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Wired To Hunt Podcast #140: The 2017 Whitetail Report with Kip Adams · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the wire 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
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This episode number one forty tay
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the show. We are joined by Kip Adams of the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Quality Deer Management Association, and we're discussing the latest deer
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: harvest trends and current issues impacting deer and deer hunters,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: such as changing habitat, disease, urban deer management, and much
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: much more. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: brought to you by Sitko Gear, and today's show, I'm
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: joined by Kip Adams of the Quality Deer Management Association,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and as he's done for us the past few years,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Kip is going to share his annual State of the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: white Tail Update, and by that I mean keeps going
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: to share with us a variety of updates related to
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the latest deer harvest numbers and trends from across the country,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: as well as some insight into the most pressing issues
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: related to deer and deer hunting currently, such as white
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: tail habitat degradation trends, and faun recruitment, the latest on
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: diseases such as e h D and c w D,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and much much more. It's really gonna be an interesting conversation,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I think, and it shouldn't nicely set the stage for
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: us for the rest of two thousand and seventeen. I
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: think it'll put us in a position where we're all
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: kind of have a good idea of the state of
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the resource as we kick off this new year and
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: start planning our our deer hunting projects and hunts and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: all that good stuff. So, since we are without my
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: trusty coast Dan today, we're going to quickly bring Kip
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: on here with us. But first we briefly need to
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: pause to thank our partners at SITK Gear for the
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: support of this podcast. And as we've done the past
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: few weeks, we're back with Jessica de Lorenzo, who was
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: one of the female hunters involved in design and testing
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the new women's line of clothing from Sica, and today,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: to wrap things up, I asked jess to tell us
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: just a little bit about what it felt like to finally,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: you know, to have put in so much work to
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: create this woman's gear and then to finally see it
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: all come together in the real world. It was pretty
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: exciting of the first time that I got some phototypes
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to test um seeing the ideas that we had come
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: up with in the beginning stage of the brainstorming and
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: having them in a physical form, and the first couple
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of times that I went out hunting and it was
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: just like this Eureka moment, like it doesn't finally happening
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and everything just is coming together and it's worked out
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: really well. We're really really really proud of it and
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: excited the way it's turned out, because, UM, we just
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: wanted it to be, uh like, no frills, We wanted
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: it to be a tool, and we wanted to be functional,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the same as what they offer currently for men um.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: So to see that transition into the women's functionality and
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: systems has been awesome. And did any moment stand out
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to you during this whole process by sleep afterwards? UM,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I think the one that pops out immediately is I
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: was able to go on Antelope Spot and stock with
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: bo with Amanda Caldwell and we were field tasting some
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: of the women's big game gear for that hunt, and
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: it was really tough and exciting and it was successful
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: for me and just be able to share that with
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: man did who I'm great friends with, and be able
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: to use some of the products that we helped design
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: was really special. So if you'd like to learn more
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: about the women's gear or sign up to pre order some,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: you can visit sit kid gear dot com, slash Women's
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: And now back to the show and our conversation with
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Mr Kip Adams. All right with me now on the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: line is Kip Adams. How are you? Kip? I'm doing good? Mark,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: how are you doing today? It's good, I'm doing well.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm excited to have you back. You are? You
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: are think a three time guest now on the podcast.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: So so we appreciate you continuing to h to come
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: along for this crazy ride. Thank you for joining us
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: a flute, It's my pleasure. I always enjoyed talking with you. Yeah.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: So since last time we talked, UM, I'm curious, how
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: how did you twos six hunting season go? It was great? Uh,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: hunt out of a traditional camp here in northern Pennsylvania,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: and we arguably had the best year we have ever had.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: And that said a lot because we've had a lot
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: of good years. Um. Part of it, though we had
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: six kids that were between ten and twelve years old
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  Speaker 1: hunting not a camp, and uh, that alone made it
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  Speaker 1: a tremendous year, So lots of fun to have that youth. Um,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: actually there were still six kids. They shot uh four
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: bucks and a bear, so they did really well. How
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: big of a property is this that this group's hunting.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: We have very fortunate as my family farm that my
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: grandparents put together a long time ago. It's seven dred
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: acres total and we have anywhere between usually fifteen adults
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: and then a bunch of kids that hunted each year.
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  Speaker 1: So this year we had about twenty different people hunting
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: on it, and so we were very lucky to have that.
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  Speaker 1: We know in many cases we put a lot of
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of hunting pressure on us, so we have
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: to be very smart about how we hunt it. But
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  Speaker 1: it's very important to us to to share that property
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: with friends and family. So uh, it's quite a hunting
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  Speaker 1: tradition that we have there and certainly looking forward to
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  Speaker 1: pass that to the next generation. And uh, six young
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  Speaker 1: ones at camp this year made a big smile on
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people's faces. So hopefully we're going to
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  Speaker 1: pass that tradition on and keep it going strong. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's awesome. That's great to have that many new people
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: coming into it and young folks getting involved. Um. In
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: addition to that type of youth participation, was it a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: good year from you know, harvest standpoint, management standpoint, any
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: of those types of things. It really was. We typically
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: on the shoot one or two bucks a year. Um.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: We have before we tell our kids to shoot whatever
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  Speaker 1: they're allowed and highly encouraged to shoot any buck, and
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the adults all follow other guidelines where the degger has
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: to be at least three and a half years old
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  Speaker 1: or have a sixteen inch inside spread. And we have
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: some guys in our camp that are glad to shoot
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: any three year olds. We have some guys that typically
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: don't shoot three year olds that we want them to
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: get a little older. And uh, we're involved with the
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Cutium Cooperative, which means, you know, many of our neighbors
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: are doing very similar things. So any given year, we
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: we truly have the chance to harvest deer that are three,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: four or five, six or even seven years old. So
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: it's it's worked out extremely well for us over the years. Huh.
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  Speaker 1: And in addition to those bucks that I told you
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: that our kids killed and actually one of those I
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: use killed killed a really nice three and a half
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: year old buck. Um. But in addition to those, we
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: killed three other bucks that were three and a half
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, two other bucks that were three and a
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  Speaker 1: half and a four and a half year old. So
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: we typically shoot one or two bucks that are three
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: year older, and then this year we killed four of
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  Speaker 1: them for really nice deer that were three or four
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: years old. So an outstanding your forest by all accounts. Now,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: would you would you say that's that's uncommon for the area.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, when I typically think of Pennsylvania, that's one
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: of the states. You know, I'm stereotyping here, generalizing here,
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  Speaker 1: but it's one of the states that traditionally has not
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: been the best opportunity state for older age class bucks.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I know that's starting to change. Is that? Is that
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: what you guys have seen too? Has this been a
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  Speaker 1: big change for you over recent years? It has certainly
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: been changeding in Pennsylvania across the state, UM and our
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: part of the state. We started this cooperative about a
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  Speaker 1: decade ago, very similar to too many of the cooperatives
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  Speaker 1: that you have in Michigan, and there's about two thousand
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  Speaker 1: acres where almost every landowner joins each other that that
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  Speaker 1: protects younger deer and and some people have even more
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: restrictive buck harvest regulations than we do. So if you
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: take a look at the neighborhood that two thousand acres, UM,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and we had about an average year, which most accounts
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: is a very very good year. Um. It turned out
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: that our camp shot a couple more bucks this year
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  Speaker 1: than we typically do. Some of our neighboring camps shot
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: one or two less, so um. So for our camp individually,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: it was exceptional for our neighborhood. UM, it was right
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  Speaker 1: on par was what we typically have been shooting. And
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: you know we shot um do here that we're eight
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  Speaker 1: and a half years old bucks semana manual I aged.
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  Speaker 1: Our neighbor shouted here last year that that was nine
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  Speaker 1: and a half years old. Um a buck. So we
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: because of the cooperative nature of it, and I'm sharing
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  Speaker 1: information and the relationships developed across property lines. Um. Even
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: though what we get to do it is not the
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  Speaker 1: norm everywhere. UM, it is the norm for for us
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: in our neighborhood. You know, because of all the cooperation
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  Speaker 1: among the landowners. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. It's been exciting
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  Speaker 1: to see this, the whole coop idea spread across the country.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Like you said, there's a lot of that happening here
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  Speaker 1: in Michigan, which has been nice to see. And it
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: seems like, at least anecdotally from everything I hear from
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  Speaker 1: people involved in those and I've been loosely involved in some, um,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: it definitely seems to make a real meaningful impact. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: are you seeing that from a high national level when
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: you're looking across the you know, the qutum a membership
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in different co ops? Is is it really making as
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: big of a difference as it seems to be just
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: what I'm seeing locally. Oh? Absolutely, And and we're a
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: perfect example of it. You know, we are extremely lucky
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  Speaker 1: to have the acres that we do. Um. You know,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: that's much larger than many hunters are able to have.
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  Speaker 1: And if it was just us going out of alone,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: you know, we wouldn't have anywhere near the opportunities that
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: we have today, you know, because of the cooperative nature.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: So you know, as you start looking at smaller properties,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: those co operas become even more important, you know, and
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: we have some neighbors that have small acreages. You know,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: we have some neighbors that that have you know, more
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: acres than us. But there works because of all of
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: the folks you know, getting together and doing this and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: so um, we are very fortunate. I see the same
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: thing happening in other parts of Pennsylvania because people involved
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the cooperatives and uh, you know, I'm very lucky to
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: get to work around the country, so I see the
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: same thing happening, you know, Northeast, the southeast, the Midwest,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the upper Midwest. You know, there's no boundaries to where
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: a cooperative will work well or not. It truly can
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: work any place that white tails live. It's just a
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: matter of you know, the hunters and the landowners getting
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: together of their neighbors and you know, talking it through
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and you know, having handshake deals and started to develop
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a friendship or a relationship, which
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: then greatly compounds into the deer hunting in and what
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: they're able to do. So anything about it is too
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you know, they often start small and they start slow,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and now, which is fine. You know, even two people
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: working together can can start to make a difference, and
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: then over time you get another neighbor will throw their
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: twenty acres in, and now the guy just down the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: road a little bit will throw his or her forty
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: acres in, and you know, suddenly man made some friends
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: that you never had before. You know, your deer hunting
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: is better, and it's a it's a whole new ball game.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: And you know, you guys lead the North Michigan with
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: regard to co ops, Texas as the leaves the South,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: and they've been just doing those so much longer than
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: everybody else. And you know, people think of Texas as
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: these big lane ownership patterns, you know, and kind of
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: they go out by themselves, but that's not true at all.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: You know, they had co ops there a long time.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: They call them associations rather than co ops, but it's
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: exactly the same thing. So that's even with some of
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: these larger properties they have, they're they're able to be
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: so successful. Um, you guys lead the north of that,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and now there's many other stage trying to catch up
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: to you. And I think that's a very good thing. Yeah,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Cutium cooperatis are definitely one of the hottest things going
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: right now, and I think I'm very very bright sign
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: for the future of hunting. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. UM.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And speaking of you know, I think most people listening
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: know who you are kept and they're familiar with the
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Quality Deer Management Association with who you work for. UM.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: But I guess, just in case, just in case of
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: some people that aren't familiar, can you just give us
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: a very you know, a quick rundown of what the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: cut you May is all about and maybe what you
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: guys are doing now today? I mean, has the cut
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: you may have your goals or your focus areas, or
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the way you go about things has that changed at all?
