the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: person you really need to change the mind of. Well,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're they're a highly credible messenger, right,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and so they're they're a they're a person that the
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: general public is going to trust that they're they're going
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to view as a voice of authority. You know, people
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: look to the state and effish and wildlife agencies as
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: as experts, and they should. These are the guys who
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: have the day to day management of these species and
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: are doing a fantastic job. At the same time, though,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: they have to say the right thing. They have to
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: say the right messages that are going to be impact.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: They can't just say oh, trust us, we've got this.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: That's not gonna be enough to change that. Again, I
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: go back to the soccer mom in Portland. Right, it's
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: not gonna be enough to change her mind. All right,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: let's jump along to the There's a lot I want
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: to talk about, you know what, because here's another interesting one. Man,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: another main one I want to bring up because even
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: though we're talking about stuff that already happened, I think
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: it's really informative for people to understand, it's almost like
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: more informative to understand how it plays out, right, because
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: because that how it's it's informative to understand how these
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: things played out from start to finish in order to
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: begin understanding like what will happen in the future. Right,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: So it might seem what we're talking about like already happened.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Who cares, But it's it's illustrative of of something. And
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: another main issue that thought was really interesting was the
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: issue with links and Maine. So here you have a
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: an ees a protective species in Maine and someone comes
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: up with the idea to say, hey, you know what,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: no one should be able to trap in the area
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: that could potentially have links because you might accidentally catch
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: a links and if you accidentally catch a links would
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: be an e s A violation or you know we'd
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: like to make it an es A violation. So therefore,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: let's stop trapping anywhere with links. And you brought up
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: an interesting point in some of your materials that you
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: put out to the public that like, with that line
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: of thinking, you could close fishing in the river where
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: an e s a listed fish happened to be present.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: So it becomes like a really important fight. Like someone
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: might look at it and be like, oh, it's like
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: this really detailed policy thing, but it's not. It's just
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: kind of a way to to put like a special
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: little twist on something, a little back door attempt to
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: get at something a little bit broader. Right, And you know,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: we're not gonna sit here and argue that, yeah, we
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: want to see a whole bunch of of federally protected
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: links species killed um by trappers. No, that's not the argument.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: The argument is that at the end of the day,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: most of the links that were caught were being released unharmed, right,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: And so if you have a a few links that
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: are caught incidentally to other trapping seasons that are going on,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: that doesn't have a population level impact, even if the
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: species is federally threatened or federally endangered. That's not having
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: a population level impact on the on the links species
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: of the whole. But if you use that line of thinking,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: like you said, you can expand that pretty quickly to
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: other things where you can say, okay, well, there there
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: are endangered wolves in the area, and they are about
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the same size and look like coyotes. And you know
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: that It gets back to the wolf discussion too. With
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: with this idea that there are two wolf species, uh
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: in the eastern part of the US. There's the um
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: one that is very very this isn't the antis theory, right,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: but there's one that is very rare, looks identical to
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the western Great Lakes gray wolf. The only way you
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: can tell a party is genetically. Well, if they if
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: you have a wolf subspecies or endangered species of wolf
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: that's separate from the Great Lakes gray wolf in the
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: same area as the gray wolf, how could you ever
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: possibly allow a hunting season. So you can see how
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: they can take these arguments, and if they can get
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: that established in case law in in in the Links lawsuit,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: then you can apply it to other areas, whether it's
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: it's fishing or whether it's it's hunting for other species.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: So what happened with the what happened with the links
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: situation that they put out. So we've had we've had
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: numerous lawsuits on this. There's been at least two rounds
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: of of of links lawsuits in in Maine, there's a
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: there's a Lynx lawsuit in Minnesota. UM, this really dates
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: back to started probably two thousand and six, two thousand
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: seven time frame, and has been litigated over the years
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: since then. We've had some favorable outcomes that trappers have
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: had to put some stuff in place that would help
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: to ensure that they don't unnecessarily catch additional links. But
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the bottom line is, I think the population at a
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: level now where you'll see the Fish and Wildlife Service
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: start to move forward with with a dlisting effort and
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: getting them back off the essay the adjustments that the
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: trappers had to make, because that just like how the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: what kind of trap and how those traps are placed. Right, Yeah, Yeah,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: there's that. That's an interesting thing with I want to
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: spend some time on this lag later, but it's but
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: since it came up, it's an interesting thing with how
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: we sort of, um, the ways in which sportsmen can
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: kind of cooperate to alleviate issues like this, like for instance,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: when you get into um that you'd be able to
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: release and you know, if you had a by catch
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: incident trapping, like you caught a links in the area
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: where you're not allowed to retain the links, that you
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: would take steps to modify your equipment to enable you
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: to release things unharmed. And it comes down like really
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: like technical stuff like jaw thickness right like like a
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: lot of trappers you know, will laminate the jaws on
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: their trap to increase the like to increase the surface area. Okay,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: adding inline adding inline swivels. So you have a trap
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: is staked out, and you have a chain that connects
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to the trap, and you have a swivel at the
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: trap base, you have a swivel at the stake, and
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: guys will add inline swivel into the chain. So there's
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: all these little steps of a person can take right
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: to do it and now and then someone would come
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: in and say, you know what, We're gonna mandate that
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: trappers take certain steps. That doesn't that that doesn't decrease
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: the efficacy of the equipment. Some would argue actually increases
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: the efficacy of equipment, and then you have to weigh
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: out like, Okay, is this like big brother stepping in
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: to tell me how to conduct my business or is
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: this something that's actually gonna enable me to conduct my
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: business long term? And that's the thing that I think
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of sportsmen have to look at when these
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: kind of issues come up. Man. Yeah, and for for
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of it, in this case specifically, Um, it
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: comes down to another. It seems like all this stuff
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: comes back to Endangered Species Act policy. But there's a
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a method in the Endangered Species Act
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: where you can allow for the incidental take of of
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: protected species. It's called an I T P Incidental take permit.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And so what we saw in them in the main
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Links case specifically, was the state of main applied to
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: the federal government said look, we've got this issue. We
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: know that we're having Uh, there's the potential and trappers
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: are are incidentally catching links. Um. If the Feds will
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: issue that permit, it basically is a basically precludes them
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: then from prosecuting those folks under Endangered Species Act violations.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: And as part of that application process and part of
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the awarding of that of that permit from the Fish
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service. There are there are typically steps or
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: concessions that are made to say those concerns. So there's
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: a bit there's a bit of a back and forth
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: on what it's gonna take to make it it's allowed
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: to go through. An interesting point that came up when
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: I was looking at the Links issue in Maine was
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: here here, what was that an H s U S issue? Primarily?
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Was that coming from another source? No, I don't believe H.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: S U S was the main litigant in that case.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I want to say that was Animal Welfare Institute or
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Animal Protections and I can't remember which was which, but
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: they've they've been involved in those cases over the years.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: In a case like that, you have someone presumably like
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: feigning a great interest in the well being of the
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: links with concealed goal or camouflage goal, just like hindering
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: trapping activities. But it brings up an interesting thing where
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: there was a loss. This is the cormorant issue in Oregon,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: where there's perilously low stocks of salmon returning from rivers
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: into the ocean, and there was a situation where they
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: were trying to control cormorant numbers. They were killing corm
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: rants in an area to enable greater returns of salmon.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: So corm raan is a fish eating bird. They're pounding
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: salmon returning out in the ocean from river, so to
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: alleviate the pressure from the cormorants. There was a project
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: where they were cooling corm rants to increase salmon returns,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: and there you have lawsuits to prevent them from doing it.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: So here you're trying to you're trying to use a
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: management tool to help an imperiled species, but that action
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: gets flagged and get suit against, and so you have
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: to ask like it kind of reveals that sort of
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: bias and reveals the things that you're not really we're
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: not really talking about wildlife well being here in a
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: long term sense. We're talking about some it's a proxy argument.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: What we're talking about is like, you're just opposed to
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: certain kinds of animal deaths caused by certain kinds of people,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: particularly people who are paying money to go do it licensed,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: people who it might be deemed like recreational. That's the
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: greatest you know, irony is that they want to stop
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: hunters from paying into a system that supports conservation, that
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: ensures the long term viability of these species. But at
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, when they actually accomplish that,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: now we're paying the state to take that place, and
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: they take on that burden and they don't seem to
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: have a problem with it. The animals still dying, you're
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: still having conflict, but now you're doing it at a
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: with a debt. But the other thing is who's paying.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Right in that synthetic situation that hopefully we never get to,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: is like there's gonna have to be something put in
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: place to fund the state agency. They don't. They don't
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: do that, I mean, And then take the California mountain
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: lion stuff as as a perfect example. You know, mountain
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: lion hunting is banned there. Now they issue four times
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: as many depredation permits and they're killing more animals, more
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: mountain lions than they did before. But there's no hunter
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: paying for a tag. Now the state has to go
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: out there, pay for people to do it or issue
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the depredation permits, and then they have to knee crops.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: He's on top of that. So now you got now
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: they're operating operating at a loss, at a deficit. Yes,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: and there was no funding mechanism in the ballot initiative
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: to fun now scenario is like you're talking about state Washington, right,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: notice is happening in Oregon. But it was a suit
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: against the It was a suit I believe against the
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Coast Guard for killing cormorants. Know it was it would
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: use a euphemism cooling cormorants from that we're praying on
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: salm and small returning. Yeah, and it wasn't only not
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: returning going out into the ocean for their feeding. So
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: I think it's the wildlife services of uh, not Coastguard, right. Yeah.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: But that I mean, that's such a messed up situation
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: over there too, because what we don't have diminishing salmon
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: returns because of the cormer ants. The cormer ants are
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: taking advantage of a giant system that we've put in
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: place through many man made sure there's there's many factors.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a way deep conversation. Yeah, we caused,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: We've created a human caused that. There's a human caused
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: problem that we've created with damning and habitat destruction and
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: other things to create a situation where now we just
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: have to stop the bleeding. So we get sea lions
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: taken advantage. But it's but it's to have your but
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: to have your perspective. But your perspective winds up being
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: like a little bit cynical because here we have everything like, yeah,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: we created a huge problem with salmon. Okay, it's gonna
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: take a lot of public and political will to fix
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the underlying problem. In the meantime, you just have to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: try to keep the thing breathing, sam and being the
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: thing breathing. So when people then go like, oh, you know,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: the problem is damns and so now you're trying to
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: like do these little micro adjustments. Yeah, you need to
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: do anything you can to just have something be there
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: while we take the decades necessary to take care of
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: the long term main problem. I don't think that I
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: don't think that our inability to fix the main long
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: term problem means that we shouldn't look at little microadjustments
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: we could make to kind of immediately aid the situation
