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Speaker 1: M you're riding a boat together, or you're you're walking

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Speaker 1: out to a place together, you're sitting in a blind together,

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Speaker 1: and the conversations can just continue while you're duck hunting.

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Speaker 1: On this episode of the Beargrease podcast, we're back in

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Speaker 1: the swamp in pursuit of understanding the cathedral of the

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Speaker 1: Mallard Duck Green Tree Reservoirs, or GTRs as they're called.

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Speaker 1: This is part two in the final episode in our

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Speaker 1: series on Arkansas duck hunting. We've explored the ancient Mississippi

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Speaker 1: Flyway and the unique culture of the water fowlers who

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Speaker 1: dedicated their lives to ducks. Get ready for some drama,

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Speaker 1: because the trees and the GTRs are dying. We'll talk

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Speaker 1: with Austin Booth, the director of the Arkansas Game and

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Speaker 1: Fish Commission, and waterfowl biologists Luke Naylor. Will look into

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Speaker 1: the complexity of conservation issues on public lands, which can

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Speaker 1: be slow to navigate, but in the end we'll hear

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Speaker 1: what the plan is to save these critical flooded bottom

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Speaker 1: land hardwoods. I really doubt you're gonna want to miss

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Speaker 1: this one. Do we want to to tell our green

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Speaker 1: kids what it was like to hunt by me to

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Speaker 1: or do we want to listen to them? Tell us

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Speaker 1: what it's like. My name is Clay Nukelem and this

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Speaker 1: is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten

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Speaker 1: but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where

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Speaker 1: we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their lives

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Speaker 1: close to the land. Presented by f HF gear, American

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Speaker 1: made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to

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Speaker 1: be as rugged as the places we explore. Started when

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Speaker 1: I was nine and so this will be my sixth

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Speaker 1: or is my sixty four duck season. When I say

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Speaker 1: that to people, they just sort of look back at me, like,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, what does that really mean? And he realized,

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Speaker 1: sixty four times you've done this. This is Mr Bobby Martin.

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Speaker 1: So you started hunting public land in Arkansas when you

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Speaker 1: were just a kid? Yeah, literally nine years old. First

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Speaker 1: time was you know, like a lot of kids. My

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Speaker 1: dad took me on the first trip and put me

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Speaker 1: on his back and hauled me across the rice field

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Speaker 1: and win Arkansas, and so all of my life I've hunted. Uh, well,

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Speaker 1: if there was a puddle of water in Arkansas with

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Speaker 1: a duck on it. I probably have hunted it. You

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Speaker 1: said your dad used to take you and leave you

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Speaker 1: over at BioMedia for a couple of days when you

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Speaker 1: were just a kid. Yeah. Actually, uh, you know, by

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Speaker 1: the time I was thirteen, myself in another hunting buddy,

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Speaker 1: and you know, we were just really kind of eating

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Speaker 1: up with it. After Christmas week, we're out of school.

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Speaker 1: So my dad would take us down and we'd hunt

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Speaker 1: on a Sunday morning and that he'd leave in the

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Speaker 1: afternoon and leave us there. We camped in a pup

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Speaker 1: tent and walked in hunting uh into an area that's

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Speaker 1: called Government Cyprus. Principally anybody around Arkansas by media, they

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Speaker 1: know exactly where I'm talking about. So we would be there,

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Speaker 1: and then about on Wednesday each during that week, he

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Speaker 1: would come in check on us and take us into Wabasek,

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Speaker 1: Arkansas to the laundromat so we could dry out whatever

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Speaker 1: was wet, and there was always something wet. But literally,

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Speaker 1: of course, that was the time when the things were

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Speaker 1: a little bit different. But you know, my parents had

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Speaker 1: a lot of trust and responsibility to have us out

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Speaker 1: there with twelve gay shotguns and theres a lot of

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Speaker 1: wilderness during that time. I can't tell you that we

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Speaker 1: didn't get lost. I know my parents loved me, but

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Speaker 1: I look back on and I'm thinking, wow, okay, but

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Speaker 1: a lot of trust they were, but they loved me

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Speaker 1: enough to know how good it was for me. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's where it really got my love and my passion going.

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Speaker 1: Mr Bobby is seventy three years old and is currently

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Speaker 1: a commissioner of the body which governs Arkansas Wildlife and

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Speaker 1: state owned lands, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Stories

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Speaker 1: like Mr. Bobby's are common in this part of the world,

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Speaker 1: and when it's this personal understanding, the passion is easier.

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Speaker 1: When a father carries his son on his back into

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Speaker 1: a wild place. Perhaps that ancient transportation method switches on

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Speaker 1: a gene for excessive focus on the travel to activity,

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Speaker 1: or perhaps the ability to mine out the nuance of

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Speaker 1: wild places unperceived by others. I'm in pursuit of understanding

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Speaker 1: the sector of American culture that has a cult like devotion,

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Speaker 1: fist pounding fervor in a hundred years of conservation replete

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Speaker 1: with some failures but also massive victories. The score keeping

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Speaker 1: isn't done by man end but by the ducks. We're

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Speaker 1: peering into the world of water fowlers. By Man's calculation system,

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Speaker 1: water fowlers have directly protected over fifteen million acres of

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Speaker 1: critical wetlands in North America. The waterfowl community has been

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Speaker 1: highly successful at protecting where ducks live, which has impacted

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Speaker 1: duck numbers. Since nineteen fifty five, the US Fish and

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Speaker 1: Wildlife Service has kept track of duck numbers on the continent.

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Speaker 1: In the nineteen seventies, waterfowl numbers were in decline, but

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Speaker 1: today our numbers are trending towards fifty year highs. There

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Speaker 1: is no doubt it's a hundred percent attributed to hunting

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Speaker 1: conservation groups, both state agencies and NGOs. No other group

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Speaker 1: on planet Earth does more for wildlife than hunters, and

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Speaker 1: where an animal has cultural value through sport hunting, it

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Speaker 1: and its habitat are protected. This isn't a political spin

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Speaker 1: or contrived through tinted lenses. Though we aren't perfect, our

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Speaker 1: message to the wider American community is clear. Give us

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Speaker 1: the space to manage wildlife and wild places through hunting.

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Speaker 1: It's working. The science backs us, But perhaps as important

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Speaker 1: as the science is that hunting runs thicker than blood

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Speaker 1: in the river's mountains and hollis of this country. I

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Speaker 1: continue to be amazed as I look into our American roots,

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Speaker 1: from the rich history of the Native Americans, connection to

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Speaker 1: the land, to the frontiersman. We are a nation of hunters,

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Speaker 1: and this is something to be proud of. The story

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Speaker 1: of Arkansas duck hunters and their desire to protect habitat

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Speaker 1: is just one small piece of a big story. In

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Speaker 1: this last episode, we talked about why Arkansas is known

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Speaker 1: as the duck hunting capital of the world. It was

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Speaker 1: a combination of multiple things, but primarily geography. Here's world

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Speaker 1: champion duck caller jimbo ron Quest recapping a few things

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Speaker 1: for us. You just look at the land, so you

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Speaker 1: start way back. Ducks used all the river bottoms, so

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Speaker 1: used to buy me to basin, the Cash River, basin,

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Speaker 1: the White River bation. And then when we had the

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Speaker 1: advent of rice on the ground, which become a surrogate wetland.

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Speaker 1: Once they started planting rice and there are the nineteen

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Speaker 1: hundreds and ducks started finding it. This area started getting

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Speaker 1: well known where farmers would say, come go shoot these ducks.

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Speaker 1: I'll buy you shells. Just keep ducks out of my rice.

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Speaker 1: You know that literally happened for some time. The combination

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Speaker 1: of all the hardwood bottoms in h and all of

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Speaker 1: our river systems is that all comes together and flows

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Speaker 1: towards the Mississippi. It just kept tightening up, tightened up,

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Speaker 1: and we had great habitat and great natural food sources.

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Speaker 1: And then we added to that with the advent again

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Speaker 1: rice production, now corn milow. Whatever people are playing on

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Speaker 1: food plug. I love it when natural systems do what

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Speaker 1: natural systems do. And just like this morning, you and

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Speaker 1: me or sitting in a duck hole over here watching

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Speaker 1: ducks fly by, and you can't push them too hard

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Speaker 1: to go somewhere they don't want to go. They're gonna

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Speaker 1: go where they want to go, and that is Arkansas.

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Speaker 1: I may be biased about my home state, but Mallard

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Speaker 1: ducks have used the Mississippi Flyway, the most used flyway

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Speaker 1: in North America, to come here by the millions since

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Speaker 1: the end of the last ice Age. It has to

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Speaker 1: do with the geography of rivers and continental drainage, agriculture,

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Speaker 1: and US having the largest stands of green tree reservoirs

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Speaker 1: in the United States. From the duck hunting side, Arkansas

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Speaker 1: is the capital because of what duck hunters call hunting

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Speaker 1: in the timber. I'm new to duck hunting, but it

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Speaker 1: didn't take me long to learn two things. Mallard ducks

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Speaker 1: are the king, and hunting flooded timber is the rolls Royce,

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Speaker 1: the flashy mule, the cast iron skillet corn bread of

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Speaker 1: duck hunting. But we need to establish why. Here's Sean Weaver,

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Speaker 1: me eaters duck guru, talking about hunting in the timber.

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Speaker 1: Coming from the outside into duck hunting, you just feel

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Speaker 1: like the goal of duck hunting is to kill as

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Speaker 1: many ducks as you can. Whether you kill those ducks

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Speaker 1: on the edge of a field, or whether you kill

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Speaker 1: those ducks on a river, or whether you kill those

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Speaker 1: ducks and flooded timber, you would not, intuitively, just from

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Speaker 1: the outside be able to say which one is more coveted,

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Speaker 1: has more value, and it's cooler wise, hunting ducks and

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Speaker 1: timber so special. Yeah, you raise a interesting point there.

