Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 405: 2021 State of the Whitetail Union with Kip Adams

Transcript

Ep. 405: 2021 State of the Whitetail Union with Kip Adams · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number four
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: oh five, and today I'm joined by Kip Adams of
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the National Deer Association to discuss the most important trends,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: harvest and hunter data, and news items related to the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: current state of deer and deer hunting in all right,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: by on X. Today, I've got Kip Adams from the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: National Deer Association and we're doing our annual review of
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the Deer Report that the National Deer Association puts together
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: each year. It was previously the White Tail Report that
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: they are putting together when they were known as the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Quality Deer Management Associate aation, but now as most of
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: you know, they're the National Deer Association, and we're examining
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: those more most important issues that are impacting deer and
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: deer hunting. We're gonna be talking through what deer harvest
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: levels were, and what the breakdown of the hunting trends were,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and what's new and important and or concerning in the
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: deer hunting world. What kind of legislation is out there
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: that's impacting us? Uh? How is COVID impacting things of
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the deer hunting world? How are things like c w
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: D something that we still need to pay attention to.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: That's the kind of stuff we discussed today, and I
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: want to just remind us all, and this is a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: reminder for me as much as it is for anybody
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: that to be a deer hunter today, it's not just
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to go out there and and shoot a deer and
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: eat venison and put antlers on the wall or something
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: that maybe was was an okay definition of being a
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: deer hunter twenty or thirty years ago. But today, in
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: this modern world, with all the different pressures that are
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: on deer hunting and deer and wildlife habitat, with everything
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: that's going on right now, and all the potential dangers
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: to this thing that we love, to be a deer
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: hunter today, I would argue, means we need to be
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: informed and involved like never before. Deer hunting and wild
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: creators and wild places. They need each and ever one
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of us. This thing requires each and every one of
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: us to be an advocate for this stuff, to be
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: a fighter for these things, and so part of that
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: means learning what's going on. We each need to have
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: an understanding of of what's happening out there, not just
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: what's happening in the woods behind my house, but also
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: what's happening at the national level that could impact my
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: ability to hunt behind the house in two years, or
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: five years or twenty years. That's the kind of stuff
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: we're talking about today. That's the kind of thing I
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: would just implore you to to to try to take
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a little time to focus on and to think about
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and make sure you're doing your part as a part
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: of this community. So the and for today is to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: dive into these topics with Kip. We're gonna learn a lot,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: We're gonna get a sense of what the state of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: affairs is right now. Should we be optimistic, should we
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: be concerned? And what can we do as individuals to
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: make sure that we can keep hunting to make sure
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: our future kids can be hunting, to make sure there's
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: deer out there and open wild places to do it. So,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: without all said, let's just kick right into this conversation
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: with Kip. I hope you enjoy it and thank you
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: for listening. All right, I've got with me here on
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the line. Kip Adams, Kip, thank you for coming back
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: on the show for our our annual visit here talking
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the state of white tails and deer across the country.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you being here, absolutely, Mark, good to be here.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't mess it. I'm glad. It's become a tradition
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: of sorts. Um. It's it's nice to have certain things
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: that are cyclical that I can count on. With as
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: much being so uncertain these days, it's nice to know
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: that I can count on at least one good high
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: level what's going on in the deer hunting world conversation
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: with you, Kip, it's it's it's good to know I
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: can depend on that good deal. I'm glad to do that.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: And uh, definitely nice and given what's going on in
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: the country today, that we can talk about something that's
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: fun and and has some positive trends going true true,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and and that I guess that that tease that tease
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: me off really well, or I'm not sure if that's
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the right way to word it, that that kicks off
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: this discussion I think in an appropriate way, because before
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: we dive into the main topic that I want us
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to cover, which is, you know, the trends and data
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: and insights you guys have gleaned as you've put together
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Deer Report. UM, I want to kind of zoom out
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: a little bit and and just kind of get your
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: sense of the state of our deer hunting world, you know,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: giving your position in charge of UM, I think your
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: official title note kept correct if I'm wrong, but it's
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Chief Conservation Officer, Is that right? That's right? Yeah. Through
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the merger, UM, I got a new title. It sounds
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: very official. Yeah, like I'm on the law enforcement still
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: biologist at heart. Yeah. So. But but with that said, though,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I know that you have your finger on the pulse
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: on a lot of things within the deer management and
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the deer hunting and the deer advocacy world. UM, You're
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: you're tapped into a lot going on across the country.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: And as you kind of alluded, there's a lot going
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: on across the country right now outside of deer hunting.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: It's just kind of tumultuous times across health, politics, everything.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious when you look at the deer hunting
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: side of things from a holistic point view. So when
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: you stand back and you look at the state of
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: of the deer culture in America and deer hunting in America,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and how deer are managed across the country and even
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Canada and North American general, um, And when you look
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: at that and then you consider what all this means
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: for the future. If you were to rate the state
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: of all of that on a one to ten scale,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: from one being you can't sleep at night because you're
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: so concerned, up to a ten meaning you sleep like
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: a baby at night with no worries, where would you
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: place that rating for for where we're at right now
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: in your perspective, I think, well, I would place that
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: at the somewhere between a six and a seven. UM.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I'm an optimist, Mark. There's some really positive things going
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: on in the deer hunting world right now, some things
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: that I'm super proud of, and hunters are really reaping
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the benefits. For UM, there's just a couple of really
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: big things out there that that are detracting from that.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: So there are there are certain aspects I'd say I'd
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: raided a nine or ten out of ten. UM. There's
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: just a couple really really big things hurting that that's uh,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: it's gonna pull that overall score down to somewhere between
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: a six and seven. Okay, So, so I definitely want
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: to dive into what those couple of big things are
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: that are concerning you. But but let me add one
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: more h additional add on to that first question. I've
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: got a couple of sons who are one and three
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: years old now, and I know you have your children
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: as well a lot of folks listening to in having that,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: having kids, I guess in general has for me at
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: least forced me to look much more for much more
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: towards the future. I think a lot more ah forward thinking.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not focused on just what's gonna happen next year,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: but I've been forced to think, Okay, if I make
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: this decision, or if I vote for this policy, or
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: if I do X, what does that mean for my
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: kid's future twenty years from now or forty years from now? Um,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: what's that going to look like? So, So, twenty years
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: from now, Kip, when my two sons are, you know,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: leaving college or whatever they ended up doing, and they're
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: entering the working adult, you know, phase of their life,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: do you think that deer hunting and the wildlife resources
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: that we have today. Do you think that will be
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: around in the same capacity as we have right now?