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: that stock should be taken though, be like, yeah, do
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: you know why we are killing cormarants? Do you know
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: why all these sea lions are gathered at the base
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: of this dam? You know why we have so many? Okay,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: so you feel this is a side arguments. Excuse me, guys.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: At some point we can't take down all the damns.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, we depend upon them for hydro electricity and
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: everything else. So at some point it is a you know, Wayne,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: and if you want to weigh it even more, you'd
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: be look at that. It's infinitely deep. That's why I
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: feel like you should and I know that that we
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: this country a long time ago decided against rightfully so
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: decided against putting unnecessary restrictions on voters. But in a
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: draconian sense, I feel like we need to go back
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: to voters need to be able to pass and when
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: when I think, I just think should only be on
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: wildlife issues. Voters need to go pass a very stringent
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: test about what's your understanding of wildlife history? And you
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: know it well. I'm not saying you don't know it well,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: but if you want to spend time getting into the corremant,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: I just think stock should be taken like people when
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: they say, okay, we're gonna kill these corns rats, and
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: just so you know, the reason they're piled up right
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: here is because X y Z please keep that in mind. Yes,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I agree, it would be nice if everyone was infinitely
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: aware of all the factors. That play was the thing
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: that people do and you're doing it right now? Is
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: acting like that because there's a bigger underlying problem. It
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: makes it that we can't morally address micro issues. Yeah,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm not worried about the mite. Yeah, I
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: don't know. You're saying we made these damns and we
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: did the habitat destruction in the industrial pollution, and so
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: therefore we should be made to suffering. We should let
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: samon go extinct just to remind us of how awful
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: we are. That's taken a little far. Do you think
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: because I'm not anti bomb, came some corm rats in
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: this issue, right, Like I want the salmon to exist,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: But I think that should just be included in the campaign. Right.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: There should be a sign we are killing these corme
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: rants because we you have destroyed these rivers our decisions
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: sixty years ago. It highlights the challenge of wildlife management, right,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: and this idea that things just don't happen in a vacuum.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: We wanted to steal stuff down to you know, good
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: versus bad, black versus white. You know, these issues are
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: are highly complicated and you look at you know another example.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: You you raised the question of whether or not to me,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: this is the question I've been struggling to write a
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: story about. But the animal rights an anti hunting community
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: in certain instances elevate one species over another right and
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: so in this case corn rance versus salmon, I'll give
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: you another one about wolves versus moose in the Northern Minnesota.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: So at the same time they're pushing lawsuits to keep
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: wolves federally protected that have recovered and a blown past
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: recovery goals, the moose population in Northern Minnesota's crashing. Now,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: is that all because of wolves? No, absolutely not. There
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: are other environmental factors that are that play into that,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: but there's certainly an impact from wolves. And so how
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: in their minds are do they square of the idea
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: that we're gonna keep wolves federally protected and continue to
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: sue for that even though they've they've blown past recovery goals.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: At the same time, we're seeing it have a direct
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: impact on other species in the area. Yeah, we're yeah,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: we're willing to let moose walk. That's a great that's
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: a great segue, Cal and I will pick this up
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: later in from we'll pick this up later in public.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Can can you give like a mile high walk through
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: on Great Lakes the Great Lakes wolves situation. It's difficult
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: for people to follow becaure's a lot of twists and turns,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to get too I don't want
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: to get so um deep that we lose people, but
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: just a general sense of how the conversation has gone
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: and where it is right now. So you're talking about
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: a multi year series of lawsuits right this goes back
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: to mid two thousand's. It's been through the Bush administration,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: the Obama administration, now the Trump administration multiple different times
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: over that Over that ten twelve four teen years, presidential
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: administrations have moved to delist recovered species of gray wolves
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Each time the antis have sued,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Each time, the antis have taken into court, and and
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: each time they've gone a federal judge to overturn the
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: d listing for for various reasons. So where we're at
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: right now is that we just wrapped up a lawsuit
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: last year that the final round of this lawsuit. I'm
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: hopeful that basically issued a ruling that was both good
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: and bad for our side, right. The ruling said, yes,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: you can do the d listing of wolves. Were talked
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: about distinct population segment policy or the Endangered Species Act
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: is really what we're dealing with here. The broader question
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: was can you use the Endangered Species Act to delist
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: a distinct population segment of a broader national listing? Wolves
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: are listed nationally as a matter of convenience under the
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: SA back in the late seventies. Um, they were listed
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: nationally because there's just there's just a matter of convenience
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: back then. There wasn't a DP policy in those days.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Since then, we figured out that, look, we're not gonna
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: have wolves recovered in their entire historic range. Nobody's calling
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: for that. We're not gonna have them Seattle. We're not
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: gonna have in Chicago. That's not a reasonable expectation for delisting.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: We we we we appeal the latest round of rulings
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: because the federal judge in Washington said, unless until wolves
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: are recovering their entire historic range, they can't be considered
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: recovered in the Upper Great Lake States. So it doesn't
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: matter how many wolves you have in the in the
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: up if they're not back in their entire historic range,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: they can't be considered recovered, which is ludicrous. Yeah, when
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: when we talked without in other contexts and one on
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: time of this, always like to point out that elk
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: are only recovered in about ten to fourteen percent of
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: their range. Absolutely, So it would be like saying, we're
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: not gonna hunt elk in Colorado, which has two fifty elk.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: We're not gonna held out in Colorado because we haven't
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: recovered elk in Ohio. That's right, that's right, and that's
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: ultimately what you're getting down here is a question of law.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Is that when you use the Endangered Species Act, when
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: you use the distinct population segment policy of the Nague
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Species Act, are you talking about historic range? Are you
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: talking about current intended range? Right? Are you talking about
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: recovering wolves in these states? Are you come about recovering
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: grizzly bears in these areas? Or you talk about the
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: entire historic range because that's under that status. And you're right,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: elk aren't recovered yet, and so how can you possibly
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: have a hunting season on elk if they're not recovered everywhere?
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: And that's the argument they're wanting to use on wolves
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: is that they're not recovered across the entire historic range.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: So how can you possibly have a hunting season in Michigan. Well,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: they're recovered in Michigan. They are. I mean, nobody's arguing
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: about the population science, nobody's arguing about the data. They're
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: arguing about ourcane policies, the Endangered Species Act and trying
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: to apply that to this situation. Because at the end
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: of the day, if they were very truthful about what
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: they're going after, they don't want a wolf hunt. That's it.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: It's as simple as that. They want to preclude a
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: wolf und So how do you do that? You use
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: these federal tools to tie you up in court for
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: a decade, decade and a half and cost hundreds of
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: thousands of dollars to fight the litigation. So what are
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: you think is gonna happen? I mean, they the d
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: listing went through. I mean, I don't know how many times,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: like how many times has the US Fish and Wildlife Service, um,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: how many times has the US Fish and Wildlife Service
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: recommended delisting where the delisting happened for a moment and
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: then management policy was stripped away, like just in the
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: last few recent years. It's been like a c like
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: three or four or five times. It's happened across It
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: was in the Bush administration and the Bomb administration, now
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: on the Trump administration. In each of these cases, the
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: federal management agency, so the US Fish and Wildlife Service,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: is the one that oversees ees a protected species. In
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: each of these cases, the US Fish and Wildlife Service
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: is saying it's time to delist. Where do the states
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: fall on it? Well, the states? The states agree at
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: a couple of the states moved to open their own
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: hunting seasons, but they don't have a lot of power. Um,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: they're in the lawsuits as well, but they don't have
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of power to to allow for seasons or
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: allow for incident or for for take while they're federally protected.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: So they're involved in the lawsuits that they want to
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: see them de listed. The states wanted to have them
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: returned to state management like they should be. You know,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: that's the way the e s A was intended to
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: to be applied, right. It wasn't intended to be this
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: hotel California policy where you can check in an animal
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: onto the list and it never can check out. That's
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: not the way it was intended to be. It was
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: intended to be used as a tool to recover imperiled species,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: get them back to health, and then return them to
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: state management. But the antis don't see it to the
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: don't in the animal rights community don't see it that way.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: You know, you talk about charismatic, charismatic megafauna. Right, these
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: are the species they want to protect and perpetuity, and
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: that's one way to do it if you can keep
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: them listed as a as a federally protected species and
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: you can't have hunts on them. Yeah, but they they
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: only resist, they only resist the de listing of species
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: that might potentially that might potentially become a game animal
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: like no one. You know, when when we went to
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: delist the bald eagle, it was a great celebration because
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: there's no historic use pattern of like, you know, using
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: bald eagles as a renewable resource. I mean outside of
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: out of certain Native American groups. They would use them
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: for ceremonial purposes. So it's like there was no risk.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: I think that from their perspective, it winds up being
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: they want to block any animal moving off the ES
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: A list that might potentially that might potentially it's a
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: tool to preclude hunting. And so ultimately, I mean, you
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: look at the ESA and we can we can debate
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: es a policy for for weeks, right, and we have Ultimately,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: you talk about endangered animal is one that is in
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: danger of going extinct um in all our significant portion
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: of its range. A threatened species is one that will
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: will meet that standard in the foreseeable future. Those don't
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: apply to wolves, that doesn't apply to grizzly bears in
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: the Greater Yellowstone Area. These species have recovered, and if
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: the populations start to slide, there are tools in the
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: essay that allow for emergency protections to be put into place.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: So at the very core level of this, these animals
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: no longer meet the definition of what is a protected species.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: And what's interesting about the some of the ESA species
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: two is we mapped out what recovery would look like
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: before we achieved it. Like where everyone said, like even
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: in the absence in some places, even in the absence
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: of certain species, we said, okay, like, uh, what would
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: what would success look like? You paint out this roadmap
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: of what success would look like down to kind of
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: excruciating details, and then we blow past those benchmarks and
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: people are like, yeah, but yeah, but that didn't really
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: mean it. It's moving that bullpost didn't really mean it.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: You also hear a lot, well you just want to
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: see that so he can hunt them. And my response
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: is always that is the best case scenario. If you
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: love this animal. Yeah, that would mean if you have
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: like a huntable population, that means you're doing pretty good,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: means they're recovered. It should be celebrated. If it's focus
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: on them, there's dollars going to them, and it's a
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: sustainable This is where we get into our idea of
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: hunt ovationist, right, Like, okay, we get to this point.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Now there's dollars going in, we're hunting them. It's conservation
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: is taking place, and that's kind of our little term
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: we've coined as honer rationist, you know. And and that's
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: what's happening when you get to that level. They would
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: happen with grizzly bears, with wolves whatever. Um, just stepping back, Yeah,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: they don't. They don't oppose the red bellied Creek chub
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: getting delisted. It's these mega faunas he said. I I
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: like to use the idea of the bigger the eye
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: and the longer the eyelash, the greater the outrage, you know,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: and then they can fundraise on that, they can piggyback
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: and fundraise on that and use that to fund all
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: these lawsuits that they stretch this stuff out. Meanwhile, the
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: sportsmen were cobbling stuff together. Does the cormera have an eyelash?
