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Speaker 1: This is the me Eating podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,

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Speaker 1: bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening. Don't meet

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Speaker 1: e podcast. You can't predict anything. Okay, we should probably

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Speaker 1: start with a mega round of of introductions. The machines

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Speaker 1: on right, Honny, Yes, a mega round of introduction. My

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Speaker 1: job is done? Yeah? Anyone Yeah? Anyone out taking nap um? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Can you guys do some introductions kind of what you do.

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Speaker 1: We're at We're at your world headquarters, national headquarters. Absolutely

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Speaker 1: Sportsman's Alliance. Who wants to go first? You guys are

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Speaker 1: all jesting to each other. Go ahead. I'm Brian Lynn,

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Speaker 1: Vice president Marketing Communications. So website, social media, print, anything

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Speaker 1: that goes out to the public comes through our department

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Speaker 1: and edit it and put it out there for consumption.

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Speaker 1: So the United States Sportsman's Alliance and you guys are

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Speaker 1: spread out a little bit because you're out west. I'm

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Speaker 1: out west, yeah, Spolkano, Washington, Uh yeah, so and uh

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Speaker 1: we're sitting right now in Columbus, Ohio, which is where

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Speaker 1: it all began, which we'll get into in a minute. Okay,

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Speaker 1: and go ahead. Sean current Vice president Membership and Development.

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Speaker 1: So everything from individual members, to business partners, to our

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Speaker 1: our donors, fundraising events, anything that helps bring revenue to

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Speaker 1: the organization to fund the mission. Finally, Avenge using Felled

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Speaker 1: President CEO, I wear a couple of different hats right now.

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Speaker 1: So I obviously have the leadership role, but I'm also

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Speaker 1: still in charge of our day to day government affairs work.

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Speaker 1: So all of our core mission stuff are our legislative issues,

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Speaker 1: are are lobbying, our balt initiative work, and our litigation team.

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Speaker 1: Is government affairs mean dealing with government at times? Yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: So you know it's it's it's for us we call

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Speaker 1: our core mission, right and so you know when you're

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Speaker 1: doing lobbying, when you're doing the legislative work, either in

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Speaker 1: the state capitals or in or in d C. Um,

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Speaker 1: certainly it's dealing with the branches of government that that

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Speaker 1: deal with legislation. UM. In other areas, that's dealing with

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Speaker 1: maybe the judicial branch for our litigation work. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: then finally, you know, the ballot initiative work, the stuff

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Speaker 1: that we've done in the different ballot issues across the country.

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Speaker 1: Historically we've done a lot of ballot to shoe work. UM,

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Speaker 1: it is dealing with the government. Really it's it's more

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Speaker 1: of a legislative issue that's just before the people. Then,

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Speaker 1: all right, and we have, of course, tell us Kevin

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Speaker 1: Kevin Murphy, the world's greatest small game hunters here and uh,

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Speaker 1: Ryan Callahan, what do you do? You do you want

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Speaker 1: to introduce yourself, say anything about yourself? No, no, I

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Speaker 1: don't Ryan Callahan from First Light World headquarters and catch

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Speaker 1: him ido. Uh all right, So let's say let's do this.

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Speaker 1: Um give like it. Give me the one liner. What's

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Speaker 1: the one liner of the Sportsman Alliance? Like when someone says,

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Speaker 1: hey man, what's the Sportsman Alliance? We're we're in business

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Speaker 1: to protect hunting, fishing, and trapping. That's it. That's a

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Speaker 1: great one liner. That's it. That's why we exist. That's

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Speaker 1: why we were founded forty years ago right here in Ohio?

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Speaker 1: Was it forty years ago? Nine seventy eight? Yep, there

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Speaker 1: was a ballot issue in the state of Ohio, the

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Speaker 1: band trapping, which and that was like the Great fur

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Speaker 1: that was the beginning of the Great fur boom. Yea,

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Speaker 1: so it put people like the great fur boom, meaning

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Speaker 1: like fur price is kind of skyrocketed late seventies early

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Speaker 1: eighties and what it put trapping kind of it made

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Speaker 1: like people aware of trapping. Somehow, it didn't get coincided

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Speaker 1: with the rise of the animal rights movement, the radical

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Speaker 1: animal rights movement, and and and these folks who who

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Speaker 1: are obviously diametrically opposed of those kinds of activities, and

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Speaker 1: so those who things kind of emerged about the same

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Speaker 1: time the late six late seventies and into the eighties,

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Speaker 1: and that's that's kind of the genesis of where we

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Speaker 1: came from. Was was working on those types of issues.

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Speaker 1: What was that band? Was that a comprehensive band. It

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Speaker 1: was kind of like a whittle in a way band. Know,

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Speaker 1: it was a pretty pretty comprehensive band. It was a

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Speaker 1: statewide ballot in missive hearing on how that would have

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Speaker 1: banned trapping, So, I mean it would have been kind

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Speaker 1: of the first entry into the the all out banned

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Speaker 1: world for the antics. Was that the first state they

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Speaker 1: ever went after? You know, I don't know if it

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Speaker 1: was the first one, um it was certainly the first

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Speaker 1: major one following the victory. We weren't even an organization

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Speaker 1: at the point, right, were just the founders of of

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Speaker 1: what has become the Sportsmen's Alliance were the folks who

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Speaker 1: kind of organized sportsman in the state of Ohio, ran

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Speaker 1: the campaign, raised the money, did the work needed to

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Speaker 1: beat that thing at the ballot. Uh. And then after

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Speaker 1: after winning, you know, they started getting phone calls from

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Speaker 1: all over all over the country. I wondering how they

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Speaker 1: did it, How did you do it? Can you come

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Speaker 1: out here and help us. We've got these guys trying

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Speaker 1: to do this. These guys are trying to do that,

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Speaker 1: you know, And and that wasn't I mean, the animal

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Speaker 1: rights movement hasn't gone away, and they're not gonna go away.

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Speaker 1: You know. Just because they lost, he doesn't mean they're

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Speaker 1: not going to try it in California or Oregon or

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Speaker 1: Missouri or where else. So why Ohio back then, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. It's a good question. There's a lot of

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Speaker 1: famous trappers that came out of Ohio. When I when

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Speaker 1: I started for trapping UM and set my first muskrat

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Speaker 1: trap in fur. And remember like so many of the

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Speaker 1: books I would have about trapping would be from guys

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Speaker 1: down here. I mean, Ohio was an interesting state, right

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Speaker 1: We've got a lot of um, We've got a lot

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Speaker 1: of open spaces, but there's still a lot of urban

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Speaker 1: communities in the state. There's still a lot of major

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Speaker 1: metropolitan areas that that might not understand trapping, that might

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Speaker 1: not understand the benefits to wildlife and the benefits to

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Speaker 1: uh two people even of of those kinds of practices.

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Speaker 1: And so it's a natural natural target has been a

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Speaker 1: target a number of times from the antis over the years.

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Speaker 1: You know, I heard explain to me one time that

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Speaker 1: Colorado lost, you know, some of their trapping rights. And

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Speaker 1: it happens sort of at the minute that Denver and

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Speaker 1: Fort Collins comprise of the population, like just speaking rough terms,

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Speaker 1: it sort of like this tipping point where Denver and

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Speaker 1: Fort Collins sort of like made up the majority of Colorado,

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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you started to see the

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Speaker 1: tables turned against sportsmen absolutely, especially as you talk about

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Speaker 1: ballot initiatives, right, I mean, you're talking about trying to

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Speaker 1: convince fifty point one percent of the people to vote

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Speaker 1: a certain way, and and you're already starting behind the

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Speaker 1: eight ball when you when when it comes to trapping issues,

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Speaker 1: when it comes to big predator issues, those kinds of

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Speaker 1: things on the ballot. You know a lot of times

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Speaker 1: you do the pre pre issue polling. Sportsmen are way down,

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Speaker 1: you know, hunters are way down. You've got to call

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Speaker 1: your way back. And you do it through through advertising

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Speaker 1: and television and and word of mouth and all these

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Speaker 1: different tactics that are are used in a campaign. But

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Speaker 1: oftentimes you're you're starting underwater. Yeah. It's funny that when

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Speaker 1: you when you see, like if you go to people,

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Speaker 1: if you pull Americans or go to different states and

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Speaker 1: pull people and say like, do you support regulated hunting?

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Speaker 1: Overwhelming majorities of people we'll always say they'll say yes, yeah.

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Speaker 1: But then when you start getting into when you start

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Speaker 1: pulling down, the more specific you get, the more people

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Speaker 1: are like, wow, yeah, I don't know about that. Right,

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Speaker 1: they agree with the concept, But then you can, depending

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Speaker 1: on how you articulate these particular activities, they start becoming like, um,

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Speaker 1: they start doing sort of a moral triage on each

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Speaker 1: issue and sort of like casting opinion on it, even

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Speaker 1: though it might not reflect like the main point they

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Speaker 1: were trying to make that they support it. Um was

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Speaker 1: the Ohio Okay, so when the Ohio band came out,

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Speaker 1: here's what here's what I want to get that I

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Speaker 1: want to get that that that you your organization primarily

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Speaker 1: goes head to head with Humane Society United States. I mean,

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Speaker 1: is that generally like that's the general adversary. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: certainly the biggest. I mean, they're certainly the most well

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Speaker 1: funded um animal rights an anti hunting organization nationally and internationally.

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Speaker 1: And was that the case even in the late seventies. No,

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Speaker 1: they they've grown. I mean they've been around for a

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Speaker 1: long time, but they've grown and they've swallowed up other organizations.

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Speaker 1: They've they've combined with Doris Day Animal League, they've combined

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Speaker 1: with I believe the Fund for Animals and others over

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Speaker 1: the years. But today they they certainly are the biggest

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Speaker 1: and the most well funded. There's like it's I think

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Speaker 1: it's a ton of confusion that people have, Like your

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Speaker 1: average Joe Blow has a lot of confusion about what

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Speaker 1: the Humane Society does. I think if you go to

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Speaker 1: most people, they think it's about like taking care of

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Speaker 1: of sheltering cats and cats and dogs. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I hate to give credit where credits due, but they

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Speaker 1: did a masterful job of mainstreaming their immage, right, They've

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Speaker 1: done a masterful job of co opting that term the

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Speaker 1: local humane Society is the guys who rescue cats and dogs.

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Speaker 1: Like you said, it's where you go to get a

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Speaker 1: shelter animal if you if you need a pet. They've

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Speaker 1: taken that and they've they've they've they've used that to

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Speaker 1: wrap their radical agenda, and so they use that moniker

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Speaker 1: to use that name as a way to cover up

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Speaker 1: really what the true agenda of the organizations. They don't

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Speaker 1: run animal shelters, you know, they don't run pet shelters.

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Speaker 1: They they're hardly doing that kind of work at all.

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Speaker 1: They're they're a policy driven an organization that's based in Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. But when people say the local if someone says,

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Speaker 1: like the local Humane Society is that fundamentally distinct from

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Speaker 1: hs US. Absolutely, they're not associated at all. There's no association. No.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the local he made sides actually are

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Speaker 1: are are frustrated by by h s U s by

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Speaker 1: the by the funding side of it, right, because you

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Speaker 1: get people who see their commercials on TV. Right, you

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Speaker 1: put a sad dog, mangy dog in with some sad

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Speaker 1: music and you run a commercial. You get nineteen dollars

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Speaker 1: a month out of it, and all this money flows

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Speaker 1: up to Washington, d C. It's not flowing into local shelters.

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Speaker 1: It's not it's not saving cats and dogs. It's pushing,

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Speaker 1: pushing these these these policy agendas. See here, I am

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Speaker 1: talking about how it's annoying that people are confused about it.

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Speaker 1: But I'm confused about it because I thought there was

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Speaker 1: some of So there's none there. It's little h in

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Speaker 1: capital h. You know, your local shelters are dependent upon

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Speaker 1: donations and local taxes, That's it, and they're struggling society.

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Speaker 1: The United States, less than one percent of their budget

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Speaker 1: goes to grants or any kind of support for local shelters.

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Speaker 1: Theres opting this message, Yes, less than one percent according

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Speaker 1: to their tax returns, and they've co opted it, and

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Speaker 1: they've they're using to fund ballot initiatives or lobbying to

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Speaker 1: stop hunting, trapping and big egg cal How familiar with you?

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Speaker 1: How checked out are you on that enough to not

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Speaker 1: object to anything that's being said. I'm not asking, I'm

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Speaker 1: just doing a guy. I'm doing a man on the

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Speaker 1: street right now. Yeah, I'm like stopping you on the

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Speaker 1: street to say, hey, man, well I guess I do

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Speaker 1: want to know, like where the no kill shelter comes in. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, local shelters a place where you go get

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Speaker 1: your your you know, discarded puppy. Um, some are kill shelters,

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Speaker 1: some are no kill shelters, and I know that's always

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Speaker 1: for funding, A big uh, a big issue, you know. Um.

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Speaker 1: And so is is a no kill shelter associated with

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Speaker 1: any organizations specifically or is that just something done on

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Speaker 1: the local levels or local levels decisions. You know, there'll

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Speaker 1: be parent groups that will run shelters is no kill.

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Speaker 1: But you know, as far as the Humane Society, they

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Speaker 1: have zero connection to any shelter the h So let's

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Speaker 1: say that we're saying this is our little rule here

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Speaker 1: when we we'll say h s U S how's that?

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Speaker 1: And by that we mean upper case Humane society like

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Speaker 1: the legal lobbying group and not where you go down

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Speaker 1: where you take your kids down to get your get

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Speaker 1: your pup. Yeah, that's their hs US has as zero

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Speaker 1: connection to any shelters. That's not to say that those

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Speaker 1: folks aren't aren't necessarily philosophically aligned at times, but they're

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Speaker 1: but they're not necessarily related organizations either. So I want

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Speaker 1: to talk about how um, how anti hunting fishing trapping

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Speaker 1: initial atives, how they usually work in a state, just

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Speaker 1: in a general sense, then we're gonna talk about a

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Speaker 1: whole bunch of different or a handful of different scenarios

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Speaker 1: ways in which they work. But and I pull this

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Speaker 1: from some materials, materials that you guys provide with me,

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Speaker 1: that there's basically three ways to work on the state level,

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Speaker 1: and so the introduction of legislation, and maybe you can

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Speaker 1: give me a quick run through on these the introduction

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Speaker 1: of legislation, you know what, let's do this? Is it

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Speaker 1: appropriate to do this? Through what happened in Maine a

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Speaker 1: couple of years ago around black bear hund Okay, and

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Speaker 1: by this I'm talking about that in your materials you

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Speaker 1: explain that there's like a sequence where you introduce legislation,

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Speaker 1: did be weighed by the state legislature. You can conduct

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Speaker 1: lawsuits where you sue state fishing game agencies, and you

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Speaker 1: can do ballot initiatives. Is what happened around bear hunting

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Speaker 1: in Maine? Was was there something from all three of

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Speaker 1: those that you could point to or only two of those? Well, yes,

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Speaker 1: there were all three, but not necessarily in that linear order, right,

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Speaker 1: so laid out for them. So typically what you see

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Speaker 1: is is hs US looks to build a case and

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Speaker 1: and other groups that push ballot is ships look to

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Speaker 1: build a case for public support. Right, so oftentimes will

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Speaker 1: throw a bill into the legislature, start to get media

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Speaker 1: coverage about to create an issue, um where there might

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Speaker 1: not be one right now, you know, there's not there's

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Speaker 1: not a need to ban black bear hunting and ming.

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Speaker 1: Obviously their population has tripled over the last ten years.

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Speaker 1: They was voted down to two thousand four, but they

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Speaker 1: decided to bring the issue back, and so you see

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Speaker 1: him introduce legislation first as a way to drum up

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Speaker 1: some support, drum up some um of their supporters, and

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Speaker 1: then also drum up the media attention. So they lost

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Speaker 1: that an anti bear hunting thing in two thousand four. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it'll probably just to test the waters too, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: if it goes dead, they might go all right, it's

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Speaker 1: not a time or place yet. Yeah, I mean, they

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Speaker 1: can see how much interest there is. I mean I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, I can't attest to this, but I think

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Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, uh, these issues, these ballot

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Speaker 1: initiatives they run are probably net net fundraisers form even

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Speaker 1: after all the money they spend. You know, they're advertising nationally,

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Speaker 1: they're advertising and getting money sent from all over the

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Speaker 1: country to work on these kinds of issues. Um. And

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Speaker 1: so the more that they can drum up, bang the

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Speaker 1: drum on on the need to ban these cruel and

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Speaker 1: inhumane and barbaric practices as they call them, the better

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Speaker 1: job they're going to do on the fundraising side as well. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there was a there was a baltoniution of two thousand

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Speaker 1: and four that they lost. Um. You know, they went

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Speaker 1: away for four different cycles, they didn't come back, and

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Speaker 1: then they came back in two thousand thirteen looking to

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Speaker 1: to start the issue again. Um. And so there was

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Speaker 1: a lawsuit that was was wrapped into that. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if you want to get into the campaign itself,

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Speaker 1: but there was a lawsuit that they brought during the

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Speaker 1: campaign that they tried to sue us to get our

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Speaker 1: TV ads taken off the air. Yeah. I wanted to

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Speaker 1: ask about that, but let's let's get into the let's

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Speaker 1: get into the campaign. Sell. So they introduced some legislation

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Speaker 1: didn't go anywhere, meaning that that the that the state

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Speaker 1: legislators that elected individuals would outside of bringing it directly

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Speaker 1: to voters that they would have decided to pass them

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Speaker 1: bill doesn't go anywhere. That's typically the m O right.

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Speaker 1: They try to do it legislatively. For you've seen it

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Speaker 1: in in Maine, we've seen it in Montana, we saw

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Speaker 1: in Arizona this last cycle one on mountain lions. So

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Speaker 1: they typically try to do legislation first. It's much cheaper

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Speaker 1: than running a ballot initiative. Typically ballot initiatives, and especially

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Speaker 1: on wildlife related issues, are one and lost on dollars spent.

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Speaker 1: Can you say specifically what the ban is just? I mean,

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Speaker 1: so it wasn't go ahead. In the state of Maine,

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Speaker 1: the ballot initiative was on running black bears with dogs

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Speaker 1: using traps and bait. Uh And in the state, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I want to say it was of the bears they

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Speaker 1: take each year are taken with those three methods, bait

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Speaker 1: being the biggest of the three, but all three account

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Speaker 1: for roughly of the harvest. Flat, very very dense, flat,

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Speaker 1: thickly vegetated country. It's just that's just how it's That's

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Speaker 1: is how you do it. So you you're kind of

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Speaker 1: you're pushing for a sort of into basically you're effectively

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Speaker 1: banning it. Yeah, and that's what we've seen on these things.

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Speaker 1: And you know, we can get into other can gential

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Speaker 1: issues like right the hunt amendments and stuff like that that,

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Speaker 1: but the issue comes back to they don't typically try

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Speaker 1: to ban bear hunting like like you said, they don't

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Speaker 1: try to ban deer hunting. They try to ban means

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Speaker 1: and methods. So they're going to go after the most

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Speaker 1: inhumane as they call it, means and methods. And so

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Speaker 1: in this case, they targeted trapping, they targeted baiting, and

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Speaker 1: they targeted hounds. But it's funny when I shouldn't. Funny

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Speaker 1: is not the right word that they'll use words like

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Speaker 1: inhumane um when it really doesn't conform to like a

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Speaker 1: definition of what's humane. But it's sort of like a

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Speaker 1: way you can do it would be it would be

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Speaker 1: almost like it would be almost like they're saying, like

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Speaker 1: we view it as unsportsmanlike. And then because it's not,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you're gonna if you're gonna say like no,

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Speaker 1: and it's okay to shoot a bear, it's okay to

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Speaker 1: shoot a bear of the bow or gun, but it's

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Speaker 1: inhumane if it's over bait. But if you think of

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Speaker 1: like the humane part one would assume meant like the

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Speaker 1: method of kill, right, like is it a clean method

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Speaker 1: of kill? So there you have a lot of people

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Speaker 1: say like, well, over bait really winds up being a

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Speaker 1: cleaner method of kill because you're getting a short you're

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Speaker 1: getting a shorter range shot, you're better able to identify

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Speaker 1: the target, you have a longer window you know, in

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Speaker 1: which to place your shot. So one could feasibly argue

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Speaker 1: to be like like this, you know this practical argument

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Speaker 1: that is more humane to do it that way if

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Speaker 1: you're really interested in parsing out what humane is. They're not, though,

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Speaker 1: but it's like a term that they grab onto because

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Speaker 1: it means something, and I think that what they're like.

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Speaker 1: Another way that they would put it out be like

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Speaker 1: what's unsportsmanlike? And then you put like, so you're you're

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Speaker 1: concerned with sportsmanlike practices, like you're you're concerned with enforcing

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Speaker 1: a code of ethics. You turned it around on them,

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Speaker 1: like so you know, at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: they're not gonna be okay with black poter hunting at

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Speaker 1: all if they're using that because in a ballot is

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Speaker 1: ship specifically, you're you're not dealing with with the legislature,

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Speaker 1: you're not dealing with a finite body. You're dealing with

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Speaker 1: the public. And so they're trying to convince the soccer

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Speaker 1: mom in Portland or Augusta or in bangor that that

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Speaker 1: they need to care about this issue. And so gonna

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Speaker 1: pick out on those things. Right, they're gonna they're gonna

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Speaker 1: isolate those things. But if you've got if you got

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Speaker 1: them into a one on one conversation, they're not gonna

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Speaker 1: be okay with with with blackber hunting at all. Exactly exactly.

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Speaker 1: So they in that state in Maine, with the ballot initiae,

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Speaker 1: with the vote, yeah, fifty point one one one more

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Speaker 1: vote than yeah, okay, And how did it go? We

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Speaker 1: we won. We won by a bigger margin they want.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand four, h they spent a little bit

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Speaker 1: bigger margin. Yeah, they spent. They spent three million dollars

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Speaker 1: in the state two point seven two point yeah, two

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Speaker 1: point seven and change. How much was spent on the

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Speaker 1: other side. That's what they spent. They spent. HSU has

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Speaker 1: spent their their group spent two point seven Where are

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Speaker 1: our campaign raised about two point three and about it? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: about two point three. Well, so that doesn't conform to

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Speaker 1: your idea that it's dollars spent, you guys underspent. You

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Speaker 1: have to be good too, I mean you have to

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Speaker 1: put the right stuff on TV, you have to put

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Speaker 1: the right campaign plan in place. Uh. And it's it's

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Speaker 1: not equitable either, right, because you know, if you look

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Speaker 1: at the two point seven million dollars at other side

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Speaker 1: raised two point six and change came directly from DC,

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Speaker 1: came directly from hs US, but it was under the

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Speaker 1: guys of Mayners for fair bear Hunting. That's the name

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Speaker 1: of the campaign. It's it's called a front group. Right,

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Speaker 1: we're there, yeah, but we're there bear hunters in Manners

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Speaker 1: for fair bear Hunting. Well they found a few, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean they found some guys that could trot out

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Speaker 1: there to say, you know, hey, we're we don't we

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Speaker 1: don't like these practices either. I mean, that's that's typical.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's it's it's a misnomer to think that

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Speaker 1: we're gonna carry hunters, you know, lock stock and barrel,

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Speaker 1: and you know, you look at these things. And Brian

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Speaker 1: I were just talking about this the other day though,

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Speaker 1: the Montana trapping issue. Yeah, they found some they found

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Speaker 1: some bird doggers that come out. Well, if you if

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Speaker 1: we did pulling on the thing before we ran the

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Speaker 1: campaign of hunting licensed buyers, guys would hunt in the

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Speaker 1: last year, would have voted for it because it's worried

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Speaker 1: about the dogs. Yeah, so it was the same. It

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Speaker 1: was a similar kind of pulling in Maine as well.

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Speaker 1: We were losing of hunting licensed buyers who were going

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Speaker 1: to vote for the black Bear band. So it's it's

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Speaker 1: all those things that you can't always assume that those

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Speaker 1: folks are gonna be with you. You gotta do the education.

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Speaker 1: You gotta put the right kind of TV commercials together

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Speaker 1: up with the right kind of campaign plan together. And

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Speaker 1: we talk about it in two senses, right. We talked

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Speaker 1: about messenger and messages. You have to have impactful messengers.

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Speaker 1: You have to have believable messengers. But if they're not

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Speaker 1: saying an impactful message, if they don't have an emotional

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Speaker 1: message to drive home, it's not going to be impactful

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Speaker 1: in terms of pulling and moving the needle. So when

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Speaker 1: you when you look at one of these ballot issue campaigns,

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Speaker 1: the entire thing is built around the idea of how

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Speaker 1: do you change the way that fifty point one percent

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Speaker 1: of the people are going to vote in that twelve

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Speaker 1: hour window on election day. Nothing else matters. Doesn't matter

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Speaker 1: how they feel the day before, It doesn't matter how

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Speaker 1: they feel the day after. It all comes down to

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Speaker 1: how are they going to vote on that day? And

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Speaker 1: that's what your campaign has to be built around. What

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Speaker 1: was the split on votes? It was pretty sound defeat,

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Speaker 1: wasn't it. I want to say it was fifty seven

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Speaker 1: forty three? Is that right? I can pull it up here? Right?

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Speaker 1: I can't. I can't remember off the top of my head.

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Speaker 1: That's bad. I should know that. I can't believe that

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Speaker 1: did better than in two thousand four. Hut about a

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Speaker 1: percent of point point and a half better than, uh

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Speaker 1: than it was in two thousand four. Okay, so you

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Speaker 1: guys are talking about, um, the messaging and the messenger.

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Speaker 1: Can you explain a little bit like what exactly what

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Speaker 1: that means, like what's sort of like the message or

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Speaker 1: who the messenger was, and use either example, whether it's

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Speaker 1: Spontana or Maine. Yeah, it's uh, you know, you look

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Speaker 1: at voting and what the other side is doing. What

425
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:26,159
Speaker 1: we're doing as hunters, we love to say, we got

426
00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:28,200
Speaker 1: the science, we got the facts, we can prove all

427
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:32,199
Speaker 1: this and we can. But the other side uses pure emotion.

428
00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:34,520
Speaker 1: You know, the soccer moms in the cities. It's a

429
00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:37,160
Speaker 1: battle for those urban areas and the people that don't

430
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:39,240
Speaker 1: understand it. And what moves the needle there and with

431
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:42,600
Speaker 1: those people is emotion. And it's the simple emotions. You know,

432
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:46,359
Speaker 1: you're killing these things unethically or inhumanely or whatever they

433
00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:48,960
Speaker 1: want to say. Trophy hunt, you know, they throw that

434
00:21:49,119 --> 00:21:52,639
Speaker 1: term out there, and that sways everybody um and so

435
00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:57,159
Speaker 1: that message and messenger we have to counteract that. We

436
00:21:57,240 --> 00:21:59,080
Speaker 1: can use facts, we can point out that there's going

437
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:01,639
Speaker 1: to be an increased barre attacks or more depredation permits

438
00:22:01,760 --> 00:22:05,639
Speaker 1: or more issues or whatever, but we also have to

439
00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:08,800
Speaker 1: tap into that emotion, you know. And in Montana and

440
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,520
Speaker 1: in Maine, that's what we did. You know, we had

441
00:22:11,560 --> 00:22:14,639
Speaker 1: to slowly ramp up that emotional argument and make them

442
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:17,680
Speaker 1: realize that eight these are apex predators. You're going to

443
00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:20,240
Speaker 1: have issues, you know. And here's the other side, and

444
00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:22,879
Speaker 1: it had to flip that coin and use the same thing.

445
00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:25,240
Speaker 1: We still have all the facts, but you have to

446
00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:29,720
Speaker 1: make somebody who doesn't care about wildlife management, care about

447
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:32,399
Speaker 1: this issue. You know, I can let Evan talk about

448
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:35,520
Speaker 1: how we slowly ramped up those emotional things. But you know,

449
00:22:36,119 --> 00:22:39,640
Speaker 1: using polling and data and being able to get into

450
00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:43,000
Speaker 1: get into the populations that are going to move the needle,

451
00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:45,679
Speaker 1: you know, the messaging can work for all these different

452
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 1: groups and age classes and you know demographics, but you've

453
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:52,240
Speaker 1: got to find where it's not moving. And that's where

454
00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 1: Evan and his team do a fantastic job finding out

455
00:22:56,119 --> 00:22:58,440
Speaker 1: what's going to move that needle and sway that vote

456
00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:01,119
Speaker 1: and how do you find that out polling? I mean,

457
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 1: obviously we want to do a high level of public

458
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,880
Speaker 1: opinion polling to not only understand the messengers side of things,

459
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:10,879
Speaker 1: who who is a credible messenger, but also what what

460
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:13,920
Speaker 1: messages actually move the needle? Right. You know, we go

461
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:15,639
Speaker 1: into these campaigns and we've we've got a lot of

462
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 1: history of doing them. We have a pretty good gut

463
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 1: sense of you know, message X gonna work well here,

464
00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 1: and message why might work well. They're based on demographics

465
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:27,320
Speaker 1: and past history and past campaigns, like in the main

466
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:29,840
Speaker 1: campaign where you know, ten years later down the road

467
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:32,600
Speaker 1: we're doing the second second round of this thing. So

468
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:34,119
Speaker 1: we have a pretty good idea where to go, but

469
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:35,920
Speaker 1: that's not always right, and so we want to pull

470
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:38,680
Speaker 1: test those messages. We want to pull test the arguments

471
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,679
Speaker 1: not only that we believe will work, we also want

472
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:43,360
Speaker 1: to pull test what the other side is going to use.