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Is cut May in two thousand seventeen different than maybe
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: the qut may we knew five years ago or anything
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: like that? I'm sure. I'm a wallet biologist and the
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: director of communication or side of the director of Education
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: and Outreach for k d M A. KUMA is a
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: national nonprofit wildlife conservation organization, and we specialize in in
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: information and outreach to two hunters and landowners and natural
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: resource professionals. You know, we have this information that we
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: want to share with people to help them do better
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: stewards of our natural resources and have more successful hunting seasons.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: So that that's kind of it in a nutshell. So
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: if if you're a deer hunter, you belong with q
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: d M A, you know we we are the organization
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: we want you here to be able to give you
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: more information to make it better for you and then
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and have you share that with others. So and as
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: far as are we are we different. Um. We certainly
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: are an education based organization. UM. So that part hasn't changed,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: but some of our focus has in large part because
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: many of our early goals we've accomplished. And uh q
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: MAY was founded in and at that point the whole
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: qd M philosophy was brand new, and our founder actually
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: married some principles from Texas with some association from Australia,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: some work that he had done to really put deer
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: hunters together. Because up at that point, you know a
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: lot of the WALA professional said you can get duck
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: hunters together, and you can get small game hunters together
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: on something you know, or turkey hunters, but you can
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: never get deer hunters to agree on anything. Well, Joe
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: found a way to make that happen. So Joe Hamilton's
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: founded the q d M A and then at that
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: time even a lot of Wallace professionals did not believe
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: in the q d M philosophy, did not believe in
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: protecting young bucks or harvesting analysts here, that couldn't convince
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: hunters to do that. So we spent much of the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: early years just proven that, hey, you know what qt
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: M works, and you can get deer hunters to work together.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: So you can fast forward to that's the first year
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: in the US that hunters shot more antalysts deer than
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: that bucks. So that was a monumental step forward with
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: regard to deer management and you know, and being good stewards.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Then you fast forward a little farther and suddenly, now, well,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: you know what, we're protecting more yearling bucks were We're
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: getting more bucks into the older age classes, we have
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: more balanced age structures, and and two years ago we
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: actually harvested more bucks that were three and a half
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: are older than those that were just one and a half. So,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is absolutely amazing today, and it happened
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: again this past hunting season. So you know, we've been
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: monitoring this since nine and nine. About sixty of all
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the bucks shot we're just one and a half years old.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: First seven hours, you know, seven out of ten bucks.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: If you fast forward today, it's about a third. It's
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: dropped all the way down to thirty three or thirty
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: four percent, and a bigger percentage are three and a
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: half are older, so and actually less past season, for
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the first time ever, hunters shot more bucks that were
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: three and a half are older than those bucks that
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: were just one and a half or even those bucks
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: that were just two and a half. So this is
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: very remarkable because there's a lot of states that had
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: restrictions to protect the healing bucks twenty three states to
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: be exact, but there's a many other states that have,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: you know, very active public education programs you have to
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: encourage people to pass younger bucks. So what that means is, okay,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: we're passing these jailings, you know, and and even five
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: or ten years ago, a lot of people then just
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: shot him at two and a half years old. What
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: we see now is, you know, they're making it to
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: at least three and a half at record numbers, and
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: there's not a single state in the country that has
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: regulations designed to protect bucks or two and a half.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So that means is the hunters are willingly passing an
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: entire another age class of deer that they could legally
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: kill just because they have seen benefits of hunting older bocks,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: you know, a photographing older box swapping tactics with there
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: were these older deers. So it's a very different place
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: in deer management and it's a pretty exciting one to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: be and hunters have really shown their desire to want
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: these older deer in their willingness to pass legally harvestable
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: deer to be able to get to that. So that's
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: a at a cool place r right now. So because
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: of that, our focus changes a little bit to providing
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: new information on this changeing game of deer management as
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: well as rather than trying to prove that qd M
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: works because everybody knows that. Now, make sure that we
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: are broad enough on our educational outreach to bring in
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: more hunters that that may not know about us or
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: you know, may not be landowners. And that's fine. You know,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: some people think that qd M A is just a
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: landowner organization and that's not true at all. A full
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: third of our members don't own any land. So we
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: need to make sure that we do a good point
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: telling deer hunters, Hey, if your a deer hunter, we
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: want you with us, and we have information that can
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: help you to make sure that nobody feels excluded from
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: from our organization. Yeah. So, speaking of the information that
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: you provide every year for I don't know how many
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: years it's been now, it's been quite a few. You
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: guys have been putting together something you called the white
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Tail Reports, and UM, the last two years now we've
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: had you on the show to tell us about that
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: year's white Tail Report and kind of what the state
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: of the white tail is in the country. And that's
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: kind of what my hope was for us to do
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: today was get the high level overview of where are
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: things right now? What are some of the current issues
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: and trends? Um. But I guess before we dive into
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: that kit, can you just provide us some context as
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: to how you and Matt and the team put together
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: the white Tail Report? How do you how does this
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: all come together? Sure, we start doing this in two
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: thousand and nine. That was the first one, and the
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: idea came from, Hey, you know, we have all this
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: information that we can get to our members and we're
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: sharing with folks. But there's a lot more here that
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: you know that media and others would love to have
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: access to that. We really had an opportunity, unlike most
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: other organizations, to to be able to disperse this information.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: So we started with that. And the cool thing about
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: it is every fall, late summer and early fall, we
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: do a survey to every single state wilife agency and
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: every provincial wallife agency UM to provide information for the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: upcoming year's report, and it always includes information on the
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: previous year's harvest. So we take a look at total
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: numbers of bucks and analysts are harvested, break it out
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: into age structure of that breaking and so then we
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: can take that and put all of it into a
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: harvest per square mile, so we can really compare, you know,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: state by state or province by province with what's going on.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: We look at all of that by weapon type to see,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: you know, who's shooting more deer with bows versus muzzleloaders
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: versus rifles UM. And then we also ask questions on
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the most pertinent things that are going on in the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: deer world right now, so kind of the biggest issues,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the biggest threats, the biggest opportunities out there. So we
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: break our report really into into three chapters. The first
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: part is the harvest from the year before, so state
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: by state and province by province statistics to look at.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: The next part is, you know, the current trends and threats,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: what's really going on right now. And obviously us change
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: each year, so we make sure that we're up to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: date with it. And it's really like providing a state
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: of the Union address, you know, to deer hunters. Here's
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: what the state of the Union of the White Tale world.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: And the last part of our report now is is
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: qt amazing and report to discuss the different programs we
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: have and share information on folks. So the nice thing
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: about it is, you know, much of all of part
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: one and much of part two comes straight from our
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: state wildlife agencies. And when we started this, you know,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the states provided the data and okay, here we go.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: But what we found, and since we've been doing it
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: this long, you know, the state agencies we received lots
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: of compliments from them because you know, they receive a
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: lot of the same questions from their constituents. So our
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: wildlife leaders use that to compare how their state is
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to others and to share information with people, and and
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: we strongly encourage and hey, you know, if if you
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: have a question that you want to ask or see
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: how your state compared about let us know, we're glad
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: to include that each year on on our State and
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Provincial Agency survey. So it's a good relationship between US
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: and UH and the state and provincial agencies, which is
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: very nice. Hunters love it because then they can see
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: how their state compares to others around them or within
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the region. And the whole idea is to just make
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: it as helpful as possible to two hunters and and
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: that's a resource professionals. So speaking of your relationship with
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: these state wildlife agencies from the hunter standpoint, I feel
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: like there's always this interesting dynamic between hunter hunters and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: that agency and the regulations um that are put in
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: place and all these different things. From your unique perspective, UM,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: what is the state of our state wildlife agencies? Do
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: you feel like? And I know this this requires a
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: massive amount of generalization because there's so many out there,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: but you know, how are these state agencies doing when
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: it comes to you know, I guess, managing relationships with
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: hunters and recording and tracking all this data and these
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: different regulations. I mean, this is an impossible question. I'm
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: realizing it as I'm saying it. But but from your angle,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: what are you seeing there? Are are we on the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: right path? Are there anything that concern you? Are there
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: any things you're particularly excited about? Um? What are your
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: thoughts there? Well? I think there's two big trends going
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: on within that in that role. But one of them
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: is our wildlife management programs have never been more political
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: than they are right now. And that is not a
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: good thing. That that is not a good sign. Um.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: You know, when I started, and I've been a wilefe
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: biologists for more than twenty years now. When I started, UM,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: science carried a lot more weight in all of these discussions,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and it didn't necessarily carry the day every time, but
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: it really carried a lot of weight. And that is
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: increasingly becoming not the case today today. I have seen
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: time after time and state after state, you know, where
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the science didn't carry any weight at all, you know,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and decisions were entirely political. Um, from season dates you know,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: to season structure, to analyss harvest recommendations either increased or
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: decreased from what the biologists wanted, you know, because of
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: political whims. So so that that that is not good.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: That is not a brave sign at all for our future. UM.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: The second half of that and another trend that I
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: think it's very positive is hunters have never been as
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: engaged with other agencies as they are today. And that
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: is a really really good thing. Historically, our state wilife
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: agencies gave us our hunting seasons and rules and here
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: it is and and hunters took it and lived with
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: it and UH and today hunters, unlike at any other point,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: have much more involvement with season setting UH, deer management
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: plan UM preparations. So so that's good. You know, they
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: get to talk with the agencies. The agencies are engaging
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: hunters at record levels and and that just makes it
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: that much better because historically hunters were a much bigger
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: piece of the pie for our wildlife management programs. But
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: today we are more urbanized than we've ever been in
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the history of the United States. So what that means
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: is much more of our wild life decisions are being made,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: you know, in the cities and in suburbia rather than
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: rural America, you know, like we often think of from
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: a honey end. So there's just many more stakeholders involved
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: in while life decision making today. And thus because of that,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: as hunters, you know, we need to make sure that
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: we are represented. So the fact that hunters are more
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: engaged with the agencies is a very very good thing.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know that there are some agencies that