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: The salmon? Salmon, damer don't sal and don't have one.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: That's whether being sacrificed to the cormorants. So bringing this
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: back to the original question, because that was kind of
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: a long answer to where the wolves situation stands today.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: So we fought these lawsuits time and time again. The
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: latest round, like I said, was a good news bad
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: news story. Right for the immediate future, wolves remain listed
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: as a protected species in those states, but the court
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: did come back with a very clear pathway for the
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife Service to delist wolves appropriately. In their view, right,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: if you follow these steps, then then we would find
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: that that that you have basically done this correctly. What
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: is the scope of those steps? Oh boy, there's I mean,
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: I'd have to go back and pull it up. I
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: don't have it off the top of my head, unfortunately,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: but there there is a pathway there that basically says,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: you know you need to do that, do it appropriately
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: if you if you if you consider these factors. Right,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: we talked about range earlier. You don't have to you
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: don't have to necessarily show that they have recovered in
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: their entire historic range, but you have to consider that
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: impact on its current range. And so some things like
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: that where you have to go back, and the court
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: basically went back and gave them this this clear pathway
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: that says, go to the d listing effort again and
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: do it for you, these these these methods, and I
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: think you'll be okay, um am, I correct? Right now? Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: none of those states has had any kind of wolf
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: season for a couple of years, not right, right, And
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: the most that any of them had one for was
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: a year or two? Okay, yeah, I think it was
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: just one season. Actually, maybe how long do you think
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: like when they laid out that path to that path
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: to state management? Is that a decades long path there
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: could be much shorter than that ultimately will depend on
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: the litigation. Right, So at the Fish and Wildlife Service
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: at this point is is moving forward with that process.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: I think you'll see a delisting effort out of the service,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: maybe yet this year. Um, it will depend on what
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: kind of delisting they they issue, what kind of order
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: it is, uh, do they check the boxes correctly, and
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: how creative can the other side get ensuing to stop it? Um.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: If the Fish and Wildlife Service meets all the criteria
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: that set out in the court's ruling, then they probably
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: have a pretty good chance of having it upheld. But
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: I would be I would be very very surprised if
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: we don't see those same groups line up to sue,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: regardless of what they put out there. So so you're
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: back into every year. Can there ever be an end? Yeah,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: there can be. Ultimately we'll get to a point where
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: this thing comes to a head. But we're does it
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: come to the head to cut? Does it have to
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: go come to a head at the Supreme Court? No,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think it'll get to that level. I think
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: I think we're probably I think we're in the home
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: stretch here. I think we're round a third and head
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: for home. It's it's you know, this this latest round
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: of you know, they depend on what the service puts out.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: You know, we don't know what they're gonna do. Um,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: if they come back and check the boxes correctly, then
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there'll be there'll be a lawsuit. Well at
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: last six, eight, ten months. I don't know. You know,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: these things tend to be, you know, typically a year
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: long to multiple years long to pay on how many
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: appeals there are if they do things correctly, I would
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: think would be a pretty short short window of the
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: of the lawsuit. Right, there's not gonna be a lot
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: of appeals. There's not a lot of stuff to appeal then, Um,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: so you're talking about a delisting word by the end
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: of the year, a public comment period, and then off
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: to courts. You're probably looking most of twenty nineteen is
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: going to be eaten up with this, and maybe we'll
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: have wolves back off the list. I don't know, that's
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: just a guess. Yeah, you know, there is some there
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: is some validity to the question about what are the
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: implications for delisting a little segment of wolves or grizzly
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: bears or links or what have you, like, what does
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: that mean for everywhere else? Like, I think it's a
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: legitimate question because if you look at an area that
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: I'm infinitely more familiar with, would be the grizzly bear
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: delisting in and portions of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming. Because on
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: one hand, you know, the state management agency in Montana,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: for instance, is has you know, expressed the idea that
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: we should maintain the idea of genetic exchange between these
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: different isolated populations of grizzly bears. Right, it's a goal
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: to have connectivity between what's called the Northern Continental Divide
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: ecosystem and the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. So that's the goal.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: You would have a place for bears to freely move
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: back and forth. And isn't your interesting question if you
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: get to where you have absolute saturation of grizzly bears
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: in these certain areas and you're gonna have increased likelihood
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: of human bearer conflicts, and you have a variety of
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: reasons they want to go to state management and some
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: limited amount of hunting, you do really have a responsibility
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: to look at like, Okay, what does this mean to
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: our other our other objectives, Because the same people need
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: to understand the state agencies that are wanting to have
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: state management of these recovered resources are certainly not anti grizzly,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: They're not anti wolf, right, They're trying to like do
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: something that's very nuanced, you know, control in certain areas,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: open up public involvement in it, but also allow for
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: some managed expansion of the resource. It winds up being
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: like it's like, it's not easy, No, it's it's the
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: great balance question. Right where do you where do you
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: draw the line to balance the situation out? If you
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: try to connect the Northern Continental Divide population with the
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: greater Yellowstone population, you run right up through Helena, Missoula,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: and you're running right up through the population centers of Montana.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: You know, what does that look like in in conflict terms? Um,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: I mean you're you're you're inviting additional conflict at that point.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: But but there can be arguments made on the other
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: side that there are there are needs for genetic diversity
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: and other things that must be balanced as well. This
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: is ultimately the great challenge for wildlife managers forever, any
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: species is is how do you find the appropriate balance
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: between the resource, the user base, and the general public.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: And for those people who are just like really deep
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: into this, it has to be so frustrating when these
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: issues come up and it winds up being like waged
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: out through these kind of emotion based campaigns exactly. You
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: just imagine like when you've devoted your life to these
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: like to balancing out these complex things, and then all
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: then your life's worked as vantages. In the second it's
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: alreduced down to a meme on Facebook. Well, it's it's
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: reduced and you look at BC, right, I mean BC
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: is a great example of that. It's it's reduced down
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: to the ability to get rid of a hunt because
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: they use the word trophy in a poll. Right, if
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: you pull a question of you know, how do you
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: guys feel about a trophy hunt for grizzly bears? Well,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: of course people are gonna have a negative reaction to
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: that term. You know, people support hunting by wide margins
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: in the country. As you said earlier, that's regulated hunting.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: That's the idea that there is, there is a a
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: state management system. People view that public public, the public
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: views that differently than when you say, how do you
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: feel about trophy hunting? It doesn't matter if you define
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: them exactly the same. They're not asking that question, They're
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: just asking what's your visceral reaction to those two separate questions.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: The polls also gonna be are gonna be very different. Yeah, okay,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: you guys cool to move on in our thing? Are
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: you still seething? I just got well. Kel loves fish.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Kel loves loves fish. Um, are you ready to move on? Yeah,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: let's move on. The I just see a lot of
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: these arguments are always made in this blue sky world
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: where the human population does not exist. Go ahead, please,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: And it's like, well, if we just let it happen,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: it all be fine. And I just think people need
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: to be reminded that we have screwed up this fishery
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: for existence or for example, from where these fish spawn
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: four seventy miles away all the way to where they're
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: coming back into the ocean. So please keep that in
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: mind when we're bunking these cormorants. You're back on that.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: This is just nick. That's an example. And these guys
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: were nodding in agreement. It's like the arguments get made
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: as if the human population is not here and expanding, well,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: and that the other side does that though we just
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: leave it alone and let nature take its course. Well,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: we can't. We manage everything from the ground up. Yes,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: and you know you got your habitat, your prey species
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: and your predator species. We can't just let a grizzly
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: barrel wolf run free and not manage it. I mean,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: it's like Bart Simpson at all. You can eat seafood,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: but fat it's gonna go crazy and eat and keep reproducing.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: And now our praise pieces are out of whack and
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: the only result that they can do is reduced tags
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: to hunters, and there goes the funding for conservation. So
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: it's like the other side uses that argument of hey,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: we've we've you know, just let it go. We've impacted land.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Let them do their things. Like no, we manage everything.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, we kind of passed that moment like several
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: hundred years ago in some areas. Unless we're all going
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: back to following the herds and uh tearing down the cities.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: You know, at some point reality has to set in here. Now,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: are you good? Uh? Callen we we if you would like,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: and you can allow you to you can do allow
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: you a guest opportunity, a guest hosting position, if you
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: would like to arrange a discussion on um. We discussed
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: salmon in Alaska at length. We haven't discussed Oregon st
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: in California. You can arrange the whole show. All right,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: I got some good folks. It's gonna be called it's
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: gonna be called monk and corner rants, the cow uh
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: and moving into more in more recent time. Oh, the
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: cormarant thing. If you really want to get us something,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: there's an interesting story because corm rants were e s
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: a species for a while and then recovered beyond anyone's
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: wildest dreams. And I think that some people still like
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: aren't hip to what happened there now. I think you
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: need a real tasty cormorant recipe in order to change
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: that thing around. When when um let me chime in
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: here from Kevin Ry please. Yeah. Water turkeys is what
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: we call them back hop and they are a nuisance species. Uh.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: They have recovered in giant flocks. They destroy the remaining
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: islands that we have out in the middle of Lake Barkley,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: which was formed by come the river uh Kentucky Lake
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: Tennessee River. Uh. They have become nothing but a nuisance.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: And it's kind of sad to see an island that
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: was out there with vegetation on it and now it's
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: got these black dots out there with this whitewash. It's yes, yes,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: so we are fighting that issue back home to try
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: to get because the fish habitat is a trollway now
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: and the island is washing away down to the delta.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: And one of my brother's first jobs when he was
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: becoming a fisheries professional was, uh, yellow perch, we're vanishing
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: from the Latianal Islands area in the northern Great Lakes.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: And they went through this big project where they were
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: netting yellow perch, putting these little markers in the yellow perch,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: and you wait a period of time and then you
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: go dig through cormorant scat trying to find your little
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: markers to ascertain the cormorant impact on yellow perch. In
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: that case, they learned that that wasn't the problem. Same
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: thing in Kentucky through the League of Kentucky Sportsman the
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: resolution was made to go in and do a sampling
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: of the cormorants out there, and a lot of the
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: sports fishermen were thinking that they were impacting the sport fish.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: They found out they were eating the gizzard's cats shad
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: the non game fish majority of them on there. But
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: you know it's it doesn't You don't have to do
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: a study to see what they've done to the islands
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: after so that that that species needs to be a
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: season on them. Whatever you know we can do, then
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: we'll come up with some recipes after we get them
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: in the in the in the hand. But like I said,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: we saw that same thing in in Kentucky just recently,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: where they get a lot of fishermen are like, uh,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of fishermen look at cormorants and
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: river oders all the time as being like if they're
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: not having a good day fishing, damn cormorants. Or as
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: they used to say in the up, it's coomer ants. Um. Okay,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: the lot the lion, bobcat jaguar issue. Yeah, tell this
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: story because this is a new one Arizona. So, I
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: mean the story is it is gonna be very familiar
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: to the main black bear story, right. I mean it's
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: it's a balant initiative being pushed by the mainstad United States.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: It was supposed to be in the mid term elections
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: are coming up in the supposed to be on this
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: falls ballots November November ballot um. That was the intention.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: They didn't qualify the issue. There. There was some stuff
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: done in Arizona to help them not qualify the issue,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: but it follow the same script of fallow, the same
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: same pathway. Right, they tried legislation, they weren't, weren't able
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: to do it. They started creating a PR campaign to
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: kind of push, uh, push a ban on on these
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: protected cat species, of which really the mountain lions were
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: the target. Obviously the rest were either already protected or
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: didn't exist in arisone of those kinds of things. Yeah,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: that's funny. So they were it was about mount like
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: if you look at the early rhetoric, it was about
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: mountain lions, right, Like they had the thing like the
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: five most dangerous states to be a mountain lion. Yeah,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: Arizona was one of them, Colorado was one, correct, Montana, Idaho.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so that came on the heels of the
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: cecil the lion stuff in Africa, right right on the right.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: Right after that kind of fervor died down, h s
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: US released the report called the five Deadliest States from
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Mountain Lions, and they had some junk science in there
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: and some stuff that just doesn't make sense, and they
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: started pushing this PR campaign. We need to protect America's lion.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: They called America's lions and pardon my interruption, but Brian
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: you um I pointed out that those are like the
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: five stays where mountain lions are doing the best. Yeah,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: it's got the best habitat and the best harvest, so yeah,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: that's a good thing. But they again view it as
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: it's the deadliest thing. Yeah, and so they flip it.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: And if you looked at their report, I'm using our quotes, um,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: it compared a ten uere harvest statistic to a one
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: year population statistics. So if you're the media looking, you're like,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: oh my god, they're killing all of the lions out there,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: you know, and they, you know, America the top five
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: deadly estates. As journalists and somebody who's worked in that world,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: lists are great things people love, especially for online consumption.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: So that got picked up by everybody and spread. They
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: didn't include that, like, for instance, that Colorado has vastly
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: more lions than ever before right now. No, no, no,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: No're not gonna include that stuff. It's just that emotional
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: reason to take it away. But what was fun about
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: it They were talking about mout It was like a
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: mountain lion issue, but they made it like an all
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: cat issue. And I think to the extra confused the
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: situation is they included that it would be a ban
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: on hunting or trapping for things that aren't in Arizona.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: The Canadian links. The Canadian links has never been document
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: in Arizona. And they're throwing like jaguars which are federally
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: protected and that are already federally protected. There's maybe it
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: would I think that most people would be shocked if
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: they were to learn that at this back in right now,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: there's more than I mean, ten is probably a big
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: number for how many jaguars being airs, though it might
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: be closer to one or two. But it's just like
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: a fun little twist to put that in there. Well, yeah,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: because they can manipulate the media. Then then they can
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: go after that emotional argument and say they're killing endangered,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: endangered cats. We want to stop this, you know, make
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: sure protect these endangered cats, and so well yeah, okay,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: well they're already protected. But the next not even there
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: at all or not even present. Well. The the unique
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: unifying factor of all five of those states that are
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: the five deadliest, they're all five ballot issue states. They're
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: all states where they get the ability to bring a
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: ballot is ship if they want. Yeah, so it's all
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: five of those states are are states that that gives
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: them the pathway forward to bring a ballot miship just
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: like they didn't mean, I mean the way the state
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: constitution set up, he gives them the ability to to
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: put an issue before voters, where some states don't allow that.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: Some states don't have direct access to the ballot. So
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: you feel that the the lot, like the cat hunting
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: band in Arizona was an hs US led situation, though
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: they didn't do it under their own name in Arizona,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: but it definitely was. I mean, we have the application
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: that has their name on it with the h s
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: u S email address when they registered it for the ballot.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: But what was the group they created to spearheaded Arizona's
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: for those wildcats something wildcats, Arizona's for wildlife maybe wildcats,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: but that's what they do. They create a front group
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: and they have their state leader, their state h s
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: u S leader becomes the chairperson, and then they gather
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: around that and then make it feel local and make
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: it feel local. It's not I mean, they it was
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: ninety eight percent of their funding was something like their
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: funding was directly from Washington, d C, H, s U
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: S headquarters. They just strike that pen and to get
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: it on the ballots to bring it in front of
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: the voters. To bring in front of the voters, you
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: have to cross the thresholds signature gathering. Thresholds, Yeah, signature gathering.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: What does that look like? So in most states, there's
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: two ways you can qualify an issue, right, you can
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: you can convince the legislature to pass a bill by
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: a wide enough margin that that will directly put it
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: on the ballot. Or you can go out and collect
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: signatures and meet a certain threshold of valid signatures, meaning
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: the signature comes from a person who lives in that
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: county or lives in that legislative district. Typically, those those
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: very wildly right. You know, in Maine it was much smaller,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: too much smaller state. In Arizona, it was a hundred
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: and fifty thousand vallot signatures in that ballpark. So what
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: you're typically looking at, as you'll see the other side,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: try to get above and beyond that, because they know
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: some of those signatures are gonna be in validated. They
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: won't be from actual voters that have the wrong address.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: Those kinds of things only a hundred. Yeah, yeah, it's
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's shockingly low. And a lot of these states,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: what what what the threshold is to place a ballot
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: measure before the voters, because I mean there's three millions
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: on people in Phoenix, Rhenish. Huh. So what happened when?