473
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:45,959
Speaker 1: What messages do we believe they're going to use against us,

474
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:48,399
Speaker 1: and see what that does to the general public, right,

475
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 1: Because it ultimately, at the end of the day, it

476
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:52,480
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what message I think is best or what

477
00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:55,920
Speaker 1: message volunteer why thinks is best. What message that works

478
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 1: the best is the one that changes the way people

479
00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 1: are going to vote. And when you're trying in those out,

480
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 1: do you feel that you have to enter into like

481
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 1: the dirty pool world? Like do you do you catch yourself?

482
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 1: Because I think hunters do this all the time. Man.

483
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 1: Hunters are always using rhetoric that that they don't actually believe.

484
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:17,360
Speaker 1: I think you have to be willing to to say

485
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:19,679
Speaker 1: impactful messages, right. You have to be willing to tell

486
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 1: an emotional story because you're gonna be going up against

487
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 1: emotional as from the other side the mede. You say

488
00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 1: the word heritage, you're talking about emotion, right, And I

489
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:28,360
Speaker 1: think that's that's one of the things that we saw

490
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 1: in in Montana specifically, is you know the heritage message

491
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:34,359
Speaker 1: in Montana that you clarify what had because or just

492
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: keep it focused the Maine for now and then because

493
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 1: I don't we haven't talked about like what actually happened

494
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:41,400
Speaker 1: in in the Montana's story. So we could either introduce

495
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:47,880
Speaker 1: Montana yeah, like, well we can, okays the same message. Um,

496
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 1: you know the bottom line at the end of the day,

497
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 1: talking about these are these are historical practices, these are

498
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:55,159
Speaker 1: things we've always done, These are these are these are

499
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 1: methods and means that that we've always used. It doesn't

500
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:00,840
Speaker 1: mean a lot to to you know, a mom with

501
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: three young kids in in suburbia. At the end of

502
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 1: the day, you got you gotta find a way to

503
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:08,399
Speaker 1: to impact her what what what matters to her, And

504
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: so sometimes you have to look at messages that are

505
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 1: a little bit stronger. You know, those folks are concerned

506
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:14,879
Speaker 1: about public safety, those folks are concerned about what's going

507
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 1: to happen to the bear population if it's left unchecked

508
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: moving forward. If you take away on the way we're

509
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: harvesting bears in the state of Maine. What's gonna happen

510
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: to a population that from two thousand four to two

511
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, damn near doubled with the take. You know

512
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 1: that they were already talking inteen about about expanding main

513
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 1: seasons and expanding the opportunity there and potentially going to

514
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: two bears to account for the rise and bear numbers. Yeah,

515
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 1: so now you take away ninety three percent of the

516
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: way you're taking bears. What's going to happen moving forward?

517
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: We already had you know, one of our TV commercials

518
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:48,959
Speaker 1: was filmed in downtown Portland where they had a bear

519
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,399
Speaker 1: in the backyard. They warrants had to come down and

520
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 1: remove the bear. Yeah, well that, Yeah, I mean I

521
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 1: think that there's a fair way to I think it

522
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: would probably be statistically, it's probably like a little bit

523
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:01,919
Speaker 1: unfair to say bears are gonna come kill all your children,

524
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: because I don't know when Maine's last black bear fatality was.

525
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: But they're not that often. No, but but but the

526
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: thing about but, the thing about just conflict and the

527
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: costs of tax payers of doing all that conflict work

528
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 1: is enormous. But that might not be something that registers

529
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: as emotional. No, No, absolutely not, and so you look

530
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:26,919
Speaker 1: at like you know, you look at the deaths are

531
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: are extremely rare nationally, but there are there are instances

532
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: where there are bear attacks. You know, we had one

533
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 1: in Florida that happened right before UM, right before the

534
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:38,240
Speaker 1: main campaign. There's there's text there was one in Colorado

535
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: here recently, a couple of years ago, I believe, UM.

536
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 1: There are some of these attacks that happened, and so

537
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 1: you ask the question of its bears start to move

538
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: back down into the Portland suburbs. In Portland's growing in

539
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 1: Portland's becoming a suburb you know now almost of Boston, right,

540
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got people that are moving up into

541
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: southern Maine. The demographics have changed dramatically over the last

542
00:26:56,800 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: ten years. There are gonna be a dish conflicts moving

543
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:05,119
Speaker 1: forward as the air population increases unchecked. So it's it's

544
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: about how do you keep those checks in place? How

545
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 1: do you how do you how do you convince voters

546
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: that they need to do this for their own good?

547
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 1: A lot of people are going to vote their own

548
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:16,119
Speaker 1: their own perspective, and so what's in it for them?

549
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 1: There's a public safety aspect to this, you know, the

550
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 1: message isn't necessarily bears are gonna come eat your children,

551
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 1: But there is a public safety idea that you've got

552
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: bears running through schools, you've got bears in backyards, you've

553
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 1: got bears wandering around suburban neighborhoods. There can be problems

554
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 1: that arise from that. But but one of the things

555
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:37,159
Speaker 1: you guys did, uh that want of causing more trouble

556
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: and causing another lawsuit wasn't really an emotional peal, is

557
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: that you were using the state. You had State Fishing

558
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:49,120
Speaker 1: Game Agency people who were opposed to this ballot initiative

559
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 1: speaking about from their perspective why they didn't support it.

560
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: Can you tell that story? So that's that gets back

561
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: to what we're talking about earlier with the third leg

562
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:57,440
Speaker 1: of this, which is the lawsuit side of it. So

563
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:00,199
Speaker 1: we our campaign. When I say we as, I mean

564
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 1: our campaign paid for the TV advertising that we filmed,

565
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:05,680
Speaker 1: the commercials, we wrote the scripts, we did all the polling.

566
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,200
Speaker 1: The state wasn't doing any of that. The state wasn't

567
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:10,280
Speaker 1: involved at all in in that part of the process.

568
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 1: You know, the state was obviously concerned about the the

569
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: the issue. They had concerns about the implications of what

570
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 1: the what it would look like on the management side

571
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: moving forward if it were to pass. But they weren't

572
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:22,480
Speaker 1: involved in the campaign. They weren't involved in any of

573
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:24,439
Speaker 1: that because they could not be, or they just weren't

574
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 1: both yeah, both, um. But we did have them in

575
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:31,480
Speaker 1: the commercials, right. These were These were state employees on

576
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 1: their own personal time. They had clearance from from the

577
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: administration to appear in the ads. They weren't instructing people

578
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 1: how to vote. They were just telling people that they

579
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: were concerned. They had they were opposed to the measure themselves. Um,

580
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 1: because they were being they were they felt as though

581
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 1: they were being stripped of their management authority. Yeah, and

582
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: so what would be like Can can you give me

583
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 1: an idea of what just one example of what a

584
00:28:55,800 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: state employee might have said about the ballot initiative? Yes, oh,

585
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: we've got actually right up there on the wall that

586
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: you can see the picture from the TV shoot we did.

587
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 1: But they may Basically the message was mains game wardens

588
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 1: and bear biologists supposed measure one the bear biologists. Yeah, yeah,

589
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 1: they're both together. And and that piste off hsu Oh,

590
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Yeah, And so that you know, they obviously

591
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: thought that there was misuses. That's hard to argue, man, Yeah, well,

592
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: yeah exactly, and that's a very effective tool for us

593
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: to have to be able to play. But they felt

594
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 1: like the state was spending money to produce these TV ads,

595
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: and so they actually sued the state to basically take

596
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: the ads off the air in our in our campaign,

597
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: which is not an unusual tactic. You're talking about a

598
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 1: campaign that is is being voted on in the early

599
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: part of November, right, so you back that up six seven,

600
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:44,840
Speaker 1: eight weeks, that's really when your TV ads are running.

601
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: So it's a very short period of time that you're

602
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: actually on TV with your political ads. So if you

603
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: can sue us and you can get our ads taken

604
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: down for a week or two weeks or three weeks

605
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: while we figured it out in court, that's a pretty

606
00:29:56,480 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 1: impactful way too to take take our messaging and remind

607
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: it um. So obviously we went to court, we suit

608
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: or we we and we enjoined in the lawsuit ourselves

609
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:09,560
Speaker 1: because there are ads, there are campaign it's not the

610
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 1: state's ads, and we ended up winning. We ended up

611
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: winning the lawsuit and all that kind of stuff. We

612
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: kept our ads on the TV. But so did you

613
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 1: ever have to pull the ads? No, did you feel

614
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 1: that those ads are effective when you did a polling? Yeah, absolutely,

615
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 1: you can see it in the now. That's to me

616
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:24,479
Speaker 1: feels like that to me feels such a solid thing.

617
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 1: But then I have a lot of, um, you know,

618
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 1: I have a lot of sort of like like like

619
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: a native faith in state wildlife management. So that would

620
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: speak to me. But I'm not the I'm not the

621
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: person you really need to change the mind of. Well,

622
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're they're a highly credible messenger, right,

623
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: and so they're they're a they're a person that the

624
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: general public is going to trust that they're they're going

625
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: to view as a voice of authority. You know, people

626
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: look to the state and effish and wildlife agencies as

627
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: as experts, and they should. These are the guys who

628
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: have the day to day management of these species and

629
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: are doing a fantastic job. At the same time, though,

630
00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: they have to say the right thing. They have to

631
00:30:58,080 --> 00:30:59,960
Speaker 1: say the right messages that are going to be impact.

632
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: They can't just say oh, trust us, we've got this.

633
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: That's not gonna be enough to change that. Again, I

634
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: go back to the soccer mom in Portland. Right, it's

635
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 1: not gonna be enough to change her mind. All right,

636
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: let's jump along to the There's a lot I want

637
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 1: to talk about, you know what, because here's another interesting one. Man,

638
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: another main one I want to bring up because even

639
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: though we're talking about stuff that already happened, I think

640
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: it's really informative for people to understand, it's almost like

641
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 1: more informative to understand how it plays out, right, because

642
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: because that how it's it's informative to understand how these

643
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 1: things played out from start to finish in order to

644
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: begin understanding like what will happen in the future. Right,

645
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: So it might seem what we're talking about like already happened.

646
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 1: Who cares, But it's it's illustrative of of something. And

647
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 1: another main issue that thought was really interesting was the

648
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: issue with links and Maine. So here you have a

649
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: an ees a protective species in Maine and someone comes

650
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: up with the idea to say, hey, you know what,

651
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: no one should be able to trap in the area

652
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: that could potentially have links because you might accidentally catch

653
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: a links and if you accidentally catch a links would

654
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: be an e s A violation or you know we'd

655
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: like to make it an es A violation. So therefore,

656
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 1: let's stop trapping anywhere with links. And you brought up

657
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 1: an interesting point in some of your materials that you

658
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 1: put out to the public that like, with that line

659
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 1: of thinking, you could close fishing in the river where

660
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 1: an e s a listed fish happened to be present.

661
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 1: So it becomes like a really important fight. Like someone

662
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: might look at it and be like, oh, it's like

663
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: this really detailed policy thing, but it's not. It's just

664
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:40,959
Speaker 1: kind of a way to to put like a special

665
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,120
Speaker 1: little twist on something, a little back door attempt to

666
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 1: get at something a little bit broader. Right, And you know,

667
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 1: we're not gonna sit here and argue that, yeah, we

668
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: want to see a whole bunch of of federally protected

669
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 1: links species killed um by trappers. No, that's not the argument.

670
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: The argument is that at the end of the day,

671
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: most of the links that were caught were being released unharmed, right,

672
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 1: And so if you have a a few links that

673
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: are caught incidentally to other trapping seasons that are going on,

674
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:07,480
Speaker 1: that doesn't have a population level impact, even if the

675
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 1: species is federally threatened or federally endangered. That's not having

676
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 1: a population level impact on the on the links species

677
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: of the whole. But if you use that line of thinking,

678
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 1: like you said, you can expand that pretty quickly to

679
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: other things where you can say, okay, well, there there

680
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 1: are endangered wolves in the area, and they are about

681
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: the same size and look like coyotes. And you know

682
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: that It gets back to the wolf discussion too. With

683
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 1: with this idea that there are two wolf species, uh

684
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:34,479
Speaker 1: in the eastern part of the US. There's the um

685
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: one that is very very this isn't the antis theory, right,

686
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 1: but there's one that is very rare, looks identical to

687
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: the western Great Lakes gray wolf. The only way you

688
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: can tell a party is genetically. Well, if they if

689
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 1: you have a wolf subspecies or endangered species of wolf

690
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 1: that's separate from the Great Lakes gray wolf in the

691
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 1: same area as the gray wolf, how could you ever

692
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 1: possibly allow a hunting season. So you can see how

693
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 1: they can take these arguments, and if they can get

694
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 1: that established in case law in in in the Links lawsuit,

695
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:05,959
Speaker 1: then you can apply it to other areas, whether it's

696
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: it's fishing or whether it's it's hunting for other species.

697
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: So what happened with the what happened with the links

698
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: situation that they put out. So we've had we've had

699
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: numerous lawsuits on this. There's been at least two rounds

700
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: of of of links lawsuits in in Maine, there's a

701
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,279
Speaker 1: there's a Lynx lawsuit in Minnesota. UM, this really dates

702
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:25,720
Speaker 1: back to started probably two thousand and six, two thousand

703
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: seven time frame, and has been litigated over the years

704
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 1: since then. We've had some favorable outcomes that trappers have

705
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 1: had to put some stuff in place that would help

706
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:38,320
Speaker 1: to ensure that they don't unnecessarily catch additional links. But

707
00:34:38,360 --> 00:34:40,440
Speaker 1: the bottom line is, I think the population at a

708
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: level now where you'll see the Fish and Wildlife Service

709
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 1: start to move forward with with a dlisting effort and

710
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 1: getting them back off the essay the adjustments that the

711
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 1: trappers had to make, because that just like how the

712
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: what kind of trap and how those traps are placed. Right, Yeah, Yeah,

713
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: there's that. That's an interesting thing with I want to

714
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,400
Speaker 1: spend some time on this lag later, but it's but

715
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 1: since it came up, it's an interesting thing with how

716
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:09,839
Speaker 1: we sort of, um, the ways in which sportsmen can

717
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 1: kind of cooperate to alleviate issues like this, like for instance,

718
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: when you get into um that you'd be able to

719
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 1: release and you know, if you had a by catch

720
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: incident trapping, like you caught a links in the area

721
00:35:23,719 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 1: where you're not allowed to retain the links, that you

722
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 1: would take steps to modify your equipment to enable you

723
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:34,879
Speaker 1: to release things unharmed. And it comes down like really

724
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 1: like technical stuff like jaw thickness right like like a

725
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:42,239
Speaker 1: lot of trappers you know, will laminate the jaws on

726
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: their trap to increase the like to increase the surface area. Okay,

727
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:52,080
Speaker 1: adding inline adding inline swivels. So you have a trap

728
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: is staked out, and you have a chain that connects

729
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:56,320
Speaker 1: to the trap, and you have a swivel at the

730
00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:58,320
Speaker 1: trap base, you have a swivel at the stake, and

731
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 1: guys will add inline swivel into the chain. So there's

732
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: all these little steps of a person can take right

733
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 1: to do it and now and then someone would come

734
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: in and say, you know what, We're gonna mandate that

735
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 1: trappers take certain steps. That doesn't that that doesn't decrease

736
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: the efficacy of the equipment. Some would argue actually increases

737
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: the efficacy of equipment, and then you have to weigh

738
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: out like, Okay, is this like big brother stepping in

739
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: to tell me how to conduct my business or is

740
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 1: this something that's actually gonna enable me to conduct my

741
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 1: business long term? And that's the thing that I think

742
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: a lot of sportsmen have to look at when these

743
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:37,320
Speaker 1: kind of issues come up. Man. Yeah, and for for

744
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:39,640
Speaker 1: a lot of it, in this case specifically, Um, it

745
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 1: comes down to another. It seems like all this stuff

746
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: comes back to Endangered Species Act policy. But there's a

747
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 1: there's a there's a method in the Endangered Species Act

748
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: where you can allow for the incidental take of of

749
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: protected species. It's called an I T P Incidental take permit.

750
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:53,680
Speaker 1: And so what we saw in them in the main

751
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: Links case specifically, was the state of main applied to

752
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 1: the federal government said look, we've got this issue. We

753
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 1: know that we're having Uh, there's the potential and trappers

754
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 1: are are incidentally catching links. Um. If the Feds will

755
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 1: issue that permit, it basically is a basically precludes them

756
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 1: then from prosecuting those folks under Endangered Species Act violations.

757
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:16,840
Speaker 1: And as part of that application process and part of

758
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 1: the awarding of that of that permit from the Fish

759
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,759
Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service. There are there are typically steps or

760
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:29,319
Speaker 1: concessions that are made to say those concerns. So there's

761
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: a bit there's a bit of a back and forth

762
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:32,840
Speaker 1: on what it's gonna take to make it it's allowed

763
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 1: to go through. An interesting point that came up when

764
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 1: I was looking at the Links issue in Maine was

765
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 1: here here, what was that an H s U S issue? Primarily?

766
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 1: Was that coming from another source? No, I don't believe H.

767
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 1: S U S was the main litigant in that case.

768
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 1: I want to say that was Animal Welfare Institute or

769
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 1: Animal Protections and I can't remember which was which, but

770
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:53,359
Speaker 1: they've they've been involved in those cases over the years.

771
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 1: In a case like that, you have someone presumably like

772
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 1: feigning a great interest in the well being of the

773
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:06,080
Speaker 1: links with concealed goal or camouflage goal, just like hindering

774
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 1: trapping activities. But it brings up an interesting thing where

775
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:12,880
Speaker 1: there was a loss. This is the cormorant issue in Oregon,

776
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: where there's perilously low stocks of salmon returning from rivers

777
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:24,799
Speaker 1: into the ocean, and there was a situation where they

778
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 1: were trying to control cormorant numbers. They were killing corm

779
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:31,720
Speaker 1: rants in an area to enable greater returns of salmon.

780
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 1: So corm raan is a fish eating bird. They're pounding

781
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 1: salmon returning out in the ocean from river, so to

782
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:40,320
Speaker 1: alleviate the pressure from the cormorants. There was a project

783
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:44,280
Speaker 1: where they were cooling corm rants to increase salmon returns,

784
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: and there you have lawsuits to prevent them from doing it.

785
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:51,400
Speaker 1: So here you're trying to you're trying to use a

786
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 1: management tool to help an imperiled species, but that action

787
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: gets flagged and get suit against, and so you have

788
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: to ask like it kind of reveals that sort of

789
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:08,359
Speaker 1: bias and reveals the things that you're not really we're

790
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 1: not really talking about wildlife well being here in a

791
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:16,800
Speaker 1: long term sense. We're talking about some it's a proxy argument.

792
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 1: What we're talking about is like, you're just opposed to

793
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 1: certain kinds of animal deaths caused by certain kinds of people,

794
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 1: particularly people who are paying money to go do it licensed,

795
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 1: people who it might be deemed like recreational. That's the

796
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 1: greatest you know, irony is that they want to stop

797
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 1: hunters from paying into a system that supports conservation, that

798
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 1: ensures the long term viability of these species. But at

799
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:47,800
Speaker 1: the end of the day, when they actually accomplish that,

800
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 1: now we're paying the state to take that place, and

801
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 1: they take on that burden and they don't seem to

802
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:56,839
Speaker 1: have a problem with it. The animals still dying, you're

803
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: still having conflict, but now you're doing it at a

804
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 1: with a debt. But the other thing is who's paying.

805
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 1: Right in that synthetic situation that hopefully we never get to,

806
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:07,920
Speaker 1: is like there's gonna have to be something put in

807
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:11,279
Speaker 1: place to fund the state agency. They don't. They don't

808
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:13,240
Speaker 1: do that, I mean, And then take the California mountain

809
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 1: lion stuff as as a perfect example. You know, mountain

810
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:22,000
Speaker 1: lion hunting is banned there. Now they issue four times

811
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:25,879
Speaker 1: as many depredation permits and they're killing more animals, more

812
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,439
Speaker 1: mountain lions than they did before. But there's no hunter

813
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: paying for a tag. Now the state has to go

814
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:33,839
Speaker 1: out there, pay for people to do it or issue

815
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:36,280
Speaker 1: the depredation permits, and then they have to knee crops.

816
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: He's on top of that. So now you got now

817
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 1: they're operating operating at a loss, at a deficit. Yes,

818
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: and there was no funding mechanism in the ballot initiative

819
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: to fun now scenario is like you're talking about state Washington, right,

820
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 1: notice is happening in Oregon. But it was a suit

821
00:40:58,040 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 1: against the It was a suit I believe against the

822
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:06,480
Speaker 1: Coast Guard for killing cormorants. Know it was it would

823
00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: use a euphemism cooling cormorants from that we're praying on

824
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: salm and small returning. Yeah, and it wasn't only not

825
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: returning going out into the ocean for their feeding. So

826
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: I think it's the wildlife services of uh, not Coastguard, right. Yeah.

827
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 1: But that I mean, that's such a messed up situation

828
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: over there too, because what we don't have diminishing salmon

829
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 1: returns because of the cormer ants. The cormer ants are

830
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 1: taking advantage of a giant system that we've put in

831
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:44,400
Speaker 1: place through many man made sure there's there's many factors.

832
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:47,240
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a way deep conversation. Yeah, we caused,

833
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:51,760
Speaker 1: We've created a human caused that. There's a human caused

834
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: problem that we've created with damning and habitat destruction and

835
00:41:57,280 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: other things to create a situation where now we just

836
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: have to stop the bleeding. So we get sea lions

837
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:05,840
Speaker 1: taken advantage. But it's but it's to have your but

838
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 1: to have your perspective. But your perspective winds up being

839
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 1: like a little bit cynical because here we have everything like, yeah,

840
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: we created a huge problem with salmon. Okay, it's gonna

841
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:17,919
Speaker 1: take a lot of public and political will to fix

842
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:20,719
Speaker 1: the underlying problem. In the meantime, you just have to

843
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:24,239
Speaker 1: try to keep the thing breathing, sam and being the

844
00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: thing breathing. So when people then go like, oh, you know,

845
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:30,759
Speaker 1: the problem is damns and so now you're trying to

846
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,239
Speaker 1: like do these little micro adjustments. Yeah, you need to

847
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 1: do anything you can to just have something be there

848
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:41,800
Speaker 1: while we take the decades necessary to take care of

849
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 1: the long term main problem. I don't think that I

850
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: don't think that our inability to fix the main long

851
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:50,760
Speaker 1: term problem means that we shouldn't look at little microadjustments

852
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 1: we could make to kind of immediately aid the situation

853
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 1: that stock should be taken though, be like, yeah, do

854
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:59,400
Speaker 1: you know why we are killing cormarants? Do you know

855
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:03,359
Speaker 1: why all these sea lions are gathered at the base

856
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 1: of this dam? You know why we have so many? Okay,

857
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: so you feel this is a side arguments. Excuse me, guys.

858
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 1: At some point we can't take down all the damns.

859
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 1: I mean, we depend upon them for hydro electricity and

860
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 1: everything else. So at some point it is a you know, Wayne,

861
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:24,279
Speaker 1: and if you want to weigh it even more, you'd

862
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,320
Speaker 1: be look at that. It's infinitely deep. That's why I

863
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 1: feel like you should and I know that that we

864
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 1: this country a long time ago decided against rightfully so

865
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: decided against putting unnecessary restrictions on voters. But in a

866
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:40,319
Speaker 1: draconian sense, I feel like we need to go back

867
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:43,160
Speaker 1: to voters need to be able to pass and when

868
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 1: when I think, I just think should only be on

869
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: wildlife issues. Voters need to go pass a very stringent

870
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 1: test about what's your understanding of wildlife history? And you

871
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: know it well. I'm not saying you don't know it well,

872
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:55,840
Speaker 1: but if you want to spend time getting into the corremant,

873
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 1: I just think stock should be taken like people when

874
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: they say, okay, we're gonna kill these corns rats, and

875
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: just so you know, the reason they're piled up right

876
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 1: here is because X y Z please keep that in mind. Yes,

877
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:11,920
Speaker 1: I agree, it would be nice if everyone was infinitely

878
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:14,759
Speaker 1: aware of all the factors. That play was the thing

879
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: that people do and you're doing it right now? Is

880
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: acting like that because there's a bigger underlying problem. It

881
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 1: makes it that we can't morally address micro issues. Yeah,

882
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:29,719
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not worried about the mite. Yeah, I

883
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 1: don't know. You're saying we made these damns and we

884
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:36,360
Speaker 1: did the habitat destruction in the industrial pollution, and so

885
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:38,759
Speaker 1: therefore we should be made to suffering. We should let

886
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:41,400
Speaker 1: samon go extinct just to remind us of how awful

887
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 1: we are. That's taken a little far. Do you think

888
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: because I'm not anti bomb, came some corm rats in

889
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 1: this issue, right, Like I want the salmon to exist,

890
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: But I think that should just be included in the campaign. Right.

891
00:44:56,840 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 1: There should be a sign we are killing these corme

892
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 1: rants because we you have destroyed these rivers our decisions

893
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:07,880
Speaker 1: sixty years ago. It highlights the challenge of wildlife management, right,

894
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:10,720
Speaker 1: and this idea that things just don't happen in a vacuum.

895
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: We wanted to steal stuff down to you know, good

896
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: versus bad, black versus white. You know, these issues are

897
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:20,240
Speaker 1: are highly complicated and you look at you know another example.

898
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: You you raised the question of whether or not to me,

899
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:24,719
Speaker 1: this is the question I've been struggling to write a

900
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 1: story about. But the animal rights an anti hunting community

901
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 1: in certain instances elevate one species over another right and

902
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: so in this case corn rance versus salmon, I'll give

903
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,280
Speaker 1: you another one about wolves versus moose in the Northern Minnesota.

904
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 1: So at the same time they're pushing lawsuits to keep

905
00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 1: wolves federally protected that have recovered and a blown past

906
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 1: recovery goals, the moose population in Northern Minnesota's crashing. Now,

907
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: is that all because of wolves? No, absolutely not. There

908
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:54,520
Speaker 1: are other environmental factors that are that play into that,

909
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:58,759
Speaker 1: but there's certainly an impact from wolves. And so how

910
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:00,880
Speaker 1: in their minds are do they square of the idea

911
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:04,400
Speaker 1: that we're gonna keep wolves federally protected and continue to

912
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 1: sue for that even though they've they've blown past recovery goals.

913
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 1: At the same time, we're seeing it have a direct

914
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:12,839
Speaker 1: impact on other species in the area. Yeah, we're yeah,

915
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:17,399
Speaker 1: we're willing to let moose walk. That's a great that's

916
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: a great segue, Cal and I will pick this up

917
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 1: later in from we'll pick this up later in public.

918
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:27,960
Speaker 1: Can can you give like a mile high walk through

919
00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 1: on Great Lakes the Great Lakes wolves situation. It's difficult

920
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: for people to follow becaure's a lot of twists and turns,

921
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:36,839
Speaker 1: and I don't want to get too I don't want

922
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 1: to get so um deep that we lose people, but

923
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 1: just a general sense of how the conversation has gone

924
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:47,399
Speaker 1: and where it is right now. So you're talking about

925
00:46:47,719 --> 00:46:50,719
Speaker 1: a multi year series of lawsuits right this goes back

926
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 1: to mid two thousand's. It's been through the Bush administration,

927
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 1: the Obama administration, now the Trump administration multiple different times

928
00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:01,800
Speaker 1: over that Over that ten twelve four teen years, presidential

929
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: administrations have moved to delist recovered species of gray wolves

930
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:09,319
Speaker 1: in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Each time the antis have sued,

931
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:12,400
Speaker 1: Each time, the antis have taken into court, and and

932
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 1: each time they've gone a federal judge to overturn the

933
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 1: d listing for for various reasons. So where we're at

934
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:20,880
Speaker 1: right now is that we just wrapped up a lawsuit

935
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:23,719
Speaker 1: last year that the final round of this lawsuit. I'm

936
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 1: hopeful that basically issued a ruling that was both good

937
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:30,239
Speaker 1: and bad for our side, right. The ruling said, yes,

938
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:33,759
Speaker 1: you can do the d listing of wolves. Were talked

939
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:37,000
Speaker 1: about distinct population segment policy or the Endangered Species Act

940
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:39,600
Speaker 1: is really what we're dealing with here. The broader question

941
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: was can you use the Endangered Species Act to delist

942
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 1: a distinct population segment of a broader national listing? Wolves

943
00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:51,279
Speaker 1: are listed nationally as a matter of convenience under the

944
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 1: SA back in the late seventies. Um, they were listed

945
00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:58,960
Speaker 1: nationally because there's just there's just a matter of convenience

946
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,479
Speaker 1: back then. There wasn't a DP policy in those days.

947
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 1: Since then, we figured out that, look, we're not gonna

948
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 1: have wolves recovered in their entire historic range. Nobody's calling

949
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:07,440
Speaker 1: for that. We're not gonna have them Seattle. We're not

950
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:12,400
Speaker 1: gonna have in Chicago. That's not a reasonable expectation for delisting.

951
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 1: We we we we appeal the latest round of rulings

952
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:19,720
Speaker 1: because the federal judge in Washington said, unless until wolves

953
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:22,440
Speaker 1: are recovering their entire historic range, they can't be considered

954
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 1: recovered in the Upper Great Lake States. So it doesn't

955
00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 1: matter how many wolves you have in the in the

956
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:29,439
Speaker 1: up if they're not back in their entire historic range,

957
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:32,759
Speaker 1: they can't be considered recovered, which is ludicrous. Yeah, when

958
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:35,160
Speaker 1: when we talked without in other contexts and one on

959
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 1: time of this, always like to point out that elk

960
00:48:37,120 --> 00:48:39,440
Speaker 1: are only recovered in about ten to fourteen percent of

961
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:43,520
Speaker 1: their range. Absolutely, So it would be like saying, we're

962
00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: not gonna hunt elk in Colorado, which has two fifty elk.