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: do a much better job of that than others. And
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: if you look at many of the issues today where
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: states really need to help in supportive hunters, the state
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: wilife agencies that have been engaging hunters for a longer
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: period of time have much better public support and working
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: relationships and uh, and it's very evident, and and so
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: that's a good thing, you know, and hunter our agencies,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, need to engage hunters at even higher
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: levels to make sure that they do have that support
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: moving forward, because there's some pretty tricky issues out there
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that we're having to deal with today. Yeah, so back
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to the first point you made about the plus sization
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: of wildlife management, where does the where does that blame
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: get placed? Is that people within these wildlife agencies are
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: allowing themselves to be influenced by politicians or is this
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: like above their pay grade and the politics are coming
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: from above and they're being forced on the agencies saying hey, no,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I don't care what you're telling me to do it.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: This is what we're gonna do. Where is the where
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: is the onus put there? It's the ladder of what
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: you just said. It's from above the agencies, and so
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: they're being told what to do, what they can or
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: cannot say. So, you know, in most cases our agencies,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: dear biologists, you know, there is mad about what's happened,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: you know, as the average hunter is, because they're being
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: told either to stand down or the recommendations are not
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: going to be followed. You know, they're going to be
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: dictated from above, and is in many case not even
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: just you know, the executive director of the agencies above
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: that you know, coming to them from the Board of
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Commissioners that oversees the agency or you know, somewhere along
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: those lines. So yeah, it's not it's not our do
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: by just buy any means? So what's the Is there
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: a solution there? I mean? Do do hunters that a
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: contingency have them have enough influence to influence that next
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: run above? If if we were to start making a ruckus,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: is that something that is achievable or is this outside
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: of our realm of influence. No, I think it absolutely is,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: and that's really where a lot of this is coming
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: from are you'll see, and it's often worse in states
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: that historically have not engaged hunters at a very high level. Um,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: it's many hunters and groups that are just so dissatisfied
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: or upset with their lack of opportunity to to be
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: engaged that have gone to their legislators. And that's what's
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: driving a lot of this. So just as you know
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: they're driving it kind of been a bad way. You know,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the majority of hunters who are you know, very good
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: stewards of our resources and you know an upstanding individuals,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: you know, we can do the same same thing and
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: put that power back in our biologists hands. And in
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: some cases, um, you know, it's it truly is another
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: another industry, another faction out there, you know that has
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a bigger lobbyists than than the wildlife group. But for
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: the most part, you know, there are there are more
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: hunters than almost any other group out there. So you know,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: if we work together, we certainly can can put that
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: power back in our trusted agencies hands. And the really
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: thing that's held holding back is some of the agencies
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: you know that have not had good relationships with hunters
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: in the past, UM, really need to mend those and
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: most are most have done a very good job over
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the last five or ten years mending a lot of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: those relationships and trying to improve them. And uh so
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: we just need to see more of that. And uh
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: you know, I think the longer that we worked, or
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: more hunters work with their agency, the better that relationship comes.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: I think you'll see a return of some more of
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: that science based management, which is very much needed. So
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: fair to say that pointing the finger and getting pissed
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: at the wildlife agency most of the time isn't necessarily
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the best course of action for US hunters. Maybe more
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: times it's how do we engage with them and better
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: understand where they're coming from and help out in that
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: stand From that standpoint, yeah, I'm an optimistic person, so
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I always tried to take that approach of hey, you know,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: even if we haven't got along well in the past,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: let's let's let's work together on this now. Um, Because
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people out there who are not
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: for hunting or our wildlife management. So as hunters, we
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and our agency managers, you really need to stand together
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: on these so um, I encourage hums. Hey, you know,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: even if you don't have a good history within your
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: local biologist or your agency, you don't continue to try
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: to make that happen. You will continue to be positive
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: and be a productive part of the conversation. You know,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: too many times I've seen hunters, you know, who are
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: upset with the agencies, who who then take every opportunity
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: possible to kick them or degrade them, you know, and
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: that doesn't help anything, because is it anything that you
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: do in life, And this is especially true with Walleffe management. Um,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: your view versus your your agency's view there still comes
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: down to a relationship there on whether you know the
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: people working for agen you like you as an individual
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: or not. And if they dislike you, it really doesn't
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: matter how good your ideas are, you're not all that
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: likely to have them implemented. So you know, I encourage you. Hey,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: you know, it's good to make friends with your biologists
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: and your agency. And you don't have to agree on
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: everything for sure, but you know, at least let them
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: know that, Hey, you're here to help. You're not here
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: to make the problems any worse or to kick them.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: You know, that doesn't serve anybody good, even in the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: in the wildlife world. Yeah, it's amazing how much you
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: see that kind of thing, especially, you know, with anything
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: these days of social media. The the villainization of some
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: of these agencies sometimes is, I don't know, it's it's
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: interesting to see how people it's very easy to point fingers, right,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and it's very easy to make assumption is about different
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: organizations or agencies, motivations or reasons for doing things. Um.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: But oftentimes, at least in my opinion, it doesn't seem
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: to do a whole lot of good to just say
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: these guys are evil and they're trying to ruin our
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: hunting because of A B and c. Um. That doesn't
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: seem to be too productive. More so, it's usually trying to,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: you know, like you said, work with them, listen to them,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: offer your suggestions, help out, or engage in some type
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: of way that's productive, versus just screaming and pointing fingers.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: But that's I guess, uh kind of the way in
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the world these days. Unfortunately. Um. Now you're right, you know,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: and I'm privy to some closed door meetings and some
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: high level meetings with some of these agencies, and you know,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: and I know I've heard you know, dear bods may
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: just to say, man, you know, we agree with you
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: or you know, we would love to do this. You know,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: we're being told to do you know, be rather than
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: a or whatever the case may be. You know, And
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: so publicly this is our agency stands. Well, then a
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: hunter will hear the stands, and if it's against what
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: they want, they criticize them, you know, and I'll tell luck,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: you know, he or she this you must may think
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: exactly like you, you know, take into account that you're
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: coming at this from a hunting in you know, particularly
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: very emotional and whereas our agency folks, yeah, they have
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to determine or look at, you know, the biological value,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: but they also have to do with, you know, the
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: social and political value of managementer and you know, sometimes
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: that gets in the way of what you know they
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: want to do, or certainly the way of what you
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: want to do. But continue to try to work with
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: them and be helpful at every opportunity, and that's just
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: much more likely that you'll end up is something productive
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: in the end. Yeah, yeah, true. So so let's move
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: on to the white Tails State of the Union, like
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, and at the beginning of your white Tail Report,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, you guys really focus on harvest numbers,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: harvest trends, um where do things stand today? As far
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: as what you guys are able to put together for
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: this two thousand and seventeen report. What are some of
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: the big takeaways. Well, we're starting to see a return
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: of the buck harvest in many states, which is a
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: very good thing. You know, we had a sliding carvest
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: for a few years in some regions and for a
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: long time in the Midwest. We're starting to see a
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: recovery of that in some places, which is very encouraging.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: The antalysts harvest continues to decline. We're at about a
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: decade long decline now, almost down from where we were.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: And uh and as soon as I say that, I
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: know people can think, oh God, this is bad. And
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: you know, this is one place where a lot of
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: agencies get themselves in trouble because they just tell whether
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the harvest is up or down, and then hunters immediately
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: think if it's up, things are good. If it's down,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: it's bad. Well, it's not necessarily the case, particularly from
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the analysts, because there are a lot of agencies that
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: now whose deer numbers are much more in line with
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: what our habitats can support, so they will remove in
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: some antless harvest opportunity because we don't need to shoot
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: as made as we did. So if that, you know,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: is the case, then a lower harvest in some states
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: can be a very good thing. So if you really
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: have to take a look at your specific example to
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: see is hey, is this reduced antless harvest? Is this
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: good or bad for the future. So even though it
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: is down in many cases, that marks a very positive
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: impact because of your herbs are are just in the
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: better shape today, are a better place than they were
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: in the past. So can I jump in really faster,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: kip Um, Absolutely so. As you mentioned over the past
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: few years when we've had this kind of discussion and
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of there's been a lot of talking to
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: media over the last two or three years about this
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: decline in in harvest, the decline in populations. There's a
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: lot of concern, you know, what's going on. The white
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: tail heard all of a sudden is is you know,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: possibly facing a crisis here, and so there's some of
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: that are looking at this as a crisis, and then
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: there were some that are saying, well, maybe this is
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: like a course correction. Maybe we were way above what
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: was really healthy and in balance with what these ecosystems
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: can handle. Maybe this is that balance we're correcting back
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: down to a point of balance. And in hindsight now
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: now that we're looking back on it, um, these past
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: few years, from your perspective and in the perspective of
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe you know agencies and whoever else you're previous
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: to have these kind of conversations with, do you feel
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: now looking back on this, was it a correction and
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: we've reached a point of balance or was it actually
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: a crisis and we've just now stabilized. Which is it?
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: I do not think there was a crisis at all. Um.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: I think that we were seeing a change for a
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: number of different reasons. Um. You know, things impact on
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: our deer herds. But I don't think what in most
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: places any way, we were not at crisis level. UM.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I do firmly believe that the average deer heer today
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: is much healthier, uh than it was a decade ago,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: both from a numbers perspective, in an age structure perspective. Um,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I think that we certainly have an issue today with
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: with some of our farm recruitment rates that continue to decline,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: something that we really need to keep an eye on.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: But overall, our age structures are much better today than
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: the past, and a lot of deer herds are a
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: lot closer to being where they should be relative to
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: the habitat. So so that's a very good thing as well.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: So I always encourage our agencies and anybody you know,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: before you just start saying this year's harvest was upboard down,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: talk about a relative you know, to what you wanted,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: because every agency should have a target doe harvest each year,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: and they should be able to calculate the target target
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: buck harvest, so they should talk about it relative to
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: what they expected to happen or what they wanted to happen,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: rather than just upward down. And I know that the
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: news of the media you know, will report this was
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: you know, a little bit up or a lot upper
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: or whatever. But as hunters, we need to be smarter
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: than that. We can't just look at up or down
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: and think good or bad. We need to take the
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: next step and say, okay, let's see you know, is
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: this down a good thing or is it a bad thing?