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Speaker 1: For a lot of people, it's actually not just a

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Speaker 1: numbers thing. It's not just how many ducks you can kill.

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Speaker 1: It's not just shooting your limit. It's how you kill them.

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Speaker 1: And for example, if you go hunt a pit in

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Speaker 1: a rice field, those ducks don't always finish right. They

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Speaker 1: might kind of hang above the decoys at thirty yards

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Speaker 1: and give it a real good look, but not be

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Speaker 1: back pedaling feet down over the decoys. And yet they're

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Speaker 1: still in shooting range and you get to shoot those ducks.

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Speaker 1: But for a lot of guys, especially guys that really

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Speaker 1: kind of have the game figured out, they would rather

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Speaker 1: take just a few ducks a day feet down, hovering

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Speaker 1: over the decoys and knowing they've got them fooled, really fooled.

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Speaker 1: That matters more than just the number. And to shoot

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Speaker 1: ducks in the timber, it's kind of an all or

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Speaker 1: nothing proposition for the ducks. They're either gonna stay up

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Speaker 1: above the trees and screw around, spinning around, working but

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Speaker 1: not fully committing. But once they've come down through that canopy,

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Speaker 1: they're committed. They've made their decision, and you have fooled

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Speaker 1: them at that point. And I think that the fact

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Speaker 1: that when you're shooting ducks in the timber, they're usually

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Speaker 1: fluttering around feet down is a big value to a

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Speaker 1: lot of people and why it's so coveted to do it.

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Speaker 1: Here's jimbo on why the timber is special. I've noticed

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Speaker 1: lots of these guys just get a little tongue tied

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Speaker 1: when they talk about it. And it's the it's how

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Speaker 1: they really explain it. But it's the kind of a

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Speaker 1: funky word to use for it. But it's the intimacy

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Speaker 1: of it. It's it's it's your inclose. You're standing against

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Speaker 1: a tree. But I've had it for ducks, like you

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Speaker 1: can just almost grabble and you're calling and and there,

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Speaker 1: you know, you know, today, lots of times I'm ducks,

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Speaker 1: the ones that we've finished, they'd come right on top

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Speaker 1: of that because looking for that call, you know, and

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Speaker 1: then you have to get him a look for the decoys,

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Speaker 1: and and just the fact that that's what they're doing.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're coming looking for you. The last episode,

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Speaker 1: we introduced the new director of the Arkansas Game and

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Speaker 1: Fish Commission, Austin Booth, as a lifelong public land duck hunter.

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Speaker 1: He's just like these other guys, a bit at a

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Speaker 1: loss for words. It is almost impossible to explain it.

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Speaker 1: There's no than like it. There's absolutely nothing like it.

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Speaker 1: I was raised in Lonoke County, went to college out

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Speaker 1: of state, and basically left the state four or fifteen years,

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Speaker 1: but I always came back during duck season and I

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Speaker 1: would explain to people that have never hunted timber before

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Speaker 1: that ducks land in the trees and they look at me,

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Speaker 1: and you're just supposed to know that that's really, really special.

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Speaker 1: And no, they wouldn't believe me that I know. They don't. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they do. They say, you mean you're standing in the

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Speaker 1: woods and a bunch of water and ducks will land

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Speaker 1: down into the trees into the water. Said, yes, they

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Speaker 1: wouldn't believe me. I had the opportunity to bring people

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Speaker 1: to Arkansas to watch them. Watched timber hunting for the

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Speaker 1: first time, and there's nothing else like it. When those

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Speaker 1: ducks can see your decoys from eight hundred a thousand

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Speaker 1: feet in the air and they come down at a

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Speaker 1: sixties seventy eight degree angle, wings cup through the limbs,

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Speaker 1: and when they're inside the canopy from you, you're you're

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Speaker 1: just so close to him that you can hear their

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Speaker 1: feet dragging through the wind, you can hear their feathers

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Speaker 1: cutting through the wind. To be that close and have

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Speaker 1: that close of a connection where a cred are so

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Speaker 1: hot up in the sky, there's just nothing like it. Inside.

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Speaker 1: As hunters, we cherish the very fleeting moments before we

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Speaker 1: take game. If you, if you think about deer hunting

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Speaker 1: like we think about big white tail bucks, the amount

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Speaker 1: of time that I have spent in the presence of

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Speaker 1: a big wild white tail buck is actually a very

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Speaker 1: miniscule amount of time. And that moment is what you

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Speaker 1: remember for so long, this animal, this majestic animal that

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Speaker 1: you're after in his natural environment, unaware of your presence,

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Speaker 1: and you as a as a predator, in all the

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Speaker 1: work that's gone into that moment, being ready and knowing

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Speaker 1: that the moment of truth is is now. That's what

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Speaker 1: it feels like. There is something very special about watching

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Speaker 1: these birds and then convincing them to commit to your decoys.

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Speaker 1: But what I what I wouldn't have known, is that

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Speaker 1: these ducks actually coming through the limbs of these trees

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Speaker 1: and the way that the aeronautics of what they do.

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Speaker 1: That's what gets the duck hunter flipping out. That's right,

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Speaker 1: because they do all kind of wild stuff when they

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Speaker 1: come in, and it's just it's the culmination of everything

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Speaker 1: we know. Mallards are the king, but mallards in the

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Speaker 1: timber is the king on his throne. I want Austin

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Speaker 1: to define that throne for us. What is a green

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Speaker 1: tree reservoir? A green tree reservoir is a reservoir of

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Speaker 1: bottom one hardwoods. So so think a predominance of red

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Speaker 1: oaks that is naturally at a lower point in elevation

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Speaker 1: where it's a natural drainage point. The word okay, so

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Speaker 1: that you've established why it's called green tree because it's

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Speaker 1: living trees, primarily oaks, is what we're interested if we're

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Speaker 1: talking about ducks, but it's a res of ore. It's

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Speaker 1: it's holding water at different times of the year naturally

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Speaker 1: in the flood stages of these rivers. Correct green tree

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Speaker 1: reservoirs GTRs or what makes this place special. It's important

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Speaker 1: to understand that there are two reasons timbered areas would flood.

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Speaker 1: The first would be an active nature or just natural flooding,

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Speaker 1: the second being man induced flooding by the building of levies. So,

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Speaker 1: after the turn of the twentieth century, rice production in

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Speaker 1: the Arkansas Delta took off. Farmers cleared large amounts of

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Speaker 1: bottom land timber and planet agg crops, lots of it

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Speaker 1: in rice ducks loved the rice, but it also concentrated

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Speaker 1: ducks into the timber that remained, and duck hunters took

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Speaker 1: notice of the old Mallard's affinity for acorns in the timber.

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Speaker 1: Here's Luke Naylor, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commissions lead

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Speaker 1: waterfowl biologist. He's gonna tell us about the first intentional

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Speaker 1: flooding of hardwood timber in Arkansas, which took place in

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Speaker 1: nineteen They talked about the first one being a guy

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Speaker 1: in the name of Tindal in Arkansas County, and he

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Speaker 1: ring levied a bunch of trees to hold water to

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Speaker 1: to irrigate rice. We know that irrigation reservoirs are critically

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Speaker 1: important and being added to the landscape even today to

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Speaker 1: to irrigate rice during the summer using surface water, and

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Speaker 1: so these folks were experimenting with that way back ninety

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Speaker 1: years ago. Let's just let's just levy up that chunk

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Speaker 1: of woods over there, and the woods historically would have

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Speaker 1: been temporary, and so you would have had these situations

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Speaker 1: where you know, ducks use those areas when they flooded,

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Speaker 1: mostly naturally the period of time, a short period of time,

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Speaker 1: maybe not every year, almost certainly not every year, depending

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Speaker 1: on the elevation, And so then you get people early

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Speaker 1: hunters and and see that Okay, wait a minute. With

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Speaker 1: these woods flood, the ducks get in it, and that's

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Speaker 1: really off them because we get to go we get

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Speaker 1: to go hunt the ducks in the woods, and that's

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Speaker 1: really cool. So then they start seeing, Okay, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: build a reservoir here to flood our rise in the summer.

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Speaker 1: And wow. Uh so we've kept this thing flooded for

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Speaker 1: a couple of years in a row, and the ducks

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Speaker 1: are in it all the time now in the winter.

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Speaker 1: So okay, let's put two and two together here. Keep

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Speaker 1: doing this. Yeah, let's keep doing this, Let's keep providing.

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Speaker 1: Let's keep flooding these areas on a regular basis, because

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Speaker 1: when they flood, we shoot ducks. When they're dry, we

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Speaker 1: don't shoot ducks. Let's fix that. Just human nature at work.