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: So they started gathering to signatures, but they didn't, they
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: didn't hit the threshold. They pulled out. They didn't. They
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: had some issues. I'll give a lot of credit of
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: the sportsmen down there. Uh, they organized together pretty well. Um.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: They came up with a game plan to to defeat
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: this thing. Uh, and they ran their game plan. They
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: were successful. We went down and met with those guys
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: early on before the ballot initiative was even um launched.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: Tell him, look, we were seeing the tea leaves here.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: We can see the smoke. There's a there's a fire
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: coming right. You know. They've released this report, they've highlighted
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: these states. If you look at the five states, we
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: feel like Arizona Colorado are probably the two most likely
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: targets because of Phoenix in Denver, because the Phoenix in Denver,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: because we've just gotten off the heels of winning the
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: trapping issue in Montana, the ballot issue in Montana and
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: fourteen so just a year after that. So we've already
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: got a kind of a campaign infrastructure left up there.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Utah has some constitutional protections against wildlife related ballot measures.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: We just looked at those kind of two states with
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: the demographics shift that they've seen over the last ten
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: and fifteen years, where the populations are located. You look
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: at Arizona, that's a tough place to do a ballot measure.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Seventy percent of the households in Arizona the TV households
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: the viewing public, or in the Phoenix media market, you're
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: playing for one media market that drives costs way up. So,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: you know, we look at these states, you can kind
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: of you can kind of predict where you think they're
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: the other side's gonna go. And they they're looking at
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: their own data and they're looking at their own plans
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: and campaign ideas and trying to figure out where they're
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: gonna go. Um. But yeah, the guys down there did
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: a great job. They put together a campaign plan that
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: was designed to try to put up roadblock to keep
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: them off the ballot. Um Ultimately, the other side didn't
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: hire a signature gathering firm, they were unable to do so,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: and that that that drastically hurt their their efforts. Unable
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: to do so for what reason. So there's only a
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: limited number of signature gathering firms in Arizona, and and
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: and the sportsmen were working with one of them already,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: and so that precluded them from working for the other side.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: And so what you're what you're dealing with them is
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: you have to bring in a signature gathering firm from
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: another state. And that's not unusual, right when when they
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: qualified the bare issue in Maine in hs US used
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: a group out of California to come up and do it.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: But in Arizona there's a little bit higher. Okay, you're
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: getting stuff now that raises all kinds of questions in
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: the best possible way, signature gathering firms. I mean, there
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: are companies that specialize in getting legitimate signatures to move
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: ballot initiatives. There's companies that make a ton of money
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: doing that, just tons of money doing they just run
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: the logistics. Do they run the media? No? No, typically
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: not typically you see that done by other consultants. But
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: typically these guys are in the business for for for
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: qualifying issues. And then every state's got them guns for higher. Yep,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: they go out there and higher and you pay. Some
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: states you pay by the signature. And that's the interesting
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: thing in Arizona, right, So Arizona passed a law of it,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: and you no longer can pay by the signature. So
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: instead of saying, you know, for every signature that you get,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: will give you a dollar, and you don't. You're not
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: paying a salary, you're not paying an hourly wage. You're
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: just saying for every valid signature you get, we're gonna
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: give you a dollar or two dollars or whatever the
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: case might be. In Arizona, you have to be an
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: hourly employee, so that that creates a level of infrastructure.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: The organization has to have to be able. Who have
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: those people be employees? You know, you gotta do tax forms,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: you gotta do this stuff, and you gotta have HR
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: and payroll and healthcare and all all kinds of stuff. Right,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit different standard than a lot of states.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: The Lost States don't require you to be an hourly employee.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: So that created a little bit more of a barrier
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: and reduced the number of potential firms down to just
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: a handful, and so, uh, you know, my my my
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: opinion is that the other side got a late start
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: on actually talking to these firms, right, they thought it
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: was gonna be an easier time to qualify than it was.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: They felt like they could do a better job with
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: volunteers than they did. And uh, you know, one thing
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: leads or another and you run out of time, and
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: so they wind up having volunteers go out and set
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: up out in front of the whole foods. Yep, what
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: have you? Yep, I mean to pull pick them out,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: but I just know that that was the place they
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: were doing signature together and the zoo and wherever else.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: And the volunteer goes out there and starts gathering signatures.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: Do you want to protect these endangered cats from being
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: slaughtered by you know, cruel hunters? And how many how
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: many signatures did they hit? We don't know. I don't
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: know because they never submitted them, right, so they could
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: have had five thousand, they could have haddo in the
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: fact that they they suspended their campaign, they just believe
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: they didn't have very many because they didn't even they
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: didn't even submit the signatures to the state. They didn't.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: They never crossed the threshold. They didn't come back and
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: say we've got, you know, ten percent more than we
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: need and we didn't get enough valid It was an
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: issue where they didn't have enough to even submit the
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: minimum threshold. So every single signature that they had was
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: valid signature and they gave to the state. You have
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: to hit on a percent to get the issue qualified.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: It wasn't even that they didn't have enough to even
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: submit the base level signatures. How could how in the
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: case of Arizona, how we're sportsmen? How are you? How
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: do you battle that? Because there's nothing to battle yet.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: It's just like all they're doing is that they they
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: have people out getting signatures. Are you playing like a
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: like a like a pr game to game these one
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: and fifty thousand people that they need to sure there's
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: there's different methods, there's different um tactics you can use. Right,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: Obviously there's the main method which was main as the state,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: which is is a campaign you're planning or you're basically
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: raising a bunch of money to fund a TV advertising
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: campaign that because you know the issue is going to qualify,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: saying don't sign well, no, in Maine, it was it
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: was don't vote for it. In Arizona, Arizona, what they
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: went for was they declined to sign campaign. Right, So
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: they did a bunch of PR around the idea of
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: don't sign this thing. It's not what it is pretended
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: portrayed to be. It's an outside group from d C,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: it's not a local Arizona group. So they did a
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: bunch of PR stuff like that. Do you think that
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: was effective? It can be, It can be. It's certainly
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: um because it seems that thresholds so low. Yeah, the
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: d thousand vote threshold is so low that you wouldn't
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: that that you would get it from just that you'd
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: find like the you'd have enough like radical fringe people
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: to account for the Sure. Yeah, you know, I think
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: it was successful this time. You know, there's some other
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: stuff in there, like like I said, with the paid
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: sign gathering issues and some of the other things that
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: campaign tried to do, and the h s US had
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: a sex games. Let's not forget the internal turmoil they
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: had right at this time. You know, right around Christmas
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: first of the year, they had Wayne Poselli get get
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: caught up in the Me too movement and the sexual harassment,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: and that's the last thing you want on a PR
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: campaign as you're trying to go out there and do
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: this when the other side can start pointing back and diverting,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: you know. But something to think about is right about
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: that time, they stroked a five dollar check for the campaign.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: So they've suspended this campaign, but it's still structurally there
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: with almost a half a million dollars in it, if
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: they can reignite it any time. So it's plausible. I mean,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: we'll never know what really have it's plausible that they
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: hit up against the sexual scandal. I just had to
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: pull rain everybody and we group try again later. Yeah,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: when you come back with you with a longer timeline
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: to get the signatures gathering done, you get you get
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: a firm lined up, you know, you do the stuff
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: up front. It's it's a it's a short term victory.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: It's a good victory. We shouldn't be literally eyed deal
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: that they were able to keep him off the ballot
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: this year. But the question now it turns to what
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: does the future look like, What does it look like
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: in twenty two if they come back, What are we
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: going to do to stop them a second time? If
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: they have a longer timeline, if they decided to throw
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: instead of five dollars at it, or if they throw
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: two million dollars at the qualification effort, you know, what
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: are we going to do in the meantime to protect
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: ourselves against that future attack? And that's what hurts us
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: as hunters a lot. Is I mean, they're a hundred
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: and fifty million dollar organization. They can stroke that check,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: no problem, it's not a big deal. And our boots
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: on the ground in individual states were all kind of fragmented,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: and for you know, one state group of hunters to
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: come up with one or two million dollars on a
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: short period of time, it's tough deal. And that's where
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: they're taking this as the ballot and the money fight.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: And they've got it because they've got grannies throwing ten
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: dollars checks at them for saving puppies that they're not saving.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: You know, to use main as the example, right, I
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: mean we just talked about it. That came up once,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: then incubated a little bit longer, came up again, Um,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: the Arizona example. So I mean, what is I mean?
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: Is there uh educational campaign going on in the interim
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: or two, you know, both on the public and on
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: the hunting side of things, or how does that play out?