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: What do you think that's gonna look like? I do.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Some of my colleagues what would feel the same, But
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: I do and uh. And the reason for that is
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: because deer hunters that have have rescued our wildlife resources
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: in the past, um, and I firmly believe that they
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: will again. There's there's definitely some big challenges on the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: on the horizon right now, and thanks face and dear
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: herds that uh, that are as big as challenges as
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: we've probably ever faced before. But UM, I'm a firm
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: believer that you know, for all of the the in
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: fighting that deer hunters can do and an occasional you know,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: fighting with our state wilife agencies are fortunately at the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: end of the day, we have always answered the bell
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and UH at six things, and I'm a firm believer
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: that that will do that again. I like the optimism,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: and I know that you are, as stated an optimist,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: so I hate to start with the negative. Sorry about that,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: But what are those things that you mentioned some colleagues
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: might feel otherwise, what are the things that are making
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: them more pessimistic or that are the maybe these are
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the same things that do cause you word to what
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: are those things that could potentially negatively impact the future
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: that we hope for for our kids. The by far,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the biggest thing impacting the future of our of our
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: deer management programs that deer hunting today is chronic waste
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: and disease. UH. This disease continues to spread, continues to
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: infect more deer and impact more deer hunters, so that,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: more than anything else, challenges the future of our deer herds. UM.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Part of it is, uh, you know, complacency by some hunters.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: There's there's still a lot of hunters that that don't
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: believe it's an issue at all. And every day that
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: goes by, we see how more of a important issue
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: it is, and how more of an impact that's ha
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: been on deer herds. And you know, we're getting to
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the tipping point in some places with that. So, UM,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: habitat loss is a big thing. And disease, you know,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: other diseases, UM, you know, hunter numbers, There's lots of
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: things that always impact this, but by far and away,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the biggest challenge on the horizon for deer today the
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: c w D. You mentioned the complacency issue, and I
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: would I would add to that. In addition to complacency,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I think there's also a fatigue aspect with c w
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: D for a lot of hunters, because it's something that
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: we hear about. Folks have been hearing about it since
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the early two thousands when it first sort of started
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: gaining steam in Wisconsin, etcetera. And you know, at least
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: from me being on the the communications side, the media side,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I hear from you know, audience members like you know,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: you can just there's this sense that you can pick
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: up through social media and everywhere where people are kind
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: of overhearing about it, or they wanna push under the rug,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: or you know, it's not that big of a deal.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I kill more dear than c w D does that
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um, how I think let me let
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: me take a step back. I think part of the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: reason that is the case is that it seems like
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: c w D is one of those one of these
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: issues that does not showcase the negative nature of what
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: it means in the short term. So you don't see,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you know, fifty of your dear her disappear in one
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: summer like you might have with e h D. When
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: that comes through town and that wipes out a bunch
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: of deer, alvious like people and feel that they can
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: see that right away, and they say, oh, wow, e
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: h D really clearly negatively impacted me this year, and
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: it's cutting dry, it's fast, and that leaves the mark.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: C w D in most places is not showing up
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: in that kind of way. It's much harder to put
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: its finger on. It's much uh more contentious across the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: nation as far as how we should deal with that.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, it's it's it's sort of
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: analogous to what we see with COVID, and that you know,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: some people are impacted really significantly, while a lot of
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: other people can kind of say, well, it doesn't seem
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: to be impacting me. Let's just go about daily life
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And and so you you you see
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: controversy arising around that. Um. All this leads me to
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: ask you, Kip, given the fact that you have probably
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: greater insight to the realities of CWT than most of us,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: simply because you work in this field, you study it,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: you're reading all the research related to it, you're you're
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: trying to positively influence. Um, you know, the direction of
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: how we deal with it. Given what you know about
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: c w D and the trajectory we're on, what does
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the c w D impact look like twenty years from now?
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: So using that same twenty years in the future, Um,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: if we if we don't do anything, if we don't
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: do the right things when it comes to c w D,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: what's the reality we could be facing with twenty years
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: from now based on everything you've seen and read and researched. Well,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: what we have seen you know in states that have
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: had at four or twenty years or just over twenty years,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: as we start to see population level impacts. So you
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: know a lot of people today say, wow, yeah, we
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: still have a lot of d year. That may be
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: true now, but you know CBD just slowly and fast
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: through a dear population. So you know, it's not going
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: to have a population and level impact today or tomorrow,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: but twenty years down the road, it absolutely is so
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and we know that that's very clear. We have examples
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: of that in the United States now, So we will
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: see population level impacts from the disease. But one of
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the things about this disease you know that makes it
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: so dangerous is that there are so many other things
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: that are tangent to it that impact hunters, Like even
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: if CWD is not having a population level impact yet,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: just the fact that it it is in a deer
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: heard where some people hunt makes some people hunt less.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: They hunt less, they're less engaged, which means they spend
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: less money on hunting stuff, which means there's less money
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: to manage wildlife. So that negatively impacts it. Well. As
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: soon as you have the disease, now you know, if
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the dearest positive, you can't eat it, certainly if you
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: if you follow any advice of the Centers for Disease
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Control or World Health organization. So if you can't eat it,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: now you know what do you do? A lot of
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: hunters now won't harvest the deer if you're particularly let's hear,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: if they can't eat it. So now you start dealing
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: with other population level you know, growth impacts, you know,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: where we have too many deer and it degrades habitat
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: and that's bad for other species. And man, oh man,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: there's just this whole snowball effects. So you know, one
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: of the things about c w D that that I
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: place it so high on that issue list is because
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: it just doesn't hit the deer or you know, one way.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: It hits it from all angles everything. It impacts deer
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: populations and deer hunting. So it's the cumulative effect of
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: all of that mark that that really places a number
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: one on the issue list that's threatening the future of
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: our of our deer hurts. Yeah. Another thing that seems
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: so challenging about c w D is that the management
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: of it is not clear cut. You know, when it
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: comes to I don't know if I if I if
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I've got to cut on my arm, it's very clear
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: people will say, well, you know, put pressure on the wound,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: covered up, blah blah blah, stitch it up, whatever is
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: going on. There's there's relatively a clear prescription of how
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: to deal with a challenge like that when it comes
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: to c w D. You know, as as at least
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: I've personally seen over the last ten fifteen years of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: myself following this. Personally, it seems like very few people
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: and that's that's not true maybe, but there is some
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: contention around what should we do about it, how should
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: we manage how should we try to deal with CWD
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: um you know occurrences when they pop up in an area,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: which to the long term UH management guidelines be all
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that stuff, you know, causes controversy. It causes just I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: don't know if it's despair, but some amount of agitation
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: within the hunting population, within those folks that manage, dear
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. So I bring that up to say
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: that it does not seem like we have had a clear,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: easy solution yet there hasn't been. U. Well, we just
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: need to do X, and it's going to solve all
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the problems. So every year when hunters hear about this,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: they hear us CW is a big deal, we need
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: to do something about it, etcetera, etcetera. Average Joe hunter
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: sits at home and says, well, there's not much I
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: can really do. I don't know how I can positive
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: impact things, or I don't see what that clear solution is,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: and so it might be discouraging. It obviously is discouraging,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: and I think it's also part of why sometimes you
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: get some folks in the hunting world who just kind
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: of turn off to it. They just want to put
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the blinders on and focus on what I can do
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: personally or what's going on in my hunting world, and
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I can't do anything about that CWD stuff. I can't
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: handle what the government's doing, etcetera, etcetera. UM. So my
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: question then for you, Kip, is you know, we've talked
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: every year about this topic to some degree since last
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: year or in recent years. Is there anything new? Is
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: there any new progress? Is there anything that's making you
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: more optimistic that we will have some kind of clear
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: guidance or that we will have some kind of clear
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: next steps or something impactful that either we as a
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: management community, those folks in charge of making decisions, or
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: we as the hunting community us on the ground can
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: do to actually make a difference here, because feels a
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: little bit daunting. Now, you're absolutely right, Market and that's
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why, you know, we we have
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: not made more progress on it is because there are
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: so many unknowns, and you know, the good thing is
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: we're learning more about it every year. Um. There's a
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: lot of research that goes on, you know, so we
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: learn more about the disease, but more importantly, we're starting
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: to learn about some ways, you know, from a management standpoint,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: that we can positively impact or make a difference, you know,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: to keep it from spreading. So a few of the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: things that we know about CWD, there's no cure, there's
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: no vaccine, and it's failed all there we know that
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: After that, there are so many things that we're not
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: exactly sure about that. This is uh one of the
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: reasons that a lot of hunters either don't believe what
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the state wilife agency tells them or um just disengage
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: on it because you know, they don't have the answers.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: And in a lot of the states have you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: provided contradicting information in some cases about what you should
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: do or not. Some states say we're not gonna allow
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: a baiting because that can help spread the disease. They
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: have other states to say, well, we're gonna allow baiting
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: because we think we can kill more deer around those
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: bait sites. And you know, it's not like the old
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: days where hunters don't know what's going on in other states.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: You know, everybody has the Internet. Everybody looks so you
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: can see what your states guidelines say and what hunters
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and other states are allowed to do. So that confuses
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: hunters and because of that, you know a lot of them,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: you know, have not believed what their agencies have told them.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: So that definitely plays into some of the mistrust or
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the complacency from a hunter's end. And at the end
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: of the day, we just haven't had a lot of
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: good news for Hey, these are ways you can help. Fortunately,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: there are some things we do know now. Um, we
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: don't know how to completely stop the spread of it,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: but we do have a better understanding how this disease
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: is spread. And if we know that today, if we
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: just stop moving live deer, and we stop moving the
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: high risk parts of deer that we shoot, that we
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: can dramatically slow the spread of the disease down. And
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: fortunately more hunters are doing that than ever before. States
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: have some restrictions on what you can move and why,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and just because you have those rules in the books
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean hunters abide by them. But hunters understand more
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: today about the dangers of moving you know, the backbone
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: or the brain of deer from disease areas outside so
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: as A as organizations, you're a perfect example. You share
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: good information, Hunters follow you. They believe you uh n
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: d A. You know we share good information. State agencies
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: do so Today more hunters at least understand that. Okay,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I can help slow the spread if I don't move
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: these high risk parts. I'm gonna debone this meat, you know,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: before I take it home or before I cross the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: state line. That's something that every hunter can do to
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: to battle this. And you know something that we know
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: more hunters learn or understand today than ever before. So
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: that's a good thing. We just need to keep doing
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: positive things like that while we wait for the science
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: to catch up to find a cure for this terrible disease. Okay, Okay,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: that that makes sense, and that is something you know,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: that is one specific example of something we can do
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: that can make a positive impact. So I like that.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Is there has there been any one piece of science
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: over the last year or anything that stands out to you, Kip,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: is most interesting or most compelling or most um optimism
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: inducing for you. Is there anything new on the horizon
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: that gives you hope from the science perspective. Yeah, one
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: thing is is the test, you know, the RT quick,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: which is a was a faster test for this disease. Um.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the limitations here's the hunters getting
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: deer tested is you know, we take it. We have
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: a sample to get the test. That we have to
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: wait for the test to come back and may take
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: several days. It might take two or three weeks. Some
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: hunters have to wait a month for the test to
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: come back. In the meantime, you know, does the processor
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: have your meat? You know, did your process at home?