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Speaker 1: Then that kind of led us to to where we

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Speaker 1: are now with this whole notion of consistency in well

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Speaker 1: and that and that. Over the course of decades and

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Speaker 1: generations of people, it builds in a idea of what's

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Speaker 1: normal it is in human nature, and we love consistency

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Speaker 1: but basically, nothing in nature is consistent. Nothing in nature

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Speaker 1: is consistent, and that's an important phrase to remember. As

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Speaker 1: is common demand, people began to find ways to get

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Speaker 1: around nature's inconsistency, and building water holding infrastructure that allows

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Speaker 1: large tracts of land to be flooded and drained was

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Speaker 1: the ticket. It's important to know that both private and

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Speaker 1: public land have water holding infrastructure, but the Arkansas Game

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Speaker 1: and Fish Commission manages over fifty thousand acres of it

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Speaker 1: on forty different GTRs. All this was great, but about

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Speaker 1: twenty years ago we started to notice a problem. We

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Speaker 1: wanted to hold water. We wanted to hold water to

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Speaker 1: make the sixty days of duck season more predictable. We

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Speaker 1: wanted to have water on the trees well enough before

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Speaker 1: the duck season started, when the ducks could enjoy it

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Speaker 1: and understand what they could eat there. The problem with

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Speaker 1: that is when we put the infrastructure in place, we

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Speaker 1: just didn't know a whole lot about tree dormancy. When

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Speaker 1: water or stands on on trees, that's generally a bad thing.

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Speaker 1: Now they can take it when the trees are dormant.

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Speaker 1: I tell people treats don't have a calendar. They don't say,

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Speaker 1: all right, it's November fifteenth, time for us to go dormant.

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Speaker 1: It's based a lot of soil temperature, air temperature, individual

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Speaker 1: climate of that that year. When we put water on

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Speaker 1: the trees artificially and those trees aren't dormant yet, then

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Speaker 1: that's putting a lot of stress on the trees. We

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Speaker 1: kept doing this for for years and years and years

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Speaker 1: and years, and then about you know, ten twenty years ago,

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Speaker 1: we started seeing some pretty troubling signs and it was

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Speaker 1: declining timber el and it happened predominantly trees. Trees were dying,

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Speaker 1: and it was predominantly for two reasons. One because we

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Speaker 1: were we were putting water on them artificially too. It

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Speaker 1: was because of increased rainfall. We had a rain event

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Speaker 1: this year two one the first week of June and

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Speaker 1: uh D Shay County in southeastern Arkansas got nineteen inches

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Speaker 1: of rain in thirty six hours. That same rain event,

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Speaker 1: when it hit by met a wildlife inchment area, it

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Speaker 1: took us about six weeks to get the water off.

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Speaker 1: Not only is our infrastructure outdated, not only have we

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Speaker 1: been artificially putting water on, but we've just been getting

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Speaker 1: more rainfall than our infrastructure was ever intended to handle.

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Speaker 1: So the issue of standing water on tree roots, which

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Speaker 1: is natural in this part of the world, is compounded

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Speaker 1: by artificial flooding and unprecedented rainfall in recent years on

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Speaker 1: the White River, which is a major river in the

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Speaker 1: Arkansas Delta. Of its twenty five highest recorded crests, ten

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Speaker 1: have happened in the last eleven years. Think about that

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Speaker 1: for a minute. The current trend is massive amounts of

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Speaker 1: rainfall in short periods of time. This makes things tough.

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Speaker 1: Here's Luke. Yeah, So we've we've been managing these systems

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Speaker 1: in a in an artificial way for about fifty years,

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Speaker 1: let's say, on average. And what I mean by that

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Speaker 1: is that these areas when we talked about, you know,

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Speaker 1: a hundred fifty years ago, would have been periodic flooding,

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Speaker 1: unpredictable flooding, variable flooding, and we've provided fairly consistent flooding

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Speaker 1: in these areas, which has led to several different different

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Speaker 1: issues we have. These forests are made up of a

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Speaker 1: bunch of different species, which is mainly talking about trees now,

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Speaker 1: and different species of trees that have different water tolerances.

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Speaker 1: Even in these swamps. Even in these swamps, trees have

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Speaker 1: different they're highly adapted to it, but they're adapted to

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Speaker 1: different hydro periods, different durations and timing of flooding, and

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Speaker 1: we've altered that by generally flooding earlier than Mother Nature

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Speaker 1: would have flooded these So they usually would have flooded

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Speaker 1: in the wintertime and through the spring winter through spring. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: through March April. We can think about this landscape. The

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Speaker 1: driest months of the year for us are typically September, October,

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Speaker 1: and through part of November. Our management has attempted to

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Speaker 1: flood these areas for opening day a duck season, which

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Speaker 1: had been the Saturday before Thanksgiving for years and years

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Speaker 1: and years, So kind of a mismatch with the normal

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Speaker 1: rainfall period in this area. Would it be safe to

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Speaker 1: say from December through April would have been the typical

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Speaker 1: flooding period for this part of the world. Likely, yes,

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Speaker 1: December through April, and they would have probably these areas

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Speaker 1: would have started to drop in in late February after

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Speaker 1: spring migration to ducks, and then you're gonna get inevitable

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Speaker 1: big spring thunderstorms right the broad water in the things

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Speaker 1: that pulse up, but they'd fall out a few days.

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Speaker 1: And we look at trees and when some of these

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Speaker 1: bottom and hardwood species break dormancy, a lot of these

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Speaker 1: don't break bud until March or April, which long behold.

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Speaker 1: That lines up pretty well when these areas would have

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Speaker 1: been mostly dry, but maybe a few day flood event

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Speaker 1: that came and went moving while the entire time, we

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00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:05,119
Speaker 1: think that means oxygenated water, so something that these trees

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Speaker 1: are highly adapted to. Unlike early fall flooding October November flooding,

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Speaker 1: trees are not gone dormant. They've still got green leaves

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Speaker 1: down here exactly. Temperatures are warm, and we end up

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Speaker 1: with stagnant water. So for fifty years we've added at

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Speaker 1: least an extra month or month and a half about

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Speaker 1: that of water on these trees. It's and it's killing them,

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00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:30,040
Speaker 1: and it really it just all boils down to variability

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Speaker 1: and the lack of it. We we managed for a

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Speaker 1: lack of hydrologic variability for a lot of years. So

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Speaker 1: what what I heard to say earlier is that natural systems,

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Speaker 1: they all seem to be very unpredictable, and so that

392
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Speaker 1: is their system. The system is designed to be unpredictable.

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Speaker 1: So this thing floods this year but not next year.

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Speaker 1: This year it flooded in the winter but not in

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Speaker 1: the spring. And that pattern, even though it doesn't it's

396
00:23:55,680 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: not really a pattern, produces what those trees be his need.

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Speaker 1: So the consistency that man came in and put on

398
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Speaker 1: it is what's hurting them. Yeah, variability is the pattern.

399
00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:13,199
Speaker 1: Natural systems have mastered the art of finding equilibrium in

400
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Speaker 1: ways that are impossible for the human mind to comprehend.

401
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:22,640
Speaker 1: Unpredictability is nature's pattern, and that has founded an incredibly

402
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 1: stable system. Here's Austin with some very disturbing statistics. In

403
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:32,119
Speaker 1: two thousand and fourteen, we did a forced health assessment

404
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: at Hurricane Lake Wald Life Management Area, and forty two

405
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 1: percent of our red oaks were either dead or irreversibly

406
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:45,120
Speaker 1: dying fort and then we had a precipitous die off

407
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:48,199
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen. So I think it's safe to

408
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: say that our our red oak health at Hurricane Lake

409
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: compared to what it was is well over half, well

410
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Speaker 1: over half. And and this is what the ducks are eating.

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Speaker 1: This is why they're going to the timber. This is

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Speaker 1: why before European settlement. Ducks were coming down the flyway

413
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Speaker 1: and they were making a living off off the acorns

414
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 1: natural flooded timber and the acorns that were they on

415
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 1: the ground. That's right. They can get calories from the acrons,

416
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 1: they can get calories from the invertebrate that that live

417
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:20,880
Speaker 1: in the leaf litter, and they can get covered from

418
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Speaker 1: the trees. Red oaks are are the best anchor for

419
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 1: all of that kind of habitat in the g trs.

420
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 1: So red oak timber is essential to green timber reservoirs

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Speaker 1: and ducks. You know, during duck season, most of leaves

422
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:38,919
Speaker 1: are off the trees anyways. For folks to really understand

423
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:41,399
Speaker 1: what this mortality looks like, they really need to get

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00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:43,560
Speaker 1: that in the spring. And so yeah, duck hunters are

425
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:45,360
Speaker 1: seeing these trees when they're all dormants, so they all

426
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,200
Speaker 1: would appear dead. They wouldn't be coming back alarm in

427
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 1: the bell and all the trees are dead. And I

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Speaker 1: don't want you or any of your listeners to think

429
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 1: that I'm a trained forest biologists, because I'm not. I'm

430
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:58,440
Speaker 1: a knuckle dragon marine. I've been learning this stuff too.

431
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:01,400
Speaker 1: And we went out there a Hurricane Lake Wildlife management

432
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:05,080
Speaker 1: area in the southern GTR where it is like ground

433
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: zero of Denver mortality and it will make you six

434
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:11,399
Speaker 1: years stomach. The only thing that is taller than the

435
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 1: buckbrush that ducks really don't care about from a food

436
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 1: perspective are sofest trees and dead red oaks. Then we

437
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 1: took what we learned at Hurricane and we started a

438
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: forest health assessment at by Me to last year. This summer,

439
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 1: we were about halfway through that forest health assessment, we

440
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 1: noticed some really disturbing trends where even though we were

441
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:35,719
Speaker 1: not all the way through with the forced health assessment,

442
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 1: we think that some of the things we're seeing on

443
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: the ground right now at buy Me to look a

444
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 1: whole lot like what Hurricane would it looked like, you know,

445
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:48,400
Speaker 1: two thousand and eleven, two thousand twelve. So we made

446
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 1: the difficult decision to implement changes for this water fall

447
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 1: season on how we're managing our water levels at Hurricane

448
00:26:57,280 --> 00:27:02,399
Speaker 1: and Buy Meat. Here Luke talking more specifically about what

449
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: is happening to individual tree species in the flooded timber.