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Because everything is site specific, so hunters can definitely be
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: a little bit smarter from that in Yeah. So, so
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: it sounds like the decline in doll harvest was an
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: intended um, an intended result across some places. But you
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: mentioned that buck harvest was on the way back up. Um.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Do we have any idea of why that might be
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: the case? Why that the recent trend down maybe has
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: stopped now? Has there been any changes that you think
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: might it be you know behind that? Yeah? I think so.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: And and all of the harvest data in our two
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: thousand seventeen report comes from the two thousand and fifteen
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: into sixteen deer season. And the reason for that is
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: we published a report in January of each year, so
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: we published it before you know the existing deer seasons
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: is done. Um. You know there's seasons are run through
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: January and even into February and some states. So all
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: of the data that we talked about here, it's from
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: the two thousand and fifteen into sixteen season because it's
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the most recent season where you have complete data that
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: you can analyze. And I think from that, what why
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: we had to buck harvest increase. UM agencies. You know,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: we're monitoring and seeing that the buck harvest was declining. Um,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: we had a couple of really bad hamorrhagic disease years
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: within the last decade, so that by agencies taken a
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: look at that, accounting for it. They have manipulated some
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: of the analysts harvests moving forward such that if they
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: were in an area where you know what we really
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: do need to say some dear, they've made changes such
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: that they can protect more antlers to do and allow
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: some of those three herds to recover a little bit.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: So I think there was you know, a few factors
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: like that that led into it, and almost all him
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: intentional by our agencies, you know, to help correct that
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: buck harvest decline. So we're starting to see, uh see
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: that recovery. And the really cool thing about it is
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: it's the buck harvest total as all antler bucks. So
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: we have a recovery in antler bucks, but then also
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: record numbers of them that are three and a half
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: are older, so it's not like we have a recovery
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: and but they're all one and a half. You know,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: we have very very good age structure and an increased harvest,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: you know, so that's a tremendous wind win for hunters. Yeah.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: So here's something that I've heard some people talk about
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: kind of anecdotally, and I'm curious to see if you've
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: heard of anything like this on a larger scale. Um.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: You know, in the years of like two twelve and
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: two thirteen, there was there was a lot of e
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: h D outbreaks across certain areas of the country, particularly
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: some spots in the Midwest, and you know, when that happened,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: there was large scale die offs in local areas of
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of bucks. Um. And the thought, though I
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: think a lot of people had, was Okay, so there's
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: been a significant reduction some of these older age class bucks.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: But for the bucks that did survive because of reduced
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: competition for food, they're going to be much more likely
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: to be able to have a lot of access to
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: great nutrition and a better chance of reaching older age
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: classes and being more healthy, you know, possibly reach their
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: full genetic potential from a whole bunch of different standpoints,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: including potentially antler size, different things like that. Um, have
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: you heard of anything on a larger scale. Is that
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: something we're sort of seeing as we get into this
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: twousan fifteen sixteen season, we're seeing some of these deer
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: that are now four years old UM or something like that,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: that have lived in that post e h D outbreak
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: world where they have better access to habitat and now
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: we're getting a healthier UM, more genetically reaching their potential
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: deer herd well that that certainly can play a factor.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: If you know the number of deer that died in
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: an area, we're large enough at it, the remaining deer
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: had a big jump in amount of nutrition that's left.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: So so did that happen I don't know, it probably
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: did in some areas. UM. That certainly can happen through
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: you know, the HD die off or just good deer
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: herd management. UM. I would guess that that certainly played
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: a role in that M Is it the major role? UM?
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of other habitat work and
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: herd management work going on right now. You don't have
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: to help make sure that deer get abundant, high quality nutrition.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: So I think that probably had a bigger role in it.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: But the fact that there were fewer deer UM certainly
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: plays right into the herd manager part of the mark.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: So I think they probably want hand in hand and
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: with what you were asking, and certainly allowed for more
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: food for those bucks and the remaining doors than remaining balls.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: So that's just if everybody can get a little more
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: to eat, particularly a little more high quality food, let's
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: just do it all across that deer herd. Yeah, so
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: you mentioned phone recruitment and that that's not trending in
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: the right direction, and um, what are you seeing there?
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: What's the latest there and why is this still happening
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: and what's that means. I don't know if everybody understands
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: why fund recruitment rates are important and what that means
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: for the long term future of a deer herd. We
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: we monitor fund recruitment rates very closely because that is
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: one of the best measures of a productivity of a
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: deer herd. And what the faun recruitment rate is. It's
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: not the number of fetuses inside a pregnant dough or
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: it's not the number of fonds that hit the ground
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: in the spring or early summer. It's the number that
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: are alive day one of your deer season in the fall.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: So it takes into account, you know, the number that
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: are born in the spring but then we see how
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: many of them make it to be about six months
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: of age, you know, and are alive in the fall.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: And from a hunter's perspective, that's what's most important because
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: that's a measure of the health of the deer herd
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: from a reproductive standpoint. And you know, how good is
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: the habitat. You have to provide good finding cover, etcetera.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: And food for the dough to feed that fall to
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: allow it to not just be a day or two old,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: but to be six months old, you know, and enter
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: the fall population. Well, if you if you back up
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: a couple of decades, it was pretty close to one
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: fond per dole and uh you know when people think, man,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: those have twins, so you know there's a lot of fons. Well,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: in reality, you know, across the US, the average recruitment rate,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: you know, it was just under one phon per dole
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: if you back up about twenty years. And that's because
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: you know, fons get eaten by bears and coyotes and bobcats,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: and they can hit by cars and you know, they
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: drown and they die and there's lots of things that
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: kill them. So if you started with just under one
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: phon per do twenty years ago. If you fast forward
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: to now, it's down to like point five nine fons
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: per do. So what that means is for every dough
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: out there in the fall, you know, there's just over
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: half a font. So that's not man you could and
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: it's certainly a lot less than it hasn't a bat.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing that really to watch is you know,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: what does this trend do over the last decade or
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: last two decades, And uh, it's almost in a free
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: fall in some places. And obviously the number of falls
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: being recruited is a direct result of you know, how
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: healthy are those deer you know, those doughs getting enough
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: good food to feed them, and how good is the
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: habitat to protect them from you know, dying either of
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: manutrition or or predators or whatever. So as hunters and managers,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: we want very productive deer heads. And the most or
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the way to have the most bucks in an area
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: is to have the most funds born and then survived
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: to fall, because approximately every other fond born as a
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: buck fun so they have most bucks. Is to have
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: the most fonds be recruited into the deer herd because
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: in the next year they have the first set of anilers.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: So it's a very different situation if you're recruiting about
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: one fond per do versus if you're recruiting point six
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: fons perduct, very very different. So it means a lot
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: less bucks being introduced into those deer herds. Um, it
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: means a lot less aniles lest deer that the average
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: hunter can shoot, so it's less meat for the table. So,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: you know, and some people point to finger right at predators,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: and in some cases predators are having a big impact,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: particularly in the southeast, but that's not everywhere. You know,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: there's places where there are very few predators. You know,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: we still have decline and recruitment rates. So so there's
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: definitely something going on with it that as hunters we
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: need to really keep a close eye on. So if
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: not predators, what are the other what are some of
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: the other things that could be behind this. It can
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: be just a lack of good habitat. So and if
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: there's not good enough habitat, that means those doughs aren't
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: as nourished, which means they don't provide as much milk
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: for the fons um. Some people think that a dough
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a really good diet, that her milk is
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: lower quality, and that is not true. You know, a
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: dough that starving will still have very high quality milk.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: But what happens is she just doesn't have very much
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: milk to feed her phones. So because of that, you know,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: they don't grow the way they should. You know, they're
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: they're malnurished, are weak. So you see fons dying that way,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: you see you know, just a love average um mortality
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: rates for those fons um which is which is obviously
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: not good at all, and it's just a red flag
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: for that whole management program. You know, fons are dying
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: at a high rate like that, and then you know
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: that's obviously not a good sign for those adults either
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: that those are healthy, which that means the bucks on
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: all that healthy, they're not able to express their you know,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: the body growth or or antler growth potential, and so
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: that's not good for any of us. No, So on
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: this habitat front, would it be correct to assume and
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: I do this probably there probably is no way to
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: really know this because it's over such a huge area. Um,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: but I would make an assumption or my guests would
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: be that over recent years, over the last twenty years,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: as more and more people have gotten have become focused
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: on managing for deer and focusing on improving habitat for
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: deer and different things like that. On average, my assumption
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: would be that of it land habitat quality for deer
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: has likely increased if you were to, you know, look
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: at at a large scale level, there's probably been an
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: increasing in habitat quality for dear because of that interest
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: in dear and that focus and education. Um, I guess
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: number one, do you think that's a safe assumption? And
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: then number two, if that is an assumption we can
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: safely make if we think that private land habitat is
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: improving on a larger area of land being managed for deer,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Now where is the habitat degradation happening? Then? Is it
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: because more and more private land is being taken out
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: of you know, natural growth and being put into mono
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: culture agriculture just big corn fields and bean fields, or
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: is it something else entirely Well, for the first part,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I think absolutely yes. I think the average landowner today
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: who who's interested in hunting his or her land, is
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: they understand far more about improvement for habitat, and there's
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: more habitat management going on than than I would say
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: probably ever before in the name of deer, which is
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: really good because then there's a lot of other species
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: that benefit from that. UM. So, I think some of
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the habitat degradation issues were facing. One of it is
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: certainly conversion of wildlife habitat to crop land, particularly road
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: crops UM. We lost a full quarter of our CRP land,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: you know, during the last decade, a full gone, and
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: that's the most successful wildlife habitat program you know, from
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: from our federal government that's ever been implemented. And with
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: increased road crop prices UM a few years ago, we
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: lost millions and millions of acres. So I think that
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: is a big part of it, and that particularly hurt
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the Midwest region, the Northeast, and the southeast. Yes, it
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: hurts us to lose that, but we have a lot
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: of cover anyway. But in much of the Midwest, you know,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the limiting habitat component was cover and now you're removing
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: millions and millions of acres of the most limiting habitat
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: on it, So that really hurts those deer hurts. So
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: that is part of it um. But also part of
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: it is you have a lot of landowners who either
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: are not hunters or um are just not that interested
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: in that part of it that we have force at habitat.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: It's just maturing and mature forest just doesn't provide all
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: that much for deer, you know, with the exception of
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: wintering areas in the north where they have to have
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: that thermal cover and protection. Um. You know, these these
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: overgrown hardwood forests you know, all through Appalachia and throughout
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: much of the White Tails range. Uh, young forest very
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: good for deer, but ture force, you know, not so much.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: They just don't support that many deer. If you take
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: a look at percentage of forest in the US, you know,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: we're about where we were a few decades ago. So
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: we're really not losing forest, But what we are losing
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: a very quick amount are those young forests. Those young
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: forests that provide the most food and cover for deer
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: to just simply mature and the mature force just can't
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: support as many deer as younger ones can. So is
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: there anything being done, um from a state level or
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: national level to try to incentivize some type of force
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: management that might be able to help us reset that
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: or anything other than that that's being done to try
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: to address that issue of these maturing force across the
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: country and what that means for wildlife. Yeah, there is,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of initiatives and incentives from the states.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: And actually QT may has a new employee, a young
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Force specialist that's working for us in New York. That
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: his job every day, you know, he talks with and
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: meets with private landowners to teach them the benefits of
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: having young force on their property from a wildlife then
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: and his job is to to talk to convert older
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: force too younger force in the name of wildlife habitat.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: So that's do a grant from from the nrcs UM program.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: So there are similar initiatives like that in other states
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: as well. So there's actually a big push all through
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: New England in New York right now along those lines
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: because you know, we're losing grouse uh like crazy because
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: same thing force their mature and and they really need
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: those young forests too. So um, and there's a lot
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: of songbirds and other interior four species you know, that
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: need that type of habitat and we're just losing that
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: such a fast rate that we are see in some
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: states and federal programs to try to to increase the
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: amount of that. And so certainly from QB Man, we
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: recognize it from from deer unders, you know that the
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: value of those young forests, and so we're very excited
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: to have that guy there to be able to work
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: with private land owners to do that. All T staff
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: encourage the land owners to do as well. But it's
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: pretty cool that we have a guy on the ground
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: actually meeting with landowners every day to actually make that
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: a reality. Yeah, weah very true that that is very cool. Now,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: it's also important to have diversity in the age of
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: habitat as well, right because correctly if I'm wrong, but
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: my assumption is that it's really important to have young forest.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: But we don't want to have no old growth forest either,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: right for other wildlife species, and they're just the balance
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: of an ecosystem. I mean, there's value to all the above.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: It's just a matter of making sure you don't have
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: all of just one. Is that correct? That is correct?