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: Because if this sitting in the bank way and drop in,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: what what is the proactive said of this from the
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: sportsman's angle? So there's a lot of stuff you can do. Obviously,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: the pr side of it's important, you know, having that
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: messaging out there talking to the general public about you know,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: why these species need to be managed, why the appropriate
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: management is done by the state wildlife agency. Um, you know,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of it is is a reactionary game though, right,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: that's the that's the great challenge of an organization like ours.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: We don't know what the issue is going to be
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: next year that we're gonna work on. I can give
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: you a pretty good idea of what I think the
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: fights are coming. The other side really really controls the
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: agenda in a lot of regards. Right, they get to
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: decide where and when they launched these attacks. So it
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: might not be it might not be Arizona next time.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: It might be Colorado, it might be Denver. You know,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: they might decide to go up and and launch our
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: campaign there. They might do both states at once. You know,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: we don't we don't really know that. So from our side,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: it's it's really tough to kind of project and predict.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: You know, well, if you just do X, Y and
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: Z for the next year, you'll be fine in Arizona. Well,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: they might not come back to Arizona. It might be
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: ten years before they come back to Arizona. But what
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: the next attack might be in in Colorado and buy
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: in large sportsmen don't like to think about these issues,
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: right absolutely. We just want to be out there hunting, fishing,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: doing our thing. But this stuff pops up. We get
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: motivated when the boogeyman's there, but if immediate threats, but
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: if they're gone, all right, good. When's deer season coming up?
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: We got a hundred days. Cool, you've been shooting, how's
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: it going? You know? That's we forget about these things
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: and move on. And it's a bigger issue in the industry.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: We're talking about it. You know. Right after Cecil there
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: was a lot of different people brought together to talk
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: about how to be proactive and keep the next ceasel
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: the line from happening. And this goes back to our
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: messaging is how do you run an education campaign someplace?
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, the messaging we get into in a ballot
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: initiative is very specific trapping on public lands in Montana,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: and what's going to move the needle there? How do
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: you apply that to hunting in general across the nation?
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, and you don't know what which attack and
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: it's going to be. Is it predators, is it prey animals?
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: What's it going to be. It's a great it's a
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: great point, right because you can you can public opinion
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: poll people and ask them who do you believe should
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: be the primary managers of wildlife? And overwhelmingly people will
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: tell you the state Wildlife Agency they should make the
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: decisions on seasons and bag limits. In this kind of thing, right,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: you can also ask them do you want to ban
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: black bear hunting over bait? And they'll tell you overwhelming yes.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: In their mind, they separate the two issues. Right. You
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: can ask them those questions back to back and you'll
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: see a disparag a disparity between the two answers. And
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: so general education general you know, uh, general campaigns that
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: just just espouse the benefits of hunting and and talk
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: about the you know, the benefits to wildlife into populations
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: and all this kind of thing. Certainly that there's a
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: help there, how do you quantify what that help is?
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: When it comes down to a specific balt initiative, it's
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: much more difficult to do that. And then hunters have
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: a tendency to be really provincial. Where you tend to
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: view m say, you hunt. Hunters tend to view what
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: they do in their act what like how they hunt,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: where they hunt, as the acceptable norm, and they don't
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: really view themselves as being players in a large national picture.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: Hunting is very regional, it's very cultural. It's very different, right.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: You used the example a few episodes ago of of
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: the deer dog hunters in the South. The guy runs
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: through the woods up here with a pack of dogs
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: after some deer. It's gonna get some shots by a
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: deer hunter. You'll be shot by a deer hunter. Yeah,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: but that's the culture. Well, norm Donna, that's that's the practice.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: That's the way they've always done it. And so those,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: I mean just a few states over those those those
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: cultures can shift greatly. And so you're trying and we
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: talk about fourteen million hunters or twelve million hunters is
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: a collective group, but it's a collective group of of
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: of of individual practices and individual cultures and individual you know,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: morals and ethics and and and and heritages. That's I
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: think it's like, it's well, it almost I was gonna
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: make a point, but I'm gonna also then talk about
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: why my points not really it doesn't really matter. What
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say is if you look at like
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: a Wisconsin deer hunter. Okay, so he's in he's in
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: part of a traditional use practice hunting Wisconsin where he's
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: sitting in the ground blind in the corner of a
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: field on the back forty and he hears about, oh,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: they're gonna ban the use of dogs for hunting deer
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: down in South Carolina. It's hard to get that guy
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin to be like, man, I should probably pay
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: attention to this because this is a broader thing that
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: will in lifetime come around to involve me. Um. It's
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: hard to get him to feel it. But it's also
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: hard to get him to be effective if he if
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: he does feel it, because these things are playing out
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: on the state level. But then you have a group
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: like the h s U S, which is this national
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: organization base in d C. But they are going out
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: and fighting these little fights a little localized particular fights.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: So it's almost like hunters, fishermen, trappers need to become
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: more interested in like gaming on the national scale and
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: being more proactive in view and take the same approach,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: right that we're gonna wage small isolated, small isolated fights
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: in support of this bigger thing that we're involved in
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: in our own local way. So I'll have view it
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: like this, Right, you have to find and this is
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: this is the struggle for us as an organization to
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: grow and to find those members who care enough because
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: you're talking about somebody you have to you have to
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: have them believe even the greater good because they're not
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: going to have an issue in their backyard every single year.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: You know, if you if you have a hunter in
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: California versus a hunter in Texas, you think one's gonna
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: be more concerned about the Anian hunting community than the other. Absolutely,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: So how do you convince that deer hunter from Texas
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: to care about a black bear issue in Maine? You know,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: these these issues, these transcend state lines. You know that
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: you've got to go fight the battles where the battles are,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: otherwise their battles gonna show up in your backyard pretty soon. Yeah,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: Like a guy in Texas sends money to the Sportsman's
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: Alliance and he looks at ward that morning gets spent
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: probably not getting spent in texts, not not not that often,
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: you know. But that's that's the issue, right. I mean,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: you either have to fight the battles where they are
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: today or or they're gonna show up here eventually. You
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: see these things spread, right, You've seen you've seen trapping
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: issues spread. You've seen the bear issue spread. You've seen
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: the application of the these ese es a policy spread.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: You know, if you don't take them on when they
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: come up, you're just you're just opening the door for
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: for issues ten fift twenty years down the road. You
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: guys bring this up a lot in your publications, is
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: that once they win one win, it just sets the precedent,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: and so they just go into everywhere and going to look,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: we want here on this, but you know these reasons
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: in Maine, So why would you decide any differently? And yeah,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: it's a springboard. It's opportunity to points that you guys
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: aren't doing as well as they are. You need to
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: raise your standards, you have to do better, and you
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: play one side off against the other. And we know
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: the wildlife management is vastly different from from from Montana
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: to Florida. There's vastly different issues, vastly different challenges. But
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: for them, they're going to point them and say they're
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: not they're not they're not comfortable. Yeah, that's why the
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: heritage argument for me, I always cringe when it comes up, because, man,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: there's nobody in this room that couldn't shoot a lot
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: of holes through heritage arguing up, Um, I see all
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: the holes in it. But also it also means something
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: to me. It does because you are a hunters were
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: talking to hunters, right, Yeah, we can get hunters when
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: that threat is immediate to jump on and get active
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of the times. But you know, it's it's
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: to me the management side of things, you know, pumping
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: up our biologists and look at the science is the win.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: But you know, how do you make that sexy enough
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: for people to come out and say, yeah, that is
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: this is what makes more sense than yeah, I think.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately it's not always possible. It's not always possible to sexify.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: Is that it works to sit to sexify wildlife the
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: complexities of wildlife management Okay, I got two more questions
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: for you guys. Um One, how do you weigh out Okay,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: you're defending hunting, trapping, fishing practices, but how do you
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: weigh out what might seem to be a restriction? Um,
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: how do you weigh out like where it's coming from?
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: And for instance, in your newsletter, there's a sum up
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: of legal activities going on, and you had a sum
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: up of what state? Well, um, um, yeah, some of
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota, for instance, where there's a bill that would
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: expand the definition of a muzzleloader to include a scope. Okay,
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: And someone might look and be like, okay, great, because
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: that's like I don't know, it's it's like increasing efficacy
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: of muzzleloaders, which one might proceed to be good for
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: hunters because it increases efficacy and lets you do a
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: better job. But we know in the case of when
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: state started to adopt muzzleloader seasons, there was an add
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: on season, so it was a way to increase opportunity
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: for hunters to be out in the field. What was
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: interesting about muzzleloaders they have low efficacy, so you could
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: have your general fire arm season where you're gonna kill
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: the vast majority of of the deer that you're gonna kill.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: But then you could have these add on ten day,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: two week, three week muzzloader seasons. And because of the weather,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: because of the difficulty of using muzzleloaders, you knew that
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: it wasn't going to be a great additive sense and
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: dear mortality, So you could increase opportunity for people who
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: want them to go hunt. I think it's been more
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: time in the woods. Everyone's a winner. It's not going
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: to have a dramatic effect on your deer herd, right,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: So that's what gave us muzzloder seasons. So when we
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: look when a group comes in and says when the
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: state agency comes in and defines a musload in a
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: particular way to have low efficacy, and then someone wants
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: to move to be like, well, I want to put
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: a scope on top of mine. How how do you
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: weigh it out? Because you might view it as being well,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: that's an unnecessary regulation, that's like big brother telling you
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: how to hunt. But it might be like, well, the
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: reason we can have a muzzleloader season is because they
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: have low efficacy, and if you increase the efficacy through technology,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: you're negating the reason of having the muzzleloader season. But
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: it seems to be in your newsletter, You're you feel
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: that this is a good thing to be able to
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: add a scope to a muzzleloader. So how do you
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: weigh that out? Because this is not coming from the
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: animal right This isn't like an animal rights community issue.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: This is a game management issue. Well, it's certainly much
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: more clear cut when it is an animal rights issue, right,
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: So when when it when it is a state issue
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: like this, you typically look to the sportsman in the
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: state to educate them and let them advocate for themselves.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: But you've you've hit on the important kind of distinction
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: here is that, Yeah, there's the balance on the on
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: the biological side, which the state is going to look
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: at anyways when it manages dear herds and and tries
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: to project what that will do to the increase the
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: take during the muzzleloader season. But what else does it
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: do on the opportunity side. You know, we've got a
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: declining hunting population in this country. It's an endemic problem
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: that we've been dealing with for for multiple decades now, um,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: you know, and so you have to kind of balance
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: the idea of opportunity and access with the idea of
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: you know, are we are we using a season that
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: was originally intended for for maybe something a little bit
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: different than is used for now? Are we going to
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: change that by by putting a scope on a muzzleloader?
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know there's a clear answer to it, right,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know that there's you know, you
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: can draw a clear line in the sand. You know,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: for us as an organization, we tend not to delve
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: too deeply into those issues, right Yeah, yeah, I don't.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: I don't mean, yeah, I should be fair there that
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: this is not a marquee issue for you, right right, Well,
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: it's like I mean, you know, it's it's it's like
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: the debate over bows and crossbows and whether crossbows should
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: be in in the traditional archery season, you know, bow
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: seasons or where that you have their own season where
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: they should be with firearms for us, I feel, but
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: that debate, I feel is a hunter debate, Like that
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: debate is being carried out by hunters, is not being
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: carried out by hunters versus an often not right? Absolutely right?