963
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 1: We're not gonna held out in Colorado because we haven't

964
00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:53,319
Speaker 1: recovered elk in Ohio. That's right, that's right, and that's

965
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: ultimately what you're getting down here is a question of law.

966
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 1: Is that when you use the Endangered Species Act, when

967
00:48:57,480 --> 00:48:59,959
Speaker 1: you use the distinct population segment policy of the Nague

968
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 1: Species Act, are you talking about historic range? Are you

969
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,319
Speaker 1: talking about current intended range? Right? Are you talking about

970
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 1: recovering wolves in these states? Are you come about recovering

971
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:10,279
Speaker 1: grizzly bears in these areas? Or you talk about the

972
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:13,560
Speaker 1: entire historic range because that's under that status. And you're right,

973
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: elk aren't recovered yet, and so how can you possibly

974
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:18,200
Speaker 1: have a hunting season on elk if they're not recovered everywhere?

975
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:20,640
Speaker 1: And that's the argument they're wanting to use on wolves

976
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:23,399
Speaker 1: is that they're not recovered across the entire historic range.

977
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 1: So how can you possibly have a hunting season in Michigan. Well,

978
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:29,600
Speaker 1: they're recovered in Michigan. They are. I mean, nobody's arguing

979
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 1: about the population science, nobody's arguing about the data. They're

980
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 1: arguing about ourcane policies, the Endangered Species Act and trying

981
00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 1: to apply that to this situation. Because at the end

982
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:39,759
Speaker 1: of the day, if they were very truthful about what

983
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:42,800
Speaker 1: they're going after, they don't want a wolf hunt. That's it.

984
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 1: It's as simple as that. They want to preclude a

985
00:49:44,600 --> 00:49:46,719
Speaker 1: wolf und So how do you do that? You use

986
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 1: these federal tools to tie you up in court for

987
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:51,279
Speaker 1: a decade, decade and a half and cost hundreds of

988
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars to fight the litigation. So what are

989
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 1: you think is gonna happen? I mean, they the d

990
00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:59,439
Speaker 1: listing went through. I mean, I don't know how many times,

991
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:03,879
Speaker 1: like how many times has the US Fish and Wildlife Service, um,

992
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:06,480
Speaker 1: how many times has the US Fish and Wildlife Service

993
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:14,200
Speaker 1: recommended delisting where the delisting happened for a moment and

994
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: then management policy was stripped away, like just in the

995
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:18,120
Speaker 1: last few recent years. It's been like a c like

996
00:50:18,239 --> 00:50:20,719
Speaker 1: three or four or five times. It's happened across It

997
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:22,799
Speaker 1: was in the Bush administration and the Bomb administration, now

998
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:25,279
Speaker 1: on the Trump administration. In each of these cases, the

999
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:28,440
Speaker 1: federal management agency, so the US Fish and Wildlife Service,

1000
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 1: is the one that oversees ees a protected species. In

1001
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: each of these cases, the US Fish and Wildlife Service

1002
00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:39,400
Speaker 1: is saying it's time to delist. Where do the states

1003
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:41,919
Speaker 1: fall on it? Well, the states? The states agree at

1004
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 1: a couple of the states moved to open their own

1005
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 1: hunting seasons, but they don't have a lot of power. Um,

1006
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 1: they're in the lawsuits as well, but they don't have

1007
00:50:48,160 --> 00:50:51,200
Speaker 1: a lot of power to to allow for seasons or

1008
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:55,280
Speaker 1: allow for incident or for for take while they're federally protected.

1009
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:57,560
Speaker 1: So they're involved in the lawsuits that they want to

1010
00:50:57,600 --> 00:50:59,279
Speaker 1: see them de listed. The states wanted to have them

1011
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 1: returned to state management like they should be. You know,

1012
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:03,000
Speaker 1: that's the way the e s A was intended to

1013
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 1: to be applied, right. It wasn't intended to be this

1014
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 1: hotel California policy where you can check in an animal

1015
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 1: onto the list and it never can check out. That's

1016
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:14,239
Speaker 1: not the way it was intended to be. It was

1017
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 1: intended to be used as a tool to recover imperiled species,

1018
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 1: get them back to health, and then return them to

1019
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:21,960
Speaker 1: state management. But the antis don't see it to the

1020
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,080
Speaker 1: don't in the animal rights community don't see it that way.

1021
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 1: You know, you talk about charismatic, charismatic megafauna. Right, these

1022
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 1: are the species they want to protect and perpetuity, and

1023
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:32,719
Speaker 1: that's one way to do it if you can keep

1024
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: them listed as a as a federally protected species and

1025
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:38,319
Speaker 1: you can't have hunts on them. Yeah, but they they

1026
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:42,800
Speaker 1: only resist, they only resist the de listing of species

1027
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: that might potentially that might potentially become a game animal

1028
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:50,040
Speaker 1: like no one. You know, when when we went to

1029
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: delist the bald eagle, it was a great celebration because

1030
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: there's no historic use pattern of like, you know, using

1031
00:51:56,760 --> 00:51:59,600
Speaker 1: bald eagles as a renewable resource. I mean outside of

1032
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:02,719
Speaker 1: out of certain Native American groups. They would use them

1033
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:05,719
Speaker 1: for ceremonial purposes. So it's like there was no risk.

1034
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:08,560
Speaker 1: I think that from their perspective, it winds up being

1035
00:52:08,640 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 1: they want to block any animal moving off the ES

1036
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:16,840
Speaker 1: A list that might potentially that might potentially it's a

1037
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:19,680
Speaker 1: tool to preclude hunting. And so ultimately, I mean, you

1038
00:52:19,719 --> 00:52:21,360
Speaker 1: look at the ESA and we can we can debate

1039
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:25,560
Speaker 1: es a policy for for weeks, right, and we have Ultimately,

1040
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:27,880
Speaker 1: you talk about endangered animal is one that is in

1041
00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:32,439
Speaker 1: danger of going extinct um in all our significant portion

1042
00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:35,360
Speaker 1: of its range. A threatened species is one that will

1043
00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:38,719
Speaker 1: will meet that standard in the foreseeable future. Those don't

1044
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:41,239
Speaker 1: apply to wolves, that doesn't apply to grizzly bears in

1045
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:44,960
Speaker 1: the Greater Yellowstone Area. These species have recovered, and if

1046
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:47,160
Speaker 1: the populations start to slide, there are tools in the

1047
00:52:47,320 --> 00:52:51,279
Speaker 1: essay that allow for emergency protections to be put into place.

1048
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:54,600
Speaker 1: So at the very core level of this, these animals

1049
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:58,240
Speaker 1: no longer meet the definition of what is a protected species.

1050
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:01,440
Speaker 1: And what's interesting about the some of the ESA species

1051
00:53:01,480 --> 00:53:04,320
Speaker 1: two is we mapped out what recovery would look like

1052
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:07,839
Speaker 1: before we achieved it. Like where everyone said, like even

1053
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:10,040
Speaker 1: in the absence in some places, even in the absence

1054
00:53:10,080 --> 00:53:13,000
Speaker 1: of certain species, we said, okay, like, uh, what would

1055
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:15,840
Speaker 1: what would success look like? You paint out this roadmap

1056
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:17,440
Speaker 1: of what success would look like down to kind of

1057
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:22,880
Speaker 1: excruciating details, and then we blow past those benchmarks and

1058
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:26,200
Speaker 1: people are like, yeah, but yeah, but that didn't really

1059
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:31,200
Speaker 1: mean it. It's moving that bullpost didn't really mean it.

1060
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 1: You also hear a lot, well you just want to

1061
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:35,680
Speaker 1: see that so he can hunt them. And my response

1062
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:39,600
Speaker 1: is always that is the best case scenario. If you

1063
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:41,800
Speaker 1: love this animal. Yeah, that would mean if you have

1064
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:44,040
Speaker 1: like a huntable population, that means you're doing pretty good,

1065
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:47,240
Speaker 1: means they're recovered. It should be celebrated. If it's focus

1066
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:51,480
Speaker 1: on them, there's dollars going to them, and it's a

1067
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 1: sustainable This is where we get into our idea of

1068
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 1: hunt ovationist, right, Like, okay, we get to this point.

1069
00:53:56,239 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 1: Now there's dollars going in, we're hunting them. It's conservation

1070
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:01,480
Speaker 1: is taking place, and that's kind of our little term

1071
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 1: we've coined as honer rationist, you know. And and that's

1072
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:06,520
Speaker 1: what's happening when you get to that level. They would

1073
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 1: happen with grizzly bears, with wolves whatever. Um, just stepping back, Yeah,

1074
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:14,279
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't oppose the red bellied Creek chub

1075
00:54:14,400 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: getting delisted. It's these mega faunas he said. I I

1076
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:20,879
Speaker 1: like to use the idea of the bigger the eye

1077
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:23,640
Speaker 1: and the longer the eyelash, the greater the outrage, you know,

1078
00:54:23,760 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 1: and then they can fundraise on that, they can piggyback

1079
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:28,719
Speaker 1: and fundraise on that and use that to fund all

1080
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:31,320
Speaker 1: these lawsuits that they stretch this stuff out. Meanwhile, the

1081
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:34,880
Speaker 1: sportsmen were cobbling stuff together. Does the cormera have an eyelash?

1082
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:39,080
Speaker 1: The salmon? Salmon, damer don't sal and don't have one.

1083
00:54:39,800 --> 00:54:43,520
Speaker 1: That's whether being sacrificed to the cormorants. So bringing this

1084
00:54:43,600 --> 00:54:45,279
Speaker 1: back to the original question, because that was kind of

1085
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: a long answer to where the wolves situation stands today.

1086
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 1: So we fought these lawsuits time and time again. The

1087
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:54,680
Speaker 1: latest round, like I said, was a good news bad

1088
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:57,320
Speaker 1: news story. Right for the immediate future, wolves remain listed

1089
00:54:57,520 --> 00:55:00,759
Speaker 1: as a protected species in those states, but the court

1090
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:03,160
Speaker 1: did come back with a very clear pathway for the

1091
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:07,040
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife Service to delist wolves appropriately. In their view, right,

1092
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:10,839
Speaker 1: if you follow these steps, then then we would find

1093
00:55:10,960 --> 00:55:14,120
Speaker 1: that that that you have basically done this correctly. What

1094
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:17,239
Speaker 1: is the scope of those steps? Oh boy, there's I mean,

1095
00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:18,360
Speaker 1: I'd have to go back and pull it up. I

1096
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:20,200
Speaker 1: don't have it off the top of my head, unfortunately,

1097
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 1: but there there is a pathway there that basically says,

1098
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:24,400
Speaker 1: you know you need to do that, do it appropriately

1099
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:26,600
Speaker 1: if you if you if you consider these factors. Right,

1100
00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:29,880
Speaker 1: we talked about range earlier. You don't have to you

1101
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:32,360
Speaker 1: don't have to necessarily show that they have recovered in

1102
00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:34,800
Speaker 1: their entire historic range, but you have to consider that

1103
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:37,920
Speaker 1: impact on its current range. And so some things like

1104
00:55:38,040 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 1: that where you have to go back, and the court

1105
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:41,760
Speaker 1: basically went back and gave them this this clear pathway

1106
00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:43,960
Speaker 1: that says, go to the d listing effort again and

1107
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 1: do it for you, these these these methods, and I

1108
00:55:46,600 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 1: think you'll be okay, um am, I correct? Right now? Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan,

1109
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 1: none of those states has had any kind of wolf

1110
00:55:57,080 --> 00:56:00,400
Speaker 1: season for a couple of years, not right, right, And

1111
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:02,320
Speaker 1: the most that any of them had one for was

1112
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:05,480
Speaker 1: a year or two? Okay, yeah, I think it was

1113
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:11,480
Speaker 1: just one season. Actually, maybe how long do you think

1114
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:15,080
Speaker 1: like when they laid out that path to that path

1115
00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:18,799
Speaker 1: to state management? Is that a decades long path there

1116
00:56:18,800 --> 00:56:20,920
Speaker 1: could be much shorter than that ultimately will depend on

1117
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:22,919
Speaker 1: the litigation. Right, So at the Fish and Wildlife Service

1118
00:56:23,040 --> 00:56:25,600
Speaker 1: at this point is is moving forward with that process.

1119
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:28,880
Speaker 1: I think you'll see a delisting effort out of the service,

1120
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:32,960
Speaker 1: maybe yet this year. Um, it will depend on what

1121
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:36,279
Speaker 1: kind of delisting they they issue, what kind of order

1122
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:39,400
Speaker 1: it is, uh, do they check the boxes correctly, and

1123
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:43,480
Speaker 1: how creative can the other side get ensuing to stop it? Um.

1124
00:56:43,640 --> 00:56:46,400
Speaker 1: If the Fish and Wildlife Service meets all the criteria

1125
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:49,600
Speaker 1: that set out in the court's ruling, then they probably

1126
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:51,719
Speaker 1: have a pretty good chance of having it upheld. But

1127
00:56:51,800 --> 00:56:54,040
Speaker 1: I would be I would be very very surprised if

1128
00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:56,520
Speaker 1: we don't see those same groups line up to sue,

1129
00:56:57,040 --> 00:57:01,640
Speaker 1: regardless of what they put out there. So so you're

1130
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:05,399
Speaker 1: back into every year. Can there ever be an end? Yeah,

1131
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: there can be. Ultimately we'll get to a point where

1132
00:57:07,280 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 1: this thing comes to a head. But we're does it

1133
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:11,279
Speaker 1: come to the head to cut? Does it have to

1134
00:57:11,360 --> 00:57:13,480
Speaker 1: go come to a head at the Supreme Court? No,

1135
00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:15,160
Speaker 1: I don't think it'll get to that level. I think

1136
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:16,920
Speaker 1: I think we're probably I think we're in the home

1137
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:18,600
Speaker 1: stretch here. I think we're round a third and head

1138
00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 1: for home. It's it's you know, this this latest round

1139
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:23,960
Speaker 1: of you know, they depend on what the service puts out.

1140
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:26,200
Speaker 1: You know, we don't know what they're gonna do. Um,

1141
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:28,480
Speaker 1: if they come back and check the boxes correctly, then

1142
00:57:29,160 --> 00:57:31,800
Speaker 1: I'm sure there'll be there'll be a lawsuit. Well at

1143
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:33,760
Speaker 1: last six, eight, ten months. I don't know. You know,

1144
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:35,840
Speaker 1: these things tend to be, you know, typically a year

1145
00:57:35,920 --> 00:57:38,080
Speaker 1: long to multiple years long to pay on how many

1146
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:41,080
Speaker 1: appeals there are if they do things correctly, I would

1147
00:57:41,080 --> 00:57:43,360
Speaker 1: think would be a pretty short short window of the

1148
00:57:43,520 --> 00:57:45,360
Speaker 1: of the lawsuit. Right, there's not gonna be a lot

1149
00:57:45,400 --> 00:57:47,920
Speaker 1: of appeals. There's not a lot of stuff to appeal then, Um,

1150
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:50,160
Speaker 1: so you're talking about a delisting word by the end

1151
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 1: of the year, a public comment period, and then off

1152
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:55,080
Speaker 1: to courts. You're probably looking most of twenty nineteen is

1153
00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:57,840
Speaker 1: going to be eaten up with this, and maybe we'll

1154
00:57:57,840 --> 00:58:00,280
Speaker 1: have wolves back off the list. I don't know, that's

1155
00:58:00,280 --> 00:58:03,920
Speaker 1: just a guess. Yeah, you know, there is some there

1156
00:58:04,040 --> 00:58:07,840
Speaker 1: is some validity to the question about what are the

1157
00:58:07,920 --> 00:58:11,800
Speaker 1: implications for delisting a little segment of wolves or grizzly

1158
00:58:11,840 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: bears or links or what have you, like, what does

1159
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: that mean for everywhere else? Like, I think it's a

1160
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:19,760
Speaker 1: legitimate question because if you look at an area that

1161
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:22,640
Speaker 1: I'm infinitely more familiar with, would be the grizzly bear

1162
00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:29,000
Speaker 1: delisting in and portions of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming. Because on

1163
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:33,920
Speaker 1: one hand, you know, the state management agency in Montana,

1164
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:39,960
Speaker 1: for instance, is has you know, expressed the idea that

1165
00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 1: we should maintain the idea of genetic exchange between these

1166
00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:47,720
Speaker 1: different isolated populations of grizzly bears. Right, it's a goal

1167
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:51,360
Speaker 1: to have connectivity between what's called the Northern Continental Divide

1168
00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:57,080
Speaker 1: ecosystem and the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. So that's the goal.

1169
00:58:57,200 --> 00:58:59,120
Speaker 1: You would have a place for bears to freely move

1170
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:01,880
Speaker 1: back and forth. And isn't your interesting question if you

1171
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:05,600
Speaker 1: get to where you have absolute saturation of grizzly bears

1172
00:59:05,640 --> 00:59:09,560
Speaker 1: in these certain areas and you're gonna have increased likelihood

1173
00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:12,880
Speaker 1: of human bearer conflicts, and you have a variety of

1174
00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:15,840
Speaker 1: reasons they want to go to state management and some

1175
00:59:16,040 --> 00:59:19,480
Speaker 1: limited amount of hunting, you do really have a responsibility

1176
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:20,960
Speaker 1: to look at like, Okay, what does this mean to

1177
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:24,200
Speaker 1: our other our other objectives, Because the same people need

1178
00:59:24,240 --> 00:59:27,200
Speaker 1: to understand the state agencies that are wanting to have

1179
00:59:27,320 --> 00:59:32,360
Speaker 1: state management of these recovered resources are certainly not anti grizzly,

1180
00:59:32,480 --> 00:59:35,920
Speaker 1: They're not anti wolf, right, They're trying to like do

1181
00:59:36,080 --> 00:59:39,960
Speaker 1: something that's very nuanced, you know, control in certain areas,

1182
00:59:40,480 --> 00:59:43,640
Speaker 1: open up public involvement in it, but also allow for

1183
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:48,600
Speaker 1: some managed expansion of the resource. It winds up being

1184
00:59:48,680 --> 00:59:51,160
Speaker 1: like it's like, it's not easy, No, it's it's the

1185
00:59:51,200 --> 00:59:52,840
Speaker 1: great balance question. Right where do you where do you

1186
00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:55,160
Speaker 1: draw the line to balance the situation out? If you

1187
00:59:55,200 --> 00:59:57,640
Speaker 1: try to connect the Northern Continental Divide population with the

1188
00:59:57,680 --> 01:00:01,600
Speaker 1: greater Yellowstone population, you run right up through Helena, Missoula,

1189
01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:05,760
Speaker 1: and you're running right up through the population centers of Montana.

1190
01:00:05,960 --> 01:00:09,360
Speaker 1: You know, what does that look like in in conflict terms? Um,

1191
01:00:09,440 --> 01:00:12,160
Speaker 1: I mean you're you're you're inviting additional conflict at that point.

1192
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:14,560
Speaker 1: But but there can be arguments made on the other

1193
01:00:14,600 --> 01:00:16,960
Speaker 1: side that there are there are needs for genetic diversity

1194
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:19,080
Speaker 1: and other things that must be balanced as well. This

1195
01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:22,640
Speaker 1: is ultimately the great challenge for wildlife managers forever, any

1196
01:00:22,720 --> 01:00:24,960
Speaker 1: species is is how do you find the appropriate balance

1197
01:00:25,000 --> 01:00:28,440
Speaker 1: between the resource, the user base, and the general public.

1198
01:00:29,480 --> 01:00:32,120
Speaker 1: And for those people who are just like really deep

1199
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:34,880
Speaker 1: into this, it has to be so frustrating when these

1200
01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:37,680
Speaker 1: issues come up and it winds up being like waged

1201
01:00:37,720 --> 01:00:42,400
Speaker 1: out through these kind of emotion based campaigns exactly. You

1202
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:45,240
Speaker 1: just imagine like when you've devoted your life to these

1203
01:00:45,280 --> 01:00:48,480
Speaker 1: like to balancing out these complex things, and then all

1204
01:00:48,640 --> 01:00:50,960
Speaker 1: then your life's worked as vantages. In the second it's

1205
01:00:50,960 --> 01:00:53,920
Speaker 1: alreduced down to a meme on Facebook. Well, it's it's

1206
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:55,520
Speaker 1: reduced and you look at BC, right, I mean BC

1207
01:00:55,640 --> 01:00:57,360
Speaker 1: is a great example of that. It's it's reduced down

1208
01:00:57,400 --> 01:00:58,919
Speaker 1: to the ability to get rid of a hunt because

1209
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:01,600
Speaker 1: they use the word trophy in a poll. Right, if

1210
01:01:01,600 --> 01:01:03,000
Speaker 1: you pull a question of you know, how do you

1211
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:04,920
Speaker 1: guys feel about a trophy hunt for grizzly bears? Well,

1212
01:01:04,920 --> 01:01:06,600
Speaker 1: of course people are gonna have a negative reaction to

1213
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:10,000
Speaker 1: that term. You know, people support hunting by wide margins

1214
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:12,400
Speaker 1: in the country. As you said earlier, that's regulated hunting.

1215
01:01:12,440 --> 01:01:14,440
Speaker 1: That's the idea that there is, there is a a

1216
01:01:14,520 --> 01:01:18,120
Speaker 1: state management system. People view that public public, the public

1217
01:01:18,240 --> 01:01:20,360
Speaker 1: views that differently than when you say, how do you

1218
01:01:20,440 --> 01:01:23,120
Speaker 1: feel about trophy hunting? It doesn't matter if you define

1219
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:25,240
Speaker 1: them exactly the same. They're not asking that question, They're

1220
01:01:25,240 --> 01:01:28,440
Speaker 1: just asking what's your visceral reaction to those two separate questions.

1221
01:01:28,520 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 1: The polls also gonna be are gonna be very different. Yeah, okay,

1222
01:01:33,920 --> 01:01:36,560
Speaker 1: you guys cool to move on in our thing? Are

1223
01:01:36,600 --> 01:01:44,000
Speaker 1: you still seething? I just got well. Kel loves fish.

1224
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:49,280
Speaker 1: Kel loves loves fish. Um, are you ready to move on? Yeah,

1225
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:53,400
Speaker 1: let's move on. The I just see a lot of

1226
01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:58,960
Speaker 1: these arguments are always made in this blue sky world

1227
01:01:59,080 --> 01:02:04,800
Speaker 1: where the human population does not exist. Go ahead, please,

1228
01:02:05,440 --> 01:02:08,280
Speaker 1: And it's like, well, if we just let it happen,

1229
01:02:08,360 --> 01:02:11,200
Speaker 1: it all be fine. And I just think people need

1230
01:02:11,360 --> 01:02:16,880
Speaker 1: to be reminded that we have screwed up this fishery

1231
01:02:17,200 --> 01:02:22,200
Speaker 1: for existence or for example, from where these fish spawn

1232
01:02:22,640 --> 01:02:26,240
Speaker 1: four seventy miles away all the way to where they're

1233
01:02:26,240 --> 01:02:30,080
Speaker 1: coming back into the ocean. So please keep that in

1234
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:32,560
Speaker 1: mind when we're bunking these cormorants. You're back on that.

1235
01:02:33,320 --> 01:02:39,640
Speaker 1: This is just nick. That's an example. And these guys

1236
01:02:39,720 --> 01:02:42,520
Speaker 1: were nodding in agreement. It's like the arguments get made

1237
01:02:42,840 --> 01:02:46,840
Speaker 1: as if the human population is not here and expanding, well,

1238
01:02:46,920 --> 01:02:48,960
Speaker 1: and that the other side does that though we just

1239
01:02:49,080 --> 01:02:51,080
Speaker 1: leave it alone and let nature take its course. Well,

1240
01:02:51,120 --> 01:02:53,880
Speaker 1: we can't. We manage everything from the ground up. Yes,

1241
01:02:54,080 --> 01:02:57,480
Speaker 1: and you know you got your habitat, your prey species

1242
01:02:57,520 --> 01:03:00,600
Speaker 1: and your predator species. We can't just let a grizzly

1243
01:03:00,640 --> 01:03:03,960
Speaker 1: barrel wolf run free and not manage it. I mean,

1244
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:06,000
Speaker 1: it's like Bart Simpson at all. You can eat seafood,

1245
01:03:06,040 --> 01:03:08,520
Speaker 1: but fat it's gonna go crazy and eat and keep reproducing.

1246
01:03:08,600 --> 01:03:10,960
Speaker 1: And now our praise pieces are out of whack and

1247
01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:13,160
Speaker 1: the only result that they can do is reduced tags

1248
01:03:13,200 --> 01:03:16,160
Speaker 1: to hunters, and there goes the funding for conservation. So

1249
01:03:16,400 --> 01:03:18,800
Speaker 1: it's like the other side uses that argument of hey,

1250
01:03:18,880 --> 01:03:22,400
Speaker 1: we've we've you know, just let it go. We've impacted land.

1251
01:03:22,520 --> 01:03:24,880
Speaker 1: Let them do their things. Like no, we manage everything.

1252
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:27,280
Speaker 1: I mean, we kind of passed that moment like several

1253
01:03:27,360 --> 01:03:30,760
Speaker 1: hundred years ago in some areas. Unless we're all going

1254
01:03:30,840 --> 01:03:33,920
Speaker 1: back to following the herds and uh tearing down the cities.

1255
01:03:34,640 --> 01:03:39,400
Speaker 1: You know, at some point reality has to set in here. Now,

1256
01:03:39,440 --> 01:03:45,120
Speaker 1: are you good? Uh? Callen we we if you would like,

1257
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:49,320
Speaker 1: and you can allow you to you can do allow

1258
01:03:49,360 --> 01:03:52,440
Speaker 1: you a guest opportunity, a guest hosting position, if you

1259
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:56,360
Speaker 1: would like to arrange a discussion on um. We discussed

1260
01:03:56,400 --> 01:04:00,200
Speaker 1: salmon in Alaska at length. We haven't discussed Oregon st

1261
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:03,240
Speaker 1: in California. You can arrange the whole show. All right,

1262
01:04:03,280 --> 01:04:06,880
Speaker 1: I got some good folks. It's gonna be called it's

1263
01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:09,840
Speaker 1: gonna be called monk and corner rants, the cow uh

1264
01:04:10,600 --> 01:04:13,920
Speaker 1: and moving into more in more recent time. Oh, the

1265
01:04:14,400 --> 01:04:16,000
Speaker 1: cormarant thing. If you really want to get us something,

1266
01:04:16,040 --> 01:04:19,200
Speaker 1: there's an interesting story because corm rants were e s

1267
01:04:19,280 --> 01:04:22,520
Speaker 1: a species for a while and then recovered beyond anyone's

1268
01:04:22,600 --> 01:04:28,480
Speaker 1: wildest dreams. And I think that some people still like

1269
01:04:28,560 --> 01:04:31,480
Speaker 1: aren't hip to what happened there now. I think you

1270
01:04:31,560 --> 01:04:36,280
Speaker 1: need a real tasty cormorant recipe in order to change

1271
01:04:36,320 --> 01:04:42,160
Speaker 1: that thing around. When when um let me chime in

1272
01:04:42,200 --> 01:04:45,360
Speaker 1: here from Kevin Ry please. Yeah. Water turkeys is what

1273
01:04:45,440 --> 01:04:50,120
Speaker 1: we call them back hop and they are a nuisance species. Uh.

1274
01:04:50,240 --> 01:04:55,640
Speaker 1: They have recovered in giant flocks. They destroy the remaining

1275
01:04:55,720 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 1: islands that we have out in the middle of Lake Barkley,

1276
01:04:59,640 --> 01:05:03,480
Speaker 1: which was formed by come the river uh Kentucky Lake

1277
01:05:04,120 --> 01:05:08,000
Speaker 1: Tennessee River. Uh. They have become nothing but a nuisance.

1278
01:05:08,040 --> 01:05:11,320
Speaker 1: And it's kind of sad to see an island that

1279
01:05:11,400 --> 01:05:14,040
Speaker 1: was out there with vegetation on it and now it's

1280
01:05:14,080 --> 01:05:21,160
Speaker 1: got these black dots out there with this whitewash. It's yes, yes,

1281
01:05:21,680 --> 01:05:25,400
Speaker 1: so we are fighting that issue back home to try

1282
01:05:25,520 --> 01:05:27,600
Speaker 1: to get because the fish habitat is a trollway now

1283
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:30,720
Speaker 1: and the island is washing away down to the delta.

1284
01:05:31,640 --> 01:05:34,080
Speaker 1: And one of my brother's first jobs when he was

1285
01:05:34,120 --> 01:05:39,480
Speaker 1: becoming a fisheries professional was, uh, yellow perch, we're vanishing

1286
01:05:39,600 --> 01:05:44,080
Speaker 1: from the Latianal Islands area in the northern Great Lakes.