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: We process all of our own meat. More than once
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: we have processed that, labeled it, have it in the
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: freezer and waited over three weeks for the results to
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: come back for us to know can we eat this
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: or not? I mean, that's a that's a huge burden
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that's there. Well, one of the things at least with
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: science now is there are you know, there's been progress
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: in um testing for CWD that can return much quicker results,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of scientists looking at being able
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: to have much more rapid tests. So all of that
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: is a very good thing. Hunters don't have to wait
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: as long to know yes or no, I can eat
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: it or not. So you know, ideally, you know, we
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: could do something very quickly or a and an in
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: field test. We're not there yet and probably aren't going
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: to be for the next few years, but at least
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the time frame for testing has gotten much more rapid
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: now and testing is becoming more available to to a
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: larger segment of the hunting population. So those are really
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: really good advances in this fight. Yeah. So what what
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: would be the NDA recommendation when it comes to testing
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: for individual hunters? Is it? Is it your recommendation that
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: if you are in a region where there is CBD,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: that you should have every deer tested. Um. Is there
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: some kind of blanket consistent guidance that you guys would
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: suggest for hunters. YEP. The National Deer Association that follows
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: the CDC guidelines. You know, they're the experts on this,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and they strong incurs people to not eat a deer
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: help any any sort of unless you know that it
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: it does not have c w D or you get
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: a satisfactory test result. Uh. And the only way to
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: know if it doesn't have a disease is to get tested.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: So our recommendation is, yes, if you are hunting into
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: a zone where cw D has been confirmed, have the
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: deer tested before you eat, and wait until you get
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: a satisfactor test result before eating it. Um. If you're
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: not in the zone. We have to remember most of
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the counties in the United states have not confirmed the disease,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: so it's not like it's everywhere yet. And that's part
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: of this battle, is this just make sure that it
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: doesn't get everywhere. So mo hunters don't have to worry
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: about this, but for those that live in and hunt
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: in the CWD zone, yeah, absolutely, we encourage it to
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: have that animal tested. We want those states to know
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: where that where the disease is, you know, previleence rate
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: of it, you know, is it in just a handful
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: of animals in a zone or is it a lot?
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: You know, that makes a difference on how that state
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: while ife agency should attack it and the management programs
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: they put in place too slow that spread down or
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to try to get rid of it. So so it's
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: important from the sample and end and the management end.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: It's all supportant from a personal safety and yeah, and
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I can attest from personal experience, and I'm sure you
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: can do it. It's a pretty painless experience having to
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: to go and get a deer tested like that. It's
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: it's not a huge time commitment. It's a little inconvenient,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: but it's it's certainly well worth, um, you know, doing
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: things the right way and being safe. So I would
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: echo what you just said, kept and encourage anyone who's
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: in that type of situation too to go ahead and
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: do that. Um uh. At the ah, well, I guess
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I've already thrown us off of the the headlines that
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: you might have wanted to lead with, Kip, as I
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: know that the Deer Report this year does not lead
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: with a depressing conversation about CWD. Um, you guys kind
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: of lead it with some other things. So let's get
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: back to what you've been working on over the last
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: couple of months, which is this analysis of the state
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of deer and deer hunting across the country. You guys
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: do a great job with us every year. Um, when
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you look at the report, what are the headlines in
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: your mind? What are the things that stood out that
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: we should that we should examine here, Well, let's talk
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: about a couple of really positive things first, and because
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I think there is a lot of good news out
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: there in the deer world. Um. You know, one of
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the things within this is as we look at the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: age structure. You know of the buck well in the
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: analyst harvest as well, but we monitor the age structure
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the buck harvest just to see Hey, you know, how
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: close to we get to have these very natural age
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: structures out there in the dear world, you know, and
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: what opportunities to hunters have. And uh, what we saw
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: was that of all of the antler bucks that were harvested,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: the percentage that we're one and a half years old
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: or you know, have that first set of antlers was
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the lowest that it has ever been and recorded history.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: And we have had this huge decline in the in
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the percentage of yealing bucks that total buck harvests from
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: way back in when we started monitoring this all the
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: way until now. So, uh, what that means, mark is
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: that if we're shooting fewer younger bucks, then just a
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: much higher percentage of the buck harvests are older deer.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: And we had the lowest percentage of yearlings and we
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: had the highest percentage ever of bucks that were three
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and a half years of age or older. And so
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. You know, as hunters, we'd love to
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: to watch those deer during the summer. We you know,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: used trail cameras and scout do we take pictures of
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: these older bucks and then now you know, we have
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: a better chance to hunt and harvest these older age
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: class bucks and at any point in my life, and
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: at any point probably in the last two years. So
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: that's pretty exciting and the hunters are really really enjoying
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: the benefits of that today. Yes, so, so I know
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the answer to this question, but I'm but I'm sure
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: there are some folks, especially newer hunters, that that probably don't.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: The question is why does that matter? Why does having
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a dear herd that is more balanced from an age
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: structure perspective, meaning there's a somewhat more equal number of
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: year and a half old bucks versus two and a
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: half year old versus three and a half year old
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: versus four and a half, etcetera. Um, why is that
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: a good thing compared to what was more traditional maybe
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: thirty years ago, which was lots and lots of those
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: a bunch of year and a half old bucks in
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: very few older deer left because most bucks are getting
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: killed their first year. Um, why is our situation that
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: we're approaching now better for a deer herd and better
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: for the overall eCos them than the alternative. Well, there's
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: a couple of things that go into the and one
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: of them is that that deer are far more social
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: than most people realize. There's a lot of things that
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: happened in a in a deer population that is controlled
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: by young bucks, they scrape a lot more than young bucks.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of interactions with with aunt
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Lois dear that you know. Young bucks. Can they breed, Sure,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: they can handle the beating aspect of it, you know,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: but they don't handle all of the other behavioral aspects
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the way that mature bucks do. So I tell people,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: whether you're a hunter or not, you know, if you
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: like deer, and I certainly hope that you do, even
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: if you don't go hunting, Um, you should care that
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: we have very natural age structures, which means, you know,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: some bucks that are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, etcetera.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Just so that that dear population can act the way
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: that that is supposed to in the way that that
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: deer hurt evolved. So it's it's uh, if you take
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: a situation today, we'll look to replaced is what we
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: don't hunt. Um, you have very balanced stage structures and bucks.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: If you look at Native American middens and some of
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the history, and I'm a huge Native American bus so
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: you know, I love to read about that stuff when
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: they pull the pieces out of those and can reconstruct
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: historic deer populations, they had very balance stage structures. So
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: what that means is, hey, today, let let's be good
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: stewards of our natural resources. Let's just not be consumers.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Let's let's be good at managing. And so part of
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: that means, hey, let's let's manage to your hearts the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: way they're supposed to be and have a very balanced
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: stage structure. And uh, because of both the management programs
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: we have today and hunters knowledge and willingness to pass
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: these younger deer, we have much more at natural age structures.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: And that is a really really good thing. Yeah, And
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: and is it am I right? And that there's a
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: number of biological um benefits to that balanced structure as well.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: So when you've got that unbalanced situation, you might have
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: of issues with the ruts and deer being bred and
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: all sorts of different things like that that either impact
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the deer and or impacts the quality of hunting. Can
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: you elaborate on any of that? Yeah, certainly can. And uh,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you know, there's been a lot of researchers just looking
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: at you know, value of those older deer and what
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: happens in those deer herds just from a communication standpoint,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: And there's some really cool research out of the University
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of Georgia looking at the forehead gland of bucks and
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: you know that's right on their forehead, right where where