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: So do you weigh in on those issues where it's
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: hunters debating something? No, not typically right, because we're a
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: small organization. We're a lean organization. We don't have a
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: huge staff, right, We're one of the smaller organizations in
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: the conservation space. You know, you look at some of
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: these groups, Army f and Turkey Federation, all these guys
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: we partner with do great work, but they're mass of
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: organizations compared to ours. So for us, you know, we
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: have we have to fight the fights that are our
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: our core to our mission. Our mission is to protect
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: you know, hunters from the anti hunting and animal rights
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: movement um. You know, so certainly where where you have
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: hunters united in in unison on an issue muzzle loaders
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: or cross bows or whatever the case might be in
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: the state, we might be able to find some support
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: to that issue. We're typically not getting into the sportsman
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: versus sportsman debate on these things because we just don't
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: have the bandwidth, you know. We we we we have
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: our hands full with with these lawsuits, with these ballot
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: measures and these legislative issues in the States. And if
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: we could get to the point where we we got
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: done dealing with all the animal rights and anti hunting crap,
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: and yeah, we might be able to work on some
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: other stuff like that, because I also a view too,
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: like issues around technology. Okay, so issues around trail cam use,
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: Like is it to the point where we need to
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: where where hunters would decide among themselves that we need
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: to get a grip on trail cam use, or hunter
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: would decide among themselves that we need to get out
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: ahead of drone use. Right. I feel that those like
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: that those debates are should enjoy like some kind of
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: like sanctity, or they should be allowed to play out
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: in some sort of natural way rather than rather than
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: teeing them up or framing them up in sort of
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: this anti rolling him into this sort of like anti
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: hunting conversation. Because I think that there are times we're
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: gonna come up with where we're gonna be self limiting
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: technologies in advancement of like the betterment of wildlife in general. Right,
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: And we might make those decisions and someone on the
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: outside of it like, oh, that's an infringement on a
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: hunter's ability to conduct his business, or that's you dictating
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: how a hunter should go. But we're already doing it. Anyways.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: We decided a long time ago not to fish with dynamite,
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: so at the time we decided that we're not going
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: to fish with dynamite anymore. With dynamite, I don't know
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: if that don't adult using hunt guns. Well, at the
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: end of the day, it comes down to management, right,
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: So when we're kind of in these things, our position
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: as an organization is leave it in the hands of
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: the biologist. Give him his tool chest, let him have it.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: Don't take trapping away, don't take baiting away, don't take
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: dogs away, don't do this, let him have it. If
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: the biologists say, hey, we can't sustain this with you know,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: the dog harvest, we're going to limit this, or bait
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: is being too effective, or having scopes on this, leave
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: it up to those individual biologists in those regions to
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: do it. Give them their full tools, though we're trying
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: to keep the animal rights movement from taking those tools away. Yeah,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: that that's a that's a you did a much better
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: job of expressing what I'm what I'm trying to say
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: that I do. But yeah, it's um, it's sort of
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: like looking at where's the what are the motivations, what
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: are the motivations of who's you know, providing this idea,
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: Like for instance, it's Montana has never had bear hunting.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: For how they've never had bear hunting with bait that
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: didn't come from the animal rights movement, that came from
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: just traditional use practices in a deep legacy in that state.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: I would imagine that you don't look there and think
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: that they're making a mistake, Right, It's just like a
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: thing that's always been they have, they have a successful
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: bear program, and it's just how it is in that state, right, Yeah, absolutely,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: I mean that's that's that's where the managers come in
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: and make those decisions, and and and that gets back
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: to the idea that that wildlife management decisions are are
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: wildly local too, right. You know, it can vary wildly
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: from from you know, from the hell and of Valley
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: of Montana down to the Bitter Root, right. You know
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: that you get over and Ida, how you get over
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: into Washington State. There are different cultures, there's different practices,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: there's different heritages. And then you think about going from
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: Alaska to Florida or from Maine to California. I mean
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: you're talking about vastly different habitats, vastly different cultures. Yeah,
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: there can definitely be differences there, and you just use
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: that like that toolkit idea that management tools, um. And
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: that's notthing with this this like very hotly debated federal
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: preserve thing in Alaska where Alaska has state authority to
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: use certain management practices where they see fit, and then
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: the federal government comes in and says we're going to
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: remove certain tools that you have access to on specific
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: pieces of land, and in the public telling of this,
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: they would act as though these practices are rampant, when
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: in fact the state usually decides not even to use
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: the tool anyway. Yeah. Yeah, the thing, the whole Alaska
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: preserves and uh refuge stuff. If you watch a hs
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: US Center for Biological Diversity and all these guys blow
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: it up, it makes it sound like everybody is hired
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: a plane. We're shooting, shooting grizzlies from plane into dens
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: and gasing them. All. All of these things were extreme
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: management techniques for the state biologists to use in case
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: they needed it, and often indigenous groups and in and
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: in and some of the indigenous stuff. Um. But from
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: the state side. One one wolf and the pups were
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: killed in like two thousand nine used it once they
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: killed they killed the adult wolves, found the den that
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: had pups in it and because they were in a
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: high I can't remember which disease it was area, they
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: had to kill the pups. They couldn't take the pups
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: and relocate them or put them in a zoo or anything.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: It was distemper I think it was, and so they
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: had to kill him. That's the one time these tactics
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: have been used. And H. S U S and CBD
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: and everybody else blew it up, like sportsmen go up
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: there and you know, are drinking bear and shooting out
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: of a plane and crawling in dens with them and
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: which is strangling pups and stuff. And I know, if
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: I have hunted extensively in Alaska, I know quite I
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: have never heard of uh someone using the contested practice
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: of fact when it came like like that, you can
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: kill a swimming caribou most places you cannot. I think
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: there's two gay there's two portions of there's portions of
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: two game management units north of the Brooks Range, where
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: it's a traditional practice with Indigenous Alaskans to head off
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: caribou at pinch points where they are crossing rivers. They've
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: hunted them that way for probably thousands of years, and
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: but they sell it like, oh, now, um, that's going
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: to be going on here when it's a tool kit,
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: like the state of Alaska has has the ability to
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: open up that method of take, which they have chosen
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: not to do across about of the state and there's
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: a couple of places where they allow it because of
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: traditional use practices, and most of the way it's sold
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: in the media in the media is that there's this
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: last little bastion where you cannot shoot swimming caribou from
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: a boat. So it goes back to our message and
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: messenger that we were talking about. That's exactly what they're doing.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: They're spinning it and spinning the pr and they get
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: a lot because emotional arguments and emotional things were great
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: in the press. They get a lot of example of
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: the way this information came out could have been delivered
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: in a hell of a lot better way with much
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: better context, where yeah, we could have been delivered in
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: a way to where the other side what wouldn't be
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: able to take that information and run with it the
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: way they have Because I'm getting this question all the
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: time too, and well, yeah, well they're good at what
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: they do, Yeah they are. And they have a ton
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: of money and they have a ton of media connections
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: and so they can put this out there, and once
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: it's out, it takes off. I mean, you watch it
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: go viral, and it's hard for us to turn around
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: and flip that, you know, like what do we say? Well,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: you know, NBC ran probably the worst article about the
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: story and then corrected. I think it was because of
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: this digital radio program when and uh, which is I'm
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: joking uh, And then did and then did a some
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: weeks later, did a very sophisticated, very sophisticated follow up
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: at it. And I was like, I was in pressing
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: that that was a good article and that's about as
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: balanced as we're gonna be able to get as a
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: hunting community. The first even threw in like Bacon and Dona.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: It was just like they tried to act like and
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: they tried to tie it into wild stuff. So just
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: act like it was it was a war on predators, right.
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: And then they filed up and did a thing where
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: they went and actually like looked at where the practices
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: are used, how they're u as an explanation of the
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: management tools. Well, it's a very complex issue, more complex
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: than management the lower forty eight even because you're dealing with,
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: like you said, indigenous and subsistence use, which is spelled
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: out in state law is there's, there's, there's there are
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: different parts of Alaska's entry to the to the Union
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: that it's spelled out some of these things that that
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: commerce has ratified. Right, the Statehooded Act provides for a
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: sustained use, a sustained yield policy. There you have a
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: nilka out there that also has these these these these
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: in roads that that allow for certain practices to take place,
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: and the state is is supposed to manage wildlife to
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: allow for those subsistence hunters. And so you comp can't
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: the issue of just trying to understand what are the
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: practices that we're talking about, and then what did the
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: Obama administration do to change the long running practice? You know,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: this is this is a great idea of the toolbox, right,
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: the state of Alaska had these tools in their toolbox
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: up until when the Obama administration changed and stripped it away,
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: and they were mostly never happening, that's right, never, that's right.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: And so it was it was a vast federal overreach
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: in terms of the federal government for the first time
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: in this instance, saying we're going to sever the tie
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: between the state management of the species on federal lands
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: and we're gonna take that back and say, you know,
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: we just don't like those practices. Those practices are just tasteful,
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: and you're not allowed to do them anymore. These are
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: practices that have been reserved even though they're still able
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: to do of the state that's right, and they're able
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: to but are generally not doing the practices of the
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: state that's right. And so the biggest issue for us,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: the reason why we sued over that whole issue, the
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: reason why we petitioned the Department of Interior to undo
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: the rule and they've started that process, was in doing so,
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: they vastly changed the definition of pragator management. Right. There's
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of comes down to the predator management side
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: of things, whether or not you can hunt wolves in
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: the summer, whether or not you can hunt bears over bait,
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: or like you said, the cariboo issue where they're swimming
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Um, But the predator side is
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: the big one because they change the definition definition of
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: predator management in their rule, and they changed the way
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: it was applied. Right before the state talked about these
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: intensive predator management issues, right, those things that a lot
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: of folks are gonna find troubling in the media. But
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: it's not just the idea that you're gonna go out
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: there and take a bearer, take a wolf. But they
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: expanded that to mean that any time, any time you
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: change the rules that could be viewed as an expansion
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: of predator management, that's in violation of federal rule. Now,
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: and you can't do it. So what what in essence,
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: and this is a silly example, but if the Board
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: of Game in Alaska said, all of a sudden, you
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: know what, we're gonna extend the summer wolf hunting season
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: by one minute one minute, now, you're in violation of
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: federal That's that's how hamstrong they would be. You couldn't
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: change anything that would have an impact on expanding predator management.
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: And so you're seeing these things. You know, it's it's
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: also important to to understand that, you know, yeah, three
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: percent of the state. If if that's the number, you
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: can already do these practices on But you're talking about
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: this was Fish and Wildlife Service land, and this was
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: Park Service preserve land. It's ninety seven million acres. If
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: that were a state would be the fourth largest state
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: in the country just it would be bigger than Montana's
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: express it. I mean, it's a huge, huge, vast area
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: of land that we're talking about here, and you're really
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: talking about the idea of them and why the lower
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: forty eight guys should care because you have the federal
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: government stepping in and saying, you know what, state, we
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: got this. No longer you're you're no longer in charge
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: of management. We're gonna take it over. We're gonna we're
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: gonna do what we think is right. But in the
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: case of Alaska, it's we're gonna take it over without
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: being able to demonstrate you that you're doing something wrong. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: well you can't. You can't point to they weren't able
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: to point to a mismanagement. They weren't able to point
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: to a collapsing population. There was like nothing to back
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: it up. I could see if some if a state
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: had some policy that was run some species into the
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: ground or driving them toward an e s A listing.
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: But and here you have a state that like really
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: the only here you have a state where they have
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: uh wolves and grizzlies on whatever percent of historic range
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: so it's like an absence of a problem, you're creating
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: an oversight issue. Be like coming into a problem, like
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: coming in like I've I've expressed it support it be
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: like coming into a city where there's not like a
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: high incident of traffic accidents. They have like pretty safe
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: traffic record, it's in line with everything else. But you
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: come and say, like, you know what, if your road
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: passes a federal building, I want you to change all
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: of the traffic laws. They're kind of arbitrarily, but just
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: because that's how I would like to see it happen.