1287
01:05:45,160 --> 01:05:48,520
Speaker 1: And they went through this big project where they were

1288
01:05:48,640 --> 01:05:55,000
Speaker 1: netting yellow perch, putting these little markers in the yellow perch,

1289
01:05:55,280 --> 01:05:57,000
Speaker 1: and you wait a period of time and then you

1290
01:05:57,120 --> 01:06:02,120
Speaker 1: go dig through cormorant scat trying to find your little

1291
01:06:02,160 --> 01:06:06,480
Speaker 1: markers to ascertain the cormorant impact on yellow perch. In

1292
01:06:06,600 --> 01:06:12,000
Speaker 1: that case, they learned that that wasn't the problem. Same

1293
01:06:12,080 --> 01:06:15,640
Speaker 1: thing in Kentucky through the League of Kentucky Sportsman the

1294
01:06:15,760 --> 01:06:18,040
Speaker 1: resolution was made to go in and do a sampling

1295
01:06:18,080 --> 01:06:20,720
Speaker 1: of the cormorants out there, and a lot of the

1296
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:25,000
Speaker 1: sports fishermen were thinking that they were impacting the sport fish.

1297
01:06:25,160 --> 01:06:28,320
Speaker 1: They found out they were eating the gizzard's cats shad

1298
01:06:29,360 --> 01:06:32,240
Speaker 1: the non game fish majority of them on there. But

1299
01:06:32,480 --> 01:06:34,520
Speaker 1: you know it's it doesn't You don't have to do

1300
01:06:34,600 --> 01:06:36,840
Speaker 1: a study to see what they've done to the islands

1301
01:06:36,880 --> 01:06:39,600
Speaker 1: after so that that that species needs to be a

1302
01:06:39,680 --> 01:06:42,440
Speaker 1: season on them. Whatever you know we can do, then

1303
01:06:42,440 --> 01:06:44,280
Speaker 1: we'll come up with some recipes after we get them

1304
01:06:44,280 --> 01:06:47,280
Speaker 1: in the in the in the hand. But like I said,

1305
01:06:47,440 --> 01:06:50,680
Speaker 1: we saw that same thing in in Kentucky just recently,

1306
01:06:50,720 --> 01:06:52,720
Speaker 1: where they get a lot of fishermen are like, uh,

1307
01:06:53,000 --> 01:06:55,200
Speaker 1: I think a lot of fishermen look at cormorants and

1308
01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:57,720
Speaker 1: river oders all the time as being like if they're

1309
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:01,680
Speaker 1: not having a good day fishing, damn cormorants. Or as

1310
01:07:01,680 --> 01:07:06,240
Speaker 1: they used to say in the up, it's coomer ants. Um. Okay,

1311
01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:15,200
Speaker 1: the lot the lion, bobcat jaguar issue. Yeah, tell this

1312
01:07:15,280 --> 01:07:18,440
Speaker 1: story because this is a new one Arizona. So, I

1313
01:07:18,480 --> 01:07:20,920
Speaker 1: mean the story is it is gonna be very familiar

1314
01:07:20,960 --> 01:07:23,040
Speaker 1: to the main black bear story, right. I mean it's

1315
01:07:23,080 --> 01:07:25,960
Speaker 1: it's a balant initiative being pushed by the mainstad United States.

1316
01:07:26,480 --> 01:07:28,760
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be in the mid term elections

1317
01:07:28,800 --> 01:07:30,120
Speaker 1: are coming up in the supposed to be on this

1318
01:07:30,200 --> 01:07:33,520
Speaker 1: falls ballots November November ballot um. That was the intention.

1319
01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:35,800
Speaker 1: They didn't qualify the issue. There. There was some stuff

1320
01:07:35,800 --> 01:07:38,080
Speaker 1: done in Arizona to help them not qualify the issue,

1321
01:07:38,520 --> 01:07:40,120
Speaker 1: but it follow the same script of fallow, the same

1322
01:07:40,480 --> 01:07:43,040
Speaker 1: same pathway. Right, they tried legislation, they weren't, weren't able

1323
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:45,520
Speaker 1: to do it. They started creating a PR campaign to

1324
01:07:45,600 --> 01:07:49,000
Speaker 1: kind of push, uh, push a ban on on these

1325
01:07:49,080 --> 01:07:52,840
Speaker 1: protected cat species, of which really the mountain lions were

1326
01:07:52,840 --> 01:07:54,920
Speaker 1: the target. Obviously the rest were either already protected or

1327
01:07:54,920 --> 01:07:57,040
Speaker 1: didn't exist in arisone of those kinds of things. Yeah,

1328
01:07:57,160 --> 01:07:59,360
Speaker 1: that's funny. So they were it was about mount like

1329
01:07:59,680 --> 01:08:01,919
Speaker 1: if you look at the early rhetoric, it was about

1330
01:08:01,960 --> 01:08:03,880
Speaker 1: mountain lions, right, Like they had the thing like the

1331
01:08:04,000 --> 01:08:06,800
Speaker 1: five most dangerous states to be a mountain lion. Yeah,

1332
01:08:07,480 --> 01:08:11,600
Speaker 1: Arizona was one of them, Colorado was one, correct, Montana, Idaho.

1333
01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:14,800
Speaker 1: And yeah, so that came on the heels of the

1334
01:08:14,800 --> 01:08:17,000
Speaker 1: cecil the lion stuff in Africa, right right on the right.

1335
01:08:17,280 --> 01:08:19,920
Speaker 1: Right after that kind of fervor died down, h s

1336
01:08:20,000 --> 01:08:22,320
Speaker 1: US released the report called the five Deadliest States from

1337
01:08:22,320 --> 01:08:24,519
Speaker 1: Mountain Lions, and they had some junk science in there

1338
01:08:24,520 --> 01:08:27,640
Speaker 1: and some stuff that just doesn't make sense, and they

1339
01:08:27,640 --> 01:08:30,400
Speaker 1: started pushing this PR campaign. We need to protect America's lion.

1340
01:08:30,479 --> 01:08:33,439
Speaker 1: They called America's lions and pardon my interruption, but Brian

1341
01:08:33,560 --> 01:08:36,439
Speaker 1: you um I pointed out that those are like the

1342
01:08:36,479 --> 01:08:39,080
Speaker 1: five stays where mountain lions are doing the best. Yeah,

1343
01:08:39,840 --> 01:08:42,360
Speaker 1: it's got the best habitat and the best harvest, so yeah,

1344
01:08:43,280 --> 01:08:45,720
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. But they again view it as

1345
01:08:46,600 --> 01:08:49,280
Speaker 1: it's the deadliest thing. Yeah, and so they flip it.

1346
01:08:49,360 --> 01:08:52,639
Speaker 1: And if you looked at their report, I'm using our quotes, um,

1347
01:08:53,439 --> 01:08:57,240
Speaker 1: it compared a ten uere harvest statistic to a one

1348
01:08:57,320 --> 01:09:00,840
Speaker 1: year population statistics. So if you're the media looking, you're like,

1349
01:09:01,000 --> 01:09:03,360
Speaker 1: oh my god, they're killing all of the lions out there,

1350
01:09:04,240 --> 01:09:07,040
Speaker 1: you know, and they, you know, America the top five

1351
01:09:07,120 --> 01:09:10,439
Speaker 1: deadly estates. As journalists and somebody who's worked in that world,

1352
01:09:11,080 --> 01:09:13,919
Speaker 1: lists are great things people love, especially for online consumption.

1353
01:09:13,960 --> 01:09:16,160
Speaker 1: So that got picked up by everybody and spread. They

1354
01:09:16,200 --> 01:09:19,320
Speaker 1: didn't include that, like, for instance, that Colorado has vastly

1355
01:09:19,360 --> 01:09:21,240
Speaker 1: more lions than ever before right now. No, no, no,

1356
01:09:21,400 --> 01:09:24,519
Speaker 1: No're not gonna include that stuff. It's just that emotional

1357
01:09:24,720 --> 01:09:27,160
Speaker 1: reason to take it away. But what was fun about

1358
01:09:27,160 --> 01:09:28,320
Speaker 1: it They were talking about mout It was like a

1359
01:09:28,360 --> 01:09:31,000
Speaker 1: mountain lion issue, but they made it like an all

1360
01:09:31,120 --> 01:09:33,680
Speaker 1: cat issue. And I think to the extra confused the

1361
01:09:33,720 --> 01:09:36,639
Speaker 1: situation is they included that it would be a ban

1362
01:09:36,840 --> 01:09:42,040
Speaker 1: on hunting or trapping for things that aren't in Arizona.

1363
01:09:42,520 --> 01:09:45,400
Speaker 1: The Canadian links. The Canadian links has never been document

1364
01:09:45,479 --> 01:09:48,679
Speaker 1: in Arizona. And they're throwing like jaguars which are federally

1365
01:09:48,720 --> 01:09:54,320
Speaker 1: protected and that are already federally protected. There's maybe it

1366
01:09:54,360 --> 01:09:58,400
Speaker 1: would I think that most people would be shocked if

1367
01:09:58,439 --> 01:10:00,760
Speaker 1: they were to learn that at this back in right now,

1368
01:10:00,920 --> 01:10:03,760
Speaker 1: there's more than I mean, ten is probably a big

1369
01:10:03,880 --> 01:10:07,640
Speaker 1: number for how many jaguars being airs, though it might

1370
01:10:07,640 --> 01:10:10,600
Speaker 1: be closer to one or two. But it's just like

1371
01:10:10,720 --> 01:10:13,240
Speaker 1: a fun little twist to put that in there. Well, yeah,

1372
01:10:13,439 --> 01:10:15,680
Speaker 1: because they can manipulate the media. Then then they can

1373
01:10:15,720 --> 01:10:18,639
Speaker 1: go after that emotional argument and say they're killing endangered,

1374
01:10:18,920 --> 01:10:20,840
Speaker 1: endangered cats. We want to stop this, you know, make

1375
01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:24,040
Speaker 1: sure protect these endangered cats, and so well yeah, okay,

1376
01:10:24,200 --> 01:10:28,120
Speaker 1: well they're already protected. But the next not even there

1377
01:10:28,160 --> 01:10:31,559
Speaker 1: at all or not even present. Well. The the unique

1378
01:10:31,680 --> 01:10:33,720
Speaker 1: unifying factor of all five of those states that are

1379
01:10:33,760 --> 01:10:37,400
Speaker 1: the five deadliest, they're all five ballot issue states. They're

1380
01:10:37,400 --> 01:10:40,760
Speaker 1: all states where they get the ability to bring a

1381
01:10:40,800 --> 01:10:42,760
Speaker 1: ballot is ship if they want. Yeah, so it's all

1382
01:10:42,840 --> 01:10:47,120
Speaker 1: five of those states are are states that that gives

1383
01:10:47,200 --> 01:10:49,479
Speaker 1: them the pathway forward to bring a ballot miship just

1384
01:10:49,520 --> 01:10:51,280
Speaker 1: like they didn't mean, I mean the way the state

1385
01:10:51,360 --> 01:10:54,320
Speaker 1: constitution set up, he gives them the ability to to

1386
01:10:54,360 --> 01:10:57,600
Speaker 1: put an issue before voters, where some states don't allow that.

1387
01:10:57,760 --> 01:11:00,439
Speaker 1: Some states don't have direct access to the ballot. So

1388
01:11:00,960 --> 01:11:06,000
Speaker 1: you feel that the the lot, like the cat hunting

1389
01:11:06,040 --> 01:11:11,439
Speaker 1: band in Arizona was an hs US led situation, though

1390
01:11:11,520 --> 01:11:14,480
Speaker 1: they didn't do it under their own name in Arizona,

1391
01:11:14,560 --> 01:11:17,000
Speaker 1: but it definitely was. I mean, we have the application

1392
01:11:17,120 --> 01:11:19,160
Speaker 1: that has their name on it with the h s

1393
01:11:19,280 --> 01:11:22,160
Speaker 1: u S email address when they registered it for the ballot.

1394
01:11:22,680 --> 01:11:26,280
Speaker 1: But what was the group they created to spearheaded Arizona's

1395
01:11:26,400 --> 01:11:32,520
Speaker 1: for those wildcats something wildcats, Arizona's for wildlife maybe wildcats,

1396
01:11:33,479 --> 01:11:35,240
Speaker 1: but that's what they do. They create a front group

1397
01:11:35,320 --> 01:11:37,960
Speaker 1: and they have their state leader, their state h s

1398
01:11:38,080 --> 01:11:41,200
Speaker 1: u S leader becomes the chairperson, and then they gather

1399
01:11:41,280 --> 01:11:43,479
Speaker 1: around that and then make it feel local and make

1400
01:11:43,520 --> 01:11:46,120
Speaker 1: it feel local. It's not I mean, they it was

1401
01:11:46,240 --> 01:11:50,920
Speaker 1: ninety eight percent of their funding was something like their

1402
01:11:50,960 --> 01:11:54,320
Speaker 1: funding was directly from Washington, d C, H, s U

1403
01:11:54,479 --> 01:11:57,760
Speaker 1: S headquarters. They just strike that pen and to get

1404
01:11:57,800 --> 01:12:01,200
Speaker 1: it on the ballots to bring it in front of

1405
01:12:01,240 --> 01:12:03,400
Speaker 1: the voters. To bring in front of the voters, you

1406
01:12:03,479 --> 01:12:07,240
Speaker 1: have to cross the thresholds signature gathering. Thresholds, Yeah, signature gathering.

1407
01:12:07,280 --> 01:12:08,800
Speaker 1: What does that look like? So in most states, there's

1408
01:12:08,800 --> 01:12:10,280
Speaker 1: two ways you can qualify an issue, right, you can

1409
01:12:10,360 --> 01:12:12,439
Speaker 1: you can convince the legislature to pass a bill by

1410
01:12:12,479 --> 01:12:14,280
Speaker 1: a wide enough margin that that will directly put it

1411
01:12:14,320 --> 01:12:16,160
Speaker 1: on the ballot. Or you can go out and collect

1412
01:12:16,200 --> 01:12:20,639
Speaker 1: signatures and meet a certain threshold of valid signatures, meaning

1413
01:12:20,720 --> 01:12:22,439
Speaker 1: the signature comes from a person who lives in that

1414
01:12:22,520 --> 01:12:25,800
Speaker 1: county or lives in that legislative district. Typically, those those

1415
01:12:26,240 --> 01:12:28,479
Speaker 1: very wildly right. You know, in Maine it was much smaller,

1416
01:12:28,520 --> 01:12:30,960
Speaker 1: too much smaller state. In Arizona, it was a hundred

1417
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:33,960
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand vallot signatures in that ballpark. So what

1418
01:12:34,040 --> 01:12:35,720
Speaker 1: you're typically looking at, as you'll see the other side,

1419
01:12:35,760 --> 01:12:37,680
Speaker 1: try to get above and beyond that, because they know

1420
01:12:37,720 --> 01:12:39,400
Speaker 1: some of those signatures are gonna be in validated. They

1421
01:12:39,400 --> 01:12:42,240
Speaker 1: won't be from actual voters that have the wrong address.

1422
01:12:42,560 --> 01:12:46,840
Speaker 1: Those kinds of things only a hundred. Yeah, yeah, it's

1423
01:12:46,880 --> 01:12:48,960
Speaker 1: it's it's it's shockingly low. And a lot of these states,

1424
01:12:49,000 --> 01:12:51,439
Speaker 1: what what what the threshold is to place a ballot

1425
01:12:52,080 --> 01:12:56,599
Speaker 1: measure before the voters, because I mean there's three millions

1426
01:12:56,640 --> 01:13:01,360
Speaker 1: on people in Phoenix, Rhenish. Huh. So what happened when?

1427
01:13:01,520 --> 01:13:03,640
Speaker 1: So they started gathering to signatures, but they didn't, they

1428
01:13:03,640 --> 01:13:06,000
Speaker 1: didn't hit the threshold. They pulled out. They didn't. They

1429
01:13:06,439 --> 01:13:08,640
Speaker 1: had some issues. I'll give a lot of credit of

1430
01:13:08,640 --> 01:13:12,320
Speaker 1: the sportsmen down there. Uh, they organized together pretty well. Um.

1431
01:13:12,600 --> 01:13:14,920
Speaker 1: They came up with a game plan to to defeat

1432
01:13:15,000 --> 01:13:17,240
Speaker 1: this thing. Uh, and they ran their game plan. They

1433
01:13:17,280 --> 01:13:19,000
Speaker 1: were successful. We went down and met with those guys

1434
01:13:19,200 --> 01:13:23,719
Speaker 1: early on before the ballot initiative was even um launched.

1435
01:13:24,240 --> 01:13:26,400
Speaker 1: Tell him, look, we were seeing the tea leaves here.

1436
01:13:26,439 --> 01:13:28,599
Speaker 1: We can see the smoke. There's a there's a fire

1437
01:13:28,760 --> 01:13:31,280
Speaker 1: coming right. You know. They've released this report, they've highlighted

1438
01:13:31,360 --> 01:13:33,200
Speaker 1: these states. If you look at the five states, we

1439
01:13:33,280 --> 01:13:35,679
Speaker 1: feel like Arizona Colorado are probably the two most likely

1440
01:13:36,479 --> 01:13:39,719
Speaker 1: targets because of Phoenix in Denver, because the Phoenix in Denver,

1441
01:13:39,840 --> 01:13:41,680
Speaker 1: because we've just gotten off the heels of winning the

1442
01:13:41,760 --> 01:13:43,960
Speaker 1: trapping issue in Montana, the ballot issue in Montana and

1443
01:13:44,360 --> 01:13:46,559
Speaker 1: fourteen so just a year after that. So we've already

1444
01:13:46,560 --> 01:13:49,040
Speaker 1: got a kind of a campaign infrastructure left up there.

1445
01:13:49,640 --> 01:13:53,719
Speaker 1: Utah has some constitutional protections against wildlife related ballot measures.

1446
01:13:54,520 --> 01:13:55,880
Speaker 1: We just looked at those kind of two states with

1447
01:13:55,920 --> 01:13:58,519
Speaker 1: the demographics shift that they've seen over the last ten

1448
01:13:58,560 --> 01:14:01,640
Speaker 1: and fifteen years, where the populations are located. You look

1449
01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:04,200
Speaker 1: at Arizona, that's a tough place to do a ballot measure.

1450
01:14:04,600 --> 01:14:07,839
Speaker 1: Seventy percent of the households in Arizona the TV households

1451
01:14:07,840 --> 01:14:10,720
Speaker 1: the viewing public, or in the Phoenix media market, you're

1452
01:14:10,760 --> 01:14:14,800
Speaker 1: playing for one media market that drives costs way up. So,

1453
01:14:15,200 --> 01:14:16,760
Speaker 1: you know, we look at these states, you can kind

1454
01:14:16,800 --> 01:14:18,599
Speaker 1: of you can kind of predict where you think they're

1455
01:14:18,600 --> 01:14:20,160
Speaker 1: the other side's gonna go. And they they're looking at

1456
01:14:20,160 --> 01:14:22,599
Speaker 1: their own data and they're looking at their own plans

1457
01:14:22,640 --> 01:14:24,720
Speaker 1: and campaign ideas and trying to figure out where they're

1458
01:14:24,720 --> 01:14:27,000
Speaker 1: gonna go. Um. But yeah, the guys down there did

1459
01:14:27,040 --> 01:14:29,280
Speaker 1: a great job. They put together a campaign plan that

1460
01:14:29,400 --> 01:14:31,960
Speaker 1: was designed to try to put up roadblock to keep

1461
01:14:32,040 --> 01:14:34,760
Speaker 1: them off the ballot. Um Ultimately, the other side didn't

1462
01:14:34,840 --> 01:14:36,960
Speaker 1: hire a signature gathering firm, they were unable to do so,

1463
01:14:37,560 --> 01:14:40,439
Speaker 1: and that that that drastically hurt their their efforts. Unable

1464
01:14:40,479 --> 01:14:42,680
Speaker 1: to do so for what reason. So there's only a

1465
01:14:42,720 --> 01:14:45,120
Speaker 1: limited number of signature gathering firms in Arizona, and and

1466
01:14:45,400 --> 01:14:47,919
Speaker 1: and the sportsmen were working with one of them already,

1467
01:14:48,120 --> 01:14:50,479
Speaker 1: and so that precluded them from working for the other side.

1468
01:14:50,720 --> 01:14:52,240
Speaker 1: And so what you're what you're dealing with them is

1469
01:14:52,280 --> 01:14:54,160
Speaker 1: you have to bring in a signature gathering firm from

1470
01:14:54,160 --> 01:14:56,920
Speaker 1: another state. And that's not unusual, right when when they

1471
01:14:57,000 --> 01:15:00,920
Speaker 1: qualified the bare issue in Maine in hs US used

1472
01:15:00,920 --> 01:15:03,000
Speaker 1: a group out of California to come up and do it.

1473
01:15:03,720 --> 01:15:06,840
Speaker 1: But in Arizona there's a little bit higher. Okay, you're

1474
01:15:06,880 --> 01:15:09,320
Speaker 1: getting stuff now that raises all kinds of questions in

1475
01:15:09,400 --> 01:15:13,000
Speaker 1: the best possible way, signature gathering firms. I mean, there

1476
01:15:13,040 --> 01:15:17,280
Speaker 1: are companies that specialize in getting legitimate signatures to move

1477
01:15:17,360 --> 01:15:19,639
Speaker 1: ballot initiatives. There's companies that make a ton of money

1478
01:15:19,680 --> 01:15:22,160
Speaker 1: doing that, just tons of money doing they just run

1479
01:15:22,240 --> 01:15:25,839
Speaker 1: the logistics. Do they run the media? No? No, typically

1480
01:15:25,880 --> 01:15:28,240
Speaker 1: not typically you see that done by other consultants. But

1481
01:15:28,280 --> 01:15:30,600
Speaker 1: typically these guys are in the business for for for

1482
01:15:30,760 --> 01:15:33,639
Speaker 1: qualifying issues. And then every state's got them guns for higher. Yep,

1483
01:15:33,880 --> 01:15:35,640
Speaker 1: they go out there and higher and you pay. Some

1484
01:15:35,720 --> 01:15:38,120
Speaker 1: states you pay by the signature. And that's the interesting

1485
01:15:38,160 --> 01:15:40,120
Speaker 1: thing in Arizona, right, So Arizona passed a law of it,

1486
01:15:40,200 --> 01:15:41,680
Speaker 1: and you no longer can pay by the signature. So

1487
01:15:41,720 --> 01:15:44,680
Speaker 1: instead of saying, you know, for every signature that you get,

1488
01:15:44,840 --> 01:15:47,000
Speaker 1: will give you a dollar, and you don't. You're not

1489
01:15:47,080 --> 01:15:49,160
Speaker 1: paying a salary, you're not paying an hourly wage. You're

1490
01:15:49,160 --> 01:15:50,960
Speaker 1: just saying for every valid signature you get, we're gonna

1491
01:15:50,960 --> 01:15:52,680
Speaker 1: give you a dollar or two dollars or whatever the

1492
01:15:52,720 --> 01:15:54,519
Speaker 1: case might be. In Arizona, you have to be an

1493
01:15:54,560 --> 01:15:58,000
Speaker 1: hourly employee, so that that creates a level of infrastructure.

1494
01:15:58,000 --> 01:16:00,400
Speaker 1: The organization has to have to be able. Who have

1495
01:16:00,600 --> 01:16:03,240
Speaker 1: those people be employees? You know, you gotta do tax forms,

1496
01:16:03,280 --> 01:16:04,880
Speaker 1: you gotta do this stuff, and you gotta have HR

1497
01:16:04,960 --> 01:16:07,519
Speaker 1: and payroll and healthcare and all all kinds of stuff. Right,

1498
01:16:08,320 --> 01:16:10,200
Speaker 1: it's a little bit different standard than a lot of states.

1499
01:16:10,200 --> 01:16:12,240
Speaker 1: The Lost States don't require you to be an hourly employee.

1500
01:16:12,680 --> 01:16:14,679
Speaker 1: So that created a little bit more of a barrier

1501
01:16:14,720 --> 01:16:17,600
Speaker 1: and reduced the number of potential firms down to just

1502
01:16:17,720 --> 01:16:21,840
Speaker 1: a handful, and so, uh, you know, my my my

1503
01:16:21,960 --> 01:16:23,960
Speaker 1: opinion is that the other side got a late start

1504
01:16:24,080 --> 01:16:26,280
Speaker 1: on actually talking to these firms, right, they thought it

1505
01:16:26,320 --> 01:16:28,120
Speaker 1: was gonna be an easier time to qualify than it was.

1506
01:16:28,800 --> 01:16:30,040
Speaker 1: They felt like they could do a better job with

1507
01:16:30,120 --> 01:16:34,320
Speaker 1: volunteers than they did. And uh, you know, one thing

1508
01:16:34,400 --> 01:16:36,479
Speaker 1: leads or another and you run out of time, and

1509
01:16:36,600 --> 01:16:39,320
Speaker 1: so they wind up having volunteers go out and set

1510
01:16:39,400 --> 01:16:41,600
Speaker 1: up out in front of the whole foods. Yep, what

1511
01:16:41,800 --> 01:16:44,000
Speaker 1: have you? Yep, I mean to pull pick them out,

1512
01:16:44,000 --> 01:16:45,720
Speaker 1: but I just know that that was the place they

1513
01:16:45,760 --> 01:16:48,200
Speaker 1: were doing signature together and the zoo and wherever else.

1514
01:16:48,840 --> 01:16:52,160
Speaker 1: And the volunteer goes out there and starts gathering signatures.

1515
01:16:52,400 --> 01:16:54,519
Speaker 1: Do you want to protect these endangered cats from being

1516
01:16:54,600 --> 01:16:58,080
Speaker 1: slaughtered by you know, cruel hunters? And how many how

1517
01:16:58,120 --> 01:17:00,519
Speaker 1: many signatures did they hit? We don't know. I don't

1518
01:17:00,520 --> 01:17:02,439
Speaker 1: know because they never submitted them, right, so they could

1519
01:17:02,439 --> 01:17:05,560
Speaker 1: have had five thousand, they could have haddo in the

1520
01:17:05,600 --> 01:17:07,960
Speaker 1: fact that they they suspended their campaign, they just believe

1521
01:17:07,960 --> 01:17:10,280
Speaker 1: they didn't have very many because they didn't even they

1522
01:17:10,280 --> 01:17:12,080
Speaker 1: didn't even submit the signatures to the state. They didn't.

1523
01:17:12,080 --> 01:17:13,960
Speaker 1: They never crossed the threshold. They didn't come back and

1524
01:17:14,000 --> 01:17:16,280
Speaker 1: say we've got, you know, ten percent more than we

1525
01:17:16,360 --> 01:17:18,599
Speaker 1: need and we didn't get enough valid It was an

1526
01:17:18,640 --> 01:17:20,280
Speaker 1: issue where they didn't have enough to even submit the

1527
01:17:20,479 --> 01:17:22,880
Speaker 1: minimum threshold. So every single signature that they had was

1528
01:17:23,000 --> 01:17:25,640
Speaker 1: valid signature and they gave to the state. You have

1529
01:17:25,680 --> 01:17:28,439
Speaker 1: to hit on a percent to get the issue qualified.

1530
01:17:28,840 --> 01:17:30,439
Speaker 1: It wasn't even that they didn't have enough to even

1531
01:17:30,439 --> 01:17:33,960
Speaker 1: submit the base level signatures. How could how in the

1532
01:17:34,040 --> 01:17:39,600
Speaker 1: case of Arizona, how we're sportsmen? How are you? How

1533
01:17:39,640 --> 01:17:42,040
Speaker 1: do you battle that? Because there's nothing to battle yet.

1534
01:17:42,120 --> 01:17:43,640
Speaker 1: It's just like all they're doing is that they they

1535
01:17:43,720 --> 01:17:46,400
Speaker 1: have people out getting signatures. Are you playing like a

1536
01:17:47,479 --> 01:17:50,760
Speaker 1: like a like a pr game to game these one

1537
01:17:51,120 --> 01:17:54,080
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand people that they need to sure there's

1538
01:17:54,080 --> 01:17:57,240
Speaker 1: there's different methods, there's different um tactics you can use. Right,

1539
01:17:57,240 --> 01:18:01,040
Speaker 1: Obviously there's the main method which was main as the state,

1540
01:18:01,640 --> 01:18:04,040
Speaker 1: which is is a campaign you're planning or you're basically

1541
01:18:04,080 --> 01:18:06,480
Speaker 1: raising a bunch of money to fund a TV advertising

1542
01:18:06,560 --> 01:18:09,679
Speaker 1: campaign that because you know the issue is going to qualify,

1543
01:18:10,000 --> 01:18:12,640
Speaker 1: saying don't sign well, no, in Maine, it was it

1544
01:18:12,720 --> 01:18:15,519
Speaker 1: was don't vote for it. In Arizona, Arizona, what they

1545
01:18:15,560 --> 01:18:17,800
Speaker 1: went for was they declined to sign campaign. Right, So

1546
01:18:17,840 --> 01:18:19,600
Speaker 1: they did a bunch of PR around the idea of

1547
01:18:19,720 --> 01:18:22,719
Speaker 1: don't sign this thing. It's not what it is pretended

1548
01:18:23,240 --> 01:18:25,560
Speaker 1: portrayed to be. It's an outside group from d C,

1549
01:18:25,960 --> 01:18:28,439
Speaker 1: it's not a local Arizona group. So they did a

1550
01:18:28,479 --> 01:18:30,040
Speaker 1: bunch of PR stuff like that. Do you think that

1551
01:18:30,120 --> 01:18:32,519
Speaker 1: was effective? It can be, It can be. It's certainly

1552
01:18:32,800 --> 01:18:36,479
Speaker 1: um because it seems that thresholds so low. Yeah, the

1553
01:18:36,840 --> 01:18:39,839
Speaker 1: d thousand vote threshold is so low that you wouldn't

1554
01:18:41,080 --> 01:18:43,840
Speaker 1: that that you would get it from just that you'd

1555
01:18:43,880 --> 01:18:47,160
Speaker 1: find like the you'd have enough like radical fringe people

1556
01:18:47,200 --> 01:18:50,240
Speaker 1: to account for the Sure. Yeah, you know, I think

1557
01:18:50,280 --> 01:18:52,320
Speaker 1: it was successful this time. You know, there's some other

1558
01:18:52,360 --> 01:18:53,840
Speaker 1: stuff in there, like like I said, with the paid

1559
01:18:53,920 --> 01:18:55,840
Speaker 1: sign gathering issues and some of the other things that

1560
01:18:55,960 --> 01:18:57,920
Speaker 1: campaign tried to do, and the h s US had

1561
01:18:57,960 --> 01:19:02,000
Speaker 1: a sex games. Let's not forget the internal turmoil they

1562
01:19:02,080 --> 01:19:04,960
Speaker 1: had right at this time. You know, right around Christmas

1563
01:19:05,040 --> 01:19:08,400
Speaker 1: first of the year, they had Wayne Poselli get get

1564
01:19:08,479 --> 01:19:10,920
Speaker 1: caught up in the Me too movement and the sexual harassment,

1565
01:19:11,040 --> 01:19:13,000
Speaker 1: and that's the last thing you want on a PR

1566
01:19:13,080 --> 01:19:14,880
Speaker 1: campaign as you're trying to go out there and do

1567
01:19:15,000 --> 01:19:17,560
Speaker 1: this when the other side can start pointing back and diverting,

1568
01:19:18,160 --> 01:19:21,280
Speaker 1: you know. But something to think about is right about

1569
01:19:21,320 --> 01:19:25,160
Speaker 1: that time, they stroked a five dollar check for the campaign.