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: That is absolutely correct. Diversity is key, and right now
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: we just have way too much of the older stuff
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: and way too little of the young forest. So yeah,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: we don't want to have all young forests, but we
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: want a good range of age classes and making sure
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: that we have an ample amount in that young forest.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: And so so that's the intent of that program. Yeah,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. Now to the other piece of habitat. Um.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the CRP issue out in the Midwest. Um.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: You mentioned over the last decade, we've lost millions and
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: millions of acres. UM, where do we spend Where do
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: we stand right now with UM, with the CRP program,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: with the next Farm bill and what's being proposed or
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: anything like that. Um, are we in a state where
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: we think it's going to only get worse or things changing?
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: What's the future look like for CRP and cover programs
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: like that across the Midwest in the country. Well, well,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the discussions are within the farm
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: bill to where that next step is going to go
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: with that, but but I do know that you know,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: all that land that we lost was due to those
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: higher commodity prices. So people think, well, okay, now you
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: know corn and beans, the price of drops like crazy.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Can't we just put that land back into CRP? But
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: but it's not that easy because you know, you look
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: at many of those agricultural producers when they greatly ramp
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: up their production um and then put those acres back
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: into road crops. That often comes with additional equipment, you know, factors, drills, plows,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: this combines, etcetera. So when it's all of a sudden
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: the commodity prices are down, those farmers can't just stop
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: crop farming that. You know, they're they're caught in that.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: You know, they have to pay for that equipment. So
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: in many cases they continue to farm those acres, you know,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: to just be able to help make or at least
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: hopefully make payments for all that equipment. So it's not
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: nearly as easy as okay, let's just put it back
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: into some good while I have aitat. So we get
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: caught with that and that's not you know, not a
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: good place at all. Um. I'm not sure what the
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: next farm bill will be or how that will help
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: from a while habitat end. I think we're very lucky
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: with our new administration and uh Washington d C is
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: very pro conservation minded. Um. That is very good from
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: our end. But we'll see what happens from while the
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: habitat end. At least with our federal programs. Interesting, in
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: what ways do you think our our new administration is
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: pro conservation from that standpoint? Is there anything specific you
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: you're referencing there? Well? At least um throughout the campaign
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: he talked about his conservation views. Um. I know he
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: comes and released his sons are hunters, which is a
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: very good thing. There has been talk with with much
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: of the conservation community leading up to the election on
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: promises or campaign promises and ideas of what he would
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: like to see. So, UM, I think that we're a
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: much better spot from that end, you know who our
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: leaders and Washington that we've been in quite some time. UM,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: certainly more pro conservation um than we've seen recently. So
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: I'm really hopeful for from that end of it that
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: this can be good for our wildlife management and wilde
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: habitat efforts. Okay, yeah, I'm I'm gonna be interested to
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: see what happens to I hope, I hope that those
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: things are true because we certainly, we certainly need, we
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: need that support from the top all the way down
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: to the bottom. So back to the harvest stuff. Um,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: you mentioned that the data you were referencing was fifteen
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: and sixteen data. But I do know that some two
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: thousand sixteen hunting season stuff has been rolling in. What
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: have you seen from the states that have reported on
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen data so far? From one I've
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: seen it. I try to keep up with that as well. UM,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: you know, it makes a lot of headlines. Um, we
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: saw was a lot of what we've heard about thus
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: far in two thousand sixteen was very similar to fifteen. Um.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Some of them have been down literally a percentage point
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: or two. UM. Some have been up, you know, within
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: five percent of what they were last year. So UM.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: Some of the big states like Pennsylvania hasn't reported there
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: as yet, and they typically don't have all of those
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: numbers for another month or so, at least they don't
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: make them available. So I don't know exactly what will happen,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: but I would guess the two thousand and sixteen buck
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: card I'm side of, the two thousand sixteen into seventeen
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: buck harvest will likely be very close to what we
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: saw a year before that. So so I'm hopeful. Anyway,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: I'd like to see a continue to creep up and
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: uh and edge back in in a positive direction. Um,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: But we don't want to see a huge increase in it.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: It's much better to have that thing moved slowly up
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: or down. So now that we have a corner turn
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: and it's set it up slowly, it would be nice
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: to see it stay pretty consistent or maybe bump up
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: a percentage point or two as we go. Um, that's
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: that's a very stable you know, I had a very
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: good thing for for our hunting. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Was there anything else from a harvest standpoint that stood
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: up to you that was you you can I know
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: you mentioned that the age structure continues to we continue
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: to be at near record levels for three and a
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: half year old or older. Um, was there anything when
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: that came to you know, harvest split out by weapon
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: or antless harvest, or any of the other things that
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: you guys took note of their of interest? Yeah. I
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: think the one thing, certainly, the age structure is the biggest.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: But the next thing that it's really interesting to me
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: is if you take a look at the harvest by
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: weapon tights and we break this out. We monitor this
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: each year as well, and firearms still take about two
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: thirds of the deer harvest. You know, a Rifler shotgun.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: And what we saw in two thousand fifteen was firearms
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: were right at the entire harvest. However, from the bow end,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: um bow was and so it's between a fifth and
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: a quarter. But there were some states that reported the
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: cross bow harvest kind of in the other category. So
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: some states combined bow and crossbow, some separated. And if
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: you look at whether it's vertical bowl across bow, you know,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: bows are taken getting pretty close to a quarter of
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: the harvest, and that's really bumped up. Fifteen years ago,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: the bow harvest was only of all the harvest, and
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: now we're pushing that. I think, so what we're seeing
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: is the bow having a much bigger impact on total
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: deer harvest. And I think that's for a couple of reasons. One,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: as I said, we're more urbanized than ever before. There's
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: just a lot more boat hunting opportunities today. You know,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: in places where we have firearm restrictions, you just can't
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: use uh guns and or even muzzle orders in some cases.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: You know inside places today or in stude these limits
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: of cities or towns where you know, a few years
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: ago it was open and we could hold on them
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: so I think bows have more of an opportunity. Obviously,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: the big crossbow push over the last five or six
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: years has brought new people into the sport and archery
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: hunters that are switching over to crossbows and in some
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: cases being a little more effective. So I think we're
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: seeing and more of that is the reason for that.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: And what my prediction is is that we're going to
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: continue to see that bump up as we go forward,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: because it's not like we're gonna get any less urbanized.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: And uh as more people get into that, we have
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: longer archer seasons, we have more archery opportunity, We have
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of recruitment programs begging people, you know, to
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: get in and try those so so and I see
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: that is a good thing. So I think we'll continue
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: to see that bow bump up. And one thing that
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: we do monitors. You know what state harvest the higher
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: percentage of their deer with the bow than anybody else
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: and you're in the year out that's always New Jersey.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: New Jersey was the only state that harvested over half
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: of the deer with the bow well last year for
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: the first time. Now we have two states that have
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: harvested at least half of the deer of the bow.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: Connecticut has been added to that, and uh so, I
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: think that's a trend that we're going to see continue,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: and just more states are going to take more of
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: their deer with the bow moving forward, particularly states that
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: tend to be more urbanized or have higher human dense
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: and and we're assuming this is because there's just less
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: area that is available to hunt with the firearm in
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: those states are those areas, and there's way more areas
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: that are you know, bo only probably because of that
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: very urban type setting. That's certainly a big reason New
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: Jersey is the most urbanized state in the country. I'm
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: sort of the most densely populated state in the country,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: so that plays into a lot um. I don't think
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: that's the only reason, you know, but I think that
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: that is probably the biggest reason. And I also think
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: that's why the two states that have taken more than
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: half of their deer with the bow, you know, our
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: states that are high you know, urban populations and just
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: not big rural areas. So I bet you'll see that continue. Yeah. So, so,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: speaking of urban deer, urban areas and deer hunting in
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: urban areas. UM kind of shifting gears here to some
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: of the more issue and advocable issue focus things. I
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: know part two of your white Tail report is is
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: focused on that. I don't remember if I saw anything
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: in the report about this specifically, UM, but just from
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: you know, following the news over the last year or so,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: there's been a lot of controversy around urban deer management.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: There's been tons and tons of protests around hunts being
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: allowed in some urban centers, or sharpshooters being hired to
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: kill deer in certain areas, or even in some areas
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: hiring organizations to go and sterilize deer. UM. Can you
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: give us a high level idea of what's been going
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: on from that standpoint and what you think or what
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: the cutie may thinks about these trends that we're seeing
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: in urban deer management. Yeah, you're right, we're seeing more
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: of that UM in large part because of our urbanized nature.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: You know, we just have more gears that are in
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: areas now that cannot be hunted and and deer do
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: very well in suburbia as your waterway. They you know,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: they do real good in our backyards and eating our gardens.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: And then that kind of stuff. So I think it's
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: a promise we're just going to continue to increase. We
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: have agencies working like crazy on that in different states
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: trying to address it, but but nobody's you know, certainly
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: have not been able to solve the problem yet. And
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: part of it is once you get into those areas,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: the game is so different from you our our recreational
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: hunting or our support hunting, as people often say. You know,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: there's so many different views first of all, and what
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: you can kill a deer with, even if if that
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: is the path that the community wants to take, but
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: even before you know, to get to that point, there
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: are so many meetings and red tape off and that
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: you end up having the crust just to decide what
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: to do with them. You know, are we going to
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: kill him or are we not? You know, and any
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: emotions run high, and as soon as you get all
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: those emotions and those meetings and then it just takes
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: forever to come to some type of conclusion on what
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: to do because of that, and there's no doubt, unequivocally
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: the absolutely best thing to do for those areas and
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: for those deer are to to remove some of them.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: You know, if you could hunt them, that's certainly the
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: best and cheapest. If not, you need to kill him somehow.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: And uh, but that's not always causible like us to
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: to the people involved. UM So, because of that, then
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: you end up with things like the sterilization for some programs,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: they do it on bucks something, they do it on
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: dough and then it just turns into a nightmare, you know,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: extremely expensive. Um none of those programs have been shown
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: to be helpful for long term because even if you know,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: if you sterilize those deer, it's not like you're starting
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: with a population that's where it should be. You know,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: you're you're brought to the table because there's a huge
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: problem with too many. So you need to address that number.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: And you know, it's not a once and done thing.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: You need to address the number on an annual basis.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: And most of those urban situations like that, whether it's
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: you know, at Cornell University, whether sterilizing deer or an
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: arbor or you know, pick a city anymore, it's it's
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: in the news all the time. They are extremely expensive
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: and in the end, mostly ineffective. Do we do we
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: risk Here's what I'm thinking when you're seeing this option
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: of sterilization being put on the table of more and
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: more often these states, cities like you mentioned and on
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Long Island and doing it now and and our weather,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: I think they're talking about doing it. Are they are doing?