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: the word says, but that gets a lot more active
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: during the breeding portion of the year in older bucks,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: not so much in these younger deer. And University Georgia
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: researchers have actually identified, you know, more than fifty different
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: pieces of information that bucks can display about themselves through
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: activity in that forehead gland. Now they don't know what
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: all that means, but there's a lot of different things
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: that those bucks are sharing with other deer, and that
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: forehead gland has a lot becomes a lot more active
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: in older bucks, not in these younger deer. And that's
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: why some of your listeners, you know, if you shoot
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: an older buck during the run, you often notice, man
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: his forehead the hair looks a little wavy or it's
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: it's awesome, you know, like a little redder, a little
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: discolored compared to the rest of it. That's because of
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: that enhanced activity of the forehead gland. So there's a
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: lot of really neat things like that that are going
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: on in the deer world that the casual observer you know,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't realize or doesn't recognize, and that we didn't used
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: to see thirty four years ago, when because of the
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: way we harvest the deer, you know, almost no bucks
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: made it into these older age classes. So you know,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of really cool behavioral things that
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: impact behavior of that entire deer herd that's directed or
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: regulated by the presence of those older bucks. You know,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, I think this is two
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: years ago maybe, um, the percentage of the buck harvest
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: that was three and a half are older had reached
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: its highest ever point. UM at that point, I think
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: it was thirty four percent or something along those lines,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: give or take. And in our conversation you had mentioned that, Um,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: you know, we kind of hovered around that for a
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: number for a few years, and you had said, um,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: I don't want to quote you here, but but something
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: on the lines of that, we probably have plateau somewhere
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: around this point. We've kind of plateau, but then this
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: year it's up to I think it's thirty correct if
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but I think that's the number I remember seeing. Um,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: we kind of took a somewhat significant jump there, um
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: A am I writing that? And and be do you
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: think that this is indicative of further changes there? Are
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: we going to see that percentage grow even higher? And
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: it was the plateau effect? Maybe not what you expected?
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Or do you think that we'll see uh reverting to
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: the mean? And and kind of just still stick in
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: this mid thirty percent you know, about a third of
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the overall harvest will be in that. Um, you know,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: in this kind of category. What are your thoughts there? Yeah,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. Uh, I was off in my prediction. Um.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I had said that, you know, at that point, about
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: a third of the buck harvest was one and a half,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: about a third was two and a half, and a
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: third was three and a half or older. And uh,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I just didn't think that we would go
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: any lower run a percentage of yealing bucks. So I
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: didn't figure, well, that meant that, you know, we just
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: can't get too much higher on those older ones. And
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: uh man, this past hunting season, you know, we saw
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: a big jump in that percentage that was the oldest
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: age class Um, I don't think that we will sustain that.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I really believe that it'll it'll come back to about
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: a third in those three main age classes marked. Um.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly why that happened. You know, we
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: have so many older ones here. But you know, I
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: don't think that if we're going to see much difference
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: from that, um, And I should say I'm here to everybody,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: you know what burden February of one, talking about the
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: one deer report. There are still some hunting seasons that
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: are you know, they're just ending right now. And we
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: published this report a couple of weeks ago. And so
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: this data is from the two thousand and nineteen to
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: two thousand and hunting season, so it's the most recent
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: hunting season that had complete data available. So all of
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: the data from the twenty one or twenty and twenty
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: one hunting season is either not even analyzed by state
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: yet or will be analyzed over the next several months.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: So the hunting season that we just finished, um Um,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I know just from inecdotal reports, from from what I
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: see from state agencies and see from hunters across the country. Man,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of older bucks killed on this
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: past year. So my belief is that we're going to
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: revert to about to that a third of our total
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: buck carvers will be three and a half years or older.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: But knowing how many big buck pictures were circulating online
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: over the last few months, uh, I might be wrong
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, it's gonna be interesting because I think
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: that you have this trend where the general traditional hunting
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: population has been killing fewer young bucks and killing more
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: older bucks, you know, year after year. That's it's been
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: trading that direction for a long time now. But for
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: the first time in a number of years, um, at least,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: it seems from early indications, we excuse me, we have
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: an increase in hunter numbers this past year and hunter
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: participation because of uh, you know, most people are assuming
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: the pandemic effect with a lot of new people heading
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: out into the woods for something to do and giving
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: hunting a try. I know in Michigan, the number I
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: saw most recently was that there was a sixty seven
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: percent increase in new license sales this past year. UM.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: So if we were to make some assumptions based on that,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering if we get a bunch of new hunters
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: that came in this year that maybe you know, aren't
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: as either educated on this type of thing. We're interested
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: in waiting for a deer, for an older deer and
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: instead of just hey, I'm trying hunting for the first time,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I want to kill the first year I see. I
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: wonder if we'll see some kind of pandemic effect with
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the age structure of our harvest. Uh next year as well.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: And I know say it's a bad thing when it
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: comes to new hunters getting out there. I'm just I'm
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: just curious. I'm it'll be interesting to see if that
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: ends up being the case, and if if the number
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: of new hunters that came out last year is actually
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: something that the data will reflect or if it's more
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: you know, anecdotally, it seems like a lot of new people,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: but really when it comes down to harvest levels, that
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: won't be the case. UM. I don't know, Ki, have
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: you seen any early indications of you know, if if
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: any of that's gonna flesh yourself out in the data
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: in reality, or is it more of just something that
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: we're feeling. Um, I haven't seen any data on that yet,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: and uh, and I don't believe any of that data
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: is available yet. But you bring up a good point
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: where the increased number of hunters this year, and and
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: that's another one of the very positive things that I
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: see going on. And we've got a huge up swing
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: for the first time in a long long time with
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: the hunter numbers. So there's definitely some hunters probably say, man,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I don't want to have more because then it's just
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: competition with me. Um. I think that's absolutely the wrong
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: way to look at it. More hunters coming into the
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: support is really good for the future. So um, there's
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: definitely an opportunity that the that they took some younger
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: deer and and hopefully some more analysts dere uh. We
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: have seen through this R three movement, you know, or
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: that this field default movement where people you know, are
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: getting into the sport from a food end. Um. You know,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: when I started hunting, it was it was just just
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: because everybody I knew hunted, I wanted to hunt. Well,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: today it's very different. A lot of the people just
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: starting are you have a very food focused reasoning. They
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: want to procure their own food, and I think that's great.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: So because of that, you know, there's there's absolutely a
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: chance that a lot more first time dear from this
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: past hunting season would have been analyst dear or maybe
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: a younger buck. So it'll be it'll be interesting to see.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: But regardless of what that age structure shows. Um, I'm
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: a huge supporter of that big influx of a hunter
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: numbers that that were saw this year. Yeah, yeah, I'm
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: right there with you, Kip. I think it's I think
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: it's a great thing, and it's it's it's it's just
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: increasingly important that we can widen our base of of
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: support and our base of participants because you know, going
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: back to that, what's twenty years from now going to
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: look like, Um, if we don't keep hunter numbers up,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: if we don't keep support for hunting up. Um, you know,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: it's it's not a guaranteed thing. As we've seen, there's
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: there's always going to be folks trying to chip away
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: at our rights and opportunities to hunt. So having new
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: people into the fold is is absolutely a good and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: important thing. So while I know what you're talking about,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: there's always people that will complain about the added pressure,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: the added competition for deer. I would encourage everyone to
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: to you know, brush off that inconvenience and remember that
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: this is this is a good thing in the long term,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: now that we're seeing you know, a lot of reports
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: of increased participation last year, Have you guys the NDA
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: spent any time thinking about how do we keep that going?