450
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:11,120
Speaker 1: As a warning, parents, this section may not be appropriate

451
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 1: for children because Luke incorrectly pronounces the word spelled a

452
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: c o are in despite this erosion of trust. Here's Luke,

453
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:27,919
Speaker 1: So tell me what's happening, Like, what what are we

454
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: now seeing. We're seeing these species that are less water tolerant.

455
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: Most of them are red oaks, and most of the

456
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 1: red oaks are produced acorns that are of the right

457
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 1: size to be consumed by ducks. Were mainly talking about mallards.

458
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:44,439
Speaker 1: I guess it's unfortunate. It would have been nice if

459
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: the water tolerant species produced small acorns that ducks like.

460
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:50,360
Speaker 1: But it's not that way. We've got willow oaks, which

461
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: a lot of people around here called pin oak, but

462
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: it's it's not a true pin oak, real slender leaf

463
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: tree that's extremely common, which is produces a nice small

464
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: acorn that mallards and wood duck just love. Uh. Not.

465
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 1: All oak is another species. And though and that willow

466
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 1: oak is water tolerant, it is not water tolerant. And

467
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:10,040
Speaker 1: that's the catch. So we've got willow oak. You've kind

468
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 1: of you've got this whole, these different tiers of water

469
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 1: tolerance that we we think these trees have, and we

470
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: think willow I'm a big oak guy, man, tell me

471
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: tell me the stratification of water tolerance. Yeah, so I'll

472
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 1: start at the high ground, the least water tolerant. We're

473
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 1: probably talking about. Cherry bark oak and water oak are

474
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:31,360
Speaker 1: kind of the higher species within these bottom and hardwood systems.

475
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 1: Maybe a month of flooding is what they can tolerate,

476
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:36,119
Speaker 1: and you step down a little bit. We think willow

477
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 1: oak can take maybe a month or two. We're talking

478
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,959
Speaker 1: thirty to sixty days of dormant season flooding. You go

479
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: down the gradient a little bit more, you find not

480
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 1: all oak that can tolerate maybe a couple of months

481
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: of flooding, and then you move down to over cup oak,

482
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: which is highly a water tolerant, and we can take

483
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 1: about probably even we see it surviving with six months

484
00:28:56,120 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 1: plus the flooding. Now, all those time periods all also

485
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: assume variability, right, so even sixty days every year for

486
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: forty years for not all oaks is not good, even

487
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 1: though they're a little bit more water tolerant than a

488
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 1: cherry bark oak. And so what we're seeing now is

489
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 1: those red oak species are showing major signs of mortality,

490
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: tree stress and mortality, and so we've had massive die

491
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: offs in some locations. Uh that have been fairly sudden,

492
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: and we've had a bunch of other areas that have

493
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: been just kind of a kind of a slow bleed,

494
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: lots of just showing signs of stress, fallen out of

495
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: the forest on maybe in little maybe in little fits

496
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: and starts. You know, maybe I have a year where

497
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: you lose a bunch of them, and maybe they hang

498
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: on for a few more years than you lose a bunch.

499
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: So a really kind of a slower process in some places,

500
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: which is interesting because it makes it a whole lot

501
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: harder to detect when you don't see a massive die

502
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:55,479
Speaker 1: off that happens in two or three years. A lot

503
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 1: of folks can simply go into these areas year after

504
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: year after year, and that change is so subtle that

505
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 1: it's almost imperceptible. Let's really really stop and look at it.

506
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: And it's generally happening with these with these willow oaks

507
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 1: and nuttle oaks are the two predominant species on w May,

508
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 1: so that this is happening to the artificial flooding is

509
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 1: selecting for water tolerant oaks species, and unfortunately those types

510
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: of oaks produced acorns that are too big for ducks

511
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: to utilize. Literally, they can't swallow them. Waterfowl needs small

512
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: acorns produced by nuttall and willow oaks and some other

513
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 1: red oak varieties, but the water is killing those kinds

514
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 1: of trees and not allowing the young trees of those

515
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 1: species to survive. Trying to understand how all this could

516
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 1: sneak up on us is a complex question, but it's

517
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 1: something that the a g f C has been tracking

518
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: for over a decade. The answer is pretty simple, and

519
00:30:54,520 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: it's both biological and social. Here's jimbo ron Quest given

520
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: us a little history. Heck, even Tim fifteen years ago.

521
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: You know, people like Looking Later and Buck Jackson, Mickey Hoytmeyer,

522
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: different ones. We're talking about something's gonna have to be done.

523
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: Are we gonna lose this whole ecosystem? Finally, here a

524
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: few years ago, we had a big timberdal if at

525
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: one of our w a mazed. Everybody talked about it,

526
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: and we scratched at a little bit and try to

527
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 1: educate folks, and there's folks still thinking, wow, you know,

528
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: it's it's fine, it's good. We gotta keep flooding. Well,

529
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 1: finally Game of Fish stepped up and said it's time

530
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 1: to do something, and in some ways they may be

531
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: a little late, but they took the bull by the

532
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 1: horns and are making something happen. So now here's what

533
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. You heard him mention that for a

534
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: long time, Luke and many others have been crying wolf.

535
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: And it's worth bringing up that the amount of research

536
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: driven data, the assessment of public opinion, and all the

537
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: other factors that come into implementing long term plans isn't

538
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:59,000
Speaker 1: always a fast process. We all know that whatever direction

539
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: of government agency goes, it's gonna take some criticism. Couple

540
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 1: that with the passion around Arkansas waterfowl hunting, and it's

541
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 1: easy to see the difficulty with getting the timing right

542
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: on this. Here's Luke talking about the challenges of managing trees.

543
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: It is they were early because their trees and they

544
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 1: live so long. It's a tough system to study and

545
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: identify these changes. And you start to see in the

546
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: scientific literature and and in you know, just general writings

547
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 1: of within agency documents and such, you see mention of

548
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: tree stress. Fairly early on in the growth of GTRs

549
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:42,920
Speaker 1: as a management tool. You start to see so that

550
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: there was some there was some noticing of this is

551
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,600
Speaker 1: maybe hurting the trees, right, people noticed it. Tendall's reservoir

552
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 1: was quickly treeless. It was a dead stick reservoir. So

553
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: folks notice pretty quickly that wow, okay, that's flooding year around.

554
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: Is not good, and so check that off the list.

555
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 1: But then it transition to well we can dormant season flood. Well,

556
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 1: then that kind of gets pushed earlier because we like

557
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 1: to shoot ducks earlier, and you know, I have duck

558
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: season earlier, and people notice that there were issues. There

559
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 1: were some early studies that that suggested a boom in

560
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: acorn production and tree vigor when GTRs were implemented, like

561
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: the first few years, which could make some sense. You're

562
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 1: all of a sudden irrigating this tree just like a

563
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: high water year. Yeah, if if that happens just for

564
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:28,960
Speaker 1: a couple of years, maybe it would spike production exactly,

565
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 1: So it spikes, but then it's kind of a short

566
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 1: lived benefit. It's just a really slow burn. And and

567
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 1: as hunters, as we go out there in the winter,

568
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: no leaves on the trees except those early you know,

569
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: during November when there'd be water on it. But in

570
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,120
Speaker 1: December in January. You go out and look at these

571
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:47,400
Speaker 1: places and it's kind of like, well, I mean, there's

572
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 1: oaks here, there's trees. I gotta treetle in against the hunt.

573
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: So what's the problem. And we've just done a better

574
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: job here recently to actually scientifically document these changes and

575
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: the decline and for is held. Here's Austin, and he's

576
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: gonna tell us what the plan is. So Austin, it's

577
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:19,240
Speaker 1: it's clear that there's a big problem that's gonna affect

578
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 1: the flyway in a significant way and and really has

579
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: the potential to change duck hunting here in a significant way.

580
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: So it's it's like, really, the problem is very clear.

581
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 1: Talk to me about what you guys are doing. We

582
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:36,279
Speaker 1: are temporarily managing water levels to a lower level to

583
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 1: let two things happen. First, for us to get the

584
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:42,360
Speaker 1: infrastructure in place that we need to manage this water

585
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 1: consistent with the level of rainfall that we're getting, and

586
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:49,240
Speaker 1: to to undertake some aggressive forest management on the wildlife

587
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 1: management areas. At biometer, we normally manage that water to

588
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:58,440
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty feet means sea level on average. Well,

589
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 1: we're gonna lower that to a hundred and seventy nine

590
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 1: feet this year, and then next year, after we make

591
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:06,120
Speaker 1: some improvements to some of the boat launches, we're going

592
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:09,840
Speaker 1: to manage that down to one seventy eight point five

593
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 1: in the three season. And that's a big deal, Like

594
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: one that doesn't sound significant to me necessarily, So tell

595
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: tell me how significant that is. Yeah, And there's a

596
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 1: key caveat here, all right. If we lower the water

597
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 1: level to one seventy nine down from one eight, that's

598
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 1: a reduction in public access in the in the amount

599
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,719
Speaker 1: of water covering the ground that is duck hountible ground. Yes,

600
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:38,239
Speaker 1: so by lowering the water one ft, you're reducing the

601
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:42,439
Speaker 1: amount of flooded timber by as a baseline, and that's

602
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 1: the caveat. In the twenty three season, if we lower

603
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: another six inches like we planted two down to one

604
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 1: seventy eight point five, that's another from one eighty down

605
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:56,760
Speaker 1: to one seventy eight point five, a total fifty percent reduction. However,

606
00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,799
Speaker 1: that's a fifty percent reduction as a baseline, Austin, what

607
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: do mean by that? It means that we are not saying,

608
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to drain these suckers dry and

609
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:06,759
Speaker 1: we're gonna leave them draw. Our goal on this is

610
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,919
Speaker 1: to replicate a more natural flooding model. So byo MET

611
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,880
Speaker 1: is a thirty three thousand acre wildlife management area seventeen

612
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: thousand acre GTR, but it's watershed clays seven hundred and

613
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: fifty thousand acres. As that watershed naturally fills up with

614
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,359
Speaker 1: rain events, it's all going to drain down. To buy

615
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 1: me that this happens every single year, and if we're

616
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 1: flund to one seventy nine and we get a big

617
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 1: rain event, it'll pulse up over one seventy nine. As

618
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: it drains out, it will come back down to one

619
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:38,920
Speaker 1: seventy nine. So we're not saying we are reducing the

620
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 1: public opportunity by well, that's not true, because that's only

621
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: true if we get zero inches of That makes sense.