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: And never? Um, as this is being proposed and being
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: accepted in more places, do we risk the do we
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: risk precedent being set? Are we actually seeing in each
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: of these little debates in these communities the value of
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: hunting as a means for management? Is that up for
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Is that up for judgment in a little tiny way
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: in each one of these situations, Because when you're going
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: in then they're they're debating the merits of a hunter
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: harvest versus a controlled sharp sugar harvest versus a sterilization
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: program as the means to manage dear populations. If the
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: precedent starts being set that in these communities that sterilization
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: is the way to go, and that people say, Okay,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: we're doing this, They're gonna say it works. Maybe, um,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: do we risk that continuing to spread and spread and spread,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: and someday years from now people are saying, well, hey,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: we've been we've been proving sterilization can work in these areas.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: You know, on this scale, we don't need hunters anymore.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Is that something that you know, even though it's way
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: way down the road, do we need to be worried
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: about that? And as hunters be more active in trying
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: to fight that misconception now early while we still can, well,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to replace hunting moving forward.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: And the reason for that is, at least yet, nobody
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: has been effective as solving the problem with these other means,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: and it has just been extremely extremely expensive, you know,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: far more expensive and than to ever solve with hunters.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: So because of that, you know, I think that only
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: happens in these areas because you often end up with
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: very influential people who had the means to to pay
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: for these essentially, you know, to allow it to happen.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: You know, if there was the average citizen UM or
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: blue collar worker, there's no way they could ever pay
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: for this to happen. So because of that, I don't
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: see it as a big threat to the future of hunting. Um.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's a good thing in these areas.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: You know, every time you open up another opportunity, I
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: guess there is the potential for what you're saying, UM,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: but the long term that that that doesn't scare me
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: UM nearly as much as some of the disease issues
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: out there for for our future. So let's talk about
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: that disease issues. What's uh. You know, as we mentioned earlier,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: there were some big h D scares a few years ago.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like that has been quite as severe
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: the past few years, UM, but c w D continues
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: to pop up. Can you give us a quick primer
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: on what's happened recently with both of those and then
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: maybe we can I'd be interested in diving deeper into
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: the c w D front, but maybe start with a
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: quick overaw of what's the last on HD sure HEMORRHADG
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: disease uh. Um. Luckily and two thousand sixteen was not
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: a bad year again and most of the US A
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: couple of places it was pretty severe, though West Virginia
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: and Virginia had really bad outbreaks again. UM. The bigger
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: issue I think with them ragic disease right now is
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: we're starting to see new strains of the virus um
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: in the US and moving northward at pretty rapid rates.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: One of the neat things about him raging disease is
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: deer can build an immunity to a specific strain of it.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: So that's why, you know, this used to be just
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: considered a disease kind of the southeastern US, and deer
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: down the area a few got it every year. It
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: was never all that bad because they saw it all
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: the time. And then all of a sudden started moving north. Now,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: whether that's climate change or something else, it doesn't matter
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: that it's definitely moving north, you know. So the first
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: time our northern deer see it, they're their naive to
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: it and it kills the snot on them. Well, so
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: that is continuing to happen here in the north every
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: few years. But also we're starting to see these new
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: strains in the south that are killing the snot on
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: some of our southern deer because they're naive to it.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: So it uh, there's a there's a big concern by
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: many today regarding him a ragic disease because of these
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: new strains and some of the movement of it. So
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: I think it's some that we need to be very
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: uh carefully watching. Um it's the most common disease of
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: wait till deer. You know, it's been happening forever, but
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: we're certainly seeing some different trends and what's happening with
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: it now, so something we really need to keep her
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: eye on. You know, there's no cure, there's no vaccines,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: so there's nothing that we can do it from that
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: and other than just antalyst harvest as necessary. And and
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: since you know it's dependent on the vector, a little
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: no seem that transfers it from one to another. It's
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: not like an individual deer is passing it to another
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: deer directly anyway else Certainly the vector can bite the
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: deer and then take that to another deer and infect them.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: But from the management end, you know, we need to
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: monitor it. There's not a really result of our actions
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: that's impact in additional deer because of it. So that
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: makes it very different from c w D, and I
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: think c w D is a much much bigger threat,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: partly because infect a deer can give it to another
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: deer and infect them um in large part because there's
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: not a practical live animal test yet. So because of that,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: we move deer every single day that can unknowingly have
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: a disease to to the new facilities and then to
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: new states, which is which is a terrible thing. And
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: if you take a look across the US, it's hard
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: to keep up with an expanding c w D map anymore.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: It seems like every day there's a new state or
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: a new area within the state, or a new township,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: and it's just it's a nightmare for hunters and for
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: walife agencies, and uh, I think the battle just continues
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: to get worse as walife agencies and the deer farmers
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: argue over this um. We certainly are not in a
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: better place now that we're five or ten years ago
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: with it. And I think that there's some pretty tough
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: times ahead with regard to agency regulations, hunter desires, and
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: arguments across the agencies with regard to to what we're
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: doing with captive deer versus free ranging deer. But but
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt I definitely see that as one of
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: the biggest threats to the future of of our free
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: ranging deer and our hunting heritage. So there's been a
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: lot of news when it comes to new positives across
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: the country. Do you have it? Can you give us
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: a handful of those new places where CTB has been
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: found for the first time or increasingly, um, where have
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: we've seen some some changes there? Sure A two thousand
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: and sixteen was big from for the first time we
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: had it in the southeast. It had never been in
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: the southeastern state Arkansas. Shows up in Arkansas and they say, okay,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: we have one here, must be something brand new. Well
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: they quickly started sample and realized, oh my gosh, this
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: is way more widespread than we thought. So it literally
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: went in Arkansas from being the first day in the
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Southeast to confirm it to thinking, yeah, this is a
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: recent incident to them realize, you know what, this most
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: likely has been here for at least a decade. So
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: that's that's a big difference if a dissease just shows
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: up versus you had it for that long. Um, so
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: that was very big. You end up with in Texas
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: and captive deer they had not seen it in captive facilities.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: They confirmed it there now, which is huge. You end
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: up with an new area in Pennsylvania which is huge,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: and then in most places that had it continues to
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: just expand. You end up with more research showing that
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: the deer populations are now actually declining because of the disease. Um,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: none of those are good for for what you and
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: I love to do. Mark, Yeah, so well, can do you?
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: Can you specify or excuse me, I can't talk. Can
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: you elaborate on that study that came out of Wyoming?
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: And I think that you're referring to there that spoke
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: to some long term research that showed in these areas
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: where there has been CWD for a long time, we're
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: now seeing quantifiable, long term reductions and dear population, um,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: is that something you can speak to? Sure? You know,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: that's one of the first places I identified. And one
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: of the things about c w D that the disease
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: experts have been warning about. It said, look, you know,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: this is not something that comes in for a year
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: or two and you just see massive die offs. It's
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: something that just builds itself within the population continues expanding
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: and expanding to a point where all of a sudden,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: now you start seeing these declines. You know, there's no
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: vaccine for c w D, there's no cure. You know,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: it's a hundred percent fatal, so that you know that's
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: never good for deer. And while we're seeing for the
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: first time now these long term impacts of the disease
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: being in that Wyoming herd where you know, the attributing
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: to up to fourteen percent mortality annually just from the disease.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: You know, that's not including what gets hit with a
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: car or shot with a rifle or whatever. So just
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: think about in any state you know where you hunter
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: want to go hunting, if all of a sudden, fourteen
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: percent of the deer this year are dead because of it,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: fourteen percent at least next year are dead because of it.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: Suddenly hunting opportunities are becoming really reduced. And uh, you
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: know Wisconsin's had at the longest in the East. And
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: you can talk to people from Wisconsin and we have
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: you know, a qd m A that have told le was, Look,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: You know, this is just so bad in my area.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: You know, every day we kill now or almost every
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: deer has disease. You know, we're not seeing older bucks anymore.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: It's a sad thing. And if actually, if you take
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: a look at the national age structure data for the
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: last two years, Wisconsin has led the country and harvest
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: of healing bucks. You know, when you think of Wisconsin.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: Everybody thinks the Buffalo County in these great big deer, Well,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: they're trending the other way. And actually this past year
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: they harvested the lowest percentage of bucks that were three
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: and a half older than any state in the country.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: That's not a good trend for what you want from
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: from a deer high end. No, so so here. The
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: thing about c w D, from what I see is
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: that there are these there's a lot of conflicting information
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: out there that I think the average deer hunter is
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: seeing today. That has got to be confusing, because there
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: seems to be a lot of science coming out and
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of biologists who are who are emphasizing things
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: that you have here that make a lot of sense.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: But then I feel like there's some arms of the
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: media and there's some people that are going out in
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: going and having seminars or publishing articles or writing online
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: that are some saying something very different, and they're saying
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: that CWD is overblown, that it's some government conspiracy theory,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: or that's that wildlife agencies are overreacting tremendously, and that
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: the the issues we're seeing in Wisconsin with deer hunting
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: harvest and satisfaction everything. The reason why that's all bad
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: now isn't because of c w D. It's because of
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: the big bad agency that have overreacted and ruined deer hunting. Um.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: So you're seeing some of that kind of talk. Um,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: what do you make of that, Kip is is it?