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: And and it's your responsibility to manage that and go
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: and make that clear, not that there's a problem. The
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: funny part about all this, and that's a fantastic point.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: The funny part about this is in the environmental assessment
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: that the federal government did, they actually, and i'll read
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: this to you, they actually admit that this policy could
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: cause extra pation of certain species under some conditions and
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: in some location. This may include either predator prey or
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: both populations declining to a point that they are below
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: the threshold for detection through current monitoring techniques, or they
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: may actually become locally extrapated. They're actually admitting that that
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: policy of changing the predator management stuff could cause some
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: prey species to become extrapated. Yeah, like you would probably
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: see with trying to recover desert reopening an old one,
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: trying to recover desert big horns in Arizona. If you
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: lost the if you lost the lion hunting management tool,
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be kissing goodbye. Or if you lost
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: water causlers, absolutely you're like you're kissing goodbye little isolated
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: desert big horn population. So are you for a wild
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: life or not? Exactly? Because all right, my last question, um,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: are you know the answers? I want to put it
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: out there. Is there a potential truce? Okay, let's say
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: get rid of bear hunting. Let's say hunters come to
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: the table. We're like, hey, we'll make a deal. We'll
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: quick hunting bears, quit trapping beavers. We're cool. Right, that's
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: the end of everything. But that's the end of that's
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: the end of this whole thing. Right, let's shake on it.
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: Is there a truce to be made? No, we lose
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: what are the only side giving anything up? You know
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: it can't be a truce when when you know you're
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: gonna say, well, let's just let's have a compromise. Right,
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: Instead of the ten things I want to do, we're
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: just gonna do five them. We're gonna fay on five methods. Well,
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: we've lost that. Now you can't get that back. The
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: truce to them is that there's no more hunting. Like
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: that's where this is headed. Yeah, what what do we
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: get out of that? I mean, you know, we're basically
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: negotiating against ourselves. And that's the that's the great challenge here.
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: We have to win every time. They only have to
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: win once. The they win one out of ten every
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: ten issues they put out there, they're still moving the
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: ball down the field. You know, it's just death by
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: a thousand cuts approach. They're gonna try stuff all over
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: the place and they're gonna see what sticks. They're gonna
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: take their victories where they can get them. They're gonna
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: put them on the shelf, and we're not gonna get
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: that back. Just like we didn't get Mountainlin back and California,
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: it's like, we're not gonna get bear hunting back in California. Likely.
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: Once you lose these these opportunities, they're gone. So for
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: the other side, I don't believe there's anything to be
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: had there for them. Why con I mean, I I
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: don't I don't see it. Well, they came into Washington State,
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: they banned the use of hounds and hounds and bait.
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: Then they came back ten years later in bend trapping,
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: So they're not happy. They just want to take it
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: away and they want the world to run according to
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: their belief system. I think it gets back to the
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: idea you hit on upon earlier, Right, it's that they
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: want to point these inhumane and barbaric and cruel whatever
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: whatever terms they used to define the the the method
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: of take as the reason why they're doing this. Right,
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: we're only doing it because it's the most inhumane forms
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: of hunting or it's the most inhumane take. But the
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: truth of the matters, they're not okay with it at all,
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: you know, they're they're not okay with the idea of
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: you know, you hear about shooting a bear out of
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: a tree or shooting a line out of a tree,
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: but if you shot that bear eight hundred yards across
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: the canyon. They have a reason why they're opposed that
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: they have circular arguments. It's all circular arguments to seither.
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: If you're using a primit of weapon, then it's a
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: primitive weapon and you're gonna higher chance of injuring that
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: animal and getting away, and it's suffering. If you use
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: high tech where you gotta scope and your dialing and
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: you can shoot it at a hundred yards thousand yards,
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: now you're not ethical and you're not fair. So it
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter what you do or say. They have an
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: argument against the work kind of good exactly, you know.
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: And it's in the the average deer hunter needs to
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: care about these fringe benefits or these fringe sports just
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: as much because one, those animals eat the deer in
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: the elk and everything else. But when they finished with that,
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: they're coming after the bow hunters. They had a big
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: thing in the eighties and early nineties where they went
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: after bow hunting, and they've been pushing looking at that again,
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: you know. So it's they'll go after the bow hunting
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: and say it's uh, you know, not ethical, and then
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: the muzzle loader and they'll just keep chipping away. They
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: don't care. It's like negotiating with terrorists. Cal uh, do
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: you go ahead? Concluders. I'm guessing you want to get
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: back into Cormorant that was just now we've now stone
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: that bird. Um yeah, I mean I think the we
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: just need to get to a spot where it's like
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: we have kids that are growing up in non hunting
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: families want to wanting to be the next Kevin Murphy,
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: you know, wanting to be the next Steven Ronella and
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: saying like hey, these people are making a difference and
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: they're contributing, um a bright spot. Yeah, I think there's
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: there's a hell of an opportunity there, you know. And uh,
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: we have a lot of media out there. You know
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: when you said like, oh, it's a war on predators, Right, man,
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: I can sit down with Final Cut pro and YouTube
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: and make a hell of video that shows a war
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: on predators. Right. I'll take you up on that, go right.
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: Um So yeah, man, I mean it's it's advancing the
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: advancing the sport for the next generation. I'm not it's
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: saying at all losing anything. But for example, like the
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: Montana trapping issue, right, you guys have a picture of
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: it up here on your wall. I was like that
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: made my skin crawl. I hated it that I couldn't
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: believe that my home state that would ever even come up.
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: But when I started waiting in on that issue and um,
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: you know, trying to do my own advocacy on it,
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of folks out there that I didn't
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: want to associate with that were some of the loudest voices.
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: And how do we get everybody on the same page
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, if you want this to exist, maybe
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: you guys should not be talking the way you're talking
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: or addressing the general public the way you're talking. You know,
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: it's kind of both sides, right, Like, we can do
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: better pr we can be our our own worst enemies
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: at times. At the at the other end of the spectrum,
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: we have to get off our high horse sometimes and
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: meet in the middle. Like, right, so we got to
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: protect these guys, but we also can't condemn them. So
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: it's it's that in the middle we both have to
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: do a little both sides. The Yeah, the own worst
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: enemy argument is one that it's a huge argument and
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: it's one that UH warrants getting into and it's it's
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: a difficult one. It's a different one. But I think
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: that there's a lot of people who you know, there
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: are a lot of well meeting people who seem to
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: provide a never ending stream of awful pr and oftentimes
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: it's coming from a really cynical perspective where it's like, well,
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: I'm going to shove it in their face and I
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: think they're doing well. I think they're doing good. But
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of times it hurts, or a lot of
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: times it's uh selfish. You know, We've seen people construct
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: drama in order to get the hunting community to rally
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: around them, and now they're getting financial benefit out of it,
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: and they call us. We're like, hey, we're getting harrassed
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: by ani hunters. How do we do this? Well, it's
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: pretty easy. Make your page private. Quick, quit jumping around
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: and hold people recording, inviting disaster. I've been doing this
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: for twenty years. I used to troll pets message boards
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: and I still haven't got a death threat message boards.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: You just you just show you the Kevin Murphy got
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: any final thoughts? Yeah, I know you haven't had an
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: opportunity to say a whole lot coming. I know you're
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: just absorbing, absorbing, but do you have any I've been
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: doing some technical issues to you, my man here um
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: A lot of these topics that we've talked about do
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: affect the small game hunters in the central Southern States.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: A lot head to the north into summer. In the
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: early fall, honey season opens up early. We had those
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: hunting opportunities. I was in Maine grouse hunting with some
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: friends of mine from West Virginia. In Virginia. Uh, we
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: saw the Barry Is shoe firsthand up there. I was concerned. UM.
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: I called back home through the league Kentucky Sportsman asked
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: them to put some show some support up there, try
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: to send something unding to help find this issue. Uh.
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: There's a case example of what I was talking about earlier.
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: And um uh we have very hunting in the city
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: Kentucky for a long time. We didn't have it. Just
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: when the last like ten years, I personally pen wrote
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: the resolution so through our sportsman club, the OLBL Sportsman Club,
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: so that you could hunt bears in Kentucky with dogs.
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: They were starting to become a nuisance in there. They
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: had a gun hunt slight slight gun hunting there. But
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: finally we wrote that resolution. We we took it through
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: the leak of Kentucky Sportsmen. They presented it to the
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: wildlife biologists. They reviewed it says there's no problem hunting
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: hunting bears in Kentucky with with dogs. That's something to happen. Yes, yes,
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: I wrote them, like I said the resolution. We have
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: a sportsman club and if you remember that, you can
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: you can look at the game laws if you want
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: to try to help help just those were your hunter.
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: You think that that they may need to be tweaked
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: a little bit, so you know, he's got to go
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: through a chain. You just don't write something and and
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: send it in. You get to support from from the
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: leagal Kentucky sportsman. They take it in and and hand
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: it over to the State Fishing Game uh Department. They
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: review that resolution and say yeah or nay whatever, and
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: then they'll have a vote on it. That's some good
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: Kentucky elbow grease right there. Man. We've getting in there
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: learning what the law is, learning how to work within
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: the system, Engaging with sportsmen, engaging with biologists, are learning
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: all about stuff. You know, our state motto and what
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: we've talked about here is, you know, on our flag
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: is is united, we stand divided. We file you know
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: as sportsman, outdoors mon fisherman. You know we need to
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: stay together. We do not let need to let the
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: anti se fragment our hunting and fishing and outdoor activities join,
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: join a sportsman club locally, pay attention to what's going on,
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: just like you guys have discussed, but being vibe, because
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be residual effects from these negative laws that
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: impact hunting fishing that can trickle down to you personally.
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: Put in some elga will grease, not just sit back
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: and bitch. I like it. I love that thing that
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: you were up doing a little diplomacy. You were in Maine,
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: made some connections, came home and said, hey, fellas, I
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: didn't I did it from there. I saw some of
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: the newspaper articles they uh uh television ads. Um. I
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: had been up there a time or two. So I
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: had a friendship a bond with the people that I
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: was hunting with up there. We stay in a typically
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: a bear hunting lodge that just prints that out to
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: us during some of his off season when we're hitting birds.
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: I've been with some of the bear hunters up there, uh,
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: just as um sidekick to blow the horn, and um,
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: you know there's a great bunch of people up in
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: mind there, and just like I said, you know, we
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: just cannot let them fragment are hunting and fishing opportunities
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: out there, because if if they do, it's just gonna
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: all crumble one of these days. Ye. Speaking about how
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: we can be proactive, you mentioned that there's a couple
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: of states and I don't know if I caught it right,
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: but there's a couple of states that have it in
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: their state constitution where you can't have about initiatives mess
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: with wildlife management. So can we get that in more states? Yeah,
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: they're they're not that clean. It's not that it's not
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: just a flat out prohibition. But there's things you can do.
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: Like you look at Utah, it has a supermajority requirement
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: vote on those types of issues, so instead of the
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: plus one voter, you have to get to sixty or
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: sixty three or sixty or or a higher percentage, which
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: makes it all that more difficult. Um, there's other things
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: you can do in in in in law and in
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: the constitutional law that that would provide barrier, but they're
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: very tough to get done. Um, They're tough to get
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: done in a manner that actually provides some teeth, that
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: provides protections right, because getting back to Cal's question earlier,
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: they don't go after banning bear hunting. They're going after
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: a specific meaning method. So you have to be very
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: careful on how you write those protections and and and
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: when you look at like these right to hunt amendments,
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: when you look at costumes protections doesn't actually provide the
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: necessary level of protection or are we just making ourselves
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: feel like, well, they can't harm us? And so it's
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: a challenge there there's some stuff we can do. Um,
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: we've looked at uh, we looked at some stuff in Maine,
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: we looked at some stuff in Montana after both of
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: those campaigns, to try to suggest changes to either law
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: or constitutional law that would provide some of those protections.
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: But oftentimes you're you know, you're talking about changing the constitution,
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: you're talking about running another ballotis you campaign yourselves, So
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: you're still talking about raising a whole bunch of money,
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: spend in a couple of years, putting a campaign together,
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: and then going head to head with H. S. U.