622
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:49,760
Speaker 1: Ad how certain are we that this is gonna save

623
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 1: the timber that's still alive? Were very common? Really? Yeah,

624
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:56,920
Speaker 1: We've we started our renovation at Hurricane Lake Wildlife Management

625
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:01,840
Speaker 1: Area in July, but for that we did a year's

626
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 1: worth of force health assessments, a year's worth of a

627
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 1: lot are driven hydrology studies, and a year's worth of

628
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:12,840
Speaker 1: design and engineering we put a lot of work into

629
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:15,840
Speaker 1: ensuring that whatever solution we come up with is the

630
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 1: right one. We're not interested in rushing to failure here.

631
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: We're not interested in a band aid because, to be

632
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 1: honest with you, claim the timber health at some of

633
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 1: these places it's so bad that we're not going to

634
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:29,919
Speaker 1: get in a shot. That's wild. Yeah, when you look

635
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:34,280
Speaker 1: at wildlife management areas like this that hold so much

636
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:38,240
Speaker 1: caloric benefit and provides so so many duck energy days

637
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 1: to the duck resource. If we lose Hurricane and we

638
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 1: lose bio meta and we lose Black River, that will

639
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: change the flyway. Those are stark and serious words, especially

640
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 1: when you consider the ancientness of this flyway. In summary,

641
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 1: the plan is simply to replicate a more natural flooding model.

642
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 1: That's the answer. Here's Austin addressing some of the bigger

643
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:08,799
Speaker 1: social implications. Because it's straightforward of a solution as this is,

644
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:15,320
Speaker 1: there are still naysayers. It's more than about a few seasons.

645
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 1: We believe the average age of our public land duck

646
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:22,879
Speaker 1: hunter is about twenty three. I've told people that it's

647
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:27,800
Speaker 1: an opportunity for us as a generation of waterfowl hunters

648
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:30,360
Speaker 1: to ask ourselves the hard question of what we want

649
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 1: our legacy to be. You know, do we want to

650
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: be known as the consumers or do we want to

651
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:39,440
Speaker 1: be known as a sportsman that made the difficult choice

652
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:42,319
Speaker 1: for the resource. Do we want to to tell our

653
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 1: grand kids what it was like to hunt by me

654
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:46,959
Speaker 1: to or do we want to listen to them tell

655
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:50,239
Speaker 1: us what it's like. I hunted this publicly and growing up.

656
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 1: There's a lot at stake to a whole lot of

657
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 1: people in the state, but really to the future water

658
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 1: fowler here. Why are people just like, yeah, of course,

659
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 1: let's do this. I think there's a few reasons for that.

660
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,360
Speaker 1: I think the first reason is that they want to

661
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 1: keep enjoying the resource and they're uncertain of what the

662
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 1: future looks like. So I mean, this could be milked

663
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: along for some period of time before we saw like

664
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: catastrophic change. Yes, we could probably hunt another five to

665
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:23,280
Speaker 1: ten years, depending on on the location, and still see

666
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: lots of acorns on the ground. The problem is we've

667
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:30,280
Speaker 1: been on the downward trend for the habitat values of

668
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: of these GT yards for a long time. So do

669
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: we want to ride it all the way down or

670
00:39:34,560 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 1: do we want to try to arrest this decline and

671
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't get back. You can't get back

672
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 1: eighty year old red oak stand in in any less

673
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 1: than another eighty years. Another reason why people are skeptical

674
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:53,280
Speaker 1: is they say Mother Nature has always flooded this stuff.

675
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 1: These trees are meant to survive in water. That's the

676
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 1: way the Good Lord made them, and it's just not

677
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: true be as we've interfered with it. I think the

678
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: last reason is there's a lot of variables at play here.

679
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 1: It's easy for folks and I sympathize with a lot

680
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 1: of it. It says the real problem is this. We

681
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:15,879
Speaker 1: can fill in the blanks. One of those is fluctuating

682
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: river levels with the Army Corps of Engineers, or the

683
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,800
Speaker 1: fact that we stopped we stopped dredging some of the rivers.

684
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 1: Some people have declared war on the beavers. I certainly

685
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: don't like beavers, and we spend a lot of dollars

686
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 1: and manpower trying to eradicate beavers. I can go on

687
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: and on, but a lot of people want to point

688
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 1: to these other problems. One of the challenging aspects that

689
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 1: we've had with this message is that we're not saying

690
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:44,719
Speaker 1: those things aren't problems. What we're saying is that this

691
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: is about accountability. At the end of the day, our

692
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:50,280
Speaker 1: Kansans expect us to control the things that we can control,

693
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:52,880
Speaker 1: and that's what we're trying to do here. That means

694
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:56,080
Speaker 1: managing it at a lower level. So we have something

695
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 1: that's still around on the other side of all those

696
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 1: other longer term challenges, right, so we can work better

697
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: with the core. Yes, we can do more with you know,

698
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 1: river discharges, and we can keep fighting those hard long

699
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:12,399
Speaker 1: term fights. But if we don't do something now, we're

700
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 1: not going to have a resource left to save on

701
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 1: the other side. Yeah, it just it seems to me

702
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 1: like that this is a no brainer decision. But and

703
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 1: if you're not comfortable talking about this, we don't have to.

704
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: People are in general, I mean, this is a people issue. Really,

705
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:31,839
Speaker 1: Why we can't just enforced us without any conflict with

706
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: because there are people that are upset, am I right?

707
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:35,920
Speaker 1: And saying that there are people that are upset. There

708
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:38,799
Speaker 1: are people that are saying the government is coming in

709
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 1: and trying to shut down our public land and all

710
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,320
Speaker 1: the guys on private get to keep all their ducks

711
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: and have all. There's a lot of pieces of this

712
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 1: puzzle that could make people say that, I mean, what

713
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: do you what do you say to that? So let

714
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:55,399
Speaker 1: me say two things. So first is that we are

715
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: not taking away anything. It's if we do nothing, that's

716
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 1: what's going to everybody. That's right, most people people really

717
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:10,760
Speaker 1: truly get that. As do you think you've got support

718
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 1: for this? Yeah? Okay, that's good. Here. Now a different

719
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:18,880
Speaker 1: question is do of arkansans like it? The answers no,

720
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:22,120
Speaker 1: I don't like this. Our agency staff don't like this.

721
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 1: We're not asking folks to like this. We're asking folks

722
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 1: to understand that this is the right thing to do

723
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 1: for the resource. Sean Weaver isn't from here, and he

724
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 1: ain't got a dog in this fight, so I wanted

725
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 1: to hear his thoughts on the implications of this decision.

726
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:41,279
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get a beat on how big of

727
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 1: a deal this is. I don't even know how Sean

728
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 1: pronounces acorns. I don't really want to know. Here's Sean.

729
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: I think it's hard to ignore that it was an

730
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:56,239
Speaker 1: unpopular decision that they had to make. Of course, people

731
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 1: are going to be frustrated when they lose a little

732
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: bit of Hunting Act says, and lose some hunting opportunity,

733
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:05,760
Speaker 1: especially for the guys that have spent their whole lives

734
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 1: running an outboard in these flooded timber green timber reservoirs

735
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:13,520
Speaker 1: that now all of a sudden the thing they've done

736
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 1: their whole lives is changing. Sometimes unpopular decisions have to

737
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: be made, and this is uh, this is a dilemma

738
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:26,840
Speaker 1: we deal with in politics and national issues anyway. Is

739
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:29,879
Speaker 1: do you make the unpopular decision now or do you

740
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 1: make someone suffer down the line. You can't deny that

741
00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 1: down the line, someone's going to suffer from these green

742
00:43:36,640 --> 00:43:39,880
Speaker 1: timber reservoirs being held at too high pool. You have

743
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: to do something. It's just how long will you wait

744
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 1: to do that? Will you wait till it's too late?

745
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 1: A lot of the timber tracks were lost a long

746
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 1: time ago, and you'd hate to see us lose more

747
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:54,879
Speaker 1: of it in the long run, knowing what we know

748
00:43:55,200 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: and knowing that we could have made a decision to

749
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 1: stop it, but we didn't. It's not for anybody to

750
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:05,440
Speaker 1: have to have to make a decision between hunter opportunity

751
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,720
Speaker 1: and hunter access versus hunter opportunity and hunter access fifty

752
00:44:09,800 --> 00:44:12,920
Speaker 1: years from now. There's always this. There's always a group

753
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 1: of people, and sometimes I might be in that group

754
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 1: that that would look at decisions that the government makes

755
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 1: and assume that that decision is designed to help some

756
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,480
Speaker 1: other group of people aside from the ones that it's affecting.

757
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:32,400
Speaker 1: Do you think that is something that people could say, Yeah,

758
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: because it's it's public land. I mean that that's what's interesting.