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: Why is this happening? Why are there some people that
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: are saying this? And what do you think about what
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: they're saying? Well? I think that there there is tremendous
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: confusion about it, in large part because there's just so
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: much about CWD that that we don't know. Um. You know,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: there's a paramount that we do, but there's way more
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: that we don't. So because of that adds the room
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: to argue either side of the issue. UM. As a
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: wild like professional, I tend to be on the side
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: of the vast major already of disease experts and what
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: they say, what they predict. So, but there are certainly
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: some wild lift managers on the other side of it,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: in some cases because of personal gain by other interests.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: In some cases because you know, they may truly believe
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: that the you know, the gray area of c w
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: D is just not that big of a deal. Um,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: you can always play the odds. And you know, in
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: anybody who takes a look at what we do know
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: about it, um, you know it's not good. And I
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: think that we've seen a lot today published in writing
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: and on TV and in public events. You know that
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: it really does a disservice to to what we do
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: know about the disease. And and I think that's a
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: very bad thing. And particularly some very influential people who
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: are who are tremendous educators, you know, that are respected
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: and valued by deer hunters that I think you know,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: they're they're not telling them the whole story, or they're
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: they're telling them a skewed version of it. And I
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: don't think that's very good at all. Yeah, I felt
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: the same way. So could you could you give us
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: as best as possible from what the most verified and
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: reliable science and research has shown. What are a few
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: of the things we can say that we do know
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: about cw D and that we do know about proper
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: reaction to it? Is there handful things that you can
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: tell us that you know, we can safely assume this
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: is true and this we can at least stand by this,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: And yes, there's still lots of grayer. But this is
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: what we do know. Sure, we know that that it's
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: fatal the deer. We know that deer can pass the
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: infectious materials. Is that they have to other deer through
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: urine or feces um, saliva, blood for for other deer
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: to to pick up the disease and get it. We
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: don't know exactly how much other material has to be
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: shared before another deer gets it, but we know that
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: dear definitely can deposit those infectious materials in those bodily
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: fluids for other deer to get. Um, we know for
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: sure that once they get they're going to die, but
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: it maybe a few months to a few years, you know.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: And and that's part of the problem was if they
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: got it and died immediately, they'd be off the landscape
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: and hopefully not spreading it to as many other deer.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: But the fact that they can look completely normal and
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: shed those materials for months or years and let other
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: deer get it is you know, a real hindrance to
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: to manage the deer. So so we know those things
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: for sure. Um, some of the stuff that makes it
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: difficult is, as I just said, they can have it
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: for a while, without showing symptoms. UM. There is not
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: a practical live animal test to test for it, and
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: that is probably the biggest hindrance. UM. There is a
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: console test as well as a rectal of myopsy tests
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: that are both live animal tests. The problem with those
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: is UM. You know, they may work on deer, they
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: don't work really well on elk. And the one that's
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: being touted is the most useful right now. That rectal
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: biopsy UM does a pretty good job detecting it if
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: a deer has had the disease for quite a while,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: but in the early stages it misses almost all of them,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: so so it's not practical for use. It's certainly not
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: a reliable test. If we did have a reliable test,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: that would make it a lot better, because it's you know,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: it's crazy the number of captive deer that are moved
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: every day, you know that certainly, And it's not it's
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: like people in the industry or bad you know, they
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: don't want to have c w D in a facility
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: or spread it to another one either. But you know,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: if you can unknowingly move these deer, that is that's
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: a big threat, you know, to to to our free
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: range and deer, so or if we could have at
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: or a live animal test that would help them a lot. So.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: So in addition to something like that, you know, improving
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: testing and things. What types of reactionary measures do you
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: think or can we safely say, seem to be UM
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: recommended or UM either necessarily or excuse me, either necessary
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: or recommended. I guess as far as okay, we we
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: have CWD somewhere or we're trying to prevent c w
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: D from getting somewhere, what types of steps have we
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: found to be effective in managing it um or could
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: be effective? I suppose. I think the one thing that
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: is has shown to be good is when c w
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: D shows up in a new area, UM testing a
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: bunch of deer right in that immediate area, so that
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: our agencies can get a good feel for prevalence of
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: the disease and likely how much it has spread already.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: Because once, if if you find it when it first arrives,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: you have a chance to get rid of it. UM.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: So I do believe that when you find a new area,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: it is very good to test a bunch of deer
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: right in there. They're exactly like you guys did in
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Michigan exactly like what they're doing in Minnesota right now. Um,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: once it has spread through an area, UM, there's nothing
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: that we know of right now to eradicate it. So
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: I think once you have just determined okay, this is
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: not a new thing, it is here that spread, it
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: is very good to know. We're like, okay, how far
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: has a spread or what do we have here? But
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: at that point, I think the game changes a little
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: bit and that since we can eradicate it, the worst
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: thing we can do is alienate hunters and lose their support.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: And the best way to do that is to say, hey,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: we're gonna kill every deer here and be done with it.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: And and obviously that doesn't work, and nobody wants to
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: see that. UM. I think a perfect example of a
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: good working relationship has occurred in Michigan when it showed
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: up because the agency has done such a good job
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: over the last decade or so of mending relationships with
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: hunters and wanting to be good partners with our q
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: d m A branches with all of these QTUM co ops,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: so they trust the d NR. There at least many
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: of the DOW biologists for the people they work with
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: so it was a really nice thing to see. How okay,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: yea have it here. The agency reaches out to these
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: different groups and we need support, we need to test
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: these deal we need to do this. They did it
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: very quickly, very efficiently, and it has worked very well
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: and where it is in your free engineer hurt. So
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: because of that, I think that you have to have
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: that working relationship with the not work as if the
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: agency just says, hey, this is what we're gonna do
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: and you have no say in it. Because of reality vision,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: most deer on private land and they can't just go
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: on to private land to kill these deer, so they
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: have to maintain that good relationship. In many cases, you know,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: hunters want some older bucks to be able to photograph
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: and hunt and pursue. So if an agency says we're
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: going to get rid of all the deer or all
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: the older bucks, well then hunters don't want to hear
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: that and they're no longer part of the solution. So
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: I think that once you find its established, it's much
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: better to keep hunters engaged so that they continue to
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: harvest an all this deer and so that they can
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: keep with the program to keep being part of the solution.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: And if that takes a few older bucks out there
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: to make sure that they want to continue, then I
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: think that's a very good thing. It's much better to
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: have those older bucks to keep hunters engaged, I think,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: than to try to remove all the bucks and lose
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: support from hunters. That makes sense. I think to what
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: we talked about earlier, that that necessary collaboration between hunter
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: and agency. UM. It makes sense you need to keep
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: that that relationship there by not alienating alienating them with
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: some of these UM possible regular management decisions, while at
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: the same time trying to make the proper management decisions
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: UM for the long term future. It's that balancing act
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: that seems to be the challenge UM. But it makes
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense. You alluded a little bit ago
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: to some of the things related to the captive deer
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: and possible transmission of c w D. There is there
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: anything new when it comes to what the research has
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: shown as far as to what degree the captive deer
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: industry or captive deer facilities have when it comes to
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: transmitting c w D across state lines or from captive
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: to wild deer. Is there anything new on that front?
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: And then number two, is there anything new when it
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: comes to how that is being regulated um or managed? Well, UM,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything new on the front of
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: the threat of captive deer and spread in the disease. UM.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: I'm in many cases less concerned about them spreading it
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: to wild deer right around the facility through the fence
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: as I am about spreading it to wild deer on
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: the facility through escapes from the facility. But even more
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: apart from just movement from one facility to another, you know,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: by by deer on a trailer or a truck. Um.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: If you take a look at how CTVIG is spread
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: across the US, you know there's no way that this
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: has happened just by random movement of the disease. You know know,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: it's been trucked and into most new places, and that's
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: either being trucked by a live deer or buy a
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: dead deer just harvest, you know, the carcass and movement
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: where you're not supposed to it. You know, as hunters
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: were our own worst enemies with that. You know, I
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: know people who move deer illegally once if they've regally
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: harvested the deer and then they end up bringing you know,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: the eyes and the brain back with the skull or
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: you know, they will clean up properly or whatever. And
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: so I think the science is pretty clear that the
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: most likely way that the disease can move is live
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: deer moving to new facility. And you probably the second
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: easiest way to move it is, you know, by legal
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: harvest of deer, but then moving parts that you're not
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: supposed to eyes, the brain, the spleen, you know, server
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: or the backbone, that kind of thing. So certainly, from
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: the captive end, I think that you know, if we
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: could stop all the movement of live deer, we would help.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: And from the hunter end, you know, if we didn't
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: do ourselves such harm then move stuff ourselves, we could
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: help a bunch as well. Yeah, yeah, I think on
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: that ladder. And that's one piece that I feel like
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of people still don't know about. I just
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: when I'm just kind of sampling acquaintances and things like,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: did you know that you can't in many states, you
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: can't you know, shoot a deer, let's say in Iowa
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: where there might be a CWD positive state, or any
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: state like that, and then shoot that deer throw in
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: the back of your truck and bring it back into Michigan. Um.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: That's illegal. UM. I think a lot of people do
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: that not realizing it because these regulations aren't too terribly public.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: They're they're in the books or they're on the website,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: but I'm not sure a lot of people realize that.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: In many cases, like like you mentioned, Kip, you need
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: to You can bring the meat, you can bring the hide,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: you can bring the skull caps, you can bring the
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: antlers with everything scraped off of. But you can't just
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: bring a whole head with a brain and all that
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: other stuff in there. And that's one of those things
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: I think needs to be more publicized and made known
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: to hunters because I think a lot of people are
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: doing this not intentionally, not intentionally trying to aid in
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: the spread of disease, not intentionally trying to break the law,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: but just never would have thought that that's an issue
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: and never would have known. UM. I mean, we even
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: did some service of the NDA that I think that
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: showed a few a year or two ago that that
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: maybe some people didn't know that. I mean, are you
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: seeing that KIP is something that probably needs to be
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: um more more publicized. Well, yes, the answer is yes.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: But I think a lot of it the publiciation or promotion,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: and it needs to be you know, among our own ranks. Um.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: Every state, while they just said, I'm aware of publishes
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: that in the rules guide, and and they talk about
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: it because they talk more. Sure they could, but never
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: the least they are doing that. But you're right, man,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: the average hunter just does not you understand that, only
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: that they haven't read it or think glad that won't
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: apply to me. Um. So yes, I think as hunters
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: we definitely need to talk to you know, the other
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: hunters in our camps and then we hunt with them,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: just let them know you know about this. Um. I