1570
01:19:25,280 --> 01:19:29,120
Speaker 1: So they've suspended this campaign, but it's still structurally there

1571
01:19:29,560 --> 01:19:31,280
Speaker 1: with almost a half a million dollars in it, if

1572
01:19:31,320 --> 01:19:36,120
Speaker 1: they can reignite it any time. So it's plausible. I mean,

1573
01:19:36,160 --> 01:19:39,000
Speaker 1: we'll never know what really have it's plausible that they

1574
01:19:39,120 --> 01:19:43,360
Speaker 1: hit up against the sexual scandal. I just had to

1575
01:19:44,360 --> 01:19:49,120
Speaker 1: pull rain everybody and we group try again later. Yeah,

1576
01:19:49,200 --> 01:19:51,360
Speaker 1: when you come back with you with a longer timeline

1577
01:19:51,360 --> 01:19:53,639
Speaker 1: to get the signatures gathering done, you get you get

1578
01:19:53,680 --> 01:19:55,559
Speaker 1: a firm lined up, you know, you do the stuff

1579
01:19:55,600 --> 01:19:58,240
Speaker 1: up front. It's it's a it's a short term victory.

1580
01:19:58,280 --> 01:20:00,160
Speaker 1: It's a good victory. We shouldn't be literally eyed deal

1581
01:20:00,200 --> 01:20:01,519
Speaker 1: that they were able to keep him off the ballot

1582
01:20:01,560 --> 01:20:04,120
Speaker 1: this year. But the question now it turns to what

1583
01:20:04,200 --> 01:20:06,120
Speaker 1: does the future look like, What does it look like

1584
01:20:06,200 --> 01:20:09,360
Speaker 1: in twenty two if they come back, What are we

1585
01:20:09,400 --> 01:20:10,880
Speaker 1: going to do to stop them a second time? If

1586
01:20:10,920 --> 01:20:12,800
Speaker 1: they have a longer timeline, if they decided to throw

1587
01:20:12,840 --> 01:20:15,000
Speaker 1: instead of five dollars at it, or if they throw

1588
01:20:15,040 --> 01:20:17,560
Speaker 1: two million dollars at the qualification effort, you know, what

1589
01:20:17,640 --> 01:20:20,280
Speaker 1: are we going to do in the meantime to protect

1590
01:20:20,360 --> 01:20:24,040
Speaker 1: ourselves against that future attack? And that's what hurts us

1591
01:20:24,080 --> 01:20:26,320
Speaker 1: as hunters a lot. Is I mean, they're a hundred

1592
01:20:26,320 --> 01:20:29,200
Speaker 1: and fifty million dollar organization. They can stroke that check,

1593
01:20:29,280 --> 01:20:32,120
Speaker 1: no problem, it's not a big deal. And our boots

1594
01:20:32,160 --> 01:20:35,120
Speaker 1: on the ground in individual states were all kind of fragmented,

1595
01:20:35,360 --> 01:20:38,280
Speaker 1: and for you know, one state group of hunters to

1596
01:20:38,360 --> 01:20:41,400
Speaker 1: come up with one or two million dollars on a

1597
01:20:41,600 --> 01:20:45,439
Speaker 1: short period of time, it's tough deal. And that's where

1598
01:20:45,479 --> 01:20:47,679
Speaker 1: they're taking this as the ballot and the money fight.

1599
01:20:48,280 --> 01:20:50,680
Speaker 1: And they've got it because they've got grannies throwing ten

1600
01:20:50,760 --> 01:20:54,320
Speaker 1: dollars checks at them for saving puppies that they're not saving.

1601
01:20:54,720 --> 01:20:56,880
Speaker 1: You know, to use main as the example, right, I

1602
01:20:56,960 --> 01:20:59,800
Speaker 1: mean we just talked about it. That came up once,

1603
01:21:00,640 --> 01:21:04,320
Speaker 1: then incubated a little bit longer, came up again, Um,

1604
01:21:05,640 --> 01:21:09,479
Speaker 1: the Arizona example. So I mean, what is I mean?

1605
01:21:09,600 --> 01:21:15,400
Speaker 1: Is there uh educational campaign going on in the interim

1606
01:21:15,560 --> 01:21:19,840
Speaker 1: or two, you know, both on the public and on

1607
01:21:19,880 --> 01:21:23,040
Speaker 1: the hunting side of things, or how does that play out?

1608
01:21:23,840 --> 01:21:28,000
Speaker 1: Because if this sitting in the bank way and drop in,

1609
01:21:28,240 --> 01:21:31,920
Speaker 1: what what is the proactive said of this from the

1610
01:21:32,080 --> 01:21:34,799
Speaker 1: sportsman's angle? So there's a lot of stuff you can do. Obviously,

1611
01:21:34,880 --> 01:21:36,880
Speaker 1: the pr side of it's important, you know, having that

1612
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:39,760
Speaker 1: messaging out there talking to the general public about you know,

1613
01:21:40,160 --> 01:21:42,479
Speaker 1: why these species need to be managed, why the appropriate

1614
01:21:42,560 --> 01:21:45,920
Speaker 1: management is done by the state wildlife agency. Um, you know,

1615
01:21:45,960 --> 01:21:48,280
Speaker 1: a lot of it is is a reactionary game though, right,

1616
01:21:48,360 --> 01:21:50,679
Speaker 1: that's the that's the great challenge of an organization like ours.

1617
01:21:51,080 --> 01:21:52,240
Speaker 1: We don't know what the issue is going to be

1618
01:21:52,280 --> 01:21:53,960
Speaker 1: next year that we're gonna work on. I can give

1619
01:21:53,960 --> 01:21:55,280
Speaker 1: you a pretty good idea of what I think the

1620
01:21:55,320 --> 01:21:58,280
Speaker 1: fights are coming. The other side really really controls the

1621
01:21:58,320 --> 01:22:00,920
Speaker 1: agenda in a lot of regards. Right, they get to

1622
01:22:00,960 --> 01:22:03,960
Speaker 1: decide where and when they launched these attacks. So it

1623
01:22:04,080 --> 01:22:06,519
Speaker 1: might not be it might not be Arizona next time.

1624
01:22:06,560 --> 01:22:09,240
Speaker 1: It might be Colorado, it might be Denver. You know,

1625
01:22:09,280 --> 01:22:11,320
Speaker 1: they might decide to go up and and launch our

1626
01:22:11,360 --> 01:22:13,600
Speaker 1: campaign there. They might do both states at once. You know,

1627
01:22:13,640 --> 01:22:16,160
Speaker 1: we don't we don't really know that. So from our side,

1628
01:22:16,160 --> 01:22:18,439
Speaker 1: it's it's really tough to kind of project and predict.

1629
01:22:19,200 --> 01:22:20,760
Speaker 1: You know, well, if you just do X, Y and

1630
01:22:20,920 --> 01:22:23,360
Speaker 1: Z for the next year, you'll be fine in Arizona. Well,

1631
01:22:23,400 --> 01:22:25,360
Speaker 1: they might not come back to Arizona. It might be

1632
01:22:25,439 --> 01:22:28,040
Speaker 1: ten years before they come back to Arizona. But what

1633
01:22:28,160 --> 01:22:31,360
Speaker 1: the next attack might be in in Colorado and buy

1634
01:22:31,400 --> 01:22:34,040
Speaker 1: in large sportsmen don't like to think about these issues,

1635
01:22:34,160 --> 01:22:36,559
Speaker 1: right absolutely. We just want to be out there hunting, fishing,

1636
01:22:36,600 --> 01:22:39,280
Speaker 1: doing our thing. But this stuff pops up. We get

1637
01:22:39,360 --> 01:22:43,360
Speaker 1: motivated when the boogeyman's there, but if immediate threats, but

1638
01:22:43,439 --> 01:22:46,680
Speaker 1: if they're gone, all right, good. When's deer season coming up?

1639
01:22:46,920 --> 01:22:49,200
Speaker 1: We got a hundred days. Cool, you've been shooting, how's

1640
01:22:49,200 --> 01:22:51,320
Speaker 1: it going? You know? That's we forget about these things

1641
01:22:51,360 --> 01:22:53,639
Speaker 1: and move on. And it's a bigger issue in the industry.

1642
01:22:53,760 --> 01:22:55,920
Speaker 1: We're talking about it. You know. Right after Cecil there

1643
01:22:56,000 --> 01:22:59,240
Speaker 1: was a lot of different people brought together to talk

1644
01:22:59,280 --> 01:23:01,639
Speaker 1: about how to be proactive and keep the next ceasel

1645
01:23:01,680 --> 01:23:04,439
Speaker 1: the line from happening. And this goes back to our

1646
01:23:04,479 --> 01:23:09,599
Speaker 1: messaging is how do you run an education campaign someplace?

1647
01:23:09,680 --> 01:23:11,599
Speaker 1: I mean, the messaging we get into in a ballot

1648
01:23:11,640 --> 01:23:15,000
Speaker 1: initiative is very specific trapping on public lands in Montana,

1649
01:23:15,280 --> 01:23:16,880
Speaker 1: and what's going to move the needle there? How do

1650
01:23:16,920 --> 01:23:20,439
Speaker 1: you apply that to hunting in general across the nation?

1651
01:23:21,280 --> 01:23:24,080
Speaker 1: I mean, and you don't know what which attack and

1652
01:23:24,840 --> 01:23:27,679
Speaker 1: it's going to be. Is it predators, is it prey animals?

1653
01:23:28,120 --> 01:23:31,040
Speaker 1: What's it going to be. It's a great it's a

1654
01:23:31,080 --> 01:23:33,679
Speaker 1: great point, right because you can you can public opinion

1655
01:23:33,760 --> 01:23:35,800
Speaker 1: poll people and ask them who do you believe should

1656
01:23:35,840 --> 01:23:39,439
Speaker 1: be the primary managers of wildlife? And overwhelmingly people will

1657
01:23:39,439 --> 01:23:41,360
Speaker 1: tell you the state Wildlife Agency they should make the

1658
01:23:41,400 --> 01:23:43,760
Speaker 1: decisions on seasons and bag limits. In this kind of thing, right,

1659
01:23:44,400 --> 01:23:45,760
Speaker 1: you can also ask them do you want to ban

1660
01:23:46,240 --> 01:23:49,679
Speaker 1: black bear hunting over bait? And they'll tell you overwhelming yes.

1661
01:23:49,840 --> 01:23:52,160
Speaker 1: In their mind, they separate the two issues. Right. You

1662
01:23:52,200 --> 01:23:54,160
Speaker 1: can ask them those questions back to back and you'll

1663
01:23:54,160 --> 01:23:57,479
Speaker 1: see a disparag a disparity between the two answers. And

1664
01:23:57,560 --> 01:24:02,840
Speaker 1: so general education general you know, uh, general campaigns that

1665
01:24:02,960 --> 01:24:05,599
Speaker 1: just just espouse the benefits of hunting and and talk

1666
01:24:05,680 --> 01:24:08,200
Speaker 1: about the you know, the benefits to wildlife into populations

1667
01:24:08,200 --> 01:24:10,080
Speaker 1: and all this kind of thing. Certainly that there's a

1668
01:24:10,120 --> 01:24:11,840
Speaker 1: help there, how do you quantify what that help is?

1669
01:24:11,880 --> 01:24:13,800
Speaker 1: When it comes down to a specific balt initiative, it's

1670
01:24:13,920 --> 01:24:17,320
Speaker 1: much more difficult to do that. And then hunters have

1671
01:24:17,439 --> 01:24:22,960
Speaker 1: a tendency to be really provincial. Where you tend to

1672
01:24:23,080 --> 01:24:27,080
Speaker 1: view m say, you hunt. Hunters tend to view what

1673
01:24:27,520 --> 01:24:31,360
Speaker 1: they do in their act what like how they hunt,

1674
01:24:32,160 --> 01:24:37,400
Speaker 1: where they hunt, as the acceptable norm, and they don't

1675
01:24:37,479 --> 01:24:43,559
Speaker 1: really view themselves as being players in a large national picture.

1676
01:24:44,479 --> 01:24:46,960
Speaker 1: Hunting is very regional, it's very cultural. It's very different, right.

1677
01:24:47,000 --> 01:24:48,800
Speaker 1: You used the example a few episodes ago of of

1678
01:24:48,920 --> 01:24:52,240
Speaker 1: the deer dog hunters in the South. The guy runs

1679
01:24:52,240 --> 01:24:53,599
Speaker 1: through the woods up here with a pack of dogs

1680
01:24:53,640 --> 01:24:56,000
Speaker 1: after some deer. It's gonna get some shots by a

1681
01:24:56,040 --> 01:24:58,599
Speaker 1: deer hunter. You'll be shot by a deer hunter. Yeah,

1682
01:24:59,200 --> 01:25:01,479
Speaker 1: but that's the culture. Well, norm Donna, that's that's the practice.

1683
01:25:01,479 --> 01:25:03,280
Speaker 1: That's the way they've always done it. And so those,

1684
01:25:03,600 --> 01:25:06,000
Speaker 1: I mean just a few states over those those those

1685
01:25:06,080 --> 01:25:08,400
Speaker 1: cultures can shift greatly. And so you're trying and we

1686
01:25:08,439 --> 01:25:10,960
Speaker 1: talk about fourteen million hunters or twelve million hunters is

1687
01:25:11,000 --> 01:25:13,680
Speaker 1: a collective group, but it's a collective group of of

1688
01:25:13,880 --> 01:25:17,960
Speaker 1: of of individual practices and individual cultures and individual you know,

1689
01:25:18,080 --> 01:25:21,360
Speaker 1: morals and ethics and and and and heritages. That's I

1690
01:25:21,439 --> 01:25:25,080
Speaker 1: think it's like, it's well, it almost I was gonna

1691
01:25:25,120 --> 01:25:27,559
Speaker 1: make a point, but I'm gonna also then talk about

1692
01:25:27,600 --> 01:25:30,240
Speaker 1: why my points not really it doesn't really matter. What

1693
01:25:30,320 --> 01:25:31,800
Speaker 1: I was gonna say is if you look at like

1694
01:25:31,920 --> 01:25:35,040
Speaker 1: a Wisconsin deer hunter. Okay, so he's in he's in

1695
01:25:35,160 --> 01:25:39,040
Speaker 1: part of a traditional use practice hunting Wisconsin where he's

1696
01:25:39,040 --> 01:25:40,800
Speaker 1: sitting in the ground blind in the corner of a

1697
01:25:40,920 --> 01:25:43,320
Speaker 1: field on the back forty and he hears about, oh,

1698
01:25:43,360 --> 01:25:48,559
Speaker 1: they're gonna ban the use of dogs for hunting deer

1699
01:25:49,080 --> 01:25:52,760
Speaker 1: down in South Carolina. It's hard to get that guy

1700
01:25:52,840 --> 01:25:55,200
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin to be like, man, I should probably pay

1701
01:25:55,240 --> 01:25:59,000
Speaker 1: attention to this because this is a broader thing that

1702
01:25:59,240 --> 01:26:05,080
Speaker 1: will in lifetime come around to involve me. Um. It's

1703
01:26:05,120 --> 01:26:06,800
Speaker 1: hard to get him to feel it. But it's also

1704
01:26:06,920 --> 01:26:10,240
Speaker 1: hard to get him to be effective if he if

1705
01:26:10,280 --> 01:26:12,840
Speaker 1: he does feel it, because these things are playing out

1706
01:26:13,680 --> 01:26:16,840
Speaker 1: on the state level. But then you have a group

1707
01:26:16,920 --> 01:26:19,040
Speaker 1: like the h s U S, which is this national

1708
01:26:19,120 --> 01:26:21,720
Speaker 1: organization base in d C. But they are going out

1709
01:26:22,640 --> 01:26:26,240
Speaker 1: and fighting these little fights a little localized particular fights.

1710
01:26:26,280 --> 01:26:31,040
Speaker 1: So it's almost like hunters, fishermen, trappers need to become

1711
01:26:31,120 --> 01:26:35,680
Speaker 1: more interested in like gaming on the national scale and

1712
01:26:35,800 --> 01:26:40,439
Speaker 1: being more proactive in view and take the same approach,

1713
01:26:41,160 --> 01:26:46,280
Speaker 1: right that we're gonna wage small isolated, small isolated fights

1714
01:26:46,320 --> 01:26:48,479
Speaker 1: in support of this bigger thing that we're involved in

1715
01:26:49,400 --> 01:26:51,280
Speaker 1: in our own local way. So I'll have view it

1716
01:26:51,439 --> 01:26:53,880
Speaker 1: like this, Right, you have to find and this is

1717
01:26:54,000 --> 01:26:55,680
Speaker 1: this is the struggle for us as an organization to

1718
01:26:55,760 --> 01:26:57,639
Speaker 1: grow and to find those members who care enough because

1719
01:26:57,640 --> 01:26:59,280
Speaker 1: you're talking about somebody you have to you have to

1720
01:26:59,360 --> 01:27:01,519
Speaker 1: have them believe even the greater good because they're not

1721
01:27:01,560 --> 01:27:03,800
Speaker 1: going to have an issue in their backyard every single year.

1722
01:27:04,280 --> 01:27:05,360
Speaker 1: You know, if you if you have a hunter in

1723
01:27:05,439 --> 01:27:08,920
Speaker 1: California versus a hunter in Texas, you think one's gonna

1724
01:27:08,920 --> 01:27:11,560
Speaker 1: be more concerned about the Anian hunting community than the other. Absolutely,

1725
01:27:12,080 --> 01:27:14,320
Speaker 1: So how do you convince that deer hunter from Texas

1726
01:27:14,400 --> 01:27:16,720
Speaker 1: to care about a black bear issue in Maine? You know,

1727
01:27:16,880 --> 01:27:19,479
Speaker 1: these these issues, these transcend state lines. You know that

1728
01:27:19,520 --> 01:27:21,360
Speaker 1: you've got to go fight the battles where the battles are,

1729
01:27:22,040 --> 01:27:25,000
Speaker 1: otherwise their battles gonna show up in your backyard pretty soon. Yeah,

1730
01:27:25,000 --> 01:27:27,360
Speaker 1: Like a guy in Texas sends money to the Sportsman's

1731
01:27:27,360 --> 01:27:29,360
Speaker 1: Alliance and he looks at ward that morning gets spent

1732
01:27:29,560 --> 01:27:32,080
Speaker 1: probably not getting spent in texts, not not not that often,

1733
01:27:32,240 --> 01:27:34,320
Speaker 1: you know. But that's that's the issue, right. I mean,

1734
01:27:34,479 --> 01:27:36,080
Speaker 1: you either have to fight the battles where they are

1735
01:27:36,120 --> 01:27:39,960
Speaker 1: today or or they're gonna show up here eventually. You

1736
01:27:40,040 --> 01:27:42,479
Speaker 1: see these things spread, right, You've seen you've seen trapping

1737
01:27:42,520 --> 01:27:45,240
Speaker 1: issues spread. You've seen the bear issue spread. You've seen

1738
01:27:45,280 --> 01:27:48,439
Speaker 1: the application of the these ese es a policy spread.

1739
01:27:49,000 --> 01:27:50,680
Speaker 1: You know, if you don't take them on when they

1740
01:27:50,760 --> 01:27:52,840
Speaker 1: come up, you're just you're just opening the door for

1741
01:27:53,080 --> 01:27:55,720
Speaker 1: for issues ten fift twenty years down the road. You

1742
01:27:55,760 --> 01:27:58,040
Speaker 1: guys bring this up a lot in your publications, is

1743
01:27:58,120 --> 01:28:01,839
Speaker 1: that once they win one win, it just sets the precedent,

1744
01:28:02,640 --> 01:28:04,519
Speaker 1: and so they just go into everywhere and going to look,

1745
01:28:05,160 --> 01:28:08,360
Speaker 1: we want here on this, but you know these reasons

1746
01:28:08,439 --> 01:28:12,160
Speaker 1: in Maine, So why would you decide any differently? And yeah,

1747
01:28:12,160 --> 01:28:15,000
Speaker 1: it's a springboard. It's opportunity to points that you guys

1748
01:28:15,000 --> 01:28:16,880
Speaker 1: aren't doing as well as they are. You need to

1749
01:28:16,960 --> 01:28:19,120
Speaker 1: raise your standards, you have to do better, and you

1750
01:28:19,200 --> 01:28:20,760
Speaker 1: play one side off against the other. And we know

1751
01:28:20,840 --> 01:28:24,360
Speaker 1: the wildlife management is vastly different from from from Montana

1752
01:28:24,479 --> 01:28:28,160
Speaker 1: to Florida. There's vastly different issues, vastly different challenges. But

1753
01:28:28,240 --> 01:28:29,679
Speaker 1: for them, they're going to point them and say they're

1754
01:28:29,680 --> 01:28:32,840
Speaker 1: not they're not they're not comfortable. Yeah, that's why the

1755
01:28:33,200 --> 01:28:38,320
Speaker 1: heritage argument for me, I always cringe when it comes up, because, man,

1756
01:28:38,640 --> 01:28:41,200
Speaker 1: there's nobody in this room that couldn't shoot a lot

1757
01:28:41,280 --> 01:28:45,080
Speaker 1: of holes through heritage arguing up, Um, I see all

1758
01:28:45,160 --> 01:28:48,240
Speaker 1: the holes in it. But also it also means something

1759
01:28:48,320 --> 01:28:52,680
Speaker 1: to me. It does because you are a hunters were

1760
01:28:52,880 --> 01:28:58,479
Speaker 1: talking to hunters, right, Yeah, we can get hunters when

1761
01:28:58,520 --> 01:29:02,919
Speaker 1: that threat is immediate to jump on and get active

1762
01:29:03,800 --> 01:29:05,880
Speaker 1: a lot of the times. But you know, it's it's

1763
01:29:06,120 --> 01:29:09,559
Speaker 1: to me the management side of things, you know, pumping

1764
01:29:09,680 --> 01:29:15,439
Speaker 1: up our biologists and look at the science is the win.

1765
01:29:16,479 --> 01:29:19,040
Speaker 1: But you know, how do you make that sexy enough

1766
01:29:19,160 --> 01:29:21,720
Speaker 1: for people to come out and say, yeah, that is

1767
01:29:22,720 --> 01:29:25,640
Speaker 1: this is what makes more sense than yeah, I think.

1768
01:29:25,720 --> 01:29:28,959
Speaker 1: Unfortunately it's not always possible. It's not always possible to sexify.

1769
01:29:29,080 --> 01:29:34,120
Speaker 1: Is that it works to sit to sexify wildlife the

1770
01:29:34,200 --> 01:29:37,400
Speaker 1: complexities of wildlife management Okay, I got two more questions

1771
01:29:37,439 --> 01:29:47,880
Speaker 1: for you guys. Um One, how do you weigh out Okay,

1772
01:29:48,560 --> 01:29:52,840
Speaker 1: you're defending hunting, trapping, fishing practices, but how do you

1773
01:29:52,960 --> 01:29:58,680
Speaker 1: weigh out what might seem to be a restriction? Um,

1774
01:29:58,840 --> 01:30:00,800
Speaker 1: how do you weigh out like where it's coming from?

1775
01:30:01,800 --> 01:30:04,559
Speaker 1: And for instance, in your newsletter, there's a sum up

1776
01:30:04,640 --> 01:30:07,599
Speaker 1: of legal activities going on, and you had a sum

1777
01:30:07,760 --> 01:30:13,200
Speaker 1: up of what state? Well, um, um, yeah, some of

1778
01:30:13,439 --> 01:30:18,559
Speaker 1: in Minnesota, for instance, where there's a bill that would

1779
01:30:18,600 --> 01:30:23,080
Speaker 1: expand the definition of a muzzleloader to include a scope. Okay,

1780
01:30:25,800 --> 01:30:28,120
Speaker 1: And someone might look and be like, okay, great, because

1781
01:30:28,160 --> 01:30:34,320
Speaker 1: that's like I don't know, it's it's like increasing efficacy

1782
01:30:34,760 --> 01:30:38,880
Speaker 1: of muzzleloaders, which one might proceed to be good for

1783
01:30:39,000 --> 01:30:42,040
Speaker 1: hunters because it increases efficacy and lets you do a

1784
01:30:42,080 --> 01:30:44,880
Speaker 1: better job. But we know in the case of when

1785
01:30:44,960 --> 01:30:48,000
Speaker 1: state started to adopt muzzleloader seasons, there was an add

1786
01:30:48,080 --> 01:30:52,800
Speaker 1: on season, so it was a way to increase opportunity

1787
01:30:52,960 --> 01:30:54,960
Speaker 1: for hunters to be out in the field. What was

1788
01:30:55,120 --> 01:30:58,880
Speaker 1: interesting about muzzleloaders they have low efficacy, so you could

1789
01:30:58,880 --> 01:31:01,400
Speaker 1: have your general fire arm season where you're gonna kill

1790
01:31:01,439 --> 01:31:03,519
Speaker 1: the vast majority of of the deer that you're gonna kill.

1791
01:31:03,800 --> 01:31:05,720
Speaker 1: But then you could have these add on ten day,

1792
01:31:05,960 --> 01:31:09,240
Speaker 1: two week, three week muzzloader seasons. And because of the weather,

1793
01:31:10,240 --> 01:31:12,880
Speaker 1: because of the difficulty of using muzzleloaders, you knew that

1794
01:31:12,960 --> 01:31:15,120
Speaker 1: it wasn't going to be a great additive sense and

1795
01:31:15,160 --> 01:31:18,280
Speaker 1: dear mortality, So you could increase opportunity for people who

1796
01:31:18,360 --> 01:31:19,880
Speaker 1: want them to go hunt. I think it's been more

1797
01:31:19,960 --> 01:31:22,640
Speaker 1: time in the woods. Everyone's a winner. It's not going

1798
01:31:22,720 --> 01:31:26,800
Speaker 1: to have a dramatic effect on your deer herd, right,

1799
01:31:27,720 --> 01:31:30,080
Speaker 1: So that's what gave us muzzloder seasons. So when we

1800
01:31:30,160 --> 01:31:33,080
Speaker 1: look when a group comes in and says when the

1801
01:31:33,120 --> 01:31:35,360
Speaker 1: state agency comes in and defines a musload in a

1802
01:31:35,400 --> 01:31:38,920
Speaker 1: particular way to have low efficacy, and then someone wants

1803
01:31:38,960 --> 01:31:40,080
Speaker 1: to move to be like, well, I want to put

1804
01:31:40,120 --> 01:31:43,320
Speaker 1: a scope on top of mine. How how do you

1805
01:31:43,400 --> 01:31:46,240
Speaker 1: weigh it out? Because you might view it as being well,

1806
01:31:46,360 --> 01:31:50,080
Speaker 1: that's an unnecessary regulation, that's like big brother telling you

1807
01:31:50,160 --> 01:31:51,800
Speaker 1: how to hunt. But it might be like, well, the

1808
01:31:51,840 --> 01:31:54,479
Speaker 1: reason we can have a muzzleloader season is because they

1809
01:31:54,560 --> 01:31:58,600
Speaker 1: have low efficacy, and if you increase the efficacy through technology,

1810
01:31:59,160 --> 01:32:02,920
Speaker 1: you're negating the reason of having the muzzleloader season. But

1811
01:32:03,040 --> 01:32:04,960
Speaker 1: it seems to be in your newsletter, You're you feel

1812
01:32:05,000 --> 01:32:06,040
Speaker 1: that this is a good thing to be able to

1813
01:32:06,040 --> 01:32:08,519
Speaker 1: add a scope to a muzzleloader. So how do you

1814
01:32:08,560 --> 01:32:10,280
Speaker 1: weigh that out? Because this is not coming from the

1815
01:32:10,320 --> 01:32:12,960
Speaker 1: animal right This isn't like an animal rights community issue.