759
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 1: Do you think people think that. I'm sure some do. Yeah,

760
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,799
Speaker 1: there's always going to be the detractors, right, But I

761
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:45,960
Speaker 1: guess a counter argument counterpoint to that is quite a

762
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: few of the private land duck clubs with green timber

763
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:53,879
Speaker 1: started making their unpopular decision and doing what they could

764
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:57,439
Speaker 1: save their timber and manage their timber twenty years ago.

765
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:02,359
Speaker 1: I don't think people create ideas of like malintent when

766
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 1: times are good. Necessarily, when when the hunting is real

767
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:09,759
Speaker 1: good and the mallards are thick and everyone's having a

768
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:12,799
Speaker 1: ball of a time, No one's pointing fingers, everyone's just

769
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:15,880
Speaker 1: enjoying it. There's no doubt that there's a lot of

770
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: duck hunters in the South that are just frustrated with

771
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:23,239
Speaker 1: shifting weather patterns and and ducks not coming so far

772
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: south and a long term slide and hunter success in

773
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 1: the Deep South. I think whenever you have people kind

774
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:33,279
Speaker 1: of pointing fingers that that this is a way to

775
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 1: help the few the expense of the many, it would

776
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:39,879
Speaker 1: be because they're just frustrated. But ultimately to get rid

777
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 1: of that frustration and to bring back this legacy that

778
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: is the Arkansas green Timber, you have to save the

779
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:50,520
Speaker 1: green timber. You know, It's just like everything. When the

780
00:45:50,560 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 1: system is stressed, it brings out the worst in people.

781
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 1: I mean, you go on a vacation with your kids

782
00:45:57,480 --> 00:45:59,839
Speaker 1: and get them all the car and about that tenth

783
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:02,760
Speaker 1: hour of that road trip in the system is stressed

784
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 1: and you see the worst in everyone that that can happen.

785
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: But the good news is is what I see is

786
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:14,720
Speaker 1: that there's so many people. The vast majority of people

787
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 1: are in support of this, even the people that it's affecting,

788
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:23,920
Speaker 1: even public land hunters that are losing some opportunity, are saying,

789
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 1: heck you out, that's what we gotta do. You know,

790
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 1: a hundred years ago, people had to make outdoorsmen had

791
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 1: to make a hard decision. Then with the Migratory Bird

792
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:37,719
Speaker 1: Treaty and all the new rules and regulations that surrounded

793
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: waterfowl that really are the epicenter of the North American

794
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:45,279
Speaker 1: wildlife model. To save the canvas back, to save the

795
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,279
Speaker 1: wood duck, to save the Canada goose, all of it.

796
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:50,640
Speaker 1: There was tough decisions that had to be made. But

797
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:54,720
Speaker 1: they made those decisions to stop things like market hunting

798
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 1: and punt guns and baiting. All those things. They stopped

799
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:01,840
Speaker 1: them so that our grandkids would someday be able to

800
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 1: shoot a mallard mount duck in the Arkansas Timber yes,

801
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 1: and said in the first time that we've had to

802
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 1: make tough decisions. Can you imagine those guys back in

803
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 1: those days going bring back the market honey man, I

804
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:21,360
Speaker 1: love hunting mallards over bait. What echoes throughout all wildlife

805
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:24,840
Speaker 1: management is that it has to be managed by humans.

806
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:29,319
Speaker 1: The competing interest that impact decisions made about wildlife and

807
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:34,440
Speaker 1: habitat are vast, and I'm always interested in the human element.

808
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:39,840
Speaker 1: You just can't get away from the necessity for anything

809
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:44,080
Speaker 1: to move on planet Earth without human cooperation. I was

810
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 1: just the question I really wanted to ask you, was

811
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 1: should wildlife management be that with that human focused I mean,

812
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: couldn't we just be like, hey, we all want more ducks,

813
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 1: we all want more habitat for ducks. Here's a billion dollars.

814
00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 1: Don't talk to us for the next ten years. Just

815
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:03,359
Speaker 1: print the regulations. I mean, but it's not that it's

816
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:06,239
Speaker 1: not that clear cut as a modern wildlife science was

817
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:11,919
Speaker 1: driven by people, by hunters and other early conservationists. So

818
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 1: it's always been been driven by people. And we've learned

819
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:18,840
Speaker 1: more and more and more about the science of wildlife management.

820
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 1: But again I was taught early on it's wildlife management

821
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:24,600
Speaker 1: is both science and art, and the art part, I

822
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:27,399
Speaker 1: think is where a ton of the human elopment comes in.

823
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 1: And we're getting better these days with bringing the science

824
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:33,880
Speaker 1: side of it in to the human element, with with

825
00:48:34,120 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: social science research and the and the whole scientific field

826
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:41,080
Speaker 1: of of social science. Some people talk about human dimensions research,

827
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:45,799
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Human dimensions research studies how and

828
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:49,719
Speaker 1: why humans value natural resources. I had no idea this

829
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:53,680
Speaker 1: even existed. It covers a wide range of stuff from cultural,

830
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:59,120
Speaker 1: social and economic values to individual and social behavior. Basically,

831
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 1: there's research dedicated to understanding how people might respond to

832
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 1: something like the GTR issue. And to go back to

833
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 1: my hypothetical question to Luke, it's a good thing that

834
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 1: human values play into wildlife management because it's possible that

835
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 1: the powers that be might place no value on wild places,

836
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 1: nor value on giving people access to hunt like most

837
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 1: of the world. Man, sometimes I think we don't realize

838
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: what an incredible place we live while we're talking about humans.

839
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:35,440
Speaker 1: We can't have this discussion about public land duck hunting

840
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:41,360
Speaker 1: without mentioning something vitally and literally connected to it, private land.

841
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 1: We're talking about public because it's the only place most

842
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 1: of us have any right to give input. And you

843
00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:50,880
Speaker 1: guys know that there are those who dog on those

844
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 1: who have access to private land. We've all done it. However,

845
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 1: in my experience, a lot of people that have access

846
00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:01,720
Speaker 1: to private land they have it because they've sacrificed big

847
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:04,400
Speaker 1: parts of their life to get it. And I have

848
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:06,480
Speaker 1: the right to say that because I hunt a lot

849
00:50:06,520 --> 00:50:09,799
Speaker 1: of public land, but also a lot of private and

850
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:13,359
Speaker 1: I love them both for different reasons. We're all on

851
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:18,160
Speaker 1: the same team. Here's Luke on the importance of private land.

852
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: We can never under rate the contribution of private landowners

853
00:50:25,800 --> 00:50:29,960
Speaker 1: who also have these similar habitat types and have preserved

854
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 1: those habitat types for the same amount of time, and

855
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 1: that we as agencies have You can't under undersell that

856
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 1: at all. Is a lot more in private landownership than

857
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 1: public ownership, way more the the public lands generally we

858
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 1: like to think of them, not enough, not in an

859
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:49,440
Speaker 1: arrogant sense, but just because, like we talked about, the

860
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 1: way they're where they are located. They really do provide

861
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:57,160
Speaker 1: the overall anchors of these bigger habitat complexes for waterfowl.

862
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 1: But private lands play a huge rolling this. At the

863
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 1: beginning of this episode, Mr Bobby Martin told us that

864
00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:08,799
Speaker 1: he grew up hunting public land in Arkansas. What he

865
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:12,120
Speaker 1: didn't mention is that most of his life he's exclusively

866
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:14,920
Speaker 1: hunted public land. He wasn't a member of a private

867
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 1: duck club until he was in his mid fifties. Point

868
00:51:18,239 --> 00:51:22,239
Speaker 1: being he's a duck hunter. I've heard about a man

869
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,439
Speaker 1: by the name of Rex Hancock, and I wanted Mr

870
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:28,680
Speaker 1: Bobby to tell me his story and how it relates

871
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 1: to us today. You know, when when the name Rex

872
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:35,080
Speaker 1: Hancock comes up, you know, particularly for somebody of my age,

873
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:38,359
Speaker 1: it's a reminder how people come along that are so

874
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:43,399
Speaker 1: critical to conservation and really have ensured that we're able

875
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:46,279
Speaker 1: to see and enjoy what what we have today. So

876
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:49,560
Speaker 1: Rex Hancock, you know, these goes back into the nineteen seventies,

877
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: early seventies, and he's well known as uh, probably one

878
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:57,200
Speaker 1: of the strongest fighters, if you will, for conservation, particularly

879
00:51:57,200 --> 00:52:01,439
Speaker 1: here in Arkansas. He was a dentist out of stut Guard,

880
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:05,080
Speaker 1: Arkansas during a time when the core of engineers embarked

881
00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:09,839
Speaker 1: on channelizing the Cache River. UH, and the Cache River

882
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 1: and the Cache River basin is really the second largest

883
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:15,960
Speaker 1: kind of you know, sector, if you will, of bottomland

884
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: hardwood resource, and particularly how critical that's been to waterfowl

885
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:23,959
Speaker 1: in all of the Mississippi Flyway, all the Mississippi fly Away.

886
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,640
Speaker 1: In fact, the Cache River has always been viewed to

887
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 1: be about as critical as the Everglades is or Chesapeake

888
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 1: Bay or Okeechobee Swamp too. From the environmental side, you

889
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:36,920
Speaker 1: know what it did and what it adds to the

890
00:52:36,960 --> 00:52:40,280
Speaker 1: critical college and everything of this part of the country

891
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 1: and particularly the Mississippi fly Away. So when that channelization began,

892
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:47,759
Speaker 1: obviously it began to destroy then the bottom land heart.