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: think part of it is just in a large part,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: just don't just don't care enough to think this is
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: not going to matter to me, or they see you know,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: somebody on TV saying, see everybody's not that bad, so
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: they figure out I'm not gonna worry about it. Well, um,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: I think you know, could the agencies do more? They
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: certainly could, But I think in in large part that
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: we need to put the onus on ourselves as hunters
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: to make sure that we're not negatively impact in our
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: own future. Yeah. Yeah, and and and what I was
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: saying was to that latter point. I think it's something
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: that just within the hunting community hasn't been discussed enough.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: So so I agree with you on that front. And
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: and I guess hopefully we're going to inform a few
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: people here today because because yeah, it's something that just
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: some surprise, there's not a lot of people that realize it,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: and it can be a hassle. You know, you shoot
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: a deer and now you need to you know, keep
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: it out yourself, or skin it out and deal with
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: it or process it, or now you need to go
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: to a taxidermists in that state. Um. But some of
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: these things, like you said, they have bigger picture implications that,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: while inconvenient, make a difference. And we owe it to
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: ourselves as hunters into the future of this hunting lifestyle
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: to to try to take every step so we keenda
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: to minimize that potential risk. So that's that's right. I agree. So, Kip,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: we talked about disease, We talked a little bout some
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: of these habitat things. UM. Looking forward, is there what
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: are there any things that concern you or any major
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: issues or upcoming things coming down the pipeline that that
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: we need to be aware of. Um, when it comes
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: to the future of deer and deer hunting that we
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: haven't talked about yet. I think one of the biggest
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: things is we need to have a bigger discussion and
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: on this whole disease thing. And the reason might say
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: that is we started early in this conversation, so we'll
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: bring us full circle here, you know, talking about the
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: age structure of the harvest and how hunters have shown
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: their willingness to pass here to get them to that
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: at least three and a half year old age class.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: Well as c w D continues to spread, some agencies
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: take the tactic of okay, we're not going to allow
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: a deer to get to these old age classes. We
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: want the hunters to kill them young. In some cases
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: they have removed antler restrictions to return the harvest of
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: union bucks. In some cases are advocate average actively supporting
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: hunters to to kill younger bucks. UM. So I think
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: that we are at a crossroads where, you know, we
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: have really good hunter agency relationships in many cases probably
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: better than ever before. We have better age structure of bucks,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: and we probably have had and at least the last
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: hundred years. So we have a lot of happy hunters
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: that all of a sudden, this back next monkey wrench
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: and this is okay, it's spreading c w D. Some
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: agencies want younger bucks. So with hunters finally getting new
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: part where they are and now being told now we
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: want to go the other way, it's going to take
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: a really good working relationship to navigate through. I think
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: this next tangled mess. And so some agencies have said, no,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: we're not going to try to drive bucket ages younger.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: You know, we want the continued support of hunters and
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: be part of this and harvest antalists here, um, but
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: not all of something that have gone the other way.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: So I think that's the next big hurdle that we're
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: gonna have to get over and know or not in
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: necessarily over, but work our way through. And it's going
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: to take, uh, you know, good relationships on both sides
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: and a lot of trust on both sides, agencies and
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: hunters UH to come out of the stronger at the
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: other end. Now, is it safe to say that you
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: would not recommend that that type of management decision based
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: on what you said earlier about the importance of still
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: trying to maintain some level of balanced age structure and
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: the fact that that improves hunter satisfaction. Um, is that correct?
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: Would you say that this idea to just really start
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: targing to you're a half of Bucks to try and
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: manage c w D maybe isn't the best idea. I
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: think that when you first have c w D in
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: an area, it is fine to target all deer, you know,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: Bucks or doos and if you established, hey this is
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: brand new, let's get rid of them. I think it's
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: absolutely the right thing to hit Bucks and do is
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: hard to try to keep it from ever spreading out
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: of there. However, once you determine now we're pretty well
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: established here, then I absolutely think that it's better to
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: have some over deer out there to keep hunters engaged
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: in actively hunting. Okay, Yeah, that that that makes sense
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: based on what you're saying earlier. Okay, So that's something
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: that's concerning you. What's something that you're excited about when
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: it comes to the future. I mean, what what silver
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: lining do we have, What what kind of optimism do
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: we have in store for the coming year or two review?
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: One thing, one of the things is where we're starting
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: to see, you know, a bunch of youth involved in
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: and hunting, which is a good thing. You know, as
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: we continue to have an aging hunter population, UM, agencies
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: have really stepped up to try to put in some
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: new programs to get youth involved. And so I see
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: that as a very good thing because I think that
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: the youth can correct a lot of problems. And I
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: gave the example early on, you know, in our hunting
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: camp where you know, it was really cool to have
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: all those young kids there. UM. I think one of
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: the things that as we start to get more used involved,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: the UTH numbers themselves are good for us, but I
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: think at least an equally important thing is once socius
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: are involved, you end up with a lot of aging
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: hunters becoming more engaged again as mentors. And and we
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: saw some of that right at our hunting camp last year,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: and I've seen this across the country where you know,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: a guy who's hunted most of his life and is
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: getting older just doesn't hunt as much anymore. Sure he's
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: still into it, but maybe not as much. Suddenly, as
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to really pass some of that knowledge that
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: he has onto a young boy, or a young girl,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: and I've seen people get really engaged again and just
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: really excited about hunting. So I see that as one
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: of the biggest break spots going forwards. We have these
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: new youth coming in, but at least as as big
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: as a deal is some re engagement of these older
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: folks as mentors. UM. I like that a lot. Has
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: there been any new data? I haven't seen this, so
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: there probably isn't, but but maybe you know something I don't.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: Is there any new data when it comes to hunter Um?
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, what's the right word country recruitment? Anything new
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: on that front or we're seeing you know, a few
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: years ago we started talking about a little bit of
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: an uptick there with more youth, more female hunters. Um.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: Do we see anything new when it comes to that
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: trend yet? I haven't seen the other data out of
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen, yet I do know that there's
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: more programs for them kind of. They are three programs,
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: you know, the recruit and UH and Reactivate and H
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: and Kane Hunters. So you're seeing more of that from
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: the States and UH and and we have a person
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: from qdm A that sits on one of those committees
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: and works actively, so you see a lot of programs
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: to help that. Um, there's more opportunities for those kids
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: party because as you know, we reduced more barriers. Each year,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: you end up with more states you know that either
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: reduced the minimum major requirements or relax some of those requirements,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: or get kids involved. So I have not seen actual
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: numbers from last year, but I do know that we're
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: seeing more opportunities and more programs to help that. So
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: hopefully that will indicate that we actually do have more
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: kids getting involved in you know, and nobody ever talks
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: about the other side of that mentor side that I
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: did a minute ago, but I think that we should.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: I think that is extremely important and you know, and
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: one that we can't overlook. Yeah, that's a great point
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: and some once something I hadn't really thought about myself either,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: So it makes lot of sense. So, Kip, we've talked
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: about the current situation of the deer hunting world. We
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: talked a little bit about the future of the deer
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: hunting world. What does the future of Kip Adam's deer
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: hunting world look like for two thousand seventeen. Do you
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: have anything you're particularly excited about on the farm, any
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: any buck here after anything like that. Uh, I am
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: always excited about deer season. And actually the past weekend,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: I have two young kids, a ten year old daughter
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: and a seven year old son, so we were out
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: on Saturday actively we were cutting some trees, doing some
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: habitat work this winter to to increase our chances this
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: fall of crossing paths with a with a buck or
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: a door of our dreams. So I'll spend a bunch
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: of time this winter and this summer with my kids
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: and fluding habitat, which is always a good thing. We'll
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: do a bunch of camera surveys to have a really
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: good idea of what's out to this fall. Um. I
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: will likely spend much, at least I hope so much
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: of this fall um with my daughter or my son
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: at my side. Um. They're both at the age where
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: they want to go every day. I don't take them together.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: They're they're like a typical brother and sister where they
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: spend a lot of time fighting each other. So it's
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: rare that I go here on our phone without one
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: of them. And uh so my personal opportunities decline something
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: with them. But uh man, I wouldn't pass it for anything,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: and it's it's quality time with them and uh, I
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: love every second on it. So I would guess my
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: two thousand and seventeen season, Well, we're involved a lot
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: with my kids and uh hopefully my daughter's first deer
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: this fall, which will be tremendous, and then uh um,
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: maybe some really good sits with my son as well.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: Very cool. That sounds awesome. What where can our listeners
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: go if they found all of this intriguing and they
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: want to learn more? Where where can they get the
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: white Tail Report because that is available for everybody and um,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: and where can they learn more about what you're doing
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: with the QUM? They can go to to q d
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: M a dot com um and find a wealth of
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: information on all aspects of deer or habitat management. They're
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: all kinds of articles, et cetera at that site. UM.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: They can also download our white Tail Report for free. UM.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: They can purchase a hard copy if they want, but
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: they can get a free download right from our website.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: And actually they can download every single white Tail Report
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: back to two thousand and nine, just to see how
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: trends have changed and what the big issues have been
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: to change, but it's all free for the taking at
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: QDMA dot com. Excellent. We'll make sure to include a
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: link to that. Highly recommend you guys all listening download
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: that report. Downloads on the past reports. Um, there's some
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: really interesting stuff in there, and as Kip alluded to know,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: every year they cover some different issues too that are
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: pertinent and interesting just as much now as they might
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: have been last year or a few years ago when
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: they originally wrote some of those pieces. So check those out.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: They're great free pdf downloads and uh highly recommend them.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: And Kip, thank you so much for coming on here
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: again and joining us and sharing your wealth of information.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: I had great tap talking to you, MARKO. Have a
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: good spring and certainly good luck to fall. Sounds good
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: same to you. And that is at first today. A
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: few quick updates though, before we go. First, if you're
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: familiar with our other podcasts, the One Wild podcast, which
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: I've partnered with Drew Outdoors on, you know that we
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: answer listeners submitted questions on that show, and right now
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: we're in need of some new questions to tackle related
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: to offseason topics, you know, stuff that's relevant to what's
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: happening right now things like habitat work and food plots
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: or scouting or offseason tree stand work, all that kind
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: of good stuff. We'd love to talk about that. So
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: if you have a specific question on a topic related
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: in some way to those kinds of things, you can
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: submit those questions by going to wire to Hunt dot
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: com slash one hundred percent wild and that's one hundred,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: the number one zero zero and then the words percent wild.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: So check that out. Send us your questions. We'd love
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: to tackle them. Moving on, I do want to thank
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: our partners. We have made this podcast possible, so big.
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you to Sit to Gear, Yetie Coolers, Ozonics, Redneck Blinds,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: maybe an Optics, White Tailents to North America, Carbon Express
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: and hunter ra Maps. And finally, thank you all so
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: much for listening and for being a part of this community.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you, and I hope you'll stay Wired to
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: Hunt