1816
01:32:13,000 --> 01:32:15,280
Speaker 1: This is a game management issue. Well, it's certainly much

1817
01:32:15,320 --> 01:32:18,080
Speaker 1: more clear cut when it is an animal rights issue, right,

1818
01:32:18,160 --> 01:32:19,880
Speaker 1: So when when it when it is a state issue

1819
01:32:20,000 --> 01:32:21,800
Speaker 1: like this, you typically look to the sportsman in the

1820
01:32:21,840 --> 01:32:25,160
Speaker 1: state to educate them and let them advocate for themselves.

1821
01:32:25,479 --> 01:32:27,759
Speaker 1: But you've you've hit on the important kind of distinction

1822
01:32:27,840 --> 01:32:29,960
Speaker 1: here is that, Yeah, there's the balance on the on

1823
01:32:30,040 --> 01:32:31,960
Speaker 1: the biological side, which the state is going to look

1824
01:32:32,000 --> 01:32:34,759
Speaker 1: at anyways when it manages dear herds and and tries

1825
01:32:34,840 --> 01:32:38,360
Speaker 1: to project what that will do to the increase the

1826
01:32:38,520 --> 01:32:41,680
Speaker 1: take during the muzzleloader season. But what else does it

1827
01:32:41,720 --> 01:32:43,200
Speaker 1: do on the opportunity side. You know, we've got a

1828
01:32:43,240 --> 01:32:46,320
Speaker 1: declining hunting population in this country. It's an endemic problem

1829
01:32:46,400 --> 01:32:49,720
Speaker 1: that we've been dealing with for for multiple decades now, um,

1830
01:32:50,120 --> 01:32:51,759
Speaker 1: you know, and so you have to kind of balance

1831
01:32:51,800 --> 01:32:54,640
Speaker 1: the idea of opportunity and access with the idea of

1832
01:32:55,280 --> 01:32:56,880
Speaker 1: you know, are we are we using a season that

1833
01:32:56,960 --> 01:32:59,519
Speaker 1: was originally intended for for maybe something a little bit

1834
01:32:59,560 --> 01:33:01,960
Speaker 1: different than is used for now? Are we going to

1835
01:33:02,080 --> 01:33:04,120
Speaker 1: change that by by putting a scope on a muzzleloader?

1836
01:33:04,479 --> 01:33:06,000
Speaker 1: I don't know there's a clear answer to it, right,

1837
01:33:06,000 --> 01:33:07,479
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know that there's you know, you

1838
01:33:07,520 --> 01:33:09,439
Speaker 1: can draw a clear line in the sand. You know,

1839
01:33:09,520 --> 01:33:12,360
Speaker 1: for us as an organization, we tend not to delve

1840
01:33:12,400 --> 01:33:15,120
Speaker 1: too deeply into those issues, right Yeah, yeah, I don't.

1841
01:33:15,120 --> 01:33:18,519
Speaker 1: I don't mean, yeah, I should be fair there that

1842
01:33:18,760 --> 01:33:22,360
Speaker 1: this is not a marquee issue for you, right right, Well,

1843
01:33:22,400 --> 01:33:23,760
Speaker 1: it's like I mean, you know, it's it's it's like

1844
01:33:23,840 --> 01:33:26,280
Speaker 1: the debate over bows and crossbows and whether crossbows should

1845
01:33:26,280 --> 01:33:28,400
Speaker 1: be in in the traditional archery season, you know, bow

1846
01:33:28,479 --> 01:33:30,240
Speaker 1: seasons or where that you have their own season where

1847
01:33:30,240 --> 01:33:33,040
Speaker 1: they should be with firearms for us, I feel, but

1848
01:33:33,120 --> 01:33:36,240
Speaker 1: that debate, I feel is a hunter debate, Like that

1849
01:33:36,400 --> 01:33:38,080
Speaker 1: debate is being carried out by hunters, is not being

1850
01:33:38,080 --> 01:33:42,920
Speaker 1: carried out by hunters versus an often not right? Absolutely right?

1851
01:33:43,040 --> 01:33:45,160
Speaker 1: So do you weigh in on those issues where it's

1852
01:33:45,240 --> 01:33:48,519
Speaker 1: hunters debating something? No, not typically right, because we're a

1853
01:33:48,560 --> 01:33:50,800
Speaker 1: small organization. We're a lean organization. We don't have a

1854
01:33:50,880 --> 01:33:53,240
Speaker 1: huge staff, right, We're one of the smaller organizations in

1855
01:33:53,280 --> 01:33:54,960
Speaker 1: the conservation space. You know, you look at some of

1856
01:33:55,000 --> 01:33:57,280
Speaker 1: these groups, Army f and Turkey Federation, all these guys

1857
01:33:57,360 --> 01:34:00,040
Speaker 1: we partner with do great work, but they're mass of

1858
01:34:00,160 --> 01:34:02,840
Speaker 1: organizations compared to ours. So for us, you know, we

1859
01:34:02,960 --> 01:34:05,000
Speaker 1: have we have to fight the fights that are our

1860
01:34:05,160 --> 01:34:07,200
Speaker 1: our core to our mission. Our mission is to protect

1861
01:34:07,479 --> 01:34:10,040
Speaker 1: you know, hunters from the anti hunting and animal rights

1862
01:34:10,160 --> 01:34:13,200
Speaker 1: movement um. You know, so certainly where where you have

1863
01:34:13,360 --> 01:34:18,679
Speaker 1: hunters united in in unison on an issue muzzle loaders

1864
01:34:18,760 --> 01:34:20,600
Speaker 1: or cross bows or whatever the case might be in

1865
01:34:20,640 --> 01:34:22,799
Speaker 1: the state, we might be able to find some support

1866
01:34:22,840 --> 01:34:26,040
Speaker 1: to that issue. We're typically not getting into the sportsman

1867
01:34:26,120 --> 01:34:28,680
Speaker 1: versus sportsman debate on these things because we just don't

1868
01:34:28,720 --> 01:34:30,720
Speaker 1: have the bandwidth, you know. We we we we have

1869
01:34:30,800 --> 01:34:32,880
Speaker 1: our hands full with with these lawsuits, with these ballot

1870
01:34:32,920 --> 01:34:35,200
Speaker 1: measures and these legislative issues in the States. And if

1871
01:34:35,240 --> 01:34:36,880
Speaker 1: we could get to the point where we we got

1872
01:34:36,920 --> 01:34:38,920
Speaker 1: done dealing with all the animal rights and anti hunting crap,

1873
01:34:39,000 --> 01:34:40,200
Speaker 1: and yeah, we might be able to work on some

1874
01:34:40,280 --> 01:34:43,639
Speaker 1: other stuff like that, because I also a view too,

1875
01:34:43,680 --> 01:34:49,920
Speaker 1: like issues around technology. Okay, so issues around trail cam use,

1876
01:34:50,200 --> 01:34:52,560
Speaker 1: Like is it to the point where we need to

1877
01:34:52,920 --> 01:34:57,559
Speaker 1: where where hunters would decide among themselves that we need

1878
01:34:57,600 --> 01:34:59,960
Speaker 1: to get a grip on trail cam use, or hunter

1879
01:35:00,080 --> 01:35:03,120
Speaker 1: would decide among themselves that we need to get out

1880
01:35:03,120 --> 01:35:07,120
Speaker 1: ahead of drone use. Right. I feel that those like

1881
01:35:07,479 --> 01:35:13,400
Speaker 1: that those debates are should enjoy like some kind of

1882
01:35:13,439 --> 01:35:15,840
Speaker 1: like sanctity, or they should be allowed to play out

1883
01:35:15,880 --> 01:35:19,400
Speaker 1: in some sort of natural way rather than rather than

1884
01:35:19,520 --> 01:35:22,000
Speaker 1: teeing them up or framing them up in sort of

1885
01:35:22,040 --> 01:35:25,639
Speaker 1: this anti rolling him into this sort of like anti

1886
01:35:25,760 --> 01:35:28,519
Speaker 1: hunting conversation. Because I think that there are times we're

1887
01:35:28,520 --> 01:35:32,320
Speaker 1: gonna come up with where we're gonna be self limiting

1888
01:35:34,000 --> 01:35:39,360
Speaker 1: technologies in advancement of like the betterment of wildlife in general. Right,

1889
01:35:39,400 --> 01:35:41,400
Speaker 1: And we might make those decisions and someone on the

1890
01:35:41,479 --> 01:35:45,600
Speaker 1: outside of it like, oh, that's an infringement on a

1891
01:35:45,720 --> 01:35:48,800
Speaker 1: hunter's ability to conduct his business, or that's you dictating

1892
01:35:48,840 --> 01:35:51,040
Speaker 1: how a hunter should go. But we're already doing it. Anyways.

1893
01:35:51,080 --> 01:35:53,200
Speaker 1: We decided a long time ago not to fish with dynamite,

1894
01:35:53,880 --> 01:35:55,720
Speaker 1: so at the time we decided that we're not going

1895
01:35:55,760 --> 01:35:59,640
Speaker 1: to fish with dynamite anymore. With dynamite, I don't know

1896
01:35:59,680 --> 01:36:04,560
Speaker 1: if that don't adult using hunt guns. Well, at the

1897
01:36:04,640 --> 01:36:06,439
Speaker 1: end of the day, it comes down to management, right,

1898
01:36:06,560 --> 01:36:10,599
Speaker 1: So when we're kind of in these things, our position

1899
01:36:10,800 --> 01:36:12,479
Speaker 1: as an organization is leave it in the hands of

1900
01:36:12,520 --> 01:36:15,439
Speaker 1: the biologist. Give him his tool chest, let him have it.

1901
01:36:15,520 --> 01:36:17,680
Speaker 1: Don't take trapping away, don't take baiting away, don't take

1902
01:36:17,680 --> 01:36:20,160
Speaker 1: dogs away, don't do this, let him have it. If

1903
01:36:20,200 --> 01:36:24,479
Speaker 1: the biologists say, hey, we can't sustain this with you know,

1904
01:36:24,600 --> 01:36:27,200
Speaker 1: the dog harvest, we're going to limit this, or bait

1905
01:36:27,439 --> 01:36:30,639
Speaker 1: is being too effective, or having scopes on this, leave

1906
01:36:30,680 --> 01:36:33,760
Speaker 1: it up to those individual biologists in those regions to

1907
01:36:33,880 --> 01:36:36,320
Speaker 1: do it. Give them their full tools, though we're trying

1908
01:36:36,320 --> 01:36:39,080
Speaker 1: to keep the animal rights movement from taking those tools away. Yeah,

1909
01:36:39,080 --> 01:36:41,280
Speaker 1: that that's a that's a you did a much better

1910
01:36:41,400 --> 01:36:43,840
Speaker 1: job of expressing what I'm what I'm trying to say

1911
01:36:43,920 --> 01:36:46,200
Speaker 1: that I do. But yeah, it's um, it's sort of

1912
01:36:46,240 --> 01:36:51,160
Speaker 1: like looking at where's the what are the motivations, what

1913
01:36:51,280 --> 01:36:55,439
Speaker 1: are the motivations of who's you know, providing this idea,

1914
01:36:55,760 --> 01:36:59,599
Speaker 1: Like for instance, it's Montana has never had bear hunting.

1915
01:36:59,640 --> 01:37:03,040
Speaker 1: For how they've never had bear hunting with bait that

1916
01:37:03,120 --> 01:37:05,720
Speaker 1: didn't come from the animal rights movement, that came from

1917
01:37:05,880 --> 01:37:09,120
Speaker 1: just traditional use practices in a deep legacy in that state.

1918
01:37:09,360 --> 01:37:11,280
Speaker 1: I would imagine that you don't look there and think

1919
01:37:11,320 --> 01:37:13,960
Speaker 1: that they're making a mistake, Right, It's just like a

1920
01:37:14,080 --> 01:37:18,040
Speaker 1: thing that's always been they have, they have a successful

1921
01:37:18,080 --> 01:37:21,879
Speaker 1: bear program, and it's just how it is in that state, right, Yeah, absolutely,

1922
01:37:21,880 --> 01:37:23,640
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's that's where the managers come in

1923
01:37:23,720 --> 01:37:25,880
Speaker 1: and make those decisions, and and and that gets back

1924
01:37:25,880 --> 01:37:28,120
Speaker 1: to the idea that that wildlife management decisions are are

1925
01:37:28,240 --> 01:37:31,639
Speaker 1: wildly local too, right. You know, it can vary wildly

1926
01:37:31,760 --> 01:37:35,280
Speaker 1: from from you know, from the hell and of Valley

1927
01:37:35,280 --> 01:37:38,240
Speaker 1: of Montana down to the Bitter Root, right. You know

1928
01:37:38,320 --> 01:37:39,920
Speaker 1: that you get over and Ida, how you get over

1929
01:37:39,960 --> 01:37:42,599
Speaker 1: into Washington State. There are different cultures, there's different practices,

1930
01:37:42,640 --> 01:37:45,880
Speaker 1: there's different heritages. And then you think about going from

1931
01:37:45,880 --> 01:37:48,080
Speaker 1: Alaska to Florida or from Maine to California. I mean

1932
01:37:48,200 --> 01:37:52,200
Speaker 1: you're talking about vastly different habitats, vastly different cultures. Yeah,

1933
01:37:52,240 --> 01:37:56,320
Speaker 1: there can definitely be differences there, and you just use

1934
01:37:56,400 --> 01:38:00,920
Speaker 1: that like that toolkit idea that management tools, um. And

1935
01:38:01,000 --> 01:38:03,920
Speaker 1: that's notthing with this this like very hotly debated federal

1936
01:38:03,960 --> 01:38:09,000
Speaker 1: preserve thing in Alaska where Alaska has state authority to

1937
01:38:09,160 --> 01:38:12,720
Speaker 1: use certain management practices where they see fit, and then

1938
01:38:14,040 --> 01:38:16,080
Speaker 1: the federal government comes in and says we're going to

1939
01:38:16,200 --> 01:38:20,080
Speaker 1: remove certain tools that you have access to on specific

1940
01:38:20,280 --> 01:38:24,240
Speaker 1: pieces of land, and in the public telling of this,

1941
01:38:24,479 --> 01:38:27,080
Speaker 1: they would act as though these practices are rampant, when

1942
01:38:27,120 --> 01:38:30,160
Speaker 1: in fact the state usually decides not even to use

1943
01:38:30,240 --> 01:38:33,240
Speaker 1: the tool anyway. Yeah. Yeah, the thing, the whole Alaska

1944
01:38:33,600 --> 01:38:38,679
Speaker 1: preserves and uh refuge stuff. If you watch a hs

1945
01:38:38,800 --> 01:38:41,400
Speaker 1: US Center for Biological Diversity and all these guys blow

1946
01:38:41,439 --> 01:38:44,160
Speaker 1: it up, it makes it sound like everybody is hired

1947
01:38:44,160 --> 01:38:49,160
Speaker 1: a plane. We're shooting, shooting grizzlies from plane into dens

1948
01:38:49,200 --> 01:38:52,640
Speaker 1: and gasing them. All. All of these things were extreme

1949
01:38:53,280 --> 01:38:57,800
Speaker 1: management techniques for the state biologists to use in case

1950
01:38:57,880 --> 01:39:00,439
Speaker 1: they needed it, and often indigenous groups and in and

1951
01:39:00,520 --> 01:39:04,800
Speaker 1: in and some of the indigenous stuff. Um. But from

1952
01:39:04,840 --> 01:39:10,360
Speaker 1: the state side. One one wolf and the pups were

1953
01:39:10,439 --> 01:39:13,280
Speaker 1: killed in like two thousand nine used it once they

1954
01:39:13,360 --> 01:39:16,800
Speaker 1: killed they killed the adult wolves, found the den that

1955
01:39:16,920 --> 01:39:18,760
Speaker 1: had pups in it and because they were in a

1956
01:39:18,880 --> 01:39:22,920
Speaker 1: high I can't remember which disease it was area, they

1957
01:39:22,960 --> 01:39:24,880
Speaker 1: had to kill the pups. They couldn't take the pups

1958
01:39:24,880 --> 01:39:26,759
Speaker 1: and relocate them or put them in a zoo or anything.

1959
01:39:26,800 --> 01:39:28,720
Speaker 1: It was distemper I think it was, and so they

1960
01:39:28,720 --> 01:39:31,400
Speaker 1: had to kill him. That's the one time these tactics

1961
01:39:31,439 --> 01:39:34,160
Speaker 1: have been used. And H. S U S and CBD

1962
01:39:34,320 --> 01:39:37,120
Speaker 1: and everybody else blew it up, like sportsmen go up

1963
01:39:37,160 --> 01:39:40,040
Speaker 1: there and you know, are drinking bear and shooting out

1964
01:39:40,080 --> 01:39:42,080
Speaker 1: of a plane and crawling in dens with them and

1965
01:39:42,280 --> 01:39:44,400
Speaker 1: which is strangling pups and stuff. And I know, if

1966
01:39:44,560 --> 01:39:47,840
Speaker 1: I have hunted extensively in Alaska, I know quite I

1967
01:39:47,960 --> 01:39:53,160
Speaker 1: have never heard of uh someone using the contested practice

1968
01:39:53,200 --> 01:39:55,240
Speaker 1: of fact when it came like like that, you can

1969
01:39:55,320 --> 01:39:58,920
Speaker 1: kill a swimming caribou most places you cannot. I think

1970
01:39:58,960 --> 01:40:01,840
Speaker 1: there's two gay there's two portions of there's portions of

1971
01:40:01,920 --> 01:40:05,479
Speaker 1: two game management units north of the Brooks Range, where

1972
01:40:05,520 --> 01:40:11,519
Speaker 1: it's a traditional practice with Indigenous Alaskans to head off

1973
01:40:11,720 --> 01:40:15,960
Speaker 1: caribou at pinch points where they are crossing rivers. They've

1974
01:40:16,000 --> 01:40:19,640
Speaker 1: hunted them that way for probably thousands of years, and

1975
01:40:20,240 --> 01:40:23,479
Speaker 1: but they sell it like, oh, now, um, that's going

1976
01:40:23,520 --> 01:40:25,120
Speaker 1: to be going on here when it's a tool kit,

1977
01:40:25,200 --> 01:40:28,280
Speaker 1: like the state of Alaska has has the ability to

1978
01:40:28,520 --> 01:40:31,759
Speaker 1: open up that method of take, which they have chosen

1979
01:40:33,360 --> 01:40:37,040
Speaker 1: not to do across about of the state and there's

1980
01:40:37,040 --> 01:40:38,760
Speaker 1: a couple of places where they allow it because of

1981
01:40:38,800 --> 01:40:41,240
Speaker 1: traditional use practices, and most of the way it's sold

1982
01:40:41,320 --> 01:40:44,000
Speaker 1: in the media in the media is that there's this

1983
01:40:44,200 --> 01:40:48,080
Speaker 1: last little bastion where you cannot shoot swimming caribou from

1984
01:40:48,120 --> 01:40:49,760
Speaker 1: a boat. So it goes back to our message and

1985
01:40:49,800 --> 01:40:52,200
Speaker 1: messenger that we were talking about. That's exactly what they're doing.

1986
01:40:52,200 --> 01:40:54,320
Speaker 1: They're spinning it and spinning the pr and they get

1987
01:40:54,439 --> 01:40:57,160
Speaker 1: a lot because emotional arguments and emotional things were great

1988
01:40:57,200 --> 01:41:00,040
Speaker 1: in the press. They get a lot of example of

1989
01:41:00,600 --> 01:41:04,040
Speaker 1: the way this information came out could have been delivered

1990
01:41:04,120 --> 01:41:06,559
Speaker 1: in a hell of a lot better way with much

1991
01:41:06,640 --> 01:41:11,000
Speaker 1: better context, where yeah, we could have been delivered in

1992
01:41:11,040 --> 01:41:14,760
Speaker 1: a way to where the other side what wouldn't be

1993
01:41:14,840 --> 01:41:16,600
Speaker 1: able to take that information and run with it the

1994
01:41:16,640 --> 01:41:18,800
Speaker 1: way they have Because I'm getting this question all the

1995
01:41:18,880 --> 01:41:22,560
Speaker 1: time too, and well, yeah, well they're good at what

1996
01:41:22,640 --> 01:41:24,800
Speaker 1: they do, Yeah they are. And they have a ton

1997
01:41:24,880 --> 01:41:27,880
Speaker 1: of money and they have a ton of media connections

1998
01:41:28,000 --> 01:41:29,360
Speaker 1: and so they can put this out there, and once

1999
01:41:29,400 --> 01:41:30,840
Speaker 1: it's out, it takes off. I mean, you watch it

2000
01:41:30,880 --> 01:41:33,639
Speaker 1: go viral, and it's hard for us to turn around

2001
01:41:33,680 --> 01:41:36,400
Speaker 1: and flip that, you know, like what do we say? Well,

2002
01:41:36,439 --> 01:41:41,200
Speaker 1: you know, NBC ran probably the worst article about the

2003
01:41:41,280 --> 01:41:44,040
Speaker 1: story and then corrected. I think it was because of

2004
01:41:44,080 --> 01:41:47,400
Speaker 1: this digital radio program when and uh, which is I'm

2005
01:41:47,479 --> 01:41:51,320
Speaker 1: joking uh, And then did and then did a some

2006
01:41:51,479 --> 01:41:58,000
Speaker 1: weeks later, did a very sophisticated, very sophisticated follow up

2007
01:41:58,040 --> 01:42:00,400
Speaker 1: at it. And I was like, I was in pressing

2008
01:42:00,479 --> 01:42:02,320
Speaker 1: that that was a good article and that's about as

2009
01:42:02,360 --> 01:42:04,400
Speaker 1: balanced as we're gonna be able to get as a

2010
01:42:04,479 --> 01:42:07,920
Speaker 1: hunting community. The first even threw in like Bacon and Dona.

2011
01:42:08,880 --> 01:42:10,240
Speaker 1: It was just like they tried to act like and

2012
01:42:10,280 --> 01:42:13,720
Speaker 1: they tried to tie it into wild stuff. So just

2013
01:42:13,840 --> 01:42:16,320
Speaker 1: act like it was it was a war on predators, right.

2014
01:42:16,439 --> 01:42:18,040
Speaker 1: And then they filed up and did a thing where

2015
01:42:18,040 --> 01:42:20,760
Speaker 1: they went and actually like looked at where the practices

2016
01:42:20,800 --> 01:42:22,720
Speaker 1: are used, how they're u as an explanation of the

2017
01:42:22,800 --> 01:42:26,639
Speaker 1: management tools. Well, it's a very complex issue, more complex

2018
01:42:26,680 --> 01:42:28,640
Speaker 1: than management the lower forty eight even because you're dealing with,

2019
01:42:28,920 --> 01:42:32,080
Speaker 1: like you said, indigenous and subsistence use, which is spelled

2020
01:42:32,080 --> 01:42:34,439
Speaker 1: out in state law is there's, there's, there's there are

2021
01:42:34,439 --> 01:42:38,080
Speaker 1: different parts of Alaska's entry to the to the Union

2022
01:42:38,600 --> 01:42:40,320
Speaker 1: that it's spelled out some of these things that that

2023
01:42:40,720 --> 01:42:43,960
Speaker 1: commerce has ratified. Right, the Statehooded Act provides for a

2024
01:42:44,040 --> 01:42:48,320
Speaker 1: sustained use, a sustained yield policy. There you have a

2025
01:42:48,400 --> 01:42:51,439
Speaker 1: nilka out there that also has these these these these

2026
01:42:51,640 --> 01:42:54,400
Speaker 1: in roads that that allow for certain practices to take place,

2027
01:42:54,840 --> 01:42:56,920
Speaker 1: and the state is is supposed to manage wildlife to

2028
01:42:57,000 --> 01:43:00,240
Speaker 1: allow for those subsistence hunters. And so you comp can't

2029
01:43:00,280 --> 01:43:02,240
Speaker 1: the issue of just trying to understand what are the

2030
01:43:02,280 --> 01:43:04,439
Speaker 1: practices that we're talking about, and then what did the

2031
01:43:04,520 --> 01:43:08,200
Speaker 1: Obama administration do to change the long running practice? You know,

2032
01:43:08,280 --> 01:43:10,200
Speaker 1: this is this is a great idea of the toolbox, right,

2033
01:43:10,400 --> 01:43:12,320
Speaker 1: the state of Alaska had these tools in their toolbox

2034
01:43:12,400 --> 01:43:16,240
Speaker 1: up until when the Obama administration changed and stripped it away,

2035
01:43:16,320 --> 01:43:19,120
Speaker 1: and they were mostly never happening, that's right, never, that's right.

2036
01:43:19,600 --> 01:43:22,240
Speaker 1: And so it was it was a vast federal overreach

2037
01:43:22,280 --> 01:43:24,200
Speaker 1: in terms of the federal government for the first time

2038
01:43:24,760 --> 01:43:26,840
Speaker 1: in this instance, saying we're going to sever the tie

2039
01:43:26,880 --> 01:43:29,920
Speaker 1: between the state management of the species on federal lands

2040
01:43:30,160 --> 01:43:31,320
Speaker 1: and we're gonna take that back and say, you know,

2041
01:43:31,400 --> 01:43:34,439
Speaker 1: we just don't like those practices. Those practices are just tasteful,

2042
01:43:34,439 --> 01:43:36,960
Speaker 1: and you're not allowed to do them anymore. These are

2043
01:43:37,000 --> 01:43:39,160
Speaker 1: practices that have been reserved even though they're still able

2044
01:43:39,200 --> 01:43:42,400
Speaker 1: to do of the state that's right, and they're able

2045
01:43:42,439 --> 01:43:46,439
Speaker 1: to but are generally not doing the practices of the

2046
01:43:46,520 --> 01:43:48,600
Speaker 1: state that's right. And so the biggest issue for us,

2047
01:43:48,640 --> 01:43:50,479
Speaker 1: the reason why we sued over that whole issue, the

2048
01:43:50,479 --> 01:43:53,000
Speaker 1: reason why we petitioned the Department of Interior to undo

2049
01:43:53,120 --> 01:43:57,040
Speaker 1: the rule and they've started that process, was in doing so,

2050
01:43:57,240 --> 01:43:59,800
Speaker 1: they vastly changed the definition of pragator management. Right. There's

2051
01:43:59,800 --> 01:44:01,320
Speaker 1: a lot of comes down to the predator management side

2052
01:44:01,320 --> 01:44:03,040
Speaker 1: of things, whether or not you can hunt wolves in

2053
01:44:03,080 --> 01:44:05,720
Speaker 1: the summer, whether or not you can hunt bears over bait,

2054
01:44:05,920 --> 01:44:07,880
Speaker 1: or like you said, the cariboo issue where they're swimming

2055
01:44:07,920 --> 01:44:10,240
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Um, But the predator side is

2056
01:44:10,240 --> 01:44:12,519
Speaker 1: the big one because they change the definition definition of

2057
01:44:12,600 --> 01:44:16,040
Speaker 1: predator management in their rule, and they changed the way

2058
01:44:16,080 --> 01:44:18,760
Speaker 1: it was applied. Right before the state talked about these

2059
01:44:18,800 --> 01:44:22,160
Speaker 1: intensive predator management issues, right, those things that a lot

2060
01:44:22,160 --> 01:44:25,160
Speaker 1: of folks are gonna find troubling in the media. But

2061
01:44:25,240 --> 01:44:26,720
Speaker 1: it's not just the idea that you're gonna go out

2062
01:44:26,720 --> 01:44:28,880
Speaker 1: there and take a bearer, take a wolf. But they

2063
01:44:28,960 --> 01:44:31,360
Speaker 1: expanded that to mean that any time, any time you

2064
01:44:31,560 --> 01:44:36,320
Speaker 1: change the rules that could be viewed as an expansion

2065
01:44:36,360 --> 01:44:38,920
Speaker 1: of predator management, that's in violation of federal rule. Now,

2066
01:44:39,120 --> 01:44:41,400
Speaker 1: and you can't do it. So what what in essence,

2067
01:44:41,439 --> 01:44:43,519
Speaker 1: and this is a silly example, but if the Board

2068
01:44:43,560 --> 01:44:45,000
Speaker 1: of Game in Alaska said, all of a sudden, you

2069
01:44:45,000 --> 01:44:47,599
Speaker 1: know what, we're gonna extend the summer wolf hunting season

2070
01:44:47,680 --> 01:44:50,960
Speaker 1: by one minute one minute, now, you're in violation of

2071
01:44:51,000 --> 01:44:54,280
Speaker 1: federal That's that's how hamstrong they would be. You couldn't

2072
01:44:54,360 --> 01:44:58,519
Speaker 1: change anything that would have an impact on expanding predator management.