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: S or whoever else on the animal right side would
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: would want to come to the table. And so if
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: you if you really write of these things and push
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: one of these campaigns that would put some teeth in
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: and put some real protection in. You're gonna see the
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: other side spend money because they know they're that's gonna
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: be a it's gonna be a barrier to them coming
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: back in the front. It could be a win. Like
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: you said, you put on yourself and be like, all right,
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: we got that one and it's it's you know, it's
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: you know, you look at who used me as an example,
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: and we beat this to death today. But like like
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: Kevin said, you know their group sent money up from Kentucky.
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: That that two point three million dollars be raised was
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: done at the grassroots level. There wasn't a five dollar
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: check coming from Washington, d C. Like h S U.
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: S had. It was done here and a thousand dollars
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: there and five dollars here from Houndsman out west and
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: guys in Kentucky and people in Minnesota and all over
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: the place. We raise that money grassroots style. It took
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: it took a year and a half to raise the
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: two point three million dollars. We beat the bushes, We
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: beat the snot out of the folks in Main trying
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: to raise that money. Those guys gave everything they had.
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: You have guys up there who are who aren't making
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: a ton of money giving you what they can give you.
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: And so to turn around the heels of winning after
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: that and come back to them and say, yeah, and
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: now we gotta do it again a second time, to
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: go put the constitutional protection in there. That's tough, man,
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. It's really really tough to get
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: those people to be fired up and engaged a second
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: time when they've just given you the shirt off their
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: back to try to protect their way of life. They
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: want to get back to deer hunt. They want to
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: get back to deer hunt. That's right. Is that your concluding? All? Right?
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: Well for me, I guess I'll expand on what Kevin
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: was saying. And and and I really truly believe like
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: we're an inflection point in the hunting community that we're
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: going to see over the next ten to fifteen years.
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: You know, we've got this whole generation of people that
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: are growing up today who are living in a world
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: and they're becoming voting age, and they're all voting age
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: right now, who are living in a world where their
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: entire lives they have never known wildlife to be in peril. Right,
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: we didn't have to restore turkeys. We don't have to
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: restore dear they were on the landscape. They can't see
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: back to the reasons why we started some of these programs,
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: the reasons why groups like r M e F for NWT, yeah,
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: for any of these other great conservation organizations, why they
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: were founded in the first place. And so in their
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: mind's eye, we've got wildlife everywhere. We don't need to
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: worry about management. We don't need to worry about hunter Well,
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: you know, you talk, you talk about the distinction between
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: how do hunter's play into the management side of this thing.
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: Those folks have no idea, They just no wildlife exists.
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: At the same time, you're marrying that against the idea
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: of the folks that have have created these concrete jungles
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: where wildlife no longer lives. Are the ones who are
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: now having the power to dictate wildlife management laws and
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: rules and regulations, And a lot of times of voting
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: comes down to those individuals. So I really feel like
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: we're at that inflection point where in the next ten
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: to fifteen years we've got to stick together. There's gonna
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: be more attacks, There's gonna be more issues, There's gonna
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: be a need to be involved in these issues and
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: and and keep the wolves at bay. Otherwise we're gonna
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: we're gonna face a drastic future. It's gonna be a
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: drastically different landscape where I can't I struggle to think
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: what the future looks like in that scenario. So I
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: do think we're at that inflection point. You know, it's
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: it's a theme we've talked about a lot today. But
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: how do we protect that future? How do we how
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: do we ensure that this this great experiment we've been
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: going through the last hundred and hundred and twenty years
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: lives on. And if not, what's that future gonna look like?
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: What's the future of conservation look like? If if if you,
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: if you, if you sever that bond, if you break
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: break that tie between the goose that weighs the gold neck, right,
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: you get rid of hunters and the conservation dollars they're
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: pouring into into these states, into the federal government. What
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: are we gonna do? I like it that you mentioned
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: Nason Wild Turkey Federation in that conversation, because here, you know,
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: on top of the billion dollars annually that goes into
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: conservation from guns, ammunition, sporting goods, equipment, fishing equipment, and
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: then the other you know, I don't know, billions some
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: dollars from tags, licenses, and stamps that goes into funding
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: wild I've at the state in every state, at the
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: state level a group like then of you TF I
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: think in the history of that organization, they've put it's
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: just slightly south of five million dollars in the wildlife habitat.
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: And we've got a lot of great work with those
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: guys over the years. It's it's an amazing organization. It's
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: like you and then like you look at that like
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: the impact of the habitat work that has gone to wildlife,
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: and you compare that to what an animal rights group
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: is actually find an animal rights group is actually working
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: to do the work on habitat. Like, what is gonna
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: the thing that's going to measure the success of wildlife
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: in this country? The future success of wildlife in this
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: country is gonna come down to a habit It's gonna
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: come down to habitat. That's what it is. It's not
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: the one by one numerica, it's not the one by
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: one mechanical removal of animals is not the issue. The
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: issue is is there a place for them to exist?
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: And hunters, through mandatory span and man in a self
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: imposed taxation system and then voluntary spending are driving the
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: habitat programs in this country. Absolutely, and that's where wildlife
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: will live. And we'll be remissed and not mentioned target
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: shooters in that as well. You know, you look at
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: some of our business partners are spending. It was a
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: Vista spends eighty seven million dollars last year and in
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: in PR money, I mean not PR like public relations PR,
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: like Pittman Roberts's excise tax dollars are coming back into conservation,
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: you know, recreational shooters versus your hunter and they pitch
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: into that fund. Yeah, it's funny that, like like you know,
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: some little grant you live in the city somewhere and
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: she's got like a pistol in her nightstand is paying
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: for conservation, like yeah, unknown, Yeah, unbeknownst to her, she's
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: paying for wildlife conservation. New Jersey cat lady was against
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: bear hunting, wants to pay for conservation too. So yeah,
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: we'll take the money, though, I'll tell you what go
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: we covered a lot of ground and uh, Florida to Alaska, California,
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: to Maine, California, and we just scratched the surface on
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: so many different things. And and that's what's fun about
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: these conversations because they're they're always eye openers for folks.
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: Um these heavy subjects. That's it sucks to think about,
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: you know, because it's it's what we all love. Everybody
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: here loves getting outdoors and just loves enjoying that time outside.
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: But there's so many things, everything is so complex. The
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: basic premise behind you know, what we need from people
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: is involvement. You know, we need every deer hunter out
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: there involved. We need every duck hunter out there involved.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: They've got to understand the bigger picture of these issues.
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: They've got to look beyond their back forty beyond their
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: immediate hunting season and see what else is out there,
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: see those threats, understand them. Uh, and they've got to
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: get engaged, you know, like like Kevin said, Hey, starting
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: your sportsman's club, joy there. Get involved at the local level.
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: Know what's going on in your own state, know what's
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: going on in your neighboring states and within your regions,
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: and pay attention to those things. Um, obviously we want
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: them to become members of the Sportsman's Alliance. We talked about,
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: you know, if we just had one percent of every
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: license buying hunter out there to be a member of
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: this organization, that's an absolute game changer our mission protecting
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: and advancing hunting, fishing, trapping. Right, we spend most of
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: our time on that protecting side. What can we do
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: on the advancing side? How many more states can we
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: get involved in with with families of field legislation, how
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: many more um, you know, youth programs can we put together?
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: Can we get people out there, not only youth, but
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: young adults who want to learn how to hunt, who
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: want to understand, Hey, I kind of want to know
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: a little bit more about where my food comes from,
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: and hunting seems like a pretty organic process for me
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: to get involved in and do those types of things. So,
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: how many more advancing side of things can we get
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: involved in If hunters start getting more engaged and we
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: you know, we're the key to all of this. If
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: we want wildlife to continue, it's going to come down
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: to habitat and it's going to come down to our involvement.
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 1: So we've got to get I guess a little more
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: outside of just being a selfish hunter. And we've we've
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: done that throughout our history, you know, I mean to
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: Evan's point where we've got people who have grown up
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: in generation where they haven't seen wildlife in peril. Turkeys
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: are pretty prominent deer everywhere. Um. You know, we need
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: that more involvement, that more engagement so that we can
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: continue those things. We can have them in perpetuity for
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: future generations to get out there and enjoy. Amen. Yeah,
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: we very often, but there you go. First of all,
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: I just just like to thank you all for coming
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: out and having us on the show. It it's huge
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: for us. We're a small organization. I mean there's fifteen
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: twenty of us and that's it. You know, get overshadowed
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: by a lot of guys, bigger groups. Um. But I've
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: been involved with Sportsman's Alliance. I've been here for four
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: years almost, but going back ten fifteen years when I
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: was at ESPN outdoors dot com and editor at Outdoor Life. Um,
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: and this is a solid organization, I mean doing the
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: work that needs done without getting the headlines. Don't have
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: a huge PR department to push it out and uh
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: and do it. And like Sean said, if we had
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: more help and had one percent of hunters, you know,
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: we could do so much more. When it when you're
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: talking lobbying, lawsuits and ballot initiatives, it all comes down
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: to money. That's what it is, you know. And it
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 1: sucks that it's that, but that's what it takes to
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: win these things. And that's where the fight is. And
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: the other side H s U, S, CBD, Sierra, all
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: these guys have tons and tons of money that they
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: can just drive us all out of business piece by piece.
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: So we all need to stick together, look ahead and uh,
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: you know, take the fight to where they're at. And
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: you guys have a regular annual membership program. Yeah, if
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: you go to Sportsman's Alliance dot org, it's right there
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: at the top under Alliance Membership. Just click on there
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: and join the basic membership level. It's thirty five dollars
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: a year. You know, it's it's right there. So it
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: goes up from there. There's yeah, and then there's clubs.
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: You know, you're Sportsman's clubs. You want to be part
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: of it, you can do that. We business partners. There's
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: anybody that wants to be a part of the alliance.
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: We're we're allies. What's the public sorry, what's the publication
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: you guys put out? And how often that's our that's
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: our newsletter that goes out to the members. It's uh
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: every two months and so we call it a Sportsman's
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: monthly every two months. So it kind of big pictures
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: stuff in the feature well down to the legislation and
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: members and the businesses that support us. It's worth thirty
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: five bucks. You just to have someone keep your prize
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: to what's going on. Man, we'll take we'll take more
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: than thirty No, I understand, but it's it's a way
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: for people to know. It's it's easy you think about that.
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: It's it's a pack of broad heads, right, that's right,
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: it's thirty five bucks. It's it's good insurance on the
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: future of our our way of life. Right. You're talking
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: about trying to trying to quantify what our group does
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: in the protection and aspect of who we are. We're
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: you know, we're not like Army f for NWTF and
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: that they've got a critter, they've got a tangible item
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: you can wrap your arms around. You're doing habitat work,
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: you're restoring a population of a species. We're kind of
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: selling insurance, you know, we're kind of selling a protection
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: way of life. We're like the fire department. Right, nobody
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: wants to pay taxes until your house is on fire.
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: You want to pick up the phone and call somebody
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: who's gonna come help you. And so we don't have
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: those tangible items. We're not doing the conservation work. And
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: then the habitat work that these groups are doing, they're
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 1: doing a fantastic job at that. That's not us. What
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: we're doing is protecting the way of life that that supports.
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: And so for us, it's a little bit different argument.
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: We're in the same space, but coming in to put
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 1: fires out. Man, that's right, So we're coming out from
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: the other side. Yeah. We spend a lot of time
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: pushing um and I will continue to do so. Pushing
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: those you know, the advancing the agenda of wildlife groups,
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: advancing the agenda habitat groups and that stuff is extremely important.
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: But I think it's also important to stay to stay
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: in the game and stay in the fight on on
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: protection of rights, protection of hunter rights. Man. Yeah, it's
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: a two, it's a two. Pronged battle that everyone that
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: hunts and fishes needs to needs to pay attention to. Alright, guys,
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you've given us so much of your time.
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us than you