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: How do we take advantage of this opportunity where we
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: had a bunch of new people coming in, Um, how
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: do we keep them here, how do we keep them involved,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: encourage them to stay involved? How do we make sure
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: this isn't a one year blip on the radar? Do
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: you guys have any thoughts on that or anything you
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: can share, uh for all of us to think about.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Oh man, do we ever said? And we have spent
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of time thinking about that and uh that
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: you know, this year, we are very fortunate that we
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: have the opportunity to host the Southeast Dear Study Group,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: the biggest Dear biologist made another year. UM, it's virtual
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: this year because of the pandemic, and we have the
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: unique opportunity to host that that exact question you just asked,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: We actually have uh specifically invited a handful of speakers,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: very prominent wildlife officials to speak at that conference to
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: address that exact thing because we feel that it's such
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: a huge issue and the I will say this, I'll
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: give you my thoughts on this and what uh what
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: n DA is feeling with this, and I'm very interested
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: that we're gonna help make this a national conversation. Uh,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: you're right, there's a lot of new people in UH,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: many people who are starting hunting today, starting for for
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: different motivations. Might be food related, might be other recreational
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: things related. But our take on this is is once
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: we have them here, you know, now, to keep them,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: we need to make sure that they feel welcome and
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: that they feel like they had the resources necessary to
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: have fun with this and to be successful. And there
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: are some state wilife agencies doing a great job with
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: a user friendly websites and information for folks. UH. Because
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: think about it, this is not like learning to you know,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: to play soccer or you know, or or or play
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: piano or something. UM. Getting into honey can be very
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: very difficult, UM from a mentor standpoint, from an understand standpoint,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: you know, gosh, you're trying to kill something for for
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: God's sake, so uh, you know, it can be very daunting.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: So we think it is incredibly important to provide you know,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: an overmundant amount of resources for these new hunters, whether
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: that's videos, you know, written information, mentoring opportunities, etcetera. So
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: that now that they're here, we want them to have
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: a positive experience you and want to stay and as
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: you're aware, you know, this could be the most rewarding
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: thing in the world, is to find pleasure in the outdoors.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: And uh, we want to make sure that these hunters
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: do have an opportunity, you know, to do that and
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: make sure that it's not a bad first experience, so
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: not you know, we don't want to be an unsafe
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: or you know, an unfund one. So have fun. Let's
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: be successful, whether they shoot something or not. If they
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: learn something and enjoy themselves, you know, that is how
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: you can measure success. So um, yeah, we we want
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: to make sure that this the resources they need are
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: there so that they stick around, stay and then ultimately,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: you know, expose somebody else at the outdoors. That the
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: greatest tool for adding new hunters to the fold is
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: more new hunters who can pass it on other people.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of truth of that. Um. Back
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: to the report a little bit. Well, we talked about
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: how the AID structure has been shifting in in what
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: you know, seems to be objectively a positive way with
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: with fewer young deer being killed, more older deer being killed,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: and achieving that more balanced population. That's a good thing. Um.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Another trend within the deer harvest across the country seems
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: to be a little bit more concerning, um. And this
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: is something you and I have talked about over recent years,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: and it just keeps on going this direction, which is
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: buck harvest going up, but doe harvest going down, down, down, down, um.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: And this is a reversal of a trend that you know,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: had been viewed as a good thing for a lot
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: of years, where you know, thirty or fourty years ago, folks,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: you know, thought you only kill bucks. This is my
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: grandpa's perspective. For a long time. It was you killed bucks,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: but you don't kill does, because you know, we want
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: more deer. There weren't many deer back in the day,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: so it was viewed as sacrilege to shoot a doll um.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: And that resulted in these unbalanced populations, with overpopulations of
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: deer in some areas, and you know, quality habitat being
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: chewed down to the ground because of that. So for
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of years, you know, management agencies and organizations
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: promoted the fact that we do need to kill deer
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: excuse me, killed does This is a big thing that
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: you guys, that the QT may preach for many years,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: the fact that, hey, we need to have a significant
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: doe harvest to manage populations, to be balanced with habitat um.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: So for a lot of years, doll harvest went up
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: and up and up. But now since two thousand seven,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I think I saw on the report doll harvest has
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: gone down. So uh now here Kit And you've been
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: able to see this trend now for quite a while.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: What's going on? Why is this happening? And is this
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: concerning to you? Is is? It looks to me? It
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: is concerning to me. And this is another one of
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: the biggest issues that we're fighting right now. And I
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: think this is part of the whole pendulum that swings,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: you know, side to side. The you know, the the
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: advent of quality deer management, you know, back in the
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: late eighties and was all about, you know, hey, balance
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: and deer herbs with the habitat Let's make sure we
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: take enough ant lest deer. And and it took a
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: long time for that to penetrate the hunting ranks, you know,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: for hunters to become knowledgeable enough to know that that's
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: that's a good and necessary thing. And um and they
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: did that and was a monumental year for for deer management.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: It's the first time in the US history that our
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: hunters took more antlest deer than antlood bucks. And and
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: that trend was continued u for the next just about
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: twenty years. And uh so that's part of the reason
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: we had such big gains and the health of our
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: deer herbs and health of of our wildlife habitat because
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: did a far better job having the right number of
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: deer for what for what the landcape landscape could support.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know, too many deers bad for deer
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: and bad for the habitat, and you know, bad for
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: all the other wildlife species. So uh, well, to add
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: to what you just asked about, we're kind of seeing
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: that pendulum swing the other way something and uh two thousand,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: two thousand and four teams fifteen kind of been there.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: If you remember, we had a couple uh one hundred
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: years hamorrhagic disease years. Two of the what I say,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: hundred jear. You know, with those events they say, oh,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: this will only happened once in a hundred years, will
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: happened twice within ten years, and we lost a lot
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: of deer from that. Uh. We have a correspond to
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: the time where we lost a lot of habitat across
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: the Midwest with a high corn and swayed bean prices,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: folks were pulling millions of acres of land out of
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: c rp UM. So there's a few things that kind
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: of played together that all of a sudden you add
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: this in hand. Stand, let's harvest and and some deer
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: herds went lower than than our state will of agencies prescribed. Well,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: that's scared a lot of hunters. So what we have
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: seen since then, Mark, is that they have really really
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: backed off on the ant of the side, and we
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: have deerhurts growing out of control in many places. And
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: that's evidenced by this increasing buck harvest each hear. That's
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: the direct result of indication of rising deer herds. So
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: the three last year's the hunting season in a row.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Our hunters have reverted to some old time ways and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: we've actually killed more of antler bucks than we have
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Antler lists deer, and uh, there's definitely some states that
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: can have very successful programs doing that, but the vast
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: majority of white tail states that that's a recipe for
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: a disaster. You know, they are productive enough that we
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: are pumping enough fawns into the system that we need
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: to be shooting more ant the list deer than Antler
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: bucks annually, or we're getting ourselves in trouble, and uh,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: we are. We have a bunch of states that are
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: getting themselves in trouble today because we just simply aren't
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: shooting enough ant list dear. So what's uh for those that? Again,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: just to get our basis covered here for people maybe
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: aren't as familiar with this particular issue, can you give