2073
01:44:59,280 --> 01:45:01,840
Speaker 1: And so you're seeing these things. You know, it's it's

2074
01:45:01,880 --> 01:45:04,599
Speaker 1: also important to to understand that, you know, yeah, three

2075
01:45:04,640 --> 01:45:06,840
Speaker 1: percent of the state. If if that's the number, you

2076
01:45:07,000 --> 01:45:10,000
Speaker 1: can already do these practices on But you're talking about

2077
01:45:10,080 --> 01:45:12,160
Speaker 1: this was Fish and Wildlife Service land, and this was

2078
01:45:12,200 --> 01:45:15,640
Speaker 1: Park Service preserve land. It's ninety seven million acres. If

2079
01:45:15,680 --> 01:45:17,400
Speaker 1: that were a state would be the fourth largest state

2080
01:45:17,439 --> 01:45:19,840
Speaker 1: in the country just it would be bigger than Montana's

2081
01:45:20,280 --> 01:45:23,000
Speaker 1: express it. I mean, it's a huge, huge, vast area

2082
01:45:23,040 --> 01:45:25,840
Speaker 1: of land that we're talking about here, and you're really

2083
01:45:25,880 --> 01:45:28,040
Speaker 1: talking about the idea of them and why the lower

2084
01:45:28,120 --> 01:45:29,960
Speaker 1: forty eight guys should care because you have the federal

2085
01:45:29,960 --> 01:45:31,960
Speaker 1: government stepping in and saying, you know what, state, we

2086
01:45:32,040 --> 01:45:34,240
Speaker 1: got this. No longer you're you're no longer in charge

2087
01:45:34,280 --> 01:45:36,760
Speaker 1: of management. We're gonna take it over. We're gonna we're

2088
01:45:36,800 --> 01:45:38,720
Speaker 1: gonna do what we think is right. But in the

2089
01:45:38,800 --> 01:45:41,400
Speaker 1: case of Alaska, it's we're gonna take it over without

2090
01:45:41,439 --> 01:45:44,479
Speaker 1: being able to demonstrate you that you're doing something wrong. Yeah, yeah,

2091
01:45:44,880 --> 01:45:48,920
Speaker 1: well you can't. You can't point to they weren't able

2092
01:45:48,960 --> 01:45:51,760
Speaker 1: to point to a mismanagement. They weren't able to point

2093
01:45:51,800 --> 01:45:55,760
Speaker 1: to a collapsing population. There was like nothing to back

2094
01:45:55,800 --> 01:45:57,599
Speaker 1: it up. I could see if some if a state

2095
01:45:57,800 --> 01:46:01,160
Speaker 1: had some policy that was run some species into the

2096
01:46:01,280 --> 01:46:03,799
Speaker 1: ground or driving them toward an e s A listing.

2097
01:46:04,120 --> 01:46:06,840
Speaker 1: But and here you have a state that like really

2098
01:46:06,840 --> 01:46:08,240
Speaker 1: the only here you have a state where they have

2099
01:46:08,640 --> 01:46:13,599
Speaker 1: uh wolves and grizzlies on whatever percent of historic range

2100
01:46:14,000 --> 01:46:16,360
Speaker 1: so it's like an absence of a problem, you're creating

2101
01:46:16,400 --> 01:46:19,479
Speaker 1: an oversight issue. Be like coming into a problem, like

2102
01:46:19,560 --> 01:46:21,560
Speaker 1: coming in like I've I've expressed it support it be

2103
01:46:21,600 --> 01:46:23,080
Speaker 1: like coming into a city where there's not like a

2104
01:46:23,160 --> 01:46:26,400
Speaker 1: high incident of traffic accidents. They have like pretty safe

2105
01:46:26,439 --> 01:46:28,760
Speaker 1: traffic record, it's in line with everything else. But you

2106
01:46:28,800 --> 01:46:30,760
Speaker 1: come and say, like, you know what, if your road

2107
01:46:30,880 --> 01:46:33,920
Speaker 1: passes a federal building, I want you to change all

2108
01:46:34,040 --> 01:46:37,519
Speaker 1: of the traffic laws. They're kind of arbitrarily, but just

2109
01:46:37,600 --> 01:46:39,280
Speaker 1: because that's how I would like to see it happen.

2110
01:46:39,800 --> 01:46:42,280
Speaker 1: And and it's your responsibility to manage that and go

2111
01:46:42,400 --> 01:46:45,400
Speaker 1: and make that clear, not that there's a problem. The

2112
01:46:45,439 --> 01:46:47,920
Speaker 1: funny part about all this, and that's a fantastic point.

2113
01:46:48,080 --> 01:46:50,320
Speaker 1: The funny part about this is in the environmental assessment

2114
01:46:50,320 --> 01:46:52,840
Speaker 1: that the federal government did, they actually, and i'll read

2115
01:46:52,880 --> 01:46:55,840
Speaker 1: this to you, they actually admit that this policy could

2116
01:46:55,920 --> 01:46:59,200
Speaker 1: cause extra pation of certain species under some conditions and

2117
01:46:59,280 --> 01:47:01,880
Speaker 1: in some location. This may include either predator prey or

2118
01:47:01,960 --> 01:47:05,080
Speaker 1: both populations declining to a point that they are below

2119
01:47:05,160 --> 01:47:08,680
Speaker 1: the threshold for detection through current monitoring techniques, or they

2120
01:47:08,760 --> 01:47:12,000
Speaker 1: may actually become locally extrapated. They're actually admitting that that

2121
01:47:12,120 --> 01:47:14,880
Speaker 1: policy of changing the predator management stuff could cause some

2122
01:47:15,680 --> 01:47:20,080
Speaker 1: prey species to become extrapated. Yeah, like you would probably

2123
01:47:20,200 --> 01:47:24,720
Speaker 1: see with trying to recover desert reopening an old one,

2124
01:47:25,520 --> 01:47:29,080
Speaker 1: trying to recover desert big horns in Arizona. If you

2125
01:47:29,280 --> 01:47:32,679
Speaker 1: lost the if you lost the lion hunting management tool,

2126
01:47:32,960 --> 01:47:36,200
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be kissing goodbye. Or if you lost

2127
01:47:36,240 --> 01:47:40,479
Speaker 1: water causlers, absolutely you're like you're kissing goodbye little isolated

2128
01:47:40,520 --> 01:47:43,040
Speaker 1: desert big horn population. So are you for a wild

2129
01:47:43,120 --> 01:47:49,599
Speaker 1: life or not? Exactly? Because all right, my last question, um,

2130
01:47:50,479 --> 01:47:51,840
Speaker 1: are you know the answers? I want to put it

2131
01:47:51,880 --> 01:47:57,000
Speaker 1: out there. Is there a potential truce? Okay, let's say

2132
01:47:58,080 --> 01:48:00,800
Speaker 1: get rid of bear hunting. Let's say hunters come to

2133
01:48:00,840 --> 01:48:03,720
Speaker 1: the table. We're like, hey, we'll make a deal. We'll

2134
01:48:03,760 --> 01:48:08,760
Speaker 1: quick hunting bears, quit trapping beavers. We're cool. Right, that's

2135
01:48:08,800 --> 01:48:10,680
Speaker 1: the end of everything. But that's the end of that's

2136
01:48:10,680 --> 01:48:12,519
Speaker 1: the end of this whole thing. Right, let's shake on it.

2137
01:48:14,000 --> 01:48:15,960
Speaker 1: Is there a truce to be made? No, we lose

2138
01:48:16,160 --> 01:48:18,120
Speaker 1: what are the only side giving anything up? You know

2139
01:48:18,280 --> 01:48:20,840
Speaker 1: it can't be a truce when when you know you're

2140
01:48:20,840 --> 01:48:22,960
Speaker 1: gonna say, well, let's just let's have a compromise. Right,

2141
01:48:23,200 --> 01:48:25,200
Speaker 1: Instead of the ten things I want to do, we're

2142
01:48:25,240 --> 01:48:27,240
Speaker 1: just gonna do five them. We're gonna fay on five methods. Well,

2143
01:48:27,240 --> 01:48:30,160
Speaker 1: we've lost that. Now you can't get that back. The

2144
01:48:30,200 --> 01:48:33,240
Speaker 1: truce to them is that there's no more hunting. Like

2145
01:48:33,360 --> 01:48:35,840
Speaker 1: that's where this is headed. Yeah, what what do we

2146
01:48:35,920 --> 01:48:37,559
Speaker 1: get out of that? I mean, you know, we're basically

2147
01:48:37,600 --> 01:48:40,280
Speaker 1: negotiating against ourselves. And that's the that's the great challenge here.

2148
01:48:41,400 --> 01:48:44,040
Speaker 1: We have to win every time. They only have to

2149
01:48:44,040 --> 01:48:46,000
Speaker 1: win once. The they win one out of ten every

2150
01:48:46,080 --> 01:48:48,200
Speaker 1: ten issues they put out there, they're still moving the

2151
01:48:48,200 --> 01:48:50,200
Speaker 1: ball down the field. You know, it's just death by

2152
01:48:50,240 --> 01:48:52,760
Speaker 1: a thousand cuts approach. They're gonna try stuff all over

2153
01:48:52,760 --> 01:48:54,519
Speaker 1: the place and they're gonna see what sticks. They're gonna

2154
01:48:54,520 --> 01:48:55,960
Speaker 1: take their victories where they can get them. They're gonna

2155
01:48:55,960 --> 01:48:57,240
Speaker 1: put them on the shelf, and we're not gonna get

2156
01:48:57,240 --> 01:49:00,439
Speaker 1: that back. Just like we didn't get Mountainlin back and California,

2157
01:49:00,479 --> 01:49:02,800
Speaker 1: it's like, we're not gonna get bear hunting back in California. Likely.

2158
01:49:03,760 --> 01:49:07,160
Speaker 1: Once you lose these these opportunities, they're gone. So for

2159
01:49:07,200 --> 01:49:09,040
Speaker 1: the other side, I don't believe there's anything to be

2160
01:49:09,120 --> 01:49:12,400
Speaker 1: had there for them. Why con I mean, I I

2161
01:49:12,439 --> 01:49:14,599
Speaker 1: don't I don't see it. Well, they came into Washington State,

2162
01:49:14,880 --> 01:49:18,040
Speaker 1: they banned the use of hounds and hounds and bait.

2163
01:49:18,640 --> 01:49:20,759
Speaker 1: Then they came back ten years later in bend trapping,

2164
01:49:21,800 --> 01:49:23,720
Speaker 1: So they're not happy. They just want to take it

2165
01:49:23,800 --> 01:49:26,439
Speaker 1: away and they want the world to run according to

2166
01:49:26,479 --> 01:49:28,160
Speaker 1: their belief system. I think it gets back to the

2167
01:49:28,200 --> 01:49:30,559
Speaker 1: idea you hit on upon earlier, Right, it's that they

2168
01:49:30,600 --> 01:49:33,519
Speaker 1: want to point these inhumane and barbaric and cruel whatever

2169
01:49:33,680 --> 01:49:37,120
Speaker 1: whatever terms they used to define the the the method

2170
01:49:37,200 --> 01:49:39,920
Speaker 1: of take as the reason why they're doing this. Right,

2171
01:49:39,960 --> 01:49:42,559
Speaker 1: we're only doing it because it's the most inhumane forms

2172
01:49:42,600 --> 01:49:45,080
Speaker 1: of hunting or it's the most inhumane take. But the

2173
01:49:45,080 --> 01:49:46,880
Speaker 1: truth of the matters, they're not okay with it at all,

2174
01:49:47,400 --> 01:49:49,040
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're not okay with the idea of

2175
01:49:49,080 --> 01:49:50,400
Speaker 1: you know, you hear about shooting a bear out of

2176
01:49:50,439 --> 01:49:51,840
Speaker 1: a tree or shooting a line out of a tree,

2177
01:49:52,120 --> 01:49:53,960
Speaker 1: but if you shot that bear eight hundred yards across

2178
01:49:53,960 --> 01:49:55,560
Speaker 1: the canyon. They have a reason why they're opposed that

2179
01:49:55,960 --> 01:49:58,400
Speaker 1: they have circular arguments. It's all circular arguments to seither.

2180
01:49:59,080 --> 01:50:00,880
Speaker 1: If you're using a primit of weapon, then it's a

2181
01:50:00,920 --> 01:50:03,800
Speaker 1: primitive weapon and you're gonna higher chance of injuring that

2182
01:50:03,880 --> 01:50:06,000
Speaker 1: animal and getting away, and it's suffering. If you use

2183
01:50:06,040 --> 01:50:07,920
Speaker 1: high tech where you gotta scope and your dialing and

2184
01:50:07,960 --> 01:50:10,200
Speaker 1: you can shoot it at a hundred yards thousand yards,

2185
01:50:10,280 --> 01:50:12,160
Speaker 1: now you're not ethical and you're not fair. So it

2186
01:50:12,200 --> 01:50:14,519
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what you do or say. They have an

2187
01:50:14,640 --> 01:50:19,160
Speaker 1: argument against the work kind of good exactly, you know.

2188
01:50:19,439 --> 01:50:21,920
Speaker 1: And it's in the the average deer hunter needs to

2189
01:50:21,960 --> 01:50:25,000
Speaker 1: care about these fringe benefits or these fringe sports just

2190
01:50:25,160 --> 01:50:28,120
Speaker 1: as much because one, those animals eat the deer in

2191
01:50:28,160 --> 01:50:30,920
Speaker 1: the elk and everything else. But when they finished with that,

2192
01:50:31,280 --> 01:50:33,120
Speaker 1: they're coming after the bow hunters. They had a big

2193
01:50:33,200 --> 01:50:35,360
Speaker 1: thing in the eighties and early nineties where they went

2194
01:50:35,360 --> 01:50:38,880
Speaker 1: after bow hunting, and they've been pushing looking at that again,

2195
01:50:39,200 --> 01:50:41,800
Speaker 1: you know. So it's they'll go after the bow hunting

2196
01:50:41,840 --> 01:50:44,559
Speaker 1: and say it's uh, you know, not ethical, and then

2197
01:50:44,680 --> 01:50:47,040
Speaker 1: the muzzle loader and they'll just keep chipping away. They

2198
01:50:47,080 --> 01:50:53,080
Speaker 1: don't care. It's like negotiating with terrorists. Cal uh, do

2199
01:50:53,120 --> 01:50:56,080
Speaker 1: you go ahead? Concluders. I'm guessing you want to get

2200
01:50:56,120 --> 01:51:02,439
Speaker 1: back into Cormorant that was just now we've now stone

2201
01:51:02,560 --> 01:51:08,320
Speaker 1: that bird. Um yeah, I mean I think the we

2202
01:51:08,479 --> 01:51:10,560
Speaker 1: just need to get to a spot where it's like

2203
01:51:11,520 --> 01:51:13,639
Speaker 1: we have kids that are growing up in non hunting

2204
01:51:13,680 --> 01:51:16,719
Speaker 1: families want to wanting to be the next Kevin Murphy,

2205
01:51:17,479 --> 01:51:20,000
Speaker 1: you know, wanting to be the next Steven Ronella and

2206
01:51:20,360 --> 01:51:23,479
Speaker 1: saying like hey, these people are making a difference and

2207
01:51:23,600 --> 01:51:28,240
Speaker 1: they're contributing, um a bright spot. Yeah, I think there's

2208
01:51:28,439 --> 01:51:32,320
Speaker 1: there's a hell of an opportunity there, you know. And uh,

2209
01:51:32,680 --> 01:51:34,960
Speaker 1: we have a lot of media out there. You know

2210
01:51:35,040 --> 01:51:39,479
Speaker 1: when you said like, oh, it's a war on predators, Right, man,

2211
01:51:39,560 --> 01:51:42,720
Speaker 1: I can sit down with Final Cut pro and YouTube

2212
01:51:42,760 --> 01:51:45,800
Speaker 1: and make a hell of video that shows a war

2213
01:51:45,960 --> 01:51:49,479
Speaker 1: on predators. Right. I'll take you up on that, go right.

2214
01:51:50,800 --> 01:51:54,519
Speaker 1: Um So yeah, man, I mean it's it's advancing the

2215
01:51:55,439 --> 01:51:59,920
Speaker 1: advancing the sport for the next generation. I'm not it's

2216
01:52:00,000 --> 01:52:03,920
Speaker 1: saying at all losing anything. But for example, like the

2217
01:52:04,000 --> 01:52:07,439
Speaker 1: Montana trapping issue, right, you guys have a picture of

2218
01:52:07,520 --> 01:52:09,800
Speaker 1: it up here on your wall. I was like that

2219
01:52:10,200 --> 01:52:13,000
Speaker 1: made my skin crawl. I hated it that I couldn't

2220
01:52:13,040 --> 01:52:16,400
Speaker 1: believe that my home state that would ever even come up.

2221
01:52:17,080 --> 01:52:20,240
Speaker 1: But when I started waiting in on that issue and um,

2222
01:52:21,400 --> 01:52:23,960
Speaker 1: you know, trying to do my own advocacy on it,

2223
01:52:24,280 --> 01:52:25,880
Speaker 1: there's a lot of folks out there that I didn't

2224
01:52:25,880 --> 01:52:28,360
Speaker 1: want to associate with that were some of the loudest voices.

2225
01:52:29,200 --> 01:52:32,280
Speaker 1: And how do we get everybody on the same page

2226
01:52:32,320 --> 01:52:36,040
Speaker 1: and say, hey, if you want this to exist, maybe

2227
01:52:36,240 --> 01:52:39,080
Speaker 1: you guys should not be talking the way you're talking

2228
01:52:39,240 --> 01:52:42,080
Speaker 1: or addressing the general public the way you're talking. You know,

2229
01:52:42,520 --> 01:52:44,880
Speaker 1: it's kind of both sides, right, Like, we can do

2230
01:52:45,040 --> 01:52:47,240
Speaker 1: better pr we can be our our own worst enemies

2231
01:52:47,280 --> 01:52:50,000
Speaker 1: at times. At the at the other end of the spectrum,

2232
01:52:50,720 --> 01:52:52,920
Speaker 1: we have to get off our high horse sometimes and

2233
01:52:53,439 --> 01:52:56,080
Speaker 1: meet in the middle. Like, right, so we got to

2234
01:52:56,120 --> 01:52:59,040
Speaker 1: protect these guys, but we also can't condemn them. So

2235
01:52:59,120 --> 01:53:01,280
Speaker 1: it's it's that in the middle we both have to

2236
01:53:01,600 --> 01:53:04,120
Speaker 1: do a little both sides. The Yeah, the own worst

2237
01:53:04,280 --> 01:53:07,439
Speaker 1: enemy argument is one that it's a huge argument and

2238
01:53:07,520 --> 01:53:12,680
Speaker 1: it's one that UH warrants getting into and it's it's

2239
01:53:12,720 --> 01:53:15,680
Speaker 1: a difficult one. It's a different one. But I think

2240
01:53:15,680 --> 01:53:19,200
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of people who you know, there

2241
01:53:19,240 --> 01:53:21,720
Speaker 1: are a lot of well meeting people who seem to

2242
01:53:22,640 --> 01:53:29,920
Speaker 1: provide a never ending stream of awful pr and oftentimes

2243
01:53:29,960 --> 01:53:32,280
Speaker 1: it's coming from a really cynical perspective where it's like, well,

2244
01:53:32,320 --> 01:53:34,479
Speaker 1: I'm going to shove it in their face and I

2245
01:53:34,560 --> 01:53:37,040
Speaker 1: think they're doing well. I think they're doing good. But

2246
01:53:37,600 --> 01:53:39,160
Speaker 1: a lot of times it hurts, or a lot of

2247
01:53:39,240 --> 01:53:44,040
Speaker 1: times it's uh selfish. You know, We've seen people construct

2248
01:53:45,080 --> 01:53:48,120
Speaker 1: drama in order to get the hunting community to rally

2249
01:53:48,200 --> 01:53:52,000
Speaker 1: around them, and now they're getting financial benefit out of it,

2250
01:53:52,080 --> 01:53:53,800
Speaker 1: and they call us. We're like, hey, we're getting harrassed

2251
01:53:53,800 --> 01:53:55,280
Speaker 1: by ani hunters. How do we do this? Well, it's

2252
01:53:55,280 --> 01:53:59,599
Speaker 1: pretty easy. Make your page private. Quick, quit jumping around

2253
01:53:59,640 --> 01:54:02,880
Speaker 1: and hold people recording, inviting disaster. I've been doing this

2254
01:54:02,920 --> 01:54:05,160
Speaker 1: for twenty years. I used to troll pets message boards

2255
01:54:05,200 --> 01:54:07,559
Speaker 1: and I still haven't got a death threat message boards.

2256
01:54:07,600 --> 01:54:12,080
Speaker 1: You just you just show you the Kevin Murphy got

2257
01:54:12,080 --> 01:54:13,920
Speaker 1: any final thoughts? Yeah, I know you haven't had an

2258
01:54:13,920 --> 01:54:15,439
Speaker 1: opportunity to say a whole lot coming. I know you're

2259
01:54:15,479 --> 01:54:18,040
Speaker 1: just absorbing, absorbing, but do you have any I've been

2260
01:54:18,080 --> 01:54:21,840
Speaker 1: doing some technical issues to you, my man here um

2261
01:54:23,360 --> 01:54:26,439
Speaker 1: A lot of these topics that we've talked about do

2262
01:54:26,960 --> 01:54:31,000
Speaker 1: affect the small game hunters in the central Southern States.

2263
01:54:31,120 --> 01:54:35,560
Speaker 1: A lot head to the north into summer. In the

2264
01:54:36,000 --> 01:54:38,760
Speaker 1: early fall, honey season opens up early. We had those

2265
01:54:38,800 --> 01:54:44,080
Speaker 1: hunting opportunities. I was in Maine grouse hunting with some

2266
01:54:44,160 --> 01:54:47,960
Speaker 1: friends of mine from West Virginia. In Virginia. Uh, we

2267
01:54:48,080 --> 01:54:53,320
Speaker 1: saw the Barry Is shoe firsthand up there. I was concerned. UM.

2268
01:54:54,040 --> 01:54:57,240
Speaker 1: I called back home through the league Kentucky Sportsman asked

2269
01:54:57,280 --> 01:54:59,400
Speaker 1: them to put some show some support up there, try

2270
01:54:59,480 --> 01:55:02,720
Speaker 1: to send something unding to help find this issue. Uh.

2271
01:55:02,840 --> 01:55:05,480
Speaker 1: There's a case example of what I was talking about earlier.

2272
01:55:06,680 --> 01:55:11,880
Speaker 1: And um uh we have very hunting in the city

2273
01:55:11,960 --> 01:55:13,880
Speaker 1: Kentucky for a long time. We didn't have it. Just

2274
01:55:14,240 --> 01:55:18,160
Speaker 1: when the last like ten years, I personally pen wrote

2275
01:55:18,320 --> 01:55:22,600
Speaker 1: the resolution so through our sportsman club, the OLBL Sportsman Club,

2276
01:55:22,960 --> 01:55:25,960
Speaker 1: so that you could hunt bears in Kentucky with dogs.

2277
01:55:26,600 --> 01:55:30,800
Speaker 1: They were starting to become a nuisance in there. They

2278
01:55:30,880 --> 01:55:34,800
Speaker 1: had a gun hunt slight slight gun hunting there. But

2279
01:55:34,960 --> 01:55:37,440
Speaker 1: finally we wrote that resolution. We we took it through

2280
01:55:37,440 --> 01:55:39,680
Speaker 1: the leak of Kentucky Sportsmen. They presented it to the

2281
01:55:39,760 --> 01:55:43,480
Speaker 1: wildlife biologists. They reviewed it says there's no problem hunting

2282
01:55:43,920 --> 01:55:48,320
Speaker 1: hunting bears in Kentucky with with dogs. That's something to happen. Yes, yes,

2283
01:55:48,400 --> 01:55:50,320
Speaker 1: I wrote them, like I said the resolution. We have

2284
01:55:50,360 --> 01:55:54,120
Speaker 1: a sportsman club and if you remember that, you can

2285
01:55:54,400 --> 01:55:56,000
Speaker 1: you can look at the game laws if you want

2286
01:55:56,040 --> 01:56:00,520
Speaker 1: to try to help help just those were your hunter.

2287
01:56:00,640 --> 01:56:02,560
Speaker 1: You think that that they may need to be tweaked

2288
01:56:02,560 --> 01:56:04,200
Speaker 1: a little bit, so you know, he's got to go

2289
01:56:04,240 --> 01:56:06,440
Speaker 1: through a chain. You just don't write something and and

2290
01:56:06,840 --> 01:56:10,400
Speaker 1: send it in. You get to support from from the

2291
01:56:10,480 --> 01:56:13,800
Speaker 1: leagal Kentucky sportsman. They take it in and and hand

2292
01:56:13,880 --> 01:56:18,200
Speaker 1: it over to the State Fishing Game uh Department. They

2293
01:56:18,280 --> 01:56:21,960
Speaker 1: review that resolution and say yeah or nay whatever, and

2294
01:56:22,040 --> 01:56:24,120
Speaker 1: then they'll have a vote on it. That's some good

2295
01:56:24,200 --> 01:56:27,560
Speaker 1: Kentucky elbow grease right there. Man. We've getting in there

2296
01:56:28,840 --> 01:56:31,560
Speaker 1: learning what the law is, learning how to work within

2297
01:56:31,680 --> 01:56:37,640
Speaker 1: the system, Engaging with sportsmen, engaging with biologists, are learning

2298
01:56:37,720 --> 01:56:41,120
Speaker 1: all about stuff. You know, our state motto and what

2299
01:56:41,280 --> 01:56:43,360
Speaker 1: we've talked about here is, you know, on our flag

2300
01:56:43,480 --> 01:56:47,400
Speaker 1: is is united, we stand divided. We file you know

2301
01:56:47,560 --> 01:56:52,240
Speaker 1: as sportsman, outdoors mon fisherman. You know we need to

2302
01:56:52,280 --> 01:56:54,480
Speaker 1: stay together. We do not let need to let the

2303
01:56:54,600 --> 01:56:59,760
Speaker 1: anti se fragment our hunting and fishing and outdoor activities join,

2304
01:57:00,040 --> 01:57:04,120
Speaker 1: join a sportsman club locally, pay attention to what's going on,

2305
01:57:04,320 --> 01:57:07,320
Speaker 1: just like you guys have discussed, but being vibe, because

2306
01:57:07,360 --> 01:57:10,760
Speaker 1: there's gonna be residual effects from these negative laws that

2307
01:57:10,840 --> 01:57:14,280
Speaker 1: impact hunting fishing that can trickle down to you personally.

2308
01:57:14,560 --> 01:57:16,840
Speaker 1: Put in some elga will grease, not just sit back

2309
01:57:16,880 --> 01:57:20,520
Speaker 1: and bitch. I like it. I love that thing that

2310
01:57:20,640 --> 01:57:24,080
Speaker 1: you were up doing a little diplomacy. You were in Maine,

2311
01:57:25,000 --> 01:57:28,120
Speaker 1: made some connections, came home and said, hey, fellas, I

2312
01:57:28,240 --> 01:57:31,680
Speaker 1: didn't I did it from there. I saw some of

2313
01:57:31,680 --> 01:57:37,720
Speaker 1: the newspaper articles they uh uh television ads. Um. I

2314
01:57:37,800 --> 01:57:39,440
Speaker 1: had been up there a time or two. So I

2315
01:57:39,520 --> 01:57:42,200
Speaker 1: had a friendship a bond with the people that I

2316
01:57:42,280 --> 01:57:45,080
Speaker 1: was hunting with up there. We stay in a typically

2317
01:57:45,360 --> 01:57:48,440
Speaker 1: a bear hunting lodge that just prints that out to

2318
01:57:48,680 --> 01:57:52,880
Speaker 1: us during some of his off season when we're hitting birds.

2319
01:57:53,560 --> 01:57:55,960
Speaker 1: I've been with some of the bear hunters up there, uh,

2320
01:57:56,120 --> 01:58:00,520
Speaker 1: just as um sidekick to blow the horn, and um,

2321
01:58:00,920 --> 01:58:03,040
Speaker 1: you know there's a great bunch of people up in

2322
01:58:03,160 --> 01:58:05,840
Speaker 1: mind there, and just like I said, you know, we

2323
01:58:05,960 --> 01:58:09,360
Speaker 1: just cannot let them fragment are hunting and fishing opportunities

2324
01:58:09,400 --> 01:58:11,240
Speaker 1: out there, because if if they do, it's just gonna

2325
01:58:11,280 --> 01:58:16,880
Speaker 1: all crumble one of these days. Ye. Speaking about how

2326
01:58:16,960 --> 01:58:19,960
Speaker 1: we can be proactive, you mentioned that there's a couple

2327
01:58:19,960 --> 01:58:21,640
Speaker 1: of states and I don't know if I caught it right,

2328
01:58:21,640 --> 01:58:23,640
Speaker 1: but there's a couple of states that have it in

2329
01:58:23,760 --> 01:58:27,720
Speaker 1: their state constitution where you can't have about initiatives mess

2330
01:58:27,800 --> 01:58:34,360
Speaker 1: with wildlife management. So can we get that in more states? Yeah,

2331
01:58:34,360 --> 01:58:36,120
Speaker 1: they're they're not that clean. It's not that it's not

2332
01:58:36,280 --> 01:58:38,320
Speaker 1: just a flat out prohibition. But there's things you can do.

2333
01:58:38,480 --> 01:58:41,080
Speaker 1: Like you look at Utah, it has a supermajority requirement

2334
01:58:41,400 --> 01:58:43,840
Speaker 1: vote on those types of issues, so instead of the

2335
01:58:44,520 --> 01:58:47,480
Speaker 1: plus one voter, you have to get to sixty or

2336
01:58:47,520 --> 01:58:51,440
Speaker 1: sixty three or sixty or or a higher percentage, which

2337
01:58:51,480 --> 01:58:54,560
Speaker 1: makes it all that more difficult. Um, there's other things

2338
01:58:54,640 --> 01:58:57,000
Speaker 1: you can do in in in in law and in

2339
01:58:57,040 --> 01:59:00,800
Speaker 1: the constitutional law that that would provide barrier, but they're

2340
01:59:00,880 --> 01:59:03,360
Speaker 1: very tough to get done. Um, They're tough to get

2341
01:59:03,400 --> 01:59:05,280
Speaker 1: done in a manner that actually provides some teeth, that

2342
01:59:05,320 --> 01:59:08,600
Speaker 1: provides protections right, because getting back to Cal's question earlier,

2343
01:59:08,840 --> 01:59:11,000
Speaker 1: they don't go after banning bear hunting. They're going after

2344
01:59:11,040 --> 01:59:13,760
Speaker 1: a specific meaning method. So you have to be very

2345
01:59:13,840 --> 01:59:15,880
Speaker 1: careful on how you write those protections and and and

2346
01:59:16,040 --> 01:59:19,000
Speaker 1: when you look at like these right to hunt amendments,

2347
01:59:19,280 --> 01:59:22,320
Speaker 1: when you look at costumes protections doesn't actually provide the

2348
01:59:22,640 --> 01:59:25,200
Speaker 1: necessary level of protection or are we just making ourselves

2349
01:59:25,280 --> 01:59:28,760
Speaker 1: feel like, well, they can't harm us? And so it's

2350
01:59:28,760 --> 01:59:31,040
Speaker 1: a challenge there there's some stuff we can do. Um,

2351
01:59:31,160 --> 01:59:33,320
Speaker 1: we've looked at uh, we looked at some stuff in Maine,

2352
01:59:33,320 --> 01:59:35,040
Speaker 1: we looked at some stuff in Montana after both of

2353
01:59:35,080 --> 01:59:38,600
Speaker 1: those campaigns, to try to suggest changes to either law

2354
01:59:38,800 --> 01:59:42,600
Speaker 1: or constitutional law that would provide some of those protections.