893
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: Tell me describe that for me what that means channelization,

894
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 1: Why it was they literally and of course it was

895
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:58,919
Speaker 1: motivated by trying to improve agricultural drainage and and so forth.

896
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:01,040
Speaker 1: And this was during a time when you know, again

897
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:04,960
Speaker 1: as we talked about our hardwoods in particular. Uh now

898
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:07,480
Speaker 1: today what we have that's left was really spared the

899
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 1: saw on the plow. Channelizing the Cache River meant literally

900
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:14,120
Speaker 1: just turning it into a ditch. And in fact, during

901
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 1: all that era of time, the core went about a

902
00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: four and a half mile stretch before they were finally stopped.

903
00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 1: But that part of the of the Cache River was

904
00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:27,239
Speaker 1: just literally a ditch. As a young guy remember at

905
00:53:27,239 --> 00:53:31,680
Speaker 1: the bottom, so that sarges and exactly, and so it's

906
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:35,879
Speaker 1: just a straight line ditch. And so again obviously very

907
00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 1: disruptive to bottom land hardwoods and all that that meant,

908
00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 1: not just because it didn't flood wooden flood, and of

909
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:45,400
Speaker 1: course it destroyed a lot of that habitat. And Rex

910
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:48,680
Speaker 1: Hancock was an avid water fowler, but it was broader

911
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:52,240
Speaker 1: than just waterfowl, but definitely critical to a duck hunting

912
00:53:52,239 --> 00:53:55,000
Speaker 1: in Arkansas. In fact, it's it's hard to imagine today

913
00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:57,759
Speaker 1: where we would be if in fact, he had not

914
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 1: fought that hard, and uh it was six essil because

915
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:03,120
Speaker 1: he fought it for a number of years, and I

916
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:06,960
Speaker 1: mean it became his full life mission. And so he was,

917
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:09,720
Speaker 1: you know, going to Washington, d C. He was fighting

918
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:12,479
Speaker 1: every angle, and he was almost a one man war

919
00:54:12,960 --> 00:54:15,640
Speaker 1: against the Corps of Engineers during that time to try

920
00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:18,520
Speaker 1: and get that stopped. And uh, you know, he's very

921
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:22,839
Speaker 1: uh stubborn obviously as a guy that would never give up.

922
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:25,399
Speaker 1: But you know, he won the fight. When you look

923
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:27,920
Speaker 1: at it back now, that victory was really olive ours.

924
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:32,239
Speaker 1: It's this generation and the generations yet unborn that now

925
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:34,799
Speaker 1: are able to still you know, have this you know

926
00:54:34,920 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 1: natural resource that is so critical and remains critical to

927
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:41,840
Speaker 1: us today. So you know, he was facing a man

928
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:45,359
Speaker 1: made challenge. And I find today when you know all

929
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 1: that we're hearing we're talking about here now that we

930
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 1: know we've lost so much of our forest where we've

931
00:54:51,560 --> 00:54:54,960
Speaker 1: been flooding at our own discretion to you know, enjoy

932
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:58,480
Speaker 1: water fowling and so forth in our green tree reservoirs

933
00:54:58,480 --> 00:55:00,400
Speaker 1: and so forth. And of course now we've learned that

934
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:03,399
Speaker 1: doing that over an extended period of time, doing it

935
00:55:03,480 --> 00:55:06,400
Speaker 1: wrong we now have, you know, lost a lot of timber,

936
00:55:06,520 --> 00:55:08,719
Speaker 1: and now we're in a fight. I find it hard

937
00:55:08,719 --> 00:55:12,480
Speaker 1: to not not visualizing ourselves a little bit as twenty

938
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:17,399
Speaker 1: one century Rex Hancock's and you know, for me, I'm real,

939
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:21,200
Speaker 1: I'm really excited and motivated as I see the reaction

940
00:55:21,239 --> 00:55:25,080
Speaker 1: and the response, particularly from young people in their twenties

941
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:28,239
Speaker 1: and thirties, because what we're having to undertake here means

942
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:30,440
Speaker 1: that we're gonna have to give up something for a

943
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:32,880
Speaker 1: while in order to have it for the future for

944
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:35,759
Speaker 1: the long haul. If we continue to do what we're

945
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 1: doing and just kick the can down the road, there

946
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:41,319
Speaker 1: won't be anything to recover. So as I watch as

947
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:44,360
Speaker 1: we've gone around and and see people, young people in

948
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:47,920
Speaker 1: particularly engage and understand what has to be given up,

949
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 1: the willingness and the approach and the attitude is inspiring

950
00:55:52,160 --> 00:55:54,480
Speaker 1: to me because they know, and you can see it,

951
00:55:54,800 --> 00:55:57,439
Speaker 1: that it's a thirty year kind of challenge or even

952
00:55:57,440 --> 00:55:59,759
Speaker 1: a forty year challenge to see you know, a new

953
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:02,759
Speaker 1: four worst generation or see a forty year old tree

954
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:04,880
Speaker 1: now that you know produces a kind of acorns that

955
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:07,279
Speaker 1: ducks like to get in there and enjoy in our

956
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:11,200
Speaker 1: bottom land, hardwoods, and it ties me back to three

957
00:56:11,239 --> 00:56:14,200
Speaker 1: things that Rick Rex Hancock was also known for saying

958
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:17,400
Speaker 1: during that period of time, and his his approach was

959
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:22,560
Speaker 1: that he said, good conservation requires ordinary people with an

960
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:26,240
Speaker 1: extraordinary desire. Just hang on to that for a minute,

961
00:56:26,280 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 1: an extraordinary desire, because it will take and is taking

962
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 1: an extraordinary desire for people today to be willing to

963
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 1: give up some of what we have today to not

964
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:39,400
Speaker 1: just hunt next year, but to know that will paulse

965
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:42,920
Speaker 1: will sacrifice for a while because we wanted in twenty

966
00:56:43,000 --> 00:56:45,960
Speaker 1: years or we want our children, our children's children to

967
00:56:46,080 --> 00:56:48,359
Speaker 1: have it fifty years from now, sixty years from now.

968
00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:55,200
Speaker 1: I want to conclude by exploring my original question of

969
00:56:55,400 --> 00:57:00,080
Speaker 1: why guys are so wound up about duck hunting. I

970
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:03,920
Speaker 1: think it has to do with more than ducks. Here's

971
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:07,360
Speaker 1: Luke and I. I have never been to a hunting

972
00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:10,399
Speaker 1: camp like the one that we're at right now, where

973
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:15,799
Speaker 1: there has been this much energy, finances, life, decades and

974
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:20,480
Speaker 1: decades of history stacked into basically being able to hunt

975
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:24,280
Speaker 1: a sixty day period hunting Mallard ducks. Where that? Where

976
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:26,920
Speaker 1: did that come from? I think duck hunting is unique

977
00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:31,040
Speaker 1: and it's a much more social activity some than some

978
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 1: of those other hunting pastimes. You think about Western big

979
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:36,040
Speaker 1: game hunters. You know what, you're gonna go in and

980
00:57:36,040 --> 00:57:38,120
Speaker 1: maybe maybe gonna have a camp with a couple of

981
00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:41,720
Speaker 1: people I'm backpacking in. You're gonna couldn't have fourteen people

982
00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:43,920
Speaker 1: in your elk camp. You don't and and and you

983
00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:47,880
Speaker 1: don't have a There's time for conversation and a lot

984
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:50,920
Speaker 1: of just camaraderie there. But it's but it's much different

985
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:53,120
Speaker 1: in a smaller scale when you get with duck hunting.

986
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:56,160
Speaker 1: You don't have to be you know, stone still and

987
00:57:56,720 --> 00:57:59,919
Speaker 1: dead quiet the entire time. So I think it's perpetuated

988
00:58:00,040 --> 00:58:03,200
Speaker 1: this opportunity for folks to have clubs like this, or

989
00:58:03,440 --> 00:58:06,320
Speaker 1: folks to experience public land hunting and build a cultural

990
00:58:06,400 --> 00:58:08,440
Speaker 1: around it and kind of build a social network around

991
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:10,440
Speaker 1: it because there's a lot of just your ride in

992
00:58:10,480 --> 00:58:12,480
Speaker 1: a boat together, or you're you're walking out to a

993
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: place together, you're sitting in a blind together, and and

994
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:18,840
Speaker 1: the conversations can just continue while you're duck hunting and

995
00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:21,640
Speaker 1: you know you're sneaking through the woods trying to squirrel hunt.

996
00:58:21,640 --> 00:58:23,560
Speaker 1: You you know you're trying to be quiet, and you

997
00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:26,520
Speaker 1: just solved. You just told me what I've been trying

998
00:58:26,560 --> 00:58:28,720
Speaker 1: to get somebody to tell me for forever. And it's

999
00:58:28,720 --> 00:58:31,920
Speaker 1: not rocket science at all. It's just social. It's social,

1000
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:34,080
Speaker 1: and it's and and I have not duck hunted a

1001
00:58:34,080 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 1: lot in my life, but this morning we're out. There

1002
00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:38,320
Speaker 1: were five of us that were together in this one hole,

1003
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:42,480
Speaker 1: and we were talking in normal voices twenty, you know,

1004
00:58:42,600 --> 00:58:46,520
Speaker 1: fifteen yards apart, probably from trees. At different times, the

1005
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:49,120
Speaker 1: guys would come over to me and just talk with

1006
00:58:49,160 --> 00:58:51,200
Speaker 1: me by my tree, and then we called ducks and

1007
00:58:51,240 --> 00:58:53,520
Speaker 1: we'd see one, we all kind of hunker down and

1008
00:58:53,520 --> 00:58:56,520
Speaker 1: I'd walk over to them. And it was any other

1009
00:58:56,560 --> 00:59:00,280
Speaker 1: style of hunting that would have not happened. It doesn't work. Then.