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: me the cliff notes on on what the negative ramifications
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: of this could be? So if this continues and we
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: keep harvesting fewer, does we keep on shooting a bunch
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: of bucks? Now we've got these dear populations out of control.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: If if you had to tell someone in an elevator
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: over thirty seconds, why that's a bad thing, what would
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: that be? There's any environment only has a certain amount
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: of food available to feed. You know, a certain number
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: of deer, and if we don't shoot enough ant list deer,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: that deer heard just grows more or above the amount
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: of food that is available, so that negatively impacts the
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: health of that deer herd and is not good for
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: the habitat or any of the other wildife species that
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: are living there. Yeah, so is the solution as simple
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: as all of us out here listening, get our butts
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: and gear and and buy a few more dough tags
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: and kill a few more doughs next year? Or is
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: there any larger message you want to get out on
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: this front? Now that that's a lot of it. And
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: what most hunters don't realize is that you know, it
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: doesn't take a lot more dose per hunter um if
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: you take a look at it last year's hunting season,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: and you know, many hunters find this number just unbelievable.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: To less than half of the hunters in the US
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: shoot one deer a year. You know, as we see
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: what the bag limits are, you think, gosh, many stags.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: You can shoot two bucks and a couple of dolls,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: and man, we're gonna wipe our deer herds out. But
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: the reality of it is only the hunters last year
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: shot one deer. That was it, and only eight only
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: the hunters shot more than one deer. And what happens,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: Mark is everybody would rather shoot a buck. I shouldn't
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: say most hunters would rather shoot a book than a dough.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: And I totally get it. I like to shoot bucks too.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: So what that means is we just have a smaller
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: and smaller number of hunters shooting any does during the years.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: So yeah, we're not asking hunters to go and shoot
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: three more dose x year. We're just asking hunters out there, Hey,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: you know, shoot a dough, just one, and you know,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: feed it to your family, if not, give it away
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: to another needy family. So there's there's great uses for them.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: So this is something that's entirely fixable by hunters, and
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of it is just them understanding the need
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: or how they can contribute positively to the health of
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: the deer if they shot that one dough. Yeah, yeah,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a simple fix right there.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: Put more meat in the freezer or share with some
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: folks in your family or community, and you're doing a
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: good thing for the dear population and for the trees
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: and plants and grasses and all the other animals out
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: there that depend on that balanced habitat. So it's it's
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: it's a win win on that front. Now, another figure
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: that stood out to me within the report this year
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: is again the continuation of another trend we've talked about
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: in recent years. It seems like there's a lot of
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: things that aren't popping up new it's just we're going,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: we're sliding down these slopes and and this one is
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: a little bit different as far as impact then we
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: just discussed. We just talked about the worries of more
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: and more dear. This trend points to something that would
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: be worrisome if we were worried about not having enough dear.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: And this is faun recruitment um the recruitment rate of fonds,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: which is basically, you know, how many fauns, how many
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: young deer make it to the fall, make it at
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: the fall, how many how many doughs that are born
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: the spring, faunds are born in the spring make it
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: to the fall. That would be a fund that is
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: recruited to the adult population. And I know that as
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: you guys describe in the report, um, you know that's
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: measured across most states, and we've seen this change over
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: time and in most places across the country. UM, this
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: recruitment rate has been declining pretty significantly. UM. Can you
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: elaborate a little bit, um for those that aren't familiar
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: with this on exactly what that decline has been and
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: why that's concerning if if it is to you, Yeah,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: this is one thing that we watched very closely because
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: it's a great measure of productivity these deer herds, and
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: which is a good measure of, hey, how many deer
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: could we be shooting the gear, you know, and keep
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: a very sustainable, healthy deer herd. And you know, people
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: think that man, those doughs have twins and so us
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: each dough is recruiting a couple of fons, And the
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: reality of it is that that's that's not true. And
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: and recruitment is you know, a fond that has been
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: born and is alive at about six months of age.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: So I think of day one of your hunting season
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: in the fall, that's when you measure faon recruitments. It's
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: the number of fonds that are alive and are being
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: recruited into that deer herd then, and you just measure
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: that on the basis of you know, how many fonds
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: are there for the adult does that are there. And
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: what's happening large scale is that that that number has
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: really been declining over the last two decades in the US,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: and back in two thousand, uh the average was was
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: point eight one fons per dome. So what that means is,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: you know, the average dough out there was almost replacing
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: itself with the fond being recruited in. So you know,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of fonds that are born in the spring,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: you know, that die to the predators or disease or
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: malnutrition or hit by car or whatever. But there was
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: almost you know, a wonder one ratio. Well fast forward
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: to today and that has declined to the point six
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: three fonds per dough. So what that means is, you know,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: we're just recruiting fewer fonds now. Part of that is
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: there's a lot more predators than there have been in
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: the past, but part of that is just health of
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: the deer herd. You know, as as we get deer
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: herds that are above what our habitats can support, those
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: those are not as healthy and they just simply can't
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: recruit as many fonts. So that that plays into this
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: you know as well. And a lot of hunters watched
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: this and they see you know, where they see bears
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: stuff killing fons. Because of that, they think, man, I'm
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: not going to shoot a dough this year. Well, that's
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: not the right attitude to take that. The right attitude is, hey,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: let's look and see what's your state wilife agency is
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: monitoring and measuring for this and what they want to
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: see from an antlist harvest, keep these things healthy. You know,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: in many cases, as we shoot more, does uh the
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: remaining doors get more to eat, they become healthier. They
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: actually can recruit even more fonts. So this is a
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: very good thing to monitor to keep track of health
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: of deer herds. And there's no doubt this has been declining,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: but fortunately it's still at a rate mark where deer
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: heads are very easily replacing themselves. Um, you know, if
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: this was drops a lot more, I think then you
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: start to get into the danger zone a little bit,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: but large scale anyway, we're still in good shape in
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: most places from this faun recruitment rate. Um, there's no
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: doubt that there are locales that are really having trouble
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: recruiting fonds and in some places in the southeastern US
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: are actually having a hard time right now, you know,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: growing fonds large scale, like where you are, where I
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: am in Pennsylvania and most of the country. Um, even
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: though this number is less than it has been in
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: the past, we're still in a very healthy situation for
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: the number of farms we're bringing into our deer herts. Okay,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: well that's uh that that's reassuring. Um. So keep then
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: when we look at the the rest of the report
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: and the other data you collected and we're working on
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: here coming, is there anything else that stood out to
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: you as as noteworthy or particularly encouraging or discouraging that
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: you want to touch on as far as deer harvest
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: trends or anything going on in the deer deer hunting world. Yeah.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I think is pretty interesting
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: is if you take a look at the deer harvest
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: by weapon type. Um. You know, we monitor this just
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: to see how changes of harvest occurs. You go through
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: archery and firearms, and fifteen years ago, mark only about
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: of the entire deer harvest was taken by bows. And
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: today that's so that's grown a lot. Um, it's kind
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: of plateau the last few years. But that's very different
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: than the past, and it's it's a direct impact of
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: you know, cross bow goos and expanded archery opportunities, and