2355
01:59:42,960 --> 01:59:45,600
Speaker 1: But oftentimes you're you know, you're talking about changing the constitution,

2356
01:59:45,680 --> 01:59:48,400
Speaker 1: you're talking about running another ballotis you campaign yourselves, So

2357
01:59:48,480 --> 01:59:50,440
Speaker 1: you're still talking about raising a whole bunch of money,

2358
01:59:50,480 --> 01:59:52,480
Speaker 1: spend in a couple of years, putting a campaign together,

2359
01:59:52,960 --> 01:59:55,120
Speaker 1: and then going head to head with H. S. U.

2360
01:59:55,280 --> 01:59:57,160
Speaker 1: S or whoever else on the animal right side would

2361
01:59:57,200 --> 01:59:59,080
Speaker 1: would want to come to the table. And so if

2362
01:59:59,120 --> 02:00:01,440
Speaker 1: you if you really write of these things and push

2363
02:00:01,480 --> 02:00:04,280
Speaker 1: one of these campaigns that would put some teeth in

2364
02:00:04,360 --> 02:00:06,520
Speaker 1: and put some real protection in. You're gonna see the

2365
02:00:06,520 --> 02:00:08,320
Speaker 1: other side spend money because they know they're that's gonna

2366
02:00:08,320 --> 02:00:10,000
Speaker 1: be a it's gonna be a barrier to them coming

2367
02:00:10,040 --> 02:00:12,400
Speaker 1: back in the front. It could be a win. Like

2368
02:00:12,480 --> 02:00:14,240
Speaker 1: you said, you put on yourself and be like, all right,

2369
02:00:14,320 --> 02:00:16,440
Speaker 1: we got that one and it's it's you know, it's

2370
02:00:16,800 --> 02:00:18,960
Speaker 1: you know, you look at who used me as an example,

2371
02:00:19,000 --> 02:00:20,960
Speaker 1: and we beat this to death today. But like like

2372
02:00:21,080 --> 02:00:25,000
Speaker 1: Kevin said, you know their group sent money up from Kentucky.

2373
02:00:25,600 --> 02:00:27,880
Speaker 1: That that two point three million dollars be raised was

2374
02:00:27,960 --> 02:00:30,640
Speaker 1: done at the grassroots level. There wasn't a five dollar

2375
02:00:30,800 --> 02:00:33,120
Speaker 1: check coming from Washington, d C. Like h S U.

2376
02:00:33,280 --> 02:00:36,040
Speaker 1: S had. It was done here and a thousand dollars

2377
02:00:36,080 --> 02:00:39,000
Speaker 1: there and five dollars here from Houndsman out west and

2378
02:00:39,120 --> 02:00:41,480
Speaker 1: guys in Kentucky and people in Minnesota and all over

2379
02:00:41,520 --> 02:00:44,960
Speaker 1: the place. We raise that money grassroots style. It took

2380
02:00:45,240 --> 02:00:46,720
Speaker 1: it took a year and a half to raise the

2381
02:00:46,760 --> 02:00:49,120
Speaker 1: two point three million dollars. We beat the bushes, We

2382
02:00:49,240 --> 02:00:51,520
Speaker 1: beat the snot out of the folks in Main trying

2383
02:00:51,560 --> 02:00:53,560
Speaker 1: to raise that money. Those guys gave everything they had.

2384
02:00:54,200 --> 02:00:55,800
Speaker 1: You have guys up there who are who aren't making

2385
02:00:55,840 --> 02:00:57,480
Speaker 1: a ton of money giving you what they can give you.

2386
02:00:58,160 --> 02:01:01,080
Speaker 1: And so to turn around the heels of winning after

2387
02:01:01,200 --> 02:01:02,800
Speaker 1: that and come back to them and say, yeah, and

2388
02:01:02,800 --> 02:01:04,160
Speaker 1: now we gotta do it again a second time, to

2389
02:01:04,200 --> 02:01:07,200
Speaker 1: go put the constitutional protection in there. That's tough, man,

2390
02:01:07,240 --> 02:01:08,960
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. It's really really tough to get

2391
02:01:08,960 --> 02:01:11,960
Speaker 1: those people to be fired up and engaged a second

2392
02:01:12,040 --> 02:01:14,200
Speaker 1: time when they've just given you the shirt off their

2393
02:01:14,240 --> 02:01:17,520
Speaker 1: back to try to protect their way of life. They

2394
02:01:17,520 --> 02:01:18,880
Speaker 1: want to get back to deer hunt. They want to

2395
02:01:18,920 --> 02:01:27,080
Speaker 1: get back to deer hunt. That's right. Is that your concluding? All? Right?

2396
02:01:27,120 --> 02:01:29,200
Speaker 1: Well for me, I guess I'll expand on what Kevin

2397
02:01:29,280 --> 02:01:31,680
Speaker 1: was saying. And and and I really truly believe like

2398
02:01:31,720 --> 02:01:33,640
Speaker 1: we're an inflection point in the hunting community that we're

2399
02:01:33,640 --> 02:01:35,400
Speaker 1: going to see over the next ten to fifteen years.

2400
02:01:35,440 --> 02:01:38,000
Speaker 1: You know, we've got this whole generation of people that

2401
02:01:38,080 --> 02:01:41,680
Speaker 1: are growing up today who are living in a world

2402
02:01:41,720 --> 02:01:43,720
Speaker 1: and they're becoming voting age, and they're all voting age

2403
02:01:43,760 --> 02:01:45,800
Speaker 1: right now, who are living in a world where their

2404
02:01:45,920 --> 02:01:48,880
Speaker 1: entire lives they have never known wildlife to be in peril. Right,

2405
02:01:49,160 --> 02:01:50,800
Speaker 1: we didn't have to restore turkeys. We don't have to

2406
02:01:50,840 --> 02:01:53,720
Speaker 1: restore dear they were on the landscape. They can't see

2407
02:01:53,760 --> 02:01:57,000
Speaker 1: back to the reasons why we started some of these programs,

2408
02:01:57,240 --> 02:02:00,240
Speaker 1: the reasons why groups like r M e F for NWT, yeah,

2409
02:02:00,240 --> 02:02:03,200
Speaker 1: for any of these other great conservation organizations, why they

2410
02:02:03,240 --> 02:02:05,440
Speaker 1: were founded in the first place. And so in their

2411
02:02:05,480 --> 02:02:08,600
Speaker 1: mind's eye, we've got wildlife everywhere. We don't need to

2412
02:02:08,640 --> 02:02:10,840
Speaker 1: worry about management. We don't need to worry about hunter Well,

2413
02:02:11,000 --> 02:02:13,360
Speaker 1: you know, you talk, you talk about the distinction between

2414
02:02:13,920 --> 02:02:16,080
Speaker 1: how do hunter's play into the management side of this thing.

2415
02:02:16,360 --> 02:02:19,480
Speaker 1: Those folks have no idea, They just no wildlife exists.

2416
02:02:19,920 --> 02:02:21,880
Speaker 1: At the same time, you're marrying that against the idea

2417
02:02:21,920 --> 02:02:24,720
Speaker 1: of the folks that have have created these concrete jungles

2418
02:02:24,760 --> 02:02:28,040
Speaker 1: where wildlife no longer lives. Are the ones who are

2419
02:02:28,080 --> 02:02:31,560
Speaker 1: now having the power to dictate wildlife management laws and

2420
02:02:31,680 --> 02:02:34,520
Speaker 1: rules and regulations, And a lot of times of voting

2421
02:02:35,200 --> 02:02:37,880
Speaker 1: comes down to those individuals. So I really feel like

2422
02:02:37,920 --> 02:02:39,480
Speaker 1: we're at that inflection point where in the next ten

2423
02:02:39,560 --> 02:02:42,400
Speaker 1: to fifteen years we've got to stick together. There's gonna

2424
02:02:42,400 --> 02:02:44,800
Speaker 1: be more attacks, There's gonna be more issues, There's gonna

2425
02:02:44,800 --> 02:02:46,560
Speaker 1: be a need to be involved in these issues and

2426
02:02:46,720 --> 02:02:49,520
Speaker 1: and and keep the wolves at bay. Otherwise we're gonna

2427
02:02:49,520 --> 02:02:51,760
Speaker 1: we're gonna face a drastic future. It's gonna be a

2428
02:02:51,840 --> 02:02:55,440
Speaker 1: drastically different landscape where I can't I struggle to think

2429
02:02:55,480 --> 02:02:57,680
Speaker 1: what the future looks like in that scenario. So I

2430
02:02:57,960 --> 02:02:59,760
Speaker 1: do think we're at that inflection point. You know, it's

2431
02:03:00,000 --> 02:03:02,480
Speaker 1: it's a theme we've talked about a lot today. But

2432
02:03:02,560 --> 02:03:04,320
Speaker 1: how do we protect that future? How do we how

2433
02:03:04,360 --> 02:03:06,600
Speaker 1: do we ensure that this this great experiment we've been

2434
02:03:06,680 --> 02:03:08,920
Speaker 1: going through the last hundred and hundred and twenty years

2435
02:03:09,560 --> 02:03:12,600
Speaker 1: lives on. And if not, what's that future gonna look like?

2436
02:03:13,640 --> 02:03:16,280
Speaker 1: What's the future of conservation look like? If if if you,

2437
02:03:16,400 --> 02:03:18,360
Speaker 1: if you, if you sever that bond, if you break

2438
02:03:19,040 --> 02:03:22,560
Speaker 1: break that tie between the goose that weighs the gold neck, right,

2439
02:03:22,680 --> 02:03:24,880
Speaker 1: you get rid of hunters and the conservation dollars they're

2440
02:03:24,920 --> 02:03:29,680
Speaker 1: pouring into into these states, into the federal government. What

2441
02:03:29,760 --> 02:03:31,920
Speaker 1: are we gonna do? I like it that you mentioned

2442
02:03:32,680 --> 02:03:36,040
Speaker 1: Nason Wild Turkey Federation in that conversation, because here, you know,

2443
02:03:36,760 --> 02:03:39,520
Speaker 1: on top of the billion dollars annually that goes into

2444
02:03:39,600 --> 02:03:47,600
Speaker 1: conservation from guns, ammunition, sporting goods, equipment, fishing equipment, and

2445
02:03:47,680 --> 02:03:51,120
Speaker 1: then the other you know, I don't know, billions some

2446
02:03:51,240 --> 02:03:55,960
Speaker 1: dollars from tags, licenses, and stamps that goes into funding

2447
02:03:56,000 --> 02:03:58,160
Speaker 1: wild I've at the state in every state, at the

2448
02:03:58,200 --> 02:04:00,640
Speaker 1: state level a group like then of you TF I

2449
02:04:00,720 --> 02:04:06,520
Speaker 1: think in the history of that organization, they've put it's

2450
02:04:06,720 --> 02:04:10,280
Speaker 1: just slightly south of five million dollars in the wildlife habitat.

2451
02:04:11,640 --> 02:04:12,920
Speaker 1: And we've got a lot of great work with those

2452
02:04:12,960 --> 02:04:15,200
Speaker 1: guys over the years. It's it's an amazing organization. It's

2453
02:04:15,240 --> 02:04:17,360
Speaker 1: like you and then like you look at that like

2454
02:04:17,480 --> 02:04:20,480
Speaker 1: the impact of the habitat work that has gone to wildlife,

2455
02:04:21,240 --> 02:04:24,360
Speaker 1: and you compare that to what an animal rights group

2456
02:04:24,480 --> 02:04:28,720
Speaker 1: is actually find an animal rights group is actually working

2457
02:04:29,040 --> 02:04:33,400
Speaker 1: to do the work on habitat. Like, what is gonna

2458
02:04:33,800 --> 02:04:36,000
Speaker 1: the thing that's going to measure the success of wildlife

2459
02:04:36,040 --> 02:04:39,800
Speaker 1: in this country? The future success of wildlife in this

2460
02:04:39,840 --> 02:04:41,720
Speaker 1: country is gonna come down to a habit It's gonna

2461
02:04:41,720 --> 02:04:44,880
Speaker 1: come down to habitat. That's what it is. It's not

2462
02:04:45,440 --> 02:04:48,280
Speaker 1: the one by one numerica, it's not the one by

2463
02:04:48,360 --> 02:04:52,400
Speaker 1: one mechanical removal of animals is not the issue. The

2464
02:04:52,560 --> 02:04:55,280
Speaker 1: issue is is there a place for them to exist?

2465
02:04:56,200 --> 02:05:02,080
Speaker 1: And hunters, through mandatory span and man in a self

2466
02:05:02,160 --> 02:05:09,720
Speaker 1: imposed taxation system and then voluntary spending are driving the

2467
02:05:09,800 --> 02:05:13,240
Speaker 1: habitat programs in this country. Absolutely, and that's where wildlife

2468
02:05:13,320 --> 02:05:16,080
Speaker 1: will live. And we'll be remissed and not mentioned target

2469
02:05:16,120 --> 02:05:17,560
Speaker 1: shooters in that as well. You know, you look at

2470
02:05:17,760 --> 02:05:20,000
Speaker 1: some of our business partners are spending. It was a

2471
02:05:20,120 --> 02:05:22,360
Speaker 1: Vista spends eighty seven million dollars last year and in

2472
02:05:22,520 --> 02:05:27,160
Speaker 1: in PR money, I mean not PR like public relations PR,

2473
02:05:27,200 --> 02:05:30,480
Speaker 1: like Pittman Roberts's excise tax dollars are coming back into conservation,

2474
02:05:31,080 --> 02:05:36,040
Speaker 1: you know, recreational shooters versus your hunter and they pitch

2475
02:05:36,120 --> 02:05:39,640
Speaker 1: into that fund. Yeah, it's funny that, like like you know,

2476
02:05:39,960 --> 02:05:41,800
Speaker 1: some little grant you live in the city somewhere and

2477
02:05:41,880 --> 02:05:45,280
Speaker 1: she's got like a pistol in her nightstand is paying

2478
02:05:45,360 --> 02:05:50,320
Speaker 1: for conservation, like yeah, unknown, Yeah, unbeknownst to her, she's

2479
02:05:50,360 --> 02:05:53,680
Speaker 1: paying for wildlife conservation. New Jersey cat lady was against

2480
02:05:53,720 --> 02:05:56,120
Speaker 1: bear hunting, wants to pay for conservation too. So yeah,

2481
02:05:56,520 --> 02:05:59,720
Speaker 1: we'll take the money, though, I'll tell you what go

2482
02:06:00,760 --> 02:06:07,000
Speaker 1: we covered a lot of ground and uh, Florida to Alaska, California,

2483
02:06:07,080 --> 02:06:10,120
Speaker 1: to Maine, California, and we just scratched the surface on

2484
02:06:10,200 --> 02:06:13,000
Speaker 1: so many different things. And and that's what's fun about

2485
02:06:13,040 --> 02:06:16,120
Speaker 1: these conversations because they're they're always eye openers for folks.

2486
02:06:16,440 --> 02:06:20,720
Speaker 1: Um these heavy subjects. That's it sucks to think about,

2487
02:06:20,840 --> 02:06:23,320
Speaker 1: you know, because it's it's what we all love. Everybody

2488
02:06:23,400 --> 02:06:27,200
Speaker 1: here loves getting outdoors and just loves enjoying that time outside.

2489
02:06:27,720 --> 02:06:33,680
Speaker 1: But there's so many things, everything is so complex. The

2490
02:06:33,800 --> 02:06:37,680
Speaker 1: basic premise behind you know, what we need from people

2491
02:06:38,160 --> 02:06:41,600
Speaker 1: is involvement. You know, we need every deer hunter out

2492
02:06:41,600 --> 02:06:43,839
Speaker 1: there involved. We need every duck hunter out there involved.

2493
02:06:44,520 --> 02:06:46,760
Speaker 1: They've got to understand the bigger picture of these issues.

2494
02:06:46,920 --> 02:06:50,280
Speaker 1: They've got to look beyond their back forty beyond their

2495
02:06:50,360 --> 02:06:53,000
Speaker 1: immediate hunting season and see what else is out there,

2496
02:06:53,040 --> 02:06:55,840
Speaker 1: see those threats, understand them. Uh, and they've got to

2497
02:06:55,880 --> 02:06:58,800
Speaker 1: get engaged, you know, like like Kevin said, Hey, starting

2498
02:06:58,840 --> 02:07:01,680
Speaker 1: your sportsman's club, joy there. Get involved at the local level.

2499
02:07:02,080 --> 02:07:05,040
Speaker 1: Know what's going on in your own state, know what's

2500
02:07:05,080 --> 02:07:07,320
Speaker 1: going on in your neighboring states and within your regions,

2501
02:07:07,840 --> 02:07:11,680
Speaker 1: and pay attention to those things. Um, obviously we want

2502
02:07:11,720 --> 02:07:15,040
Speaker 1: them to become members of the Sportsman's Alliance. We talked about,

2503
02:07:15,120 --> 02:07:19,240
Speaker 1: you know, if we just had one percent of every

2504
02:07:19,320 --> 02:07:21,280
Speaker 1: license buying hunter out there to be a member of

2505
02:07:21,320 --> 02:07:26,360
Speaker 1: this organization, that's an absolute game changer our mission protecting

2506
02:07:26,400 --> 02:07:29,840
Speaker 1: and advancing hunting, fishing, trapping. Right, we spend most of

2507
02:07:29,920 --> 02:07:33,200
Speaker 1: our time on that protecting side. What can we do

2508
02:07:33,280 --> 02:07:36,040
Speaker 1: on the advancing side? How many more states can we

2509
02:07:36,320 --> 02:07:39,560
Speaker 1: get involved in with with families of field legislation, how

2510
02:07:39,600 --> 02:07:42,560
Speaker 1: many more um, you know, youth programs can we put together?

2511
02:07:42,920 --> 02:07:45,440
Speaker 1: Can we get people out there, not only youth, but

2512
02:07:46,000 --> 02:07:48,800
Speaker 1: young adults who want to learn how to hunt, who

2513
02:07:48,840 --> 02:07:51,040
Speaker 1: want to understand, Hey, I kind of want to know

2514
02:07:51,080 --> 02:07:52,920
Speaker 1: a little bit more about where my food comes from,

2515
02:07:53,560 --> 02:07:56,000
Speaker 1: and hunting seems like a pretty organic process for me

2516
02:07:56,120 --> 02:07:58,280
Speaker 1: to get involved in and do those types of things. So,

2517
02:07:58,400 --> 02:08:00,800
Speaker 1: how many more advancing side of things can we get

2518
02:08:00,880 --> 02:08:05,160
Speaker 1: involved in If hunters start getting more engaged and we

2519
02:08:05,520 --> 02:08:07,800
Speaker 1: you know, we're the key to all of this. If

2520
02:08:07,880 --> 02:08:10,440
Speaker 1: we want wildlife to continue, it's going to come down

2521
02:08:10,520 --> 02:08:12,959
Speaker 1: to habitat and it's going to come down to our involvement.

2522
02:08:13,080 --> 02:08:16,400
Speaker 1: So we've got to get I guess a little more

2523
02:08:17,800 --> 02:08:21,440
Speaker 1: outside of just being a selfish hunter. And we've we've

2524
02:08:21,520 --> 02:08:24,200
Speaker 1: done that throughout our history, you know, I mean to

2525
02:08:24,280 --> 02:08:26,920
Speaker 1: Evan's point where we've got people who have grown up

2526
02:08:26,960 --> 02:08:29,800
Speaker 1: in generation where they haven't seen wildlife in peril. Turkeys

2527
02:08:29,800 --> 02:08:34,960
Speaker 1: are pretty prominent deer everywhere. Um. You know, we need

2528
02:08:35,080 --> 02:08:37,400
Speaker 1: that more involvement, that more engagement so that we can

2529
02:08:37,560 --> 02:08:39,880
Speaker 1: continue those things. We can have them in perpetuity for

2530
02:08:40,000 --> 02:08:44,480
Speaker 1: future generations to get out there and enjoy. Amen. Yeah,

2531
02:08:45,640 --> 02:08:50,280
Speaker 1: we very often, but there you go. First of all,

2532
02:08:50,280 --> 02:08:52,520
Speaker 1: I just just like to thank you all for coming

2533
02:08:52,560 --> 02:08:55,600
Speaker 1: out and having us on the show. It it's huge

2534
02:08:55,640 --> 02:08:58,200
Speaker 1: for us. We're a small organization. I mean there's fifteen

2535
02:08:58,240 --> 02:09:00,760
Speaker 1: twenty of us and that's it. You know, get overshadowed

2536
02:09:00,800 --> 02:09:04,720
Speaker 1: by a lot of guys, bigger groups. Um. But I've

2537
02:09:04,760 --> 02:09:07,000
Speaker 1: been involved with Sportsman's Alliance. I've been here for four

2538
02:09:07,120 --> 02:09:10,760
Speaker 1: years almost, but going back ten fifteen years when I

2539
02:09:10,840 --> 02:09:15,520
Speaker 1: was at ESPN outdoors dot com and editor at Outdoor Life. Um,

2540
02:09:16,000 --> 02:09:18,720
Speaker 1: and this is a solid organization, I mean doing the

2541
02:09:18,760 --> 02:09:22,920
Speaker 1: work that needs done without getting the headlines. Don't have

2542
02:09:23,120 --> 02:09:25,760
Speaker 1: a huge PR department to push it out and uh

2543
02:09:26,200 --> 02:09:29,720
Speaker 1: and do it. And like Sean said, if we had

2544
02:09:29,920 --> 02:09:33,760
Speaker 1: more help and had one percent of hunters, you know,

2545
02:09:34,480 --> 02:09:36,840
Speaker 1: we could do so much more. When it when you're

2546
02:09:36,880 --> 02:09:40,640
Speaker 1: talking lobbying, lawsuits and ballot initiatives, it all comes down

2547
02:09:40,680 --> 02:09:43,280
Speaker 1: to money. That's what it is, you know. And it

2548
02:09:43,400 --> 02:09:46,880
Speaker 1: sucks that it's that, but that's what it takes to

2549
02:09:46,920 --> 02:09:49,000
Speaker 1: win these things. And that's where the fight is. And

2550
02:09:49,320 --> 02:09:53,160
Speaker 1: the other side H s U, S, CBD, Sierra, all

2551
02:09:53,240 --> 02:09:56,360
Speaker 1: these guys have tons and tons of money that they

2552
02:09:56,400 --> 02:09:59,400
Speaker 1: can just drive us all out of business piece by piece.

2553
02:10:00,000 --> 02:10:02,640
Speaker 1: So we all need to stick together, look ahead and uh,

2554
02:10:03,200 --> 02:10:05,800
Speaker 1: you know, take the fight to where they're at. And

2555
02:10:05,840 --> 02:10:09,760
Speaker 1: you guys have a regular annual membership program. Yeah, if

2556
02:10:09,960 --> 02:10:12,440
Speaker 1: you go to Sportsman's Alliance dot org, it's right there

2557
02:10:12,440 --> 02:10:15,040
Speaker 1: at the top under Alliance Membership. Just click on there

2558
02:10:15,040 --> 02:10:18,600
Speaker 1: and join the basic membership level. It's thirty five dollars

2559
02:10:18,600 --> 02:10:21,600
Speaker 1: a year. You know, it's it's right there. So it

2560
02:10:21,680 --> 02:10:25,560
Speaker 1: goes up from there. There's yeah, and then there's clubs.

2561
02:10:25,760 --> 02:10:28,080
Speaker 1: You know, you're Sportsman's clubs. You want to be part

2562
02:10:28,120 --> 02:10:31,120
Speaker 1: of it, you can do that. We business partners. There's

2563
02:10:32,000 --> 02:10:33,839
Speaker 1: anybody that wants to be a part of the alliance.

2564
02:10:34,720 --> 02:10:38,320
Speaker 1: We're we're allies. What's the public sorry, what's the publication

2565
02:10:38,360 --> 02:10:41,120
Speaker 1: you guys put out? And how often that's our that's

2566
02:10:41,160 --> 02:10:43,400
Speaker 1: our newsletter that goes out to the members. It's uh

2567
02:10:43,720 --> 02:10:45,840
Speaker 1: every two months and so we call it a Sportsman's

2568
02:10:45,880 --> 02:10:48,680
Speaker 1: monthly every two months. So it kind of big pictures

2569
02:10:48,720 --> 02:10:51,600
Speaker 1: stuff in the feature well down to the legislation and

2570
02:10:51,960 --> 02:10:55,480
Speaker 1: members and the businesses that support us. It's worth thirty

2571
02:10:55,520 --> 02:10:57,360
Speaker 1: five bucks. You just to have someone keep your prize

2572
02:10:57,360 --> 02:10:59,960
Speaker 1: to what's going on. Man, we'll take we'll take more

2573
02:11:00,000 --> 02:11:05,120
Speaker 1: than thirty No, I understand, but it's it's a way

2574
02:11:05,200 --> 02:11:09,040
Speaker 1: for people to know. It's it's easy you think about that.

2575
02:11:09,120 --> 02:11:11,240
Speaker 1: It's it's a pack of broad heads, right, that's right,

2576
02:11:11,720 --> 02:11:14,240
Speaker 1: it's thirty five bucks. It's it's good insurance on the

2577
02:11:14,320 --> 02:11:16,280
Speaker 1: future of our our way of life. Right. You're talking

2578
02:11:16,320 --> 02:11:19,040
Speaker 1: about trying to trying to quantify what our group does

2579
02:11:19,080 --> 02:11:21,040
Speaker 1: in the protection and aspect of who we are. We're

2580
02:11:21,280 --> 02:11:23,720
Speaker 1: you know, we're not like Army f for NWTF and

2581
02:11:23,760 --> 02:11:26,720
Speaker 1: that they've got a critter, they've got a tangible item

2582
02:11:26,760 --> 02:11:28,800
Speaker 1: you can wrap your arms around. You're doing habitat work,

2583
02:11:29,360 --> 02:11:32,320
Speaker 1: you're restoring a population of a species. We're kind of

2584
02:11:32,360 --> 02:11:34,640
Speaker 1: selling insurance, you know, we're kind of selling a protection

2585
02:11:34,680 --> 02:11:36,840
Speaker 1: way of life. We're like the fire department. Right, nobody

2586
02:11:36,880 --> 02:11:39,120
Speaker 1: wants to pay taxes until your house is on fire.

2587
02:11:39,120 --> 02:11:40,320
Speaker 1: You want to pick up the phone and call somebody

2588
02:11:40,320 --> 02:11:42,600
Speaker 1: who's gonna come help you. And so we don't have

2589
02:11:42,720 --> 02:11:45,040
Speaker 1: those tangible items. We're not doing the conservation work. And

2590
02:11:45,080 --> 02:11:46,920
Speaker 1: then the habitat work that these groups are doing, they're

2591
02:11:46,920 --> 02:11:49,080
Speaker 1: doing a fantastic job at that. That's not us. What

2592
02:11:49,160 --> 02:11:51,440
Speaker 1: we're doing is protecting the way of life that that supports.

2593
02:11:52,000 --> 02:11:53,800
Speaker 1: And so for us, it's a little bit different argument.

2594
02:11:53,880 --> 02:11:55,760
Speaker 1: We're in the same space, but coming in to put

2595
02:11:55,800 --> 02:11:58,840
Speaker 1: fires out. Man, that's right, So we're coming out from

2596
02:11:58,840 --> 02:12:01,360
Speaker 1: the other side. Yeah. We spend a lot of time

2597
02:12:01,480 --> 02:12:05,680
Speaker 1: pushing um and I will continue to do so. Pushing

2598
02:12:05,800 --> 02:12:10,480
Speaker 1: those you know, the advancing the agenda of wildlife groups,

2599
02:12:10,520 --> 02:12:14,720
Speaker 1: advancing the agenda habitat groups and that stuff is extremely important.

2600
02:12:14,720 --> 02:12:17,720
Speaker 1: But I think it's also important to stay to stay

2601
02:12:17,760 --> 02:12:20,400
Speaker 1: in the game and stay in the fight on on

2602
02:12:21,040 --> 02:12:25,200
Speaker 1: protection of rights, protection of hunter rights. Man. Yeah, it's

2603
02:12:25,200 --> 02:12:27,480
Speaker 1: a two, it's a two. Pronged battle that everyone that

2604
02:12:27,560 --> 02:12:30,920
Speaker 1: hunts and fishes needs to needs to pay attention to. Alright, guys,

2605
02:12:31,520 --> 02:12:33,480
Speaker 1: I appreciate you've given us so much of your time.

2606
02:12:33,760 --> 02:12:35,040
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us than you