1010
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:03,600
Speaker 1: The other thing that makes duck hunting different is that

1011
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:06,120
Speaker 1: you don't do it all day long, Like we went

1012
00:59:06,160 --> 00:59:09,040
Speaker 1: out this morning and we only hunt until about ten o'clock.

1013
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:11,320
Speaker 1: And then if this were a three day hunt, what

1014
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:12,760
Speaker 1: are we gonna do the rest of the day. We're

1015
00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:15,920
Speaker 1: gonna be together, we're gonna be talking, we're gonna be cooking,

1016
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:19,800
Speaker 1: we're gonna be doing whatever. And then you repeat the

1017
00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:23,240
Speaker 1: cycle the next day. And it fosters an environment for

1018
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:26,440
Speaker 1: relationship between people. It sure does. And I think you've

1019
00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:28,760
Speaker 1: got ideally most of the time right that you're gonna

1020
00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:32,080
Speaker 1: have multiple, you know, attempts at at Harvey seen game

1021
00:59:32,160 --> 00:59:34,439
Speaker 1: for example, you think a big game hunt you're there

1022
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 1: for one shot. Most big game hunts you're there for

1023
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:39,480
Speaker 1: for one shot. But duck hunting is kind of well,

1024
00:59:39,520 --> 00:59:41,240
Speaker 1: if you don't get them on this group, all right,

1025
00:59:41,280 --> 00:59:44,480
Speaker 1: well we'll get him and that next time, maybe just

1026
00:59:44,560 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes away. Of all my exposure in

1027
00:59:47,360 --> 00:59:49,680
Speaker 1: the hunting world, there's not a ton of things that

1028
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:52,520
Speaker 1: I'm envious of when it comes to looking into other

1029
00:59:52,640 --> 00:59:58,520
Speaker 1: groups of hunters. I am envious of waterfowl hunters, their

1030
00:59:58,680 --> 01:00:02,080
Speaker 1: camps there come ottery. You know, these guys come down

1031
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:04,880
Speaker 1: here and hunt forty days a year, and by that

1032
01:00:04,920 --> 01:00:07,920
Speaker 1: they're not hunting all day. They're they're hunting the mornings

1033
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:10,360
Speaker 1: and then going to work or doing whatever they need

1034
01:00:10,440 --> 01:00:13,440
Speaker 1: to do, coming back here at night with their buddies,

1035
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:15,840
Speaker 1: hunting again in the morning. I mean, everybody has a

1036
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:20,120
Speaker 1: different pattern, but just that predictable camaraderie. And here I'm

1037
01:00:20,160 --> 01:00:23,400
Speaker 1: seeing these guys that for decades have been coming to

1038
01:00:23,520 --> 01:00:27,080
Speaker 1: this camp and they just know, well, it's duck season.

1039
01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go see Bill and Jim and we're gonna

1040
01:00:30,360 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 1: meet up. And man, big game hunting pretty much just

1041
01:00:33,920 --> 01:00:36,040
Speaker 1: doesn't have that at that big of a scalt. And

1042
01:00:36,040 --> 01:00:37,919
Speaker 1: I'm sure we have deer camps and we have different

1043
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:40,640
Speaker 1: kind of camps, but it doesn't really rival duck hunting.

1044
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:42,720
Speaker 1: It doesn't match what you get with duck hunting. And

1045
01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:46,320
Speaker 1: I think it's yeah, those those those connections just go

1046
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:49,440
Speaker 1: way back and just are are deep in a lot

1047
01:00:49,440 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 1: of cases. It's just a fascinating cultural experience. I've been

1048
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:13,919
Speaker 1: inspired by peering into the duck hunting world. I've seen

1049
01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:17,480
Speaker 1: a level of singular focus that challenges me. I love

1050
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:20,680
Speaker 1: the traditions of waterfowl hunting and that it lends itself

1051
01:01:20,760 --> 01:01:25,240
Speaker 1: to building human relationships, so naturally it's these things that

1052
01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:28,800
Speaker 1: have made it strong and enabled the waterfowl community to

1053
01:01:28,920 --> 01:01:32,800
Speaker 1: be such powerful players and habitat conservation, and in the

1054
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:37,640
Speaker 1: world of increasing urbanization and every possible scenario for habitat

1055
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:41,360
Speaker 1: to be fragmented and lost, protecting wild places is the

1056
01:01:41,440 --> 01:01:44,840
Speaker 1: heartbeat of the modern hunting community and our pathway to

1057
01:01:44,920 --> 01:01:49,120
Speaker 1: a relevant future. Broad scale habitat protection for the wild

1058
01:01:49,160 --> 01:01:53,200
Speaker 1: places that remain is the thing that we offer society

1059
01:01:53,600 --> 01:01:57,560
Speaker 1: that no one else can. We have this power because

1060
01:01:57,640 --> 01:02:02,960
Speaker 1: our model gives incentive for people to protect wild places

1061
01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:06,960
Speaker 1: by offering hunting privileges. We've got to make sure this

1062
01:02:07,000 --> 01:02:11,800
Speaker 1: doesn't change. It's a beautiful system, it's brilliant, it's working,

1063
01:02:12,040 --> 01:02:16,200
Speaker 1: and it has worked. I want to continue our conscious

1064
01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:20,440
Speaker 1: scripting of the conservation narrative. We're leaving as North American hunters.

1065
01:02:20,840 --> 01:02:23,440
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to walk and talk big to make

1066
01:02:23,480 --> 01:02:25,960
Speaker 1: this work. And I'm not just talking about duck hunting.

1067
01:02:26,280 --> 01:02:28,800
Speaker 1: The way that will survive the test of time is

1068
01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:33,680
Speaker 1: by intentional unification and, as Rex Hancock said, by not

1069
01:02:33,800 --> 01:02:37,560
Speaker 1: just giving lip service to conservation. In some ways, the

1070
01:02:37,600 --> 01:02:41,640
Speaker 1: American hunting lifestyle is a cultural artifact of times past,

1071
01:02:42,240 --> 01:02:47,840
Speaker 1: and often artifacts are considered irrelevant unless they're interpreted by

1072
01:02:47,880 --> 01:02:51,680
Speaker 1: and their relevance is proven by those who know their value.

1073
01:02:52,400 --> 01:02:55,920
Speaker 1: In conclusion, I believe that most of our state wildlife

1074
01:02:55,960 --> 01:02:59,240
Speaker 1: agencies are doing the best they can with the resources

1075
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:03,840
Speaker 1: they have to preserve wild places and hunting access and

1076
01:03:04,040 --> 01:03:08,360
Speaker 1: our hunting culture. There will always be disagreements and ways

1077
01:03:08,440 --> 01:03:11,000
Speaker 1: that things can be done better. So we'll keep using

1078
01:03:11,040 --> 01:03:15,400
Speaker 1: the appropriate channels to communicate our values to those in leadership.

1079
01:03:15,920 --> 01:03:20,200
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. In the future that is uncertain for wildlife,

1080
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:24,000
Speaker 1: we're all going to have to make hard decisions that

1081
01:03:24,280 --> 01:03:28,400
Speaker 1: mean will sacrifice in the short term for long term benefit,

1082
01:03:28,920 --> 01:03:34,680
Speaker 1: and that will be our legacy. Thanks for listening to

1083
01:03:34,760 --> 01:03:37,840
Speaker 1: Bear Grease. I hope you've enjoyed the series on duck hunting,

1084
01:03:38,160 --> 01:03:42,040
Speaker 1: and hey, check out the new Bear Grease merchandise on

1085
01:03:42,520 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 1: the meat eator dot com. We got some cool shirts,

1086
01:03:45,720 --> 01:03:49,040
Speaker 1: gonna have some hats in soon. But before we go,

1087
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:53,160
Speaker 1: I wanted to include this section. Here's Luke Naylor telling

1088
01:03:53,240 --> 01:03:56,440
Speaker 1: us that duck hunting isn't as hard to get into

1089
01:03:56,600 --> 01:04:01,360
Speaker 1: as you might think. It actually doesn't take all the

1090
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:04,160
Speaker 1: gear that you think it might. You know, you can

1091
01:04:04,240 --> 01:04:06,360
Speaker 1: you can go buy some really cheap decoys and a

1092
01:04:06,440 --> 01:04:10,640
Speaker 1: cheap duck call and a cheap pair of waiters, and

1093
01:04:10,640 --> 01:04:13,160
Speaker 1: and you can. It's a little bit more gear than

1094
01:04:13,240 --> 01:04:18,640
Speaker 1: than squirrel honey, but it's really not as as prohibitive

1095
01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:21,920
Speaker 1: as what it's kind of portrayed sometimes, and there's always

1096
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:26,120
Speaker 1: almost always somebody willing to help you out with part

1097
01:04:26,160 --> 01:04:27,640
Speaker 1: of it, Like, what would happen to be a good

1098
01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:30,000
Speaker 1: experiment to see how long you could go in your

1099
01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:33,560
Speaker 1: life without actually buying duck hunting gear just borrowing it.

1100
01:04:34,040 --> 01:04:36,160
Speaker 1: There's so many people out there that have it. You

1101
01:04:36,200 --> 01:04:38,120
Speaker 1: could go a long time. I have yet to me

1102
01:04:38,280 --> 01:04:40,200
Speaker 1: it meat a duck hunter that doesn't have a spare

1103
01:04:40,240 --> 01:04:44,040
Speaker 1: set of waiters, that everything you have to