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just a lot easier for archers to
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: get involved today. And uh, what I think is interesting
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: about it, though, is as you look at that number
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: and how it's changed and try to compare it to
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: hunter numbers, what we see is we haven't seen a
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: big number shift and actual numbers of hunters in the woods.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: So what's really happening is is it's about the same
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: number of people participating, just a lot higher percentage are
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: killing deer earlier in the year. Now. You know, all
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: these guys in many cases are a rifle and shotgun
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: hunters that that also bow hunt. They may have always
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: bow hunted or maybe just picked it up, but we're
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: seeing a shift into the harvest earlier in the year,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: which I'm a die hard bow hunt I mean, I've
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: always both hunted, but you know, I see it in
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: my area where more people seem to be in the
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: woods during archer season and take advantage of some you know,
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: additional analyst opportunities in some cases, take advantage of better
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: weather in many cases. But one thing I think that
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: it's imported. Weren't for people, particularly Northerners to remember about
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: this because I know where I am in Pennsylvania. Historically,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: you know, we had a two week buck season that
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: that was the most electric time of the year, and
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: when deer season came around, schools were closed. I mean,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: it literally was bigger than Christmas, and you could just
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: feel the excitement. There was orange everywhere, and the roads
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: were full, and and that's very different. Today it's not
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: like that, and you have a lot of people saying,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: you know, well, I wish it was like it used
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: to be in deer season is so different, you know,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: nobody hunts anymore. Well, the reality of it is, we're
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: killing more deer in my area of Pennsylvania today than
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: we used to. It just rather than happening over two
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: week period, today, it happens over a three month period.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: So uh, anybody, particularly not so much as south because
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Southerners have, you know, much longer hunting seasons, but for
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: us in the North that have very short, intense firearm seasons,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: in many cases, they are very different today because some
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: of our buddies, you know, are filling those tags earlier
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: in the year during archery season, and it gives us
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: the appearance that hunting is not as important. Uh, that's
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: not the case at all. It's just taken advantage of
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: much longer opportunities than we used to have. Yeah, Yeah,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: I've wondered about this, and I've wondered if we maybe
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: it would be interesting to look at a measurement of
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: hunter days, So not just the number of unique people
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: that hunt in a given year, but if we looked
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: at how many days hunted. I'm I'm guessing I'm gonna
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: I'm curious if that number has actually gone up. So
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: while over the last years we've seen a number in
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: license buying hunters, my intuition tells me that thirty years ago,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: while we had however many hunters, million hunters, or whatever
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: it was, my guess is that the average number of
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: days hunted by those people was much lower than the
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: average number of days hunted by people now today, at
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: least some percentage of hunters today, Because I get the
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: feeling that there's a lot more people today that view
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: hunting as a lifestyle where they dedicate vacation time and
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: weekends and and all that to spending significant, significant amounts
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: of time outside. So I think that that number of
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: people who spends you know, ten to fifteen days hunting
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: or more, it's probably a lot higher now than it
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: was thirty years ago. So that's that's an assumption. That's
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm too much in that world, and I'm assuming
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: more people are like the people I talked to. But
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: I wonder if that's the case. I don't know if
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: have you ever thought about that or heard anything about that? Kip, Yeah, now,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: and you're exactly right. We did a national survey a
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago to just see with stage, you know,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: what was the average number of days that folks on
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: deer hunted a year, and the national averages around fourteen days. Uh.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: We did the same survey of at that point it
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: was QTMA members, you know, before we became the National
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: Deer Association, and and our members hunted on average it
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: was thirty days a year. So we want and doubled
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: the national average. But so you are right, today the
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: average person just spent far more time available, partly because
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: bag limits tend to be more liberal, there's a lot
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: more opportunity season why so, yeah, people are spending a
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: lot more time in the woods. And this year as
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: part of our report, we asked states about, you know,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: the number of days that there they folks could archery
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: hut in their state, UH, muzzleloader hout and fire arm
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: hut and then whether the total number of days you
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: know was more less or similar to what it was
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: ten years ago. And uh, opportunities are far more today
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: than what they were a decade ago. UM. With the
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: exception of the Western states and the and all of
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: those have similar number of days of deer hunting available
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: today to a decade ago. UM. Many of the states,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: and I should say the majority of the states in
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: the northeast, the southeast, and the Midwest have more opportunity,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: more total number of days available to deer hut today
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: than they did a decade ago. So yeah, so there's
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: more opportunity. Hunters are taken advantage of it and and
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: greatly spreading that total deer harvest out over longer period
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: of time. Yeah, it's an interesting it's an interesting trend.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: And it's also I think part of why some hunters
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: are confused by the data that we see that shows like, hey,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: hunter participation is going down, it's going down. They keep
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: seeing those headlines and hearing that, but then when they
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: go to the woods, they feel like, man, there's more
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: hunters than ever I'm getting. You know, it's harder to
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: find places to hunt, it's harder to get anywhere where
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: there's not other people. And my guess is that it's
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: because of this. While there's maybe fewer total people, there's
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: higher participation from that group, and so, UH, that might
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: be part of why pressure wise it it can feel
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: like there's more people out there. UM, it's maybe an
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: optical illusion just based off of the intensity of the
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: people that do participate in the fact that, UM, there's
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: more opportunity. People are getting into this lifestyle more passionately
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: than maybe in the past, and and that's that's what
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: we're experiencing. Maybe. So it's interesting, UM what what kept?
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: The report ends with an overview of some of the
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: the top kind of legislative winds or the top issues
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: that you guys as an organization have focused on and
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: been working on. UM. I know that the National Deer
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Association and you personally have been involved with a lot
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: of different UH issues, advocacy opportunities that are that are
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: working towards, you know, fighting for deer and deer habitat
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: and deer hunters. When you look back at are there
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: a couple of things that stand out to you as
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: as the most substantial or encouraging winds on that front
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: that you want to make sure we know about. Yeah,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: I think one of them is that you know all
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: of the Pittman robertson dollars and that that's the excise
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: tax on the hunting equipment that we buy. UM. Many
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: hunters have ever realized us. They are just built into
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: the price you pay that goes back to help fund
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: our wildlife programs. UM. One of the biggest wins is
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: that now some of those dollars can be used to
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: help with the R three efforts, and and our three
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: is recruitment, so it's hunter recruitment and hunter retention and
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: hunter reactivation UM. Now for the first time ever, some
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: of those Pittman robbers and dollars could be used to
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: help support that our three movement, which helps with our
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: hunter numbers UM. And to the casual hunter, that might
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: not seem like much, but that was a huge win,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: a huge, huge win for for conservation and for the
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: future of deer hunting. So, uh, you know, there there
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: was a lot of state specific things that you know,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: opened public land and gotten more hunter access and that
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: type of thing, but big scale or large scale of
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: man the opportunity to use those PR dollars to help
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: support the future of hunting was a really really big
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: thing and something we were extremely proud to help be
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: a part of. That's awesome. Yeah, again, speaking to the
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: importance of of help building our base of participants and supporters,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: all those recruitment and our three initiatives are are important
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: to do that. So that's that's huge. What about? What about?
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Is there anything that you are really paying attention to
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: or that you would encourage us to really pay attention
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: to or to get involved in when it comes to
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: issues or legislation or something we need to be uh,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: you know, sending emails and letters and pounded ondoors about. Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: I'm just this past week I thought that, you know,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: there was a bill it was dropped in Oklahoma for
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: a big foot hunting season that is one that we
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: are watching. Oh boy, No, you know, I bring that
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: up partly because I think, you know, it's a lot
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: of hunters saw that and you don't kind of joke
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: about it. But obviously people can look at that and say, WHOA,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: that's really out there relative to hunting. But it's amazing
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: the number of other bills in states that you know,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: they don't have big foot attached to it, that are
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: really bad, bad bills for for hunting or for the
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: future of conservation that the average hunter doesn't know about.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: So um. While they may not be associated, you know,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: with the with the yetie or anything like that, it
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: uh we fight very hard on those and we try
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: to make those available to hunters. Um So. We're really
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: just now getting into the legislative season. You know, a
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: lot of legislatures are getting back in session and a
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: lot of deer hunting related bills are just starting to
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: pop up. But I've seen some come across my desk
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: about the legalizing the venison sales. You know that that
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: is a huge or is going to be a huge bill.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: This is out of Maryland. Um uh So in a
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: handful of others that are like that that that we're
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: gonna be weighing very heavily on in the near future.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: So um. From a hunting perspective, there's a lot of
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: deer hunters out there, you know that they just aren't
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: into the advocacy end and uh and I totally get it.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: So they can at least rest assured knowing that there
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: are organizations out there like n d A and and
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: and many others that are fighting on their behalf and
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: keeping track of all that legislative stuff. So we'll let
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: our members and others know of opera just to engage
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: and on a whole plethora of bills and you know
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: what our stances whether we support or oppose that stuff,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: and give them a chance to engage two if they
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: want ye. So, so Kip, I would venture to say, um,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna make this claim whether I'm um,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: whether anyone's granting me this power or not, but I
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: will say that today in two Thoe, to be a
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: upstanding member of the deer hunting community no longer means
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: you can just go out there and shoot a deer
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: or two a year. I would say that today it
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: should be a requirement. And of course no one's actually
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: going to um require this, but I'm going to say
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: that in your own head, you should think of it
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: as a requirement to be an informed hunter and an
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: advocate for what we're doing, because if we want to
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: be able to keep hunting, and if we want to
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: be able to keep this lifestyle out there, we need
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: to be a participant in making that a reality. We
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: can't just depend on people like you, Kip. We can't
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: just point to that other person to take care of
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: the stuff. It's on all of us. We have a
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: responsibility to to contribute to the future of deer and
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: deer hunting and wild places. My argument is that as
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: an individual responsibility as much it is the responsibility of
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: an organization like the n d A. So if we will,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: if people will bear with me on this and and
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: take that to be truth as I believe it to be,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: what would your top action items be for a deer
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: hunter in two thousand twenty one? Kit maybe one or
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: two things that ever one of us can take action
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: on this year in some kind of way to be
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: an informed and active member of this deer hunting community.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: I wholeheartedly support what you are saying their Mark, I
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: agree with that and uh and I will add my
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: part to that. Does I think that the absolutely should
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: join a conservation organization of his or her choosing that
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: most closely fights for for what they would like as
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: deer hunters. A certainly hope that folks would join the
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: National Deer Association, But if you choose to not join us,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: join somebody else, you know, another organization that is fighting
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: to keep you know, deer on the landscape and to
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: keep dear healthy and to provide opportunities for to you know,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: to go afield and hunt them. So I think one
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: join to help support that. And number two is we
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: have to change the culture around hunting from just being
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: a consumer thing that we do to seeing it as
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: our responsibility to to mentor the next generation of hunters.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: So I think that every single hunter out there today
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: should look at it as his or her job to
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: expose somebody new to hunting and then to teach and
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: to mentor them. Might be once a year, maybe five
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: times a year, you know, whatever you can do, and
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: then next year do it again expose somebody else. So
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: I think that is the way that we will win,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: you know, the long term game relative to managing wildlife
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: and making sure that that hunting has looked at as
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: a necessary uh recreation in the United States. We need
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: hunters to the harvest white tail deer. We need hunters
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: to support wildlife programs largely through purchases of funding equipment.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: So those are my big things. Join an organization and
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: mentor somebody takes somebody a field and teach them what
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: it is to be a steward of our natural resources.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: I love it. I'm I'm right there with the kid.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: So my last question for you is this, if there's
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: anyone listening today who has been, you know, inspired in
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: some way or reminded of, you know, a desire to
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: become a more active conservationist in some kind of way,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: taking some kind of more active role in the types
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: of things we're discussing today. Um, and if they want
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: to pursue that a little bit more this year, where
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: would you send them for inspiration? I get a lot
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: of people who say, you know, I read your book,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: or I heard this thing, or I learned about this thing.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: You know, what should I read next? Or what should
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: I watch next? Or what should I listen to next?
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: Is there anything out there that you would encourage folks
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: too to read or or watch or listen to or
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: explore some kind of I don't know what what? What's
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: something that pops to mind when I mentioned that? Well,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: the first thing is is is our website. We provide
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: so much information from everything from the brand new casual
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: hunter up to experienced hunters. Would we purposely try to
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: provide information either on our website or our YouTube channel
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: that that can fill the need that that that hunter wants.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: So I've got to encourage the folks to check out
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: our stuff. But in addition to that, there are so
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: many resources out there today, and I think people should
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: take a look at how they most prefer to get
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: that from. From a podcast standpoint, there's all kinds of
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: information if people like to get it by listening, you know,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: your podcast obviously U a great opportunity of the Meat
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: Eater podcast. All kinds of information out there for folks.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: There's also more opportunity than ever before to to receive
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: information and in short videos, you know, on YouTube. It's
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: amazing the number of different channels that I take a
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: look at and watch and following and learn myself. So, UM,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Rather than saying a specific name or
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: specific place, I think it's it's it's a good thing
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: for people to realize that however you'd like to receive
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: that information, it is there for you today at unprecedented levels.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: So if you're a magazine reader, or a newspaper reader
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: or whatever that is. It is there, so just it
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't take much digging to do to be able to
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: find it. And uh, I'm a big fan of being
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: a voracious reader. I tell my kids that I tell
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: folks that I work with that, you know, there's nothing
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: that we can do from a hunting perspective to be
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: more engaged or to help hunting and to make sure
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: that we are informed so that you know, when we
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: talk with our hunting buddies or our our state wilife
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: agencies or conservation officers, whatever is, you know, if we're
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: more informed about it, we can make a more positive
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: impact to the future. So so read, learn, watch however
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: you want to get it, but be informed and impact
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Dear positively in your community. Can we get a book
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: recommendation from you? Any book related to I like that?
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: But they don't you don't need a can Okay, I'll
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: let that stand and and certainly will encourage people to
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: read that one. Um. Well, KI, what about lastly? Here
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: people that want to become a member of the NDA
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: or learn more, where can they go to do that?
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: They can go right to our website which is Dear
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: Association Dot com and they can join there and if
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: they want to take a little test drive and just
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: see what is there first, there's all kinds of information available,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: you know on honey or habitat management or dear biology
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: or whatever the case is, that they can look through
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: that and realize or see if hey, if I think
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: this is for me or not, and then and then
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: makes a choice after that. Perfect alright, Kip, Well, as always,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate taking the time to to walk through
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: this stuff with us and and share your perspective and
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: and and all the work you put into putting together
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: the white the Deer Report, not the white Tail Report
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: and more the Deer Report this year. Thank you for
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: you know, sussling through all this data and giving us
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: some really important highlights. So I appreciate it, and uh
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: looking forward to doing it again in a year. Absolutely,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: Mark my pleasure. Always good to talk with you about
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: you have a great day. Thank you too. All right,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: that's a wrap for today. Thank you for tuning in. Uh,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd be remiss if I let the opportunity
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: to slip away. Kip did recommend my book That Wild Country,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: which is for sale on places such as the Meat
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: Either website or Amazon, or from a lot of local bookstories.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: You can get a lot of these online, check them out.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: I certainly appreciate your support. It was probably the hardest
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: thing I've ever done, the most work I've ever put
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: into anything. So you're continued support and picking up a
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: copy or buying a gift for someone, Man, it means
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: the world. I honestly can't tell you how much that
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: means to me, So thank you in advance, and thanks
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: for listening, thanks for being a part of this whole thing.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: We've been doing it wired to Hunt for a lot
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: of years now and hope to continue doing for many
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: years to come. So until then, thank you and stay
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt.