Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. Today on the show,
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Tony Peterson, Torn Miller from the n
Speaker 1: d A and Bethany Herb from Pheasants Forever to discuss
Speaker 1: strategies for hunting white tails and grassland habitats and how
Speaker 1: we can save this threatened habitat type across the country.
Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
Speaker 1: to you by First Life. So it's conservation month here
Speaker 1: on the Wired Hunt podcast, as you might have heard,
Speaker 1: and today we are going to talk about conservation. We
Speaker 1: are also going to talk about hunting tactics, but specifically
Speaker 1: we're talking about grass. Grass not the kind that some
Speaker 1: folks like to smoke legally, mind you, here in my
Speaker 1: homestad of Michigan, and not the kind that stupidly we
Speaker 1: plant and mowing our yards. I really want to get
Speaker 1: away from that. It's my goal to rewild my yards
Speaker 1: someday and never mowed again. But that's not the point. No,
Speaker 1: we are talking about the grass out there across the
Speaker 1: country where deer and birds and rabbits and bugs flourish,
Speaker 1: and where smart deer hunters post up in search of
Speaker 1: big old bucks. Yeah, grasslands are where all those things happen.
Speaker 1: This kind of habitat, it exists just about everywhere across
Speaker 1: the country in one form or another, from crp Fields
Speaker 1: and the ad country of the Midwest, all the way
Speaker 1: to the Great Plains out west, and a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of points in between. And this is some primo ground
Speaker 1: for wildlife and for deer hunters, and for hunters of
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff too. But this is also
Speaker 1: a kind of habitat that is rapidly disappearing. So here's
Speaker 1: what to do today, my friends. We've got a two
Speaker 1: partner for you. In part one, we've got my buddy,
Speaker 1: the one and only host of the Foundation's mini series,
Speaker 1: the one and only Tony Peterson, And we're gonna spend
Speaker 1: some time talking with him, a guy who spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time hunting deer and grassy habitats, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna chat about why both he and I love hunting
Speaker 1: these kinds of places. We're gonna talking about some of
Speaker 1: our favorite experiences around them, and then we're gonna dive
Speaker 1: into a bunch of strategies and advice for hunting deer
Speaker 1: in this kind of stuff. So, how can you hunt
Speaker 1: deer in CRP fields, in the planes, in other grassy
Speaker 1: habitat across the country. That's that's Part one. Then in
Speaker 1: Part two, we're going to dive into the challenges that
Speaker 1: these kinds of places are facing across the country, some
Speaker 1: serious challenges and a new opportunity we might have to
Speaker 1: help save them, called the North American Grasslands Conservation Act,
Speaker 1: and discuss this. We're joined by Torn Miller, the director
Speaker 1: of Policy for the National Deer Association, and Bethany Herb,
Speaker 1: the director of Government Affairs at Pheasants Forever. And let
Speaker 1: me reiterate just how important this is. By the measure
Speaker 1: of one report, we've lost about fifty million acres of
Speaker 1: this habitat in about the last decade to development, crop conversion, fragmentation, firing,
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff. Fifty million effing acres. Fifty
Speaker 1: million acres. That's a whole lot of good deer hunting
Speaker 1: ground and pheasant hunting and nesting grounds and pollinator sanctuary
Speaker 1: just gone in a blink. What if we could reverse
Speaker 1: that trend, What if we could slow down what if
Speaker 1: we get some of that good stuff back out there,
Speaker 1: wouldn't that be something? Well, that's what we're gonna explore today.
Speaker 1: So if you want to learn to hunt grassy habitat
Speaker 1: for deer, tune in. And if you want to learn
Speaker 1: how to save these places to stick around. So here
Speaker 1: we go. All right, So I'm here now with Tony Peterson.
Speaker 1: You might know him, and uh, I do need to
Speaker 1: I do need to bring one thing up before we
Speaker 1: getting the meat and potatoes here, because we actually have
Speaker 1: not done a podcast what we have. We haven't talked
Speaker 1: about this together since the fall and summer, where you've
Speaker 1: been occasionally stepping in for me and covering me on
Speaker 1: the main Wired Hunt show, and every week you kind
Speaker 1: of introduced what's going on. And every week I get
Speaker 1: messages from listeners saying, hey, how was the hop Scotch tournament?
Speaker 1: Oh hey, how was the Miley Cyrus concert? Oh hey?
Speaker 1: How was Pokemon tournament? Tony, when I said you could
Speaker 1: be part of this podcast, you swore never to tell
Speaker 1: people what I did in my spare time. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I forgot. I just I used to drink a lot.
Speaker 1: I have a bad memory. And the way you're so
Speaker 1: excited about this off, I figure you want the world
Speaker 1: to know. Yeah, well I gotta ga Hey listen, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to throw Spencer under the bus here, but
Speaker 1: that Miley Cyrus concert you did with him wasn't that
Speaker 1: far off. How he spent his vacation recently. Let's be honest, now,
Speaker 1: he did, and this is no joke, just spend his
Speaker 1: valuable vacation time going to see Billie Eilish and Elton
Speaker 1: Johnny concert And that wasn't like a single thing. That
Speaker 1: was two different concerts. He paid tickets for it to
Speaker 1: go do that at the garden, right, Yeah? And then
Speaker 1: art museums. Yeah. I would have to say that the
Speaker 1: most enjoyable part of my job is when I know
Speaker 1: that I have to figure out what you were doing
Speaker 1: where you couldn't be here hosting the super important podcast
Speaker 1: that you have. No, I haven't listened to every one
Speaker 1: of the episodes that you did while I was gone,
Speaker 1: So who knows what you've said, and probably not every
Speaker 1: single one people have emailed me about. Does any one
Speaker 1: of the things that you made up stand out as
Speaker 1: your favorite that you laughed the hardest at when you
Speaker 1: came up with it? If you have a favorite thing
Speaker 1: that you envisioned me doing in your imagination. The problem
Speaker 1: is is I always hold it up to what you
Speaker 1: actually did do, which was have a yo yo. Okay,
Speaker 1: well that was that was in fourth grade. Yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I get it. I know it was a long time ago.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if I can find anything out
Speaker 1: there that's like that fits into this category as much
Speaker 1: as that does. So you actually unintentionally set the bar
Speaker 1: when you were like ten that I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'll ever be able to clear it. Well, I'm glad
Speaker 1: that you're still shooting to reach the heights that I
Speaker 1: once claimed. Look, I'm I'm gonna achieve your buddy. Well,
Speaker 1: something's just mean a lot to me. I'm glad that
Speaker 1: you're shooting for sky high goals. Uh, what I actually
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about not only ways to
Speaker 1: humiliate me, but but I want to talk about a place,
Speaker 1: a habitat in a style of hunting that you and
Speaker 1: I both really love. And we're talking about this over dinner.
Speaker 1: We're eating cheeseburgers. I had a beer, you had a
Speaker 1: diet coke, And I said to you, and I don't
Speaker 1: think this is the beer talking. I said to you
Speaker 1: that I would give up the Midwest to hunt in
Speaker 1: the plains. That's how much I like hunting grassland, plains habitat.
Speaker 1: What's your take on that, Well, my take is that
Speaker 1: I understand that sentiment. I would have a hell of
Speaker 1: a time given up the deciduous forests of the Midwest
Speaker 1: that I really really like. And you know, we're sitting
Speaker 1: here looking out on the Mississippi River and the bluffs here,
Speaker 1: and this this area is just so special to me.
Speaker 1: But I understand, like it's it's a close second for
Speaker 1: me the grasslands. And you know, not only for deer.
Speaker 1: It's so fun with deer, right, Like, they're so visible.
Speaker 1: And the states that have a lot of grassland left,
Speaker 1: they give you a lot of land a roam on
Speaker 1: a lot of times, and I think that's amazing. But
Speaker 1: I just love them for so much more than the
Speaker 1: deer aspect, you know. I mean, that's this that's where
Speaker 1: I spend my bird hunting time. I was just, you know,
Speaker 1: just a little bit ago before Minnesota small game season
Speaker 1: wrapped up, I was pushing little brush patches on public land,
Speaker 1: mostly around grassland and c RP, trying to shoot some
Speaker 1: rabbits and watching pheasants fly out and deer run out,
Speaker 1: and I just I think that environment that habitat is
Speaker 1: so amazing. So what is it? So? Uh? If I
Speaker 1: had to, if I had to choose why I or
Speaker 1: if I had to explain why I like this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, I'd have a hard time pinpointing just what
Speaker 1: it is. Because when I'm when I think about grassland
Speaker 1: or open type habitat, you know, it can come in
Speaker 1: a lot of different forms. It can be big vast
Speaker 1: grasslands out west, but it can also be a fifty
Speaker 1: acre or twenty acre CRP field in Michigan or Ohio
Speaker 1: or somewhere like that. But across all of those, I
Speaker 1: think you get two things. You get one. It can
Speaker 1: be some level vista, like the wide open space, the view,
Speaker 1: whether it's ten acres or a hundred miles, you get
Speaker 1: this this scene that somehow I think, and I might
Speaker 1: be way off my rocket here, but I think there's
Speaker 1: something like deep in us having been evolved from a
Speaker 1: species that grew up in like Savannah's millennia go, there's
Speaker 1: something about that wine open space that connects with us,
Speaker 1: like we like to be able to see over the
Speaker 1: next hill and see this vast landscape. That's something that
Speaker 1: just the place itself just does it for me. And
Speaker 1: then second, when you see animals, deer in particular moving
Speaker 1: through grass, whether it's CRP or native grasses out in
Speaker 1: Kansas and Nebraska or whatever, just moving through that stuff
Speaker 1: and you see there their back line going across, or
Speaker 1: you see their antlers nears pocon outa something, or if
Speaker 1: you're in a CRP field in Iowa and it's so
Speaker 1: tall you can't see anything but the glimmer of an
Speaker 1: antler that turns and all of like hole crap, that's
Speaker 1: a time and then a buck steps out out of there.
Speaker 1: That is just cool. These are not only cool, but
Speaker 1: they're like rich with wildlife landscapes too. I mean, these
Speaker 1: are places where I've hunted to have grasslands. I see
Speaker 1: more deer than almost anywhere sometimes. Um so a lot
Speaker 1: of deer. Cool place, great views, very huntable because of
Speaker 1: the views. I mean, when you think about these places,
Speaker 1: what do you like about them? Oh man? I mean
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you on the just the you know,
Speaker 1: I think when you come from the places we come from,
Speaker 1: you you don't even recognize your own claustrophobia, and you know,
Speaker 1: you go, I love the challenge of the big woods, right,
Speaker 1: But the hardest part is you know you're not gonna
Speaker 1: see very many deer. Like, if you do see one,
Speaker 1: it might be a killable situation, but it's not like
Speaker 1: you have a very very high probability of just going
Speaker 1: out working your butt off and blanking. And when you
Speaker 1: get out there where you've got, you know, the ability
Speaker 1: to see, you're like, it's like antelope hunting, Like it's
Speaker 1: just fun because you know you're gonna be in the game.
Speaker 1: At least you're gonna see something. You're not gonna blank
Speaker 1: out in the grasslands. And I think that there is
Speaker 1: something too that of just being able to look and go.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many places national grasslands and big
Speaker 1: chunks of public land where you step out of that
Speaker 1: truck and you can walk for miles and so not
Speaker 1: only can you see them, but if you do see
Speaker 1: them two miles away and they're just a little dot
Speaker 1: on the horizon, they're still in play. And you know
Speaker 1: how it is when you when you live in a
Speaker 1: state like Michigan or Minnesota where you're dealing with forty
Speaker 1: acre properties thirty acre properties. It's like, man, you know,
Speaker 1: you got a couple hundred yards by a couple hundred
Speaker 1: yards to work with. It's just a different thing. But
Speaker 1: I just I love I love that it shows us
Speaker 1: just how many animals use that kind of habitat and
Speaker 1: when you get in there how different it is. Then
Speaker 1: you kind of think, like when you think about it
Speaker 1: in your head, you're like, Okay, I'm gonna go to
Speaker 1: Kansas or you know, one of those flyover states and
Speaker 1: it's gonna be full of awesome grasslands to hunt. But
Speaker 1: it's like you know, when you're sitting at home, it's
Speaker 1: just flat. It's kind of feature list. There's no trees,
Speaker 1: there's no rivers, Like you just like you fill in
Speaker 1: the blanks with like the worst case scenario. Then you
Speaker 1: go out there and you're like, man, this this topography
Speaker 1: is actually rolling, and there's a strainage here, and there's
Speaker 1: a little patch of cotton woods down there by the river,
Speaker 1: and it's just a cool freaking place to be. It's
Speaker 1: amazing what it sucks up. Like you when you look
Speaker 1: at it from the road, even like you said, it
Speaker 1: might almost look sterile, but you get into it and
Speaker 1: there's a whole lot of life in there and deer well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and we we talk about this.
Speaker 1: This is why Kansas partially is such a destination state, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's a big buck state anyway, people are gonna
Speaker 1: go there. But you can find those situations to some
Speaker 1: extent in Oklahoma in some of these other states that
Speaker 1: wouldn't be quite as a destination. And then I think
Speaker 1: you mentioned this earlier in in some places in the
Speaker 1: Midwest and the East, you can find just a CRP field.
Speaker 1: It's like a mini version of this stuff, but it
Speaker 1: still brings that kind of habitat. And you know, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know if this is right or not.
Speaker 1: But like when you talk about, you know, use I
Speaker 1: c RP for example, you know, like I'm always keen
Speaker 1: on that if I'm if I'm hunting the land down there,
Speaker 1: because it's dude, whenever you and I apologize it for jumping,
Speaker 1: but I was just gonna say, any time I'm in
Speaker 1: the Midwest that's generally more timbred and regular agriculture, if
Speaker 1: I have access to a place that has that grassland habitat,
Speaker 1: whether it's in serp or just natural I gravitate towards that,
Speaker 1: don't You always gravitate towards you know why. I think
Speaker 1: this is why. So if you think about you know,
Speaker 1: like if you if you go somewhere and there's a
Speaker 1: soybean field on public land, like there's an outside chance
Speaker 1: in an early season, they're betting right in there, right,
Speaker 1: not real high odd, it's like it's it's okay, like
Speaker 1: there might be deer that start in there, but that's
Speaker 1: the destination, and everybody figures that out. But there's something
Speaker 1: different about sitting up over a big block of CRP
Speaker 1: because you get up into that tree and you're like,
Speaker 1: they could be in there now, they could be coming
Speaker 1: out to there at some point. They're gonna just they're
Speaker 1: gonna use this in so many different ways. It's not
Speaker 1: just betting. You know, you'll see them browsed through there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll never forget. I think it was the
Speaker 1: first time I ever hunted South Dakota for white tails,
Speaker 1: and I was just glassing in the hills and they
Speaker 1: had different prairies and stuff. I was close to the river,
Speaker 1: so I had some wooded bottoms and stuff, but I
Speaker 1: was still in like the transition to grassland. And where
Speaker 1: I was looking for deer was in the trees, you know,
Speaker 1: like where you just like, okay, I know, dear like
Speaker 1: this stuff. And I kept seeing these deer in these
Speaker 1: places where I'm like, why are they there? Looks like
Speaker 1: that deer's browsing away in just grassland, but I know
Speaker 1: they're not even that yellow grass. And I remember walking
Speaker 1: over there like the next morning and looking at it
Speaker 1: and there was this little tiny clover sprouting under there,
Speaker 1: and that's what they were eating. And you're just like,
Speaker 1: you know, I would have never ever known that, like
Speaker 1: that would have never occurred to me to be a
Speaker 1: pattern I could play off of. And then you start
Speaker 1: digging in, You're like, there's so much going on here.
Speaker 1: It looks kind of mono landscape, and it's just different
Speaker 1: when we see the same thing. Like if you want to,
Speaker 1: if you want to realize the value of grasslands, get
Speaker 1: a bird dog, and you just realize, like, not only
Speaker 1: are the birds out there, but how many how many
Speaker 1: other critters you jump, how many deer that you see
Speaker 1: in places where you're like there's just no way, like
Speaker 1: there's no way they're going to be here. And then
Speaker 1: you know how it is when you're following a bird
Speaker 1: dog along and you just sort of like they're doing
Speaker 1: their thing and you're kind of working the wind or whatever.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times you just end up on
Speaker 1: a deer trail like you just easier walk in. You're like,
Speaker 1: let's let the dogs do the hard work. And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you realize, like this this deer
Speaker 1: trail is like winding its way through here, and these
Speaker 1: deer using this terrain just like they would bluffy country,
Speaker 1: but it's on such a different scale, and I think
Speaker 1: that's so freaking cool. I feel like you've told me
Speaker 1: a lot of stories where you've been bird hunting in
Speaker 1: grasslands and blood a bunch of big bucks, and like, oh,
Speaker 1: I need to try to hunt deer hunt this some day, dude.
Speaker 1: It's kind of common thing, isn't it. It's well, it's
Speaker 1: so common for me that I just spent a weekend
Speaker 1: hunting rabbits and scouting deer on public land in a
Speaker 1: place that I never in a million years thought I
Speaker 1: would go. But just seeing what I see pheasant hunting,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I gotta I gotta see if I can
Speaker 1: kill a big public land buck down here. And it's
Speaker 1: it's just grass. So Okay, when I say grassland or
Speaker 1: grassy or prairie or any kind of habitat like that,
Speaker 1: where could we find that. I'm I'm gonna start with
Speaker 1: the list. Second, think of here and you jump in.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking parts of Minnesota. I'm thinking parts of Iowa.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking both the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, uh, eastern Montana,
Speaker 1: eastern Colorado, eastern Wyoming. I think you could find it
Speaker 1: in the northern part of Texas. Um. I you know
Speaker 1: this is this is probably a stretch, but I've even
Speaker 1: turkey hunted places in northern Missouri where like some of
Speaker 1: the hilltops and stuff are like many little biospheres of
Speaker 1: grassland as well. Yeah, you know, I mean where you
Speaker 1: get the you know, the oaks in the bottoms or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a mixed terrain, and that's a whole
Speaker 1: lot of white tail country that that's this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And then all the different grasslands that are still around
Speaker 1: in little pockets and remnants throughout the Midwest where they're
Speaker 1: there used to be all across that Iowa, Illinois, Indiana,
Speaker 1: tons of grasslands used to be at the short Grass period,
Speaker 1: I think is what it used to be where there's
Speaker 1: still little remnants. I mean. One of the coolest things
Speaker 1: that came out of my Back forty project was when
Speaker 1: we brought this plant ecologist out to the property out
Speaker 1: there in southern Michigan. We went walking around and we
Speaker 1: came across this ridge side that had a whole lot
Speaker 1: of different grasses in there and forbes and stuff, and
Speaker 1: that guy the college just does with it was like
Speaker 1: shocked at what he saw. He's like, hey, this is
Speaker 1: a remnant native prairie that used to be here hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds of years ago, that's been wiped out across
Speaker 1: the state and across much of the Midwest, like we've
Speaker 1: paved it all over. We don't have this stuff almost anywhere.
Speaker 1: This is like a rare of thing. It might be
Speaker 1: the only place in the county that we still have this.
Speaker 1: We have this little pocket of grassland. Such a cool
Speaker 1: thing to see, and funny enough, we tried to improve it.
Speaker 1: We tried to open up some space for it, and
Speaker 1: sure enough, that's where both the bucks I killed on
Speaker 1: the Back forty came out of. So not only is
Speaker 1: it native, not only is it pretty dark cool, but hey,
Speaker 1: it's also where a lot of these deer like on time. Well,
Speaker 1: and you know we I know this is where to hunts.
Speaker 1: So we talk about white tails. But man, you go
Speaker 1: hunt an open a lot of places. You go hunt
Speaker 1: meal deer in a lot of places. Um, I hunted
Speaker 1: blacktails in southern California one time, and we were hunting
Speaker 1: in some grassland there. You know, I mean this is
Speaker 1: there are a lot of species that I love this stuff, alright,
Speaker 1: So most memorable grassland type habitat dear story, when I
Speaker 1: say that's the first thing that comes to mind for
Speaker 1: you over all your years hunting this stuff, and you've
Speaker 1: been hunting that kind of stuff for a long time,
Speaker 1: probably for instance, before I was born. Right, Man, that
Speaker 1: was a joke. But you just want with that. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to ignore you because Mark has been making fun
Speaker 1: of me for my age the whole time. Even though
Speaker 1: he's only seven years younger than me. You just look
Speaker 1: thirty four years older than because I have ten year
Speaker 1: old twins. Just wait, just wait, bro, you got those
Speaker 1: two little boys at home. This ship is coming for
Speaker 1: you too. Man. Anyways, graha's what you're saying. And plus
Speaker 1: I've hunted a lot harder than you. So it's been
Speaker 1: a lot more stressful on me when you when you
Speaker 1: go out there and you work your ass off on
Speaker 1: public land, you get some gray hair. I'm not just
Speaker 1: doing the cushy hunts that you're doing. So anyways, back
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven, so can I tell you, I'm
Speaker 1: not having like a bucket killed come to mine right away?
Speaker 1: But I have this memory. So growing up in southeastern Minnesota,
Speaker 1: like I did, we had I kind of hit sort
Speaker 1: of the tail end of the pheasant days down there,
Speaker 1: which means I hit the tail end of the CRP
Speaker 1: in a lot of places. So when I could start
Speaker 1: hunting when I was twelve, you know, for a while,
Speaker 1: we had some pheasants to work with, we had some
Speaker 1: deer weed hunt in CRP, and then everything went under
Speaker 1: the plot and it kind of went away. But I
Speaker 1: remember we we had places, like we had private places
Speaker 1: to hunt, but we also just went and hunt in
Speaker 1: public land. It's like we kind of just like, what
Speaker 1: do we want to do tonight? My dad? Now, you know,
Speaker 1: like we weren't, you know, we were hunting anything, So
Speaker 1: we we didn't care. It wasn't like we were trophy hunting.
Speaker 1: It was like, we'll have fun if we go down
Speaker 1: here to Lanesborough and have this public left on if
Speaker 1: we go to this private place. And I remember he
Speaker 1: dropped me off and I was probably like fourteen fifteen
Speaker 1: at the time. I couldn't drive yet, and I was
Speaker 1: in the CRP field and just like no clue what
Speaker 1: to do. And I remember just sneaking along Asia still
Speaker 1: hunt a lot, and I saw this deer and it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, like I never see like this is amazing.
Speaker 1: And so I got down in that grass and started
Speaker 1: crawling closer and closer, and it was a dough and
Speaker 1: I remember just like being so scared to peek up,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I'm just gonna get close, because you know,
Speaker 1: back then, it was like we were shooting compounds, but
Speaker 1: we were shooting like one pin like fingers, you know,
Speaker 1: like the peep site that a little pinhole through it,
Speaker 1: like painting your your pins kind of thing. And so
Speaker 1: we were like twenty yards and under a kind of deal.
Speaker 1: And I remember when I finally got to where I
Speaker 1: was like, she's got to be right here, and I
Speaker 1: just like peeked up and she was on the trail.
Speaker 1: I was on like ten yards away facing me, and
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't I was going to take a
Speaker 1: frontal shot, and I just remember like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: like they're never this close to me, like this little
Speaker 1: situation here in this grass and at the time I
Speaker 1: didn't recognize it, like I just knew like deer, some
Speaker 1: deer like c RP. But I've never forgot that because
Speaker 1: that was like one of the first encounters I had,
Speaker 1: like on the ground close where I didn't kill her.
Speaker 1: She busted me and she ran away, but it was
Speaker 1: like you you can actually get that close to them,
Speaker 1: not sitting in a tree stand, which I hated because
Speaker 1: I was so impatient, but just to actually go out
Speaker 1: and do it, and it was just because she was
Speaker 1: in the c RP not paying attention and I had
Speaker 1: the right wind in the right conditions, and that I
Speaker 1: think about that all the time, and you know, that
Speaker 1: was one that got away and it was just a dope.
Speaker 1: There's there's so many different hunts. Even in the short
Speaker 1: time I think I hunted out in the grassland type
Speaker 1: half for the first time and deer hunted in it.
Speaker 1: And probably two thousand, twelve or thirteen, so it's been
Speaker 1: less than ten years but just in that time period,
Speaker 1: I mean, any of my favorite hunts, not just because
Speaker 1: of the deer activity, both some for the deer act,
Speaker 1: but also just for the like the ancillary stuff, like
Speaker 1: the stuff around it. You know. Like I remember one
Speaker 1: time hunting in the state out there, and I was hunting.
Speaker 1: There was a mixture of like river bottom and grasslands
Speaker 1: and kind of bluffs and then down in the bottoms.
Speaker 1: And I remember I was camped out up on these
Speaker 1: bluffs like big rolling grasses, and then down beneath me
Speaker 1: was the river bottom where there was a few turees
Speaker 1: and some grasses and stuff like that. And I hunted
Speaker 1: that morning, no sorry, I glassed the morning, mid day,
Speaker 1: went down to the bottom hunting this kind of grassy bottom,
Speaker 1: passed on a really nice buck I shouldn't have passed on.
Speaker 1: This was the first day across the river. Came back
Speaker 1: up this after dark, going back up, and I just
Speaker 1: remember climbing the bluff, getting up to my truck which
Speaker 1: was parked on this grassy hill. There's nobody else around
Speaker 1: for miles. It's dark except for just the brilliant stars.
Speaker 1: And I was sitting there at the truck pop the
Speaker 1: tailgate put on the little backpacker stove and all you
Speaker 1: could hear was just the of that little stove burner.
Speaker 1: And I remember just looking up hearing that sound and
Speaker 1: just thinking this is this is it? Like this is
Speaker 1: what it's all about. I mean, I got to watch
Speaker 1: a bunch of deer day. I got to sit and
Speaker 1: just watch a bunch of deer this morning. Then I
Speaker 1: got to go see deer and have close calls up
Speaker 1: close like fun deer hunt in the afternoon. And then
Speaker 1: I got to sit here in this wide open landscape
Speaker 1: and there's not a sound except for the burner of
Speaker 1: my little stove while I heat up a backpacker meal.
Speaker 1: And I know tomorrow I can go back and do
Speaker 1: it all over again, Like this is living let alone,
Speaker 1: good deer hunting, this is the whole thing. And I've
Speaker 1: just got a lot of experiences like that that that
Speaker 1: keep on bringing me wanting to go out to those places.
Speaker 1: And and again, like I said, it's I like to
Speaker 1: go to those places where that's the majority of the habitat.
Speaker 1: But then also like when I wanted hunt hunted Iowa
Speaker 1: this past year, and I not scouting and looking for
Speaker 1: different locations multiple different times, I was gravitating towards where
Speaker 1: there was that CRP and loan behold that the very
Speaker 1: first morning of my first hunt in Iowa this year,
Speaker 1: really nice buck came stepping out of that c RP.
Speaker 1: Could have shot him. Other really nice buck came down
Speaker 1: along the side of the c RP. To of my
Speaker 1: best shot opportunities of the whole week came out of
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Man. So it's it's valuable, not
Speaker 1: just for its aesthetics. It is and it I think
Speaker 1: when you talk about that and your your you know,
Speaker 1: recent Iowa hunt and some of your hunts before that,
Speaker 1: there is a there is a connection to big bucks
Speaker 1: and grass like because when you say that, it reminds
Speaker 1: me when you know, when I drew Iowa and like,
Speaker 1: I found three concentrations of bucks down there on that
Speaker 1: public and every one of them was in proximity to
Speaker 1: c RP. I mean the one spot, well, the two
Speaker 1: spots that were really good, I was right on CRP.
Speaker 1: So I might have been you know, I was doing
Speaker 1: something else, like maybe hunting a river crossing or something,
Speaker 1: but it was like, you know, you got the crossing
Speaker 1: on one side, you got the CRP on the other.
Speaker 1: So important. Okay, So let's talk a little bit of
Speaker 1: strategy here if we're going to hunt any kind of
Speaker 1: grassy type habitamp, and I guess I'll break it up
Speaker 1: into two. I'm curious about a what are some things
Speaker 1: you've learned about hunting in and around CRP in a
Speaker 1: more traditional agricultural Midwest setting. Let's just tackle that first
Speaker 1: before I got to part two. So part one, what
Speaker 1: are some best practices you've learned about, how you utilize
Speaker 1: c RP, how that factors in your strategy, how and
Speaker 1: why you had ever set up around it? Man, I think,
Speaker 1: I think the thing that's so valuable. I've been really
Speaker 1: talking about this a lot, righting about this a lot lately,
Speaker 1: But I'm trying. I'm trying to look at these hunting
Speaker 1: scenarios and it's like so easy to default to the negatives,
Speaker 1: like what's working against me? The hunting pressure is too high,
Speaker 1: there's no big bucks in my state, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Like we always kind of like it's like human nature
Speaker 1: to go negative. But I'm trying to look like, what
Speaker 1: what works for you there? Like what what advantage does
Speaker 1: this specific habitat give you? And man, you know, like
Speaker 1: when we talked about the bigwood stuff earlier. Part of
Speaker 1: the reason that so hard is because you know it's
Speaker 1: lower dear density, you don't you don't see as many
Speaker 1: so you're just like operating off a sign and you're
Speaker 1: inferring a bunch of stuff, but you don't get a
Speaker 1: lot of lessons in real time from real deer. Like
Speaker 1: that's a that's a gift you can go in. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons that the state like
Speaker 1: Iowa is pretty easy to hunt compared to a lot
Speaker 1: of states is because you have a good mix of
Speaker 1: that stuff where if you go in you don't really
Speaker 1: know what you're doing, you can set up and observe
Speaker 1: still have a hell of a chance to kill when
Speaker 1: walking down the edge of the field or the crp
Speaker 1: or whatever. But you can see them and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what he did today. He got up out
Speaker 1: of that patch of brush in the middle of any
Speaker 1: walk down there through that ditch or whatever, or he
Speaker 1: came back in this morning, and you can you can
Speaker 1: run that pattern. I mean that that's why when you
Speaker 1: talk about like a Kansas hunter and Nebraska hunt. Part
Speaker 1: of the reason that's so freaking fun is you are
Speaker 1: in the game when you can see them and they're
Speaker 1: going to tell you, like, this is what I did today.
Speaker 1: I might not do it tomorrow, but I might. That's
Speaker 1: such a gift, man. So I treat I treat those situations,
Speaker 1: you know, like obviously they're going to leave a bunch
Speaker 1: of sign and rubs around there, or you'll find beds,
Speaker 1: or you can walk through there and jump them or whatever.
Speaker 1: Find a lot of sheds in it too. But I
Speaker 1: treat that like the most important advantage that Grasslands and
Speaker 1: c RP give you is a visibility. Like you get
Speaker 1: a lot of lessons on what do you like to
Speaker 1: do just by sitting back and going, Okay, show me,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna show you. That's the beautiful part. The
Speaker 1: funny thing is is they show you right. Typically, if
Speaker 1: you're elevated, you can see in there, so it's visible
Speaker 1: to you, but from their perspective, they feel completely concealed.
Speaker 1: So it's like this best of both worlds where they
Speaker 1: feel safe, but you can see there's no other habitat
Speaker 1: like that anywhere really where we can get an advantage
Speaker 1: while they think they have the advantage. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I would say some of the western white tails and
Speaker 1: some sage flats and stuff. You get a similar situation,
Speaker 1: but it's not like reproducible across you know, like you
Speaker 1: if you find the right situation, you can But that's
Speaker 1: a consistent thing in grassland and CRP. So when you
Speaker 1: find a CRP field of some size, do you tip
Speaker 1: really look at that as okay? Well, let me When
Speaker 1: I walk across the landscape, I usually am looking at
Speaker 1: stuff and then lumping it into some kind of category
Speaker 1: kind of categorizes as something. Is this a travel corridor?
Speaker 1: Is this a food source? This is a betting area,
Speaker 1: so that I can start to make sense of the
Speaker 1: bigger thing. When you see a CRP field, does that
Speaker 1: automatically go into this is probably a betting area pile
Speaker 1: or how do you think of it? What pile does
Speaker 1: that go into? For you? Um, it's usually starts that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's the easiest default mode, right, But
Speaker 1: depending on what kind of grass it is, depending on
Speaker 1: what kind of CRP it is, you know, how old
Speaker 1: it is, how many years it's been planted, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you get some shrubs and stuff in there,
Speaker 1: now you're dealing with some staging area stuff. A lot
Speaker 1: of times if it's over their head and it's got
Speaker 1: something they can rub on, yeah, they might bet on
Speaker 1: one end and walk their way through. But you might
Speaker 1: get a staging area situation. And you know, for me,
Speaker 1: it's just I use it. It's just like an anchor point,
Speaker 1: right like you you know that you're going to use
Speaker 1: it for a lot of different things. They might be
Speaker 1: betting in there, they probably are. They might be staged
Speaker 1: in there. They might be you know, using an edge
Speaker 1: and a hard edge along there to travel there. There's
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of things probably going on, and
Speaker 1: so you have like multiple things working for you, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean it's the same I look at that like
Speaker 1: that's just a gift for habitat the same thing is
Speaker 1: like you know, if you have a soybean field that
Speaker 1: butts up to a pond and you have like can
Speaker 1: you can hang in early season stand there, It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: well you've got two really good things going on there
Speaker 1: with a with the CRP. A lot of times, you know,
Speaker 1: because of that security cover that you're talking about, you've
Speaker 1: got betting for sure, You've got what they think are
Speaker 1: safe travel routes. They can move. They they're probably going
Speaker 1: to move in there in light and give you a
Speaker 1: chance to see them. And they leave a lot of
Speaker 1: sign wherever they have a chance to leave sign. So
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of advantages to it. Now, what
Speaker 1: about if we were to head west and go to
Speaker 1: Kansas or Oklahoma, to one of the one of these
Speaker 1: other states where there's more traditional grassland habitat. What are
Speaker 1: the things you're thinking about as far as advantages and
Speaker 1: strategic implications. I guess as far as how you hunt
Speaker 1: that stuff out there, that might be different than a
Speaker 1: CRP CRP fielding Wisconsin. Um, I would say out there,
Speaker 1: you know, the scale is so vastly different, but you
Speaker 1: have more visibility typically that's nice. Um, if you have
Speaker 1: a tree, you have a place, they're gonna walk by,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're just like fish, they're gonna gravitate
Speaker 1: to the structure. Um. But I think I think the
Speaker 1: big advantages of being able to see them. The downside
Speaker 1: if they get into like knee high tall grass and
Speaker 1: you gotta go after them, is you better have a
Speaker 1: good plan, Like you better, but they're decoyable, you know,
Speaker 1: like there there's ways to get around it and you know.
Speaker 1: The main thing about it is, you know we always
Speaker 1: talk about like, all right, well, how do you kill
Speaker 1: this buck in this way? How do you kill a
Speaker 1: buck in that way? And the thing about you know,
Speaker 1: like what you did in Nebraska last year for the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's not easy to kill a buck going out
Speaker 1: and decoin them in the grassland. But tell me a
Speaker 1: funner way to hunt, Like, is is there a better
Speaker 1: way to spend your time like they're they're isn't? And
Speaker 1: so even though yeah, it might not be an easy thing,
Speaker 1: just just sort of like spotting stock an antelope, like
Speaker 1: that's if you bow hunt them. That is not an
Speaker 1: easy thing to do, but it's sure it's fun because
Speaker 1: you're always in the game. Yeah, so I think it
Speaker 1: offers up one of the most enjoyable types of habitat
Speaker 1: to work with. Yeah. Now, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I know you've utilized in grassland habitats. That's just something
Speaker 1: i'll throw out there. It's not really related what you're
Speaker 1: talking about, but would you say that water factors into
Speaker 1: your game plan even more in these grassy planes to
Speaker 1: habitats that elsewhere or the huge, huge I always if
Speaker 1: I'm in those that kind of situation where if you
Speaker 1: if you think you could look across the landscape and
Speaker 1: not see a whole lot sticking up out of the ground.
Speaker 1: I'm always starting with water because there's gonna be some
Speaker 1: kind of different plants there typically, I mean it depends
Speaker 1: how that, you know, if it's pastures or whatever. But
Speaker 1: so you might get some scrubs eaters or something, or
Speaker 1: a windmill to tuck into or some something to work with.
Speaker 1: But it's just a centralized point, you know. And the
Speaker 1: hard part, you know, when you asked me about like
Speaker 1: what's my best memory in the grasslands, Like one of
Speaker 1: the things that occurred to me after I talked about
Speaker 1: a little bit is a buck I killed in Nebraska
Speaker 1: one time with a muzzleloader out in the middle of
Speaker 1: that stuff. And the whole my whole plan there was
Speaker 1: just like get on water and like check these water
Speaker 1: holes because there's tanks all over for the cattle. So
Speaker 1: it gives you like kind of like, Okay, I gotta route.
Speaker 1: I got a thing to do. Like I know, I
Speaker 1: know they need the water even if they have a
Speaker 1: lot of water out here to work with. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, what can you get there? That's different that
Speaker 1: will work to your advantage. That's a big one. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: So for hunting those kinds of places, water is going
Speaker 1: to be something to pay attention to. Any kind of
Speaker 1: structure if it's present, is something to think about. Another
Speaker 1: general thing, if you can get to a high point
Speaker 1: and watch and observe, take advantage of that whole visibility aspect,
Speaker 1: that's a great starting point. Get as high as it can,
Speaker 1: or park your truck and stand on top of your
Speaker 1: truck and watching glass. I mean, I think this is
Speaker 1: one of those habitats where you know, observation stand or
Speaker 1: observation sitting on your truck for a morning or the
Speaker 1: evening is very worthwhile right to see if there's anything,
Speaker 1: Is there anything else other than those couple three things
Speaker 1: first starting points and that kind of habitat that's worth
Speaker 1: keeping in mind if you're heading out for your first
Speaker 1: Oklahoma hunt or South Dakota hunt or Texas or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one thing that's like super important that I had
Speaker 1: to learn. And so I went out to South Dakota
Speaker 1: I think was hunting mule deer and hunt on the
Speaker 1: grassland for mule deer, and you know, I went out
Speaker 1: there knowing like this is gonna be a tough place
Speaker 1: to spot in stock, but this is where the mule
Speaker 1: deer live, and this is just what I'm working with.
Speaker 1: And so I was out there with my buddy Eric
Speaker 1: and we had a really good hunt. He killed one,
Speaker 1: I killed one, and so it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty good. We're halfway done. And that the other
Speaker 1: two guys in our camp, we're from Colorado. Well one
Speaker 1: was from Colorado, was from Wyoming, so their Western hunters.
Speaker 1: They met us there. We live in Minnesota, so you'd
Speaker 1: consider us like Eastern hunters, right, And in my head
Speaker 1: I had no problem going into a mule deer hunt
Speaker 1: that way. But after we tagged out, we stuck around
Speaker 1: for a few days and I just hung out with
Speaker 1: our other buddies and tried to help them get a deer.
Speaker 1: And because they're from out west, they wanted to shoot
Speaker 1: a white tail, and so they found a concentration of
Speaker 1: white tails and they're telling me about it, and I
Speaker 1: was like this, you know, I saw some white tails
Speaker 1: out there, but like this seems weird. Like they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this creek bottom with these trees in it, and
Speaker 1: I was like that sounds like the stuff I hunt.
Speaker 1: And I went and glassed one day with one of
Speaker 1: my buddies who had found this spot, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: at it and there's like eight trees in three miles,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like one little drainage with like
Speaker 1: a foot deep right in the center, you know, like
Speaker 1: a little tiny creek. But to them coming from the west,
Speaker 1: they're like, that's good habitat. And they were freaking deer
Speaker 1: in there, And I would like I would have driven
Speaker 1: past that and never given it a second thought. Like
Speaker 1: if I would have been driving down the road and
Speaker 1: I saw run, there would have been that that's a fluke.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep going. But they come from a different
Speaker 1: place and they're going, that's good habitat. There's these gotten
Speaker 1: woods down there. They're relating to it. There's a little
Speaker 1: bit to dip in the train. So when you come
Speaker 1: from the Midwest or the East, and you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: I know what I know about dear, and I know
Speaker 1: a lot, and then you go out there and you
Speaker 1: look at this stuff and you go, well, this this sucks.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of people get kind of like going
Speaker 1: into the mountains for elk, like first time, you get
Speaker 1: this feeling of oh, man, like I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: in my home ground, and like I really actually don't
Speaker 1: know what's going on, and so you kind of have
Speaker 1: to reframe what you think about for like, good dear
Speaker 1: cover because that stuff does not look like where a
Speaker 1: lot of us come from. I can definitely attest to
Speaker 1: that being a lesson that takes a while to learn,
Speaker 1: but once you do, it does open your eyes to
Speaker 1: a whole lot of new possibilities. I think it's you
Speaker 1: start out with really a low confidence and then you're
Speaker 1: just like, well, what else we gotta do? And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you find your way in close
Speaker 1: to one because you lose you use a little bit
Speaker 1: of the train, or he's distracted by a dough and
Speaker 1: you're like, wow, this is totally doable. But it looks
Speaker 1: it's a vastly different environment than where we hunt deer
Speaker 1: a lot. It is, so question, do you think that
Speaker 1: you and I should go hunt in a grassland type
Speaker 1: state and habitat this year together? Sure? All right, then
Speaker 1: I think we should. I absolutely think we should go
Speaker 1: hunt some deer somewhere. I think we should. Okay, So
Speaker 1: here's that that's the good news. The bad news is,
Speaker 1: and I know you already told you this, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say it again because it still shocks me. We are,
Speaker 1: according to some estimates, losing about a million acres of
Speaker 1: this stuff every year, million acres and in the last well,
Speaker 1: I think I think it was two thousand seven. Our
Speaker 1: next guest will confirm this form, but I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: since two thousand and seven we've lost almost an area
Speaker 1: the size of the state of Kansas of this type
Speaker 1: of habitat getting converted to crops, plowed up, developed over,
Speaker 1: turned into different things. We're losing this really cool deer
Speaker 1: hunt in habitat wildlife paradise. And I'm gonna take a
Speaker 1: leap here and put words in your mouth. But I'm
Speaker 1: guessing you don't think that's cool. Man. I you know,
Speaker 1: as you've pointed out, I'm so old that I'm like
Speaker 1: I'm becoming like hyper aware of this stuff or like
Speaker 1: focused on it. Differently. When I was younger, I didn't
Speaker 1: really give it, like I didn't understand it, never the
Speaker 1: gravity of why. Like when I was growing up, my
Speaker 1: dad would go shoot pheasants with with his brother in
Speaker 1: law every night during the season they would go and
Speaker 1: it like I just took it for granted that that
Speaker 1: opportunity was just there, and by the time I got
Speaker 1: into it, it was already like we're losing our spots
Speaker 1: to hunt and it was going away. And you know,
Speaker 1: in high school, I ended up going down to Iowa
Speaker 1: more because they had more CRP and I had like
Speaker 1: the gravity of the fact that like these birds that
Speaker 1: I love, these pheasants, they need I think they say
Speaker 1: forty acres of nesting habitat per section or something something
Speaker 1: like that. And when you don't have that, they're just gone.
Speaker 1: You don't like you might have a little a few
Speaker 1: fringe birds here and there, somebody might maybe sit a
Speaker 1: little population of them, but generally the opportunity disappears, and
Speaker 1: you look at that and go, man, that's that sucks.
Speaker 1: Like I get what, you know, like I get why
Speaker 1: it went away, and I get why we're losing it now,
Speaker 1: Like I understand, is a big issue. But when you
Speaker 1: look at like everything that uses it and everything that
Speaker 1: needs it, then you look at some of the erosion stuff.
Speaker 1: Like I grew up, I know you love to fish
Speaker 1: and trout fish, you know, I grew up fishing lots
Speaker 1: of trout streams, like that's what we did. And then
Speaker 1: you see how it changes with the runoff and how
Speaker 1: long it takes the run off to get through there.
Speaker 1: And you watch some of these streams you grew up fishing,
Speaker 1: and they were brooks brook trout streams when you were ten,
Speaker 1: and now they're brown trout and suckers, you know, Like
Speaker 1: you see these changes, and part of it is tied
Speaker 1: to the fact that this this habitat that we had,
Speaker 1: you know, these grasslands that we had for ten thousand years,
Speaker 1: they're gone, and we we have the opportunity to bring
Speaker 1: some of them back, or at least, you know, stop
Speaker 1: the bleeding a little bit. Man. I I'm for it.
Speaker 1: I feel like and and and this is like a
Speaker 1: dead horse that we're beating over and over because it's
Speaker 1: cliche gas, but I keep on thinking about it, like
Speaker 1: having kids just changes the level of significance, I guess
Speaker 1: with these things even more, Like it's one thing for
Speaker 1: us not to get to enjoy them or see them
Speaker 1: or experience them. But for some reason, at least for me,
Speaker 1: it feels like a different level of just shittiness that
Speaker 1: my kids wouldn't necessarily be able to see that or
Speaker 1: experience that. Like all these stories we just told, if
Speaker 1: there's half this much country like that left for them
Speaker 1: twenty years from now when they want to go out
Speaker 1: and do this thing, that'd be pretty that would be
Speaker 1: pretty tragic. Yeah. Well yeah, and there's going to be
Speaker 1: implications way beyond that, some game species and probably probably
Speaker 1: a whole lot of well, you know, butterflies and things
Speaker 1: that songbirds. And we're not really thinking, like, we're not
Speaker 1: focused because we don't shoot them and eat them. But there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not great. No, no, it's not so I guess that.
Speaker 1: I guess the one silver lining here is that there
Speaker 1: are people that are trying to change this. There are
Speaker 1: groups that are trying to change us. There are opportunities
Speaker 1: for us to get involved in ways to stop that
Speaker 1: bleeding or to actually kick start things back in the
Speaker 1: right direction. And that's what the next half of this
Speaker 1: episode is gonna be about. Tony. We've got two great guests,
Speaker 1: Torn Miller and Bethany Herb. We're gonna walk us through
Speaker 1: a potential solution, a step in the right direction away
Speaker 1: we can try to get back moving in the right direction.
Speaker 1: So should we get to that alright with me. Now
Speaker 1: today I've got Bethany Herb and Torren Miller. I appreciate
Speaker 1: you both joining me and to get us started. Bethany,
Speaker 1: could you give me a really quick introduction to what
Speaker 1: exactly your role is at Pheasants Forever and then what
Speaker 1: brought you to this kind of work? Why is it
Speaker 1: that you wanted to work at an n g O
Speaker 1: doing conservation? Sure? Um, so, hello every when. My name
Speaker 1: is Bethany Irv. I'm the director of government Affairs for
Speaker 1: Sentence Forever and Quail Forever. I'm based in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Have been working on conservation environmental policy on Capitol Hill
Speaker 1: for over fifteen years. Now, Um, why is that into
Speaker 1: this line of work? Is? Um? You know, I grew
Speaker 1: up on a ranch in southwest Montana. I grew up
Speaker 1: in the outdoors. I love the vast open spaces. Uh.
Speaker 1: And my career, my childhood brought me into the career
Speaker 1: that I'm in today, where I work on national policy
Speaker 1: that focuses on conservation and more specifically grasslands. Okay, Torn,
Speaker 1: same question to you. What are you doing at the
Speaker 1: n DA these days? And why are you here? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: my name is Torn Miller I'm the director of Policy
Speaker 1: at the National Deer Association. I actually came to the
Speaker 1: Deer Association via the merger of the Quality Deer Management
Speaker 1: Association and the National Deer Alliance UM. I worked over
Speaker 1: at the National Deer Alliance for although I had intern
Speaker 1: experience both with q d m A and the Alliance before, UH,
Speaker 1: you know, getting a job here and working. But born,
Speaker 1: raised and still live in central Pennsylvania and grew up
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania's very strong hunting camp culture, particularly UH that's
Speaker 1: particularly strong throughout the northern part of our state, and
Speaker 1: so always had a really strong connection with the woods
Speaker 1: and waters. UM very passionate about the wildlife and the landscape,
Speaker 1: and so that led me to an education and wildlife
Speaker 1: and fisheries UH. And while going through that process, I
Speaker 1: realized that I had a really strong interest in human
Speaker 1: to engines and the policy side of things, and I
Speaker 1: saw a real opportunity there to to make it real
Speaker 1: on the ground different and so that led me to
Speaker 1: law school and to focus a little bit more on
Speaker 1: the legislative side of things and how laws and policies
Speaker 1: are formed and influenced. And so I ended up here
Speaker 1: at the National de Association focusing on all of our
Speaker 1: policy and at the efforts everything you know, from the
Speaker 1: grassroots level to direct outreach to the lawmakers, um, everything
Speaker 1: from local and state level up to big federal issues.
Speaker 1: And so I get to work every day with folks
Speaker 1: like Bethany and organizations like hers on big conservation topics.
Speaker 1: Unfortunate enough that folks looked just to engage on cool
Speaker 1: projects and initiatives like the North North American Grasslands Conservation Act. So, yes,
Speaker 1: you said it right there. The North American Grasslands Conservation
Speaker 1: Act is the is the latest issue on each of
Speaker 1: your to do lists these days. Uh. When we say grasslands,
Speaker 1: when we talk about any kind of grassland related habitat
Speaker 1: that's covered by this potential bill, what are we talking about? What?
Speaker 1: How do how do you guys define that ecosystem? Where
Speaker 1: is this stuff? Is this just a Montana and Wyoming
Speaker 1: thing or is this applicable to someone in Michigan or Pennsylvania. Uh, Bethany,
Speaker 1: do you want to jump on that first? Sure? Um,
Speaker 1: that's a really great question. And I'm going to apologize
Speaker 1: in advance to the biologist listening um this podcast, because
Speaker 1: I'm not So I apologize if I get some of
Speaker 1: the terminologies incorrect. Um, we are looking at a wide
Speaker 1: dw off of land across the U. S. UM, this
Speaker 1: isn't just a great plane issue, and so we it's
Speaker 1: it's a name at this point. It's the North American
Speaker 1: Grasslands Conservation Act, but it also includes the stage brush
Speaker 1: bios and grasslands include every form of grassland, coastal grassland,
Speaker 1: savannah UM. And so it's a huge area of the
Speaker 1: United States because almost every state has an area that
Speaker 1: would be considered currently or historically grasslands. Torrent. What about
Speaker 1: specifically in deer country, I mean, the first thing that
Speaker 1: comes to mind when I think of grasslands and I
Speaker 1: think of how that is relevant to whitetail deer is
Speaker 1: all the CRP grown we've got across the Midwest. Is
Speaker 1: that the kind of thing that comes to mind for
Speaker 1: you when you think specifically dear So that's absolutely like
Speaker 1: the first um type of cover that deer hunters would
Speaker 1: think of. And not all CRP is is true grassland
Speaker 1: or true native grassland, but that's sort of the cover
Speaker 1: types that we're talking about. But UM, certainly throughout the
Speaker 1: Midwest and pushing farther west. I mean, you've experienced those
Speaker 1: landscapes marks you're thinking sort of pothole prairie, and then
Speaker 1: native tall, short mixed grass prairie or things that have
Speaker 1: historically been native prairie. In the southeast, you're thinking thing
Speaker 1: like pine savannah. UM. So these ecosystems are really, as
Speaker 1: Benthany said, all over the country and really all throughout
Speaker 1: our deer habitat um and pretty much anywhere throughout the US. UH,
Speaker 1: You're going to be somewhere where there there is or
Speaker 1: was native grassland at at one point. I think generally
Speaker 1: when we think grassland or stage of US, we certainly
Speaker 1: get the picture of Western landscapes in our head, just
Speaker 1: because this is sort of the iconic nature of those,
Speaker 1: uh landscapes. But there are grasslands throughout the south, southeast, Midwest,
Speaker 1: mid Atlantic, and even in some cases throughout the northeast
Speaker 1: and northwest. Yeah. And I can say, from at least
Speaker 1: anecdotal experience, uh to what you said to her, I've
Speaker 1: seen these types of habitats in one form or another
Speaker 1: all across the country, and at least from my own
Speaker 1: personal experiences out there, either hiking through them or hunting
Speaker 1: near them or in them, they're typically pretty prolific as
Speaker 1: far as how wildlife utilize them. That's deer, birds, bugs,
Speaker 1: the whole nine yards. But torn when you guys at
Speaker 1: the NBA to look at this issue and you start
Speaker 1: talking about why do grasslands matter? Why do these types
Speaker 1: of habitats matter for deer or deer hunters, which is
Speaker 1: obviously your constituency base. Uh, why why why does this
Speaker 1: matter to deer hunters? Why do you guys, why are
Speaker 1: you taking a stand in support of this kind of habitat? Um?
Speaker 1: Can you kind of elaborate on the importance of this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff for the critters that were so passionate about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so um at the National Deer Association, we're interested in
Speaker 1: all your species to white tail, and you'll do your
Speaker 1: black tail and all the subspecies and so um, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, these grasslands are found throughout the country, and
Speaker 1: so they impact all of these deer species in one
Speaker 1: way or another. And certainly UM throughout the west in
Speaker 1: the stage brush region you're thinking mule deer, and then
Speaker 1: throughout the southeast you're a very strong white tailed culture.
Speaker 1: And so these habitats are critically important to all deer
Speaker 1: species depending on the region, and UM grasslands by nature,
Speaker 1: especially native grasslands UM provide incredible amounts of forage for
Speaker 1: deer UM in the grasses and fords that are growing there.
Speaker 1: They provide incredible amounts of cover for deer UM. And
Speaker 1: anybody who spent enough time around these types of habitats
Speaker 1: and there's hunted and there's a habitat UM certainly know
Speaker 1: that the key in on them. And you know, as
Speaker 1: a deer hunter, as you mentioned, there's UM not much
Speaker 1: better or not much more of a picture or a
Speaker 1: picture that comes more to mind than like a big
Speaker 1: crp field separated by like a wooded draw or something.
Speaker 1: That's because it's we just, yeah, exactly, we know that
Speaker 1: they're just such great deer habitat. And so that's where
Speaker 1: a lot of our interest comes from, UM is the
Speaker 1: conservation and creation of excellent deer habitat, both when we're
Speaker 1: talking cover and forage UM. But out side of really
Speaker 1: focusing on deer and deer hunting, grasslands provide just a
Speaker 1: wide array of UM environmental services UH, you know, including
Speaker 1: carbon sequestration, water filtration, UM. Excellent habitat for non a
Speaker 1: game or non game species UM excellent you know, cover
Speaker 1: and forage for pollinators and all those sorts of things. Yeah, Bethani,
Speaker 1: would you have anything to add to that, especially, you know,
Speaker 1: on that topic of outside of just deer. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are important landscapes for a whole suite of of
Speaker 1: critters in life, right, Yeah, absolutely, UM, and I think
Speaker 1: touring summarized it beautifully. UM. I wanted to reference something
Speaker 1: program that you mentioned earlier, which is the RP and
Speaker 1: the Conservation Reserve Program, and that has been from a
Speaker 1: a bird hunter perspective and from our organization, very very
Speaker 1: critical UM to good habitat for upland birds. And so
Speaker 1: we wanted to do something, UM that would be complementary
Speaker 1: to CRP, and so we started to talk, uh with
Speaker 1: TORN and other groups about doing something a little more
Speaker 1: broad um in a new agency. And we're gonna get
Speaker 1: into the policy a little bit further down the road.
Speaker 1: But UH, CRP as administered to the USDA Department of Agriculture,
Speaker 1: and we started to look to do something at the
Speaker 1: Department of Interior and UM as Torn mentioned too, you know,
Speaker 1: or at a time on Capitol Hill right now, where
Speaker 1: legislators want to make policy as it relates to climate change,
Speaker 1: and we believe that that grasslands are a critical part
Speaker 1: of this discussion. We see a lot of policy coming
Speaker 1: out about forestry, UM important part of the policy discussion. UM.
Speaker 1: But grasslands definitely have their place, uh carbon capture, the
Speaker 1: potential and the value that they bring or have always
Speaker 1: brought and could continue to bring or bring more. UM,
Speaker 1: it's really necessary. When we talked about creating UM climate policy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you guys are telling me that grasslands are good
Speaker 1: for deer, they're good for pheasants, they're good for quail,
Speaker 1: they're good for bugs, they're good for hunters, and they're
Speaker 1: good for the environment. Uh. That all sounds good. That
Speaker 1: sounds great. But I was out in Iowa. I saw grasslands.
Speaker 1: I've seen some grasslands here in Michigan. When I go
Speaker 1: out west, I see grasslands. It seems like we've got
Speaker 1: a lot of grass Is there a problem here? What?
Speaker 1: What's what? What is the problem? I see that. I
Speaker 1: say that jokingly because I know actually that grasslands are
Speaker 1: maybe one of the most imperiled ecosystems across the world.
Speaker 1: I think I've read before, But can can you elaborate
Speaker 1: in that a little bit, Bethany As far as what
Speaker 1: the trend has been with grasslands because I mean, like
Speaker 1: I just kind of jokingly said, sometimes it can feel
Speaker 1: like there's plenty of it, but there's a whole lot
Speaker 1: less than there used to be, isn't there? There is
Speaker 1: um and we are kind of we're working with different
Speaker 1: partners right now to come up with an exact assessment
Speaker 1: of how much has lost. For a year right now,
Speaker 1: we you um a metric that we were losing about
Speaker 1: We've already lost about the size every ten years, the
Speaker 1: size of kansas of grassland. And I can't tell you
Speaker 1: right now without avan my resources in front of me
Speaker 1: how much we're losing. But we know that we are
Speaker 1: losing a lot of acres of grasslands, and they're in
Speaker 1: places where there's a ton of urban sprawl, for example
Speaker 1: where I'm from in southwest Montana. You know, places like
Speaker 1: the Gallanton Valley or just expanding h rapidly, and people
Speaker 1: want to live on these landscapes. They're beautiful. And when
Speaker 1: I mean when I'm just talking about habitat change or
Speaker 1: destruction in terms of urban development, but when when you
Speaker 1: subdivide a field that was once a grassland, whether it
Speaker 1: was cattle ranching or just an open field for you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: like you're disrupting migration route. Um. It's all sorts of
Speaker 1: ecological disruptions happened when there's a subdivision. We're also talking
Speaker 1: about farmland conversions and know there's a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: on these really special places, um, that are great for
Speaker 1: different forms of wildlife. UM. And so we're just looking
Speaker 1: to do something that keeps more of these special graphlines
Speaker 1: places be intact. Yeah. Yeah, I read somewhere that we
Speaker 1: lose a million acres of this habitat every year. UM.
Speaker 1: And like you said that since two thousand seven is
Speaker 1: about the size of Kansas gone. Um And so am
Speaker 1: I right that A lot of what has happened recently
Speaker 1: and you kind of alluded to this with that crop
Speaker 1: conversion is some grounds that were protected in c RP
Speaker 1: were then converted back to row crops, and that's been
Speaker 1: an increasing trend in recent years. Prices and different things
Speaker 1: like that. UM. Is that something that is this is well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into this bill. I guess a little
Speaker 1: bit more. Maybe maybe maybe I retract my question, Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm getting ahead of myself. UM, torn I guess let
Speaker 1: me let me pivot and just ask if you would
Speaker 1: have anything to add when it comes to the problems
Speaker 1: we're seeing what I guess when I mentioned the CRP thing,
Speaker 1: I remember talking to Kip Adams, the director of Conservator
Speaker 1: chief conservation officer there over with you guys, n d A,
Speaker 1: and he talked about back in like twousen fifteen sixteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: when we were worried about some potential trends with white
Speaker 1: tailed deer. One of the things we were worried about
Speaker 1: was this loss of habitat. A tremendous amount of c
Speaker 1: RP was converted back to crop lands. Can you elaborate
Speaker 1: on that? Can you speak to any other things we're
Speaker 1: singing along those lines? Um? And how you guys see
Speaker 1: that impacting what tails? Yeah, so a lot of the
Speaker 1: concerns outside of even just habitat conversion with you know, uh,
Speaker 1: suburban sprawl and UM landscape use changes. Um, we're seeing
Speaker 1: that a lot of the native grasslands are are seeing
Speaker 1: the inversion of non native species, which are negative for
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons, UM, but up in their value
Speaker 1: to the native wildlife and the overall landscape. But UM,
Speaker 1: we're seeing a lot more wildfire risks, both in sage
Speaker 1: brush and grasslands with the introduction of more non native
Speaker 1: or invasive species of grasses and forbes. Um, they're less
Speaker 1: fire resistant, and so when they're introduced to these landscapes,
Speaker 1: these landscapes become more fire susceptible UM. And so we're
Speaker 1: seeing destruction in that sense um too. And then we're
Speaker 1: just seeing, as you mentioned, with farming and grazing practices, UM,
Speaker 1: we're not doing enough to incentivize folks who own these
Speaker 1: lands as working lands to keep them in their sort
Speaker 1: of natural and native grass land states. And so there
Speaker 1: are absolutely ways that we can keep these landscapes as
Speaker 1: working landscapes and still provide all the wildlife and environmental
Speaker 1: benefits that they have, but we need to provide incentives
Speaker 1: and knowledge um for people to do that. And so
Speaker 1: nothing like this really exists. And even with the the
Speaker 1: CRP program, it's been UM severely under enrolled in recent
Speaker 1: years and underfunded. And so this this piece of legislation,
Speaker 1: and again we'll get into some of the more specifics,
Speaker 1: but it tackles that by helping to encourage folks who
Speaker 1: own um lands that are in grasslands. And it's like
Speaker 1: something like eight of our our grassland ecosystems are privately owned. Um,
Speaker 1: it's getting them the tools and incentives to keep these
Speaker 1: lands intact outside of you know, urban development and outside
Speaker 1: of crop usage and sort of conversion for agriculture or grazing. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so So Bethany, do you want to kind of help
Speaker 1: us take that next step then? Because I think you've
Speaker 1: been pretty um integral in driving the direction of the
Speaker 1: North American Grasslands Conservation at can you can you spell
Speaker 1: out for us exactly what this is and how it's
Speaker 1: going to help us solve the problems that we just discussed. Sure. Um,
Speaker 1: And the first thing I'll put out there are two
Speaker 1: words tour and already said them, but I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: them again. They're the most important part of this discussion.
Speaker 1: Voluntary and incentive space. So we at Presents Forever and
Speaker 1: Quail Forever have a long history of working in partnership
Speaker 1: with landowners, and UM, we do not agree with taking
Speaker 1: any sort of regulatory approach that makes life more difficult
Speaker 1: uh for private landowners and that we want to construct
Speaker 1: policy that is complimentary in incentive based to grazing operations.
Speaker 1: So the concept that we're talking about in name now
Speaker 1: is the North American Grasslands Conservation Act. Which includes stage brush.
Speaker 1: So it didn't coudn't quite make the formal title, but
Speaker 1: it's in there. And UM we've worked very closely with
Speaker 1: UH Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon his wonderful staff to
Speaker 1: start putting pen to paper on what this legislative language
Speaker 1: will look like. And so UM as we're talking about
Speaker 1: it right now in draft form, it would be quite
Speaker 1: similar to NAKA, the North American Wetlands Servation Act. So
Speaker 1: NAKA is a program um that's administered at the Department
Speaker 1: of Interior by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and
Speaker 1: it's a grant program um and their UH and see
Speaker 1: Grant program Um and Eavenent program for wet land conservation
Speaker 1: on private land. It's been torn right now. I can't
Speaker 1: remember how many years KNOCK has been around, but I
Speaker 1: think it's over over thirty or forty, very very effective
Speaker 1: increasing waterfoul production numbers. And so we started to take
Speaker 1: a look and say, okay, when just looking at like
Speaker 1: grassland birds, like all of them are in decline and
Speaker 1: we land birds are not. What's different? And we recognize
Speaker 1: that there was policy out there, specific policy to protect
Speaker 1: wet lands and habitats, and so we started to say, well,
Speaker 1: let's model that and let's do it for grasslands. So
Speaker 1: we're looking at a much bigger UM swaths of land
Speaker 1: than wet lands UM, and so it's going to be
Speaker 1: a program that will be we're looking somewhere between two
Speaker 1: hundred and three hundred million dollars per year every year
Speaker 1: UM an authorization that would go through an annual appropriation
Speaker 1: cycle and it would again, you know, we don't have
Speaker 1: the language. It hasn't been introduced yet, so it's still
Speaker 1: being drafted. You could look a lot of different ways,
Speaker 1: but it would include UM a tribal component which would
Speaker 1: be unique and so that tribes could participate in this
Speaker 1: UM just pretty incredible program and and do habitat improvement
Speaker 1: on tribal lands UM. That kind of is one of
Speaker 1: the more unique angles that we've taken and have support
Speaker 1: from UM several different tribal organizations and UM as it
Speaker 1: as it relates to naka UM. The grant program would
Speaker 1: allow for different UM flexible landowner based approaches, so I
Speaker 1: think Thorn mentioned earlier like wildfire prevention so prescribed by
Speaker 1: would be one of them. UM. You could do things
Speaker 1: like um uh rant or like educational programs on different
Speaker 1: UM you know, ranching transition UM plans. You could perhaps
Speaker 1: do like different fencing projects that could be funded through
Speaker 1: this UM, perhaps of water quality or water management irrigation plans.
Speaker 1: And it also allows for easement UM. At this time,
Speaker 1: the language is not being considered for any sort of
Speaker 1: fee acquisition, but easements that could be held either by
Speaker 1: the US Fish and Wildlife Service or independent land trust.
Speaker 1: We know there are a lot of independent land trust
Speaker 1: UM that works throughout almost every state and they hold easements,
Speaker 1: they monitor easements, and a lot of times that's a
Speaker 1: more comfortable approach for landowners that maybe don't want a
Speaker 1: government agency on their property. So when an independent land
Speaker 1: trust holds the easement UM that sometimes it's just a
Speaker 1: more comfortable approach for landowners. So we're trying to construct
Speaker 1: a flexible program UH that's compatible with grazing and complementary
Speaker 1: to UM. It would it would fund SHAN in conjunction
Speaker 1: with us d A programs like the RP, but it
Speaker 1: has the added flexibility of NAKA that some of the
Speaker 1: U s d A programs don't have. I also adds
Speaker 1: UH that U s d A conservation programs UM there's
Speaker 1: more demand than there is money, so we see a
Speaker 1: need to do something in addition to the farm built
Speaker 1: programs and like the idea of having it at the
Speaker 1: Department of Interior UM and so that's kind of the
Speaker 1: direction that we're moving UM. As I mentioned, Senator Widen
Speaker 1: has worked very closely with us on this, and well,
Speaker 1: I can't speak for him. His staff is, you know, expressed,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of concerns for wanting to do
Speaker 1: something UM to help the farming and ranching community compatible
Speaker 1: ranching operations, but they're also very interested in what it
Speaker 1: does UM for climate policy. And so we've been pretty
Speaker 1: fortunate to have him lead this effort. And right now
Speaker 1: we're really looking hard to generate additional Senate support so
Speaker 1: that at some point, hopefully in the next couple of months,
Speaker 1: we can have a bipartisan introduction. So so real quick,
Speaker 1: before we get into that, which is like the actual
Speaker 1: actions that are happening to make this a possible reality,
Speaker 1: I want to clarify one thing as far as the
Speaker 1: types of actions that this bill would a lot or
Speaker 1: would would create with the with the CRP program, the
Speaker 1: way that you know, to oversimplify that works with a landowner,
Speaker 1: let's say a farmer rancher. A farmer says, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put these two acres of my land out of
Speaker 1: crop production and into crop reserve. It will be a
Speaker 1: contract of some number of years in which I can't
Speaker 1: plant corner beans. Instead, I will plant this grassland blend
Speaker 1: or whatever, and in compensation for that, the government pays
Speaker 1: me a certain amount of money, so that he makes
Speaker 1: money off of this land, just like he would if
Speaker 1: he was planning corn, but instead he's planting wildlife habitat. So,
Speaker 1: to oversimplify, that's the general gist of CRP. It sounds
Speaker 1: like with this it would not necessarily be like contracting
Speaker 1: land to come out of production. Instead, it's going to be, hey,
Speaker 1: we will pay you to do an action a habitat
Speaker 1: improvement of some kind of habitat improvement project of some
Speaker 1: kind of will give you X amount dollars for that action.
Speaker 1: Am I am I reading this right? Is that what
Speaker 1: you're describing here? Or will there also be more CRP
Speaker 1: program type things where they'll say, hey, we can also
Speaker 1: pay you to take this out of production and contracted
Speaker 1: into this type of deal as well? Is it? Which
Speaker 1: is that? Um? Your earlier assessment um to pay you
Speaker 1: for an action. I mean, most of these lands that
Speaker 1: we're looking at are currently not in a production or story,
Speaker 1: not in crop production ranching, yes, but would be able
Speaker 1: to maintain. The idea is to keep kind of establish
Speaker 1: what's already there. Now as we get a little further along, UM,
Speaker 1: could it be that the language does include if UM
Speaker 1: conversion vaccinative. That is a possibility. We just haven't haven't
Speaker 1: gotten to that point yet. Okay, that makes sense. So
Speaker 1: I'm a landowner, I ranch cattle, or I do whatever.
Speaker 1: This program would open up a pool of funds that
Speaker 1: I could then access potentially by doing good things for
Speaker 1: my land. So I'm you know, I'm a rancher, landowner.
Speaker 1: It's tight when it comes to money already. This is
Speaker 1: a way to buffer my bottom line, help me pay
Speaker 1: the bills, and also do something good for the land
Speaker 1: and the wildlife out there. That's what we're doing here
Speaker 1: right exactly. So if you're a landowner and you wanted
Speaker 1: to do some prescribe fire right like, you could then
Speaker 1: receive a NAGA grant the contract and you know, for
Speaker 1: fire management, and that would be paid for the good
Speaker 1: habitat improvement, probably improved improve the infrastructure of your ranch.
Speaker 1: You know you're not going to be set on fire.
Speaker 1: Everything's gonna look a lot better. So yes, broadly habitat
Speaker 1: improvement projects UM and as I mentioned to easements, So
Speaker 1: that's other another components. Now, do you to anticipate this
Speaker 1: being just UM accessible by large landowners or landowners that
Speaker 1: are currently in agriculture or is this something where somebody
Speaker 1: who lives in Kansas and owns two acres to hunt
Speaker 1: deer on would they possibly be able to access these
Speaker 1: grant funds to do improvements on their land like you're describing,
Speaker 1: like prescribe fire or something else. Sure. Yeah, we don't
Speaker 1: have any UM size states. I think it will be
Speaker 1: similar to KNAKA. The project will be ranked and selected
Speaker 1: accordingly UM, but there's no size limitation or restrictions. Cool
Speaker 1: torn from a white tail perspective, when you and Nick
Speaker 1: and anyone else in the team, Kip, who's who was
Speaker 1: looking at this project in this potential bill? When you
Speaker 1: look at this and you read through how would this
Speaker 1: impact deer and deer hunters? UM? And when you when
Speaker 1: we talk about you know, the language here and the
Speaker 1: projects that can help fund. Is there anything else that
Speaker 1: stood out to you, is is why this is a
Speaker 1: win for deer and deer hunters, why this is something
Speaker 1: you guys wanted to stand up for. Yeah, Mark as
Speaker 1: you as I think you said earlier, and it's accurate.
Speaker 1: Grasslands are like our most imperiled ecosystem on the continent,
Speaker 1: and so we're losing more grasslands than any other habitat
Speaker 1: type UM in North America. And so when you're losing
Speaker 1: that significant habitat of any type of habits a lot
Speaker 1: of something to concerned about. But when it's the habitat
Speaker 1: type that so deer across the country rely on, you know,
Speaker 1: it's certainly shows up large on our radar UM. And
Speaker 1: so the Act, as Bethany said, provides UM voluntary incentive
Speaker 1: based measures to help protect and conserve these resources. UM.
Speaker 1: It aligns perfectly with the work that we're doing on
Speaker 1: the thirty by thirty initiative, which I know you've covered, UM,
Speaker 1: which is to help conserve thirty of the nations lands
Speaker 1: and waters by UM. Again, it aligns really well with
Speaker 1: the climate work that we're doing. And then from just
Speaker 1: like a very much on the ground UM you know
Speaker 1: type habitat management work UM, as I said, earlier. These
Speaker 1: these lands are important to deer for both cover and forage.
Speaker 1: But it also incentivizes folks to use prescribed fire to
Speaker 1: remove in basive wood woody species UM from from these landscapes. UM.
Speaker 1: It incentivizes people who have a grasslands on their property
Speaker 1: to keep them as grasslands rather than convert them to
Speaker 1: you know, housing developments or or row crops or something
Speaker 1: like that. And so there's a lot of really cool
Speaker 1: UM provisions in the language UM, and it's sort of outlines,
Speaker 1: as Bethany said, projects are ranked, and so there the
Speaker 1: bill UM the reps UH councils and the like to
Speaker 1: sort of outline and prioritize different projects. But some of
Speaker 1: those priorities as I said, or prescribed fire, UM, invasive
Speaker 1: species management, restoration of crop land and especially marginal crop land,
Speaker 1: so the crop land that's not incredibly productive UM. And
Speaker 1: then areas that are are prioritized are those that provide
Speaker 1: significant ecological benefits or areas that provide habitat for at
Speaker 1: risk species. And so all these things are incredibly good
Speaker 1: on the ground incentives but UM which we're absolutely interested
Speaker 1: in and are incredibly important for deer. But from even
Speaker 1: a larger, sort of sky high perspective. This does so
Speaker 1: much more than just um local on the groundwork too.
Speaker 1: It seems like a no brainer. This seems like a
Speaker 1: wind win. This is a wind for animals, as a
Speaker 1: wind for the environment, This is a wind for ranchers
Speaker 1: and farmers and landowners. Uh So, as a average American citizen,
Speaker 1: I might be sitting here thinking, Man, this is a
Speaker 1: slam dunk. This should happen right away. Why aren't we
Speaker 1: doing it? Um? But I remember in fifth grade or
Speaker 1: second grade or whatever it was, I remember watching this
Speaker 1: film on the TV about I'm Just a Bill, and
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill, and I know there's
Speaker 1: a there's a whole lot of steps. Yeah, school Us Rock,
Speaker 1: There's a lot of steps the stand in the way
Speaker 1: from this seemingly good idea to someday being a reality. Uh, Bethany,
Speaker 1: can you can you take me to Capitol Hill? Can
Speaker 1: you walk with me on this bill to explain what
Speaker 1: where things stand right now and what has to happen
Speaker 1: for this to become reality? Sure? Um, I love the
Speaker 1: school House Rock reference. That's so good. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: the first thing that we had to start with was
Speaker 1: a ground swell of interest, right, and so TORA and
Speaker 1: NDIA were very early partners that joined up with us
Speaker 1: in National Wildlife Federation. Hero was about conservation partnership that
Speaker 1: came together and said all right, we need to do something.
Speaker 1: And so we began UM building a coalition of people
Speaker 1: int been doing something for grasslands like a year and
Speaker 1: a half ago, or doing something more for grasslands, I
Speaker 1: should say. And we do have a website, it's www
Speaker 1: dot act for grasslands dot org where you can kind
Speaker 1: of keep track of our progress and some of the
Speaker 1: stuff that's spent out in the media. UM and so
Speaker 1: were you know, the first first step was to form
Speaker 1: this coalition, to get basically like a a union together
Speaker 1: of conservation groups that said, yes, we need to do
Speaker 1: this um TO, and to work through UM conversations with
Speaker 1: the agriculture and ranching community to say, okay, how do
Speaker 1: we do this so it really is compatible with what
Speaker 1: landowners want to do, like you know, because this isn't
Speaker 1: gonna function if it's not like and compatible and additive
Speaker 1: to a ranting operations. So got to make sure we
Speaker 1: got that wet. We've worked very hard to do that
Speaker 1: UM and then to start recruiting interest on Capitol Hill,
Speaker 1: and it depends on who you're talking to and where
Speaker 1: you're from. Like grasslands have um an appeal for different reasons.
Speaker 1: If you're an urbanite in interested in climate policy, there's
Speaker 1: the angle. If you're a rancher who um, you know,
Speaker 1: wants to make some infrastructure improvements to the ranch, um
Speaker 1: and m gonna get paid to do it, Like, that's
Speaker 1: the feeling. If you're conservationists like tornanized two groups like
Speaker 1: wild by habitat, there's your angles. So you start having
Speaker 1: different conversations in different ways with different members of Congress.
Speaker 1: We found that the Senate was a little more interested
Speaker 1: in this idea in the beginning. We do have some
Speaker 1: members of the House of Representatives that are interested, um,
Speaker 1: just for you know, the start. We've kind of put
Speaker 1: our energy into the Senate. So then we've got now
Speaker 1: we've got a legislative language that's pretty close to being
Speaker 1: ready to be introduced. We're working with members of the
Speaker 1: Senate to have a bipartisan introduction hopefully that will take place,
Speaker 1: you know, in the next month or two. And then
Speaker 1: we go through a process of recruiting co sponsors for
Speaker 1: the bill, getting a House Companion UM and then likely
Speaker 1: it would go through regular order, so it would be
Speaker 1: assigned to in the Senate Um Environment and Public Works
Speaker 1: Committee EPW gets the hearing gets voted out. Like I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna go through the whole Schoolhouse Rock process. But
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different steps. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of different stuffs, and there are different Sometimes the
Speaker 1: steps aren't so straightforward. It's not as linear as Schoolhouse
Speaker 1: Rock makes it down. It could be included in a
Speaker 1: bigger package at the end of the year. It say,
Speaker 1: for example, in the fall, there's a broad wildlife package
Speaker 1: that comes together, Well, this could be part of it.
Speaker 1: So we've got a lot of different plays, and we
Speaker 1: keep watching to see kind of how things are trending
Speaker 1: in which way we can go. UM. I will say
Speaker 1: that what we've been very careful about doing at this
Speaker 1: point is that we aren't asking our members to take
Speaker 1: action on things when there's not really an actionable item.
Speaker 1: And so in September earlier this year, we had a
Speaker 1: call to action for people to call their member of
Speaker 1: Congress and tell them they wanted in a North American
Speaker 1: Grasslands Conservation Act. That was wildly successful. UM. We had
Speaker 1: many members of the outstand and send it right us
Speaker 1: back and say okay, we hear you. You know, how
Speaker 1: do we engage on this concept um And we haven't
Speaker 1: issued another call to action sense then, because we want
Speaker 1: to make sure that we are respectful um of our
Speaker 1: membership time and energy, and we don't want people making
Speaker 1: a call when there's not really a time to move
Speaker 1: the needle. So if you, if our members are you
Speaker 1: know that our communications say you know, the time is now,
Speaker 1: pick up the phone, make a call, send an email,
Speaker 1: it's because the time really is now, and there might
Speaker 1: be more than one inflection point there probably will, but
Speaker 1: we're not going to ask people to pick up the
Speaker 1: phone or make a call and it's not really a
Speaker 1: time to do so, and we won't do things. It's
Speaker 1: just you know, clip bait, like trying to scare people
Speaker 1: or entice people into doing something when you know, we
Speaker 1: as lobbyists and and government affairs experts like no, like
Speaker 1: this isn't a real threat. But if it is a
Speaker 1: real threat, or if it is a real time to move,
Speaker 1: we're gonna let you know it is a just as
Speaker 1: a citizen, Bethanie, like just as a regular person, like
Speaker 1: take off your job hat and put on your just
Speaker 1: ham an American hat, and you care about wild places
Speaker 1: and wild animals, how do you go about vetting those things?
Speaker 1: Because you just described a situation I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are in these days, which is we get
Speaker 1: a million emails from all sorts of different groups. If
Speaker 1: if we're tapped into this world, we we hear about
Speaker 1: a thousand different threats in problems, and and many of
Speaker 1: them are real and true and concerning. But how do
Speaker 1: you individually sort through all this? How do you choose
Speaker 1: what to take action on and what is important versus
Speaker 1: what heck isn't important enough. I'm just curious, like, being
Speaker 1: a person who also works in this world, how have
Speaker 1: you gone about trying to figure that out? Because I
Speaker 1: worry about you know, the issue fatigue and people kind
Speaker 1: of like the boy that cried Wolf effect happening, and
Speaker 1: eventually people just stop paying attention or we get so
Speaker 1: sick and tired of the bad news that we just
Speaker 1: turned to video game games are basketball games or whatever?
Speaker 1: How do you deal with that? Yeah, well that's been
Speaker 1: a really important thing for us, is to make sure
Speaker 1: that our credibility right, like our credibility with our memberships,
Speaker 1: like we don't use scare tactics and we don't ask
Speaker 1: people to do things when they can't really move the needle.
Speaker 1: And that it really comes down to just like we
Speaker 1: have people in the ground, myself and my colleagues, UM
Speaker 1: and touring his colleagues and others in the conservation community
Speaker 1: that are here. We are tracking this stuff in real time.
Speaker 1: We are having the conversations with Stash on Capitol Hill,
Speaker 1: like you're reading the tea leaves every single day, and
Speaker 1: then we kind of make an assessment like is this
Speaker 1: gonna move? Is this does this have real traction? I mean,
Speaker 1: you see a lot of different things. It's not that
Speaker 1: these meetings or conversations aren't taking place, but you really
Speaker 1: kind of have to have just a gut instinct on
Speaker 1: like does this really have momentum too to happen or
Speaker 1: to inflict harm or change, And then you just have
Speaker 1: to use your professional assessment and say, okay, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is really a thing that's going to happen.
Speaker 1: We need our members to pick up the zone now.
Speaker 1: And if we're like no this, you know, sure this
Speaker 1: bill was introduced, but it's really not going anywhere, and
Speaker 1: then we can make that a confident assessment. Then we
Speaker 1: don't ask our members to call to action like we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't use clickbait and be like be afraid now,
Speaker 1: Like we just don't think that's fair and it fatigues people,
Speaker 1: it really does. That was a good word. Um, So
Speaker 1: we're be've been very cautious as a group at a
Speaker 1: coalition that's working towards this offer. It to make sure
Speaker 1: that we communicate authentically, um, and only when you know
Speaker 1: there's real progress or really something happening, so that we
Speaker 1: don't fatigue our members, and that we maintain our trust
Speaker 1: level with the people that are following us and and
Speaker 1: really want to help us and engage. Now, what about
Speaker 1: for just people like me just sitting here at home
Speaker 1: who get these emails and to hear these calls to action?
Speaker 1: And you know, what's your recommendation for the average American
Speaker 1: author who's trying to just id Like, how do I
Speaker 1: make sense of all these different things coming down the line?
Speaker 1: Which ones do I take action on? When is it
Speaker 1: important to take action? I mean, should we try to
Speaker 1: tackle every single thing we hear about or do we
Speaker 1: need to pick and choose? Like what's your if you
Speaker 1: have any advice for just the average person who's caring
Speaker 1: about these things and wants to help but sometimes feels
Speaker 1: overwhelmed or feels like I don't know how to make
Speaker 1: a difference. I can try them and hear too bad
Speaker 1: to me if if that's all right? But um, Mark,
Speaker 1: I think it comes down to finding an organization that
Speaker 1: you just align with and that you trust. And so
Speaker 1: if you go to the coalition website to Act for
Speaker 1: Grassman dot org website, you'll see all of the groups
Speaker 1: that have formally endorsed this legislation. And one thing that's
Speaker 1: really cool to me is the broad range of groups
Speaker 1: on there. And so there are some names that absolutely
Speaker 1: makes sense, um or that folks listening to this podcast
Speaker 1: would know, and then there's some groups that they probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't and who aren't historically, um you know, in this
Speaker 1: sort of hunting conservation space. We've all worked incredibly well
Speaker 1: together to get this back to where it is. But
Speaker 1: um you know some of the names, of course, we're
Speaker 1: on there in Pheasants, Quail Forever, back Country Hunters and
Speaker 1: Anglers have endorsed tr CP, ISAAC Walton League, National Wildlife Federation,
Speaker 1: and others. Those are just some that you know your
Speaker 1: listeners are probably familiar with it. I think it's finding
Speaker 1: an organization that that you align with and that you
Speaker 1: you trust. And so our coalition, UM, this sort of
Speaker 1: has two meetings. We have a meeting that happens weekly,
Speaker 1: UM was sort of the policy folks that uh, you know,
Speaker 1: update each other on things that are going on in
Speaker 1: the hill and any movement and next steps and outreach
Speaker 1: and all that sort of stuff. But then there's also
Speaker 1: a communications meeting where the communications staff from each of
Speaker 1: our organizations meet and sort of um strategize how we're
Speaker 1: talking about this and when it's necessary to take action
Speaker 1: and so UM every step that we make with this
Speaker 1: is deliberate and thought of aught out for those reasons
Speaker 1: is that we don't want to fatigue our members across
Speaker 1: the board and so uh, you're not going to hear
Speaker 1: from any one of our individual organizations until it's really
Speaker 1: go time. And I can speak for the Deer Association,
Speaker 1: but Lindsay Thomas, who has been on your your show
Speaker 1: multiple times, Mark is uh, he runs a type communications
Speaker 1: ship here at the Deer Association, And so you are
Speaker 1: not going to see anything, UM, especially on the federal
Speaker 1: level or anything that goes out to our FO membership
Speaker 1: unless it's it's important and it's go time and so
Speaker 1: UM that's how it's just how we operate, and I
Speaker 1: think that's how a lot of the other organizations operate
Speaker 1: to including Bethanese Group, is that we're very cognizant of
Speaker 1: UM the fatigue that's going on, or cognizant of not
Speaker 1: cluttering in boxes. And so for listeners, you know, I
Speaker 1: get that you get this stuff coming in from a
Speaker 1: lot of different organizations, but I think it just comes
Speaker 1: down to finding that one organization that that you feel
Speaker 1: really good about, or finding the two or three that
Speaker 1: you feel really good about, uh, and that you trust
Speaker 1: them that when you're getting something from them that it's
Speaker 1: really important, that it's really time time to take action.
Speaker 1: And there is UM a place to take action on
Speaker 1: the actor Graphs and dot org web website. When you
Speaker 1: get to the website, just click to take action tab
Speaker 1: and there is a populated form there. And while we're
Speaker 1: not actively pushing that right now, that form is there
Speaker 1: if you feel so desired to take action and to
Speaker 1: let your lawmakers know that you support this effort. Yeah,
Speaker 1: would you add anything to that bessiny. I think tour
Speaker 1: and Summarize do very well. Um. And we are broadly
Speaker 1: and it's not just related to conservation, like so many
Speaker 1: different media blasts, and I mean we communicate all the time,
Speaker 1: all day. We're messaged on like every single thing that's
Speaker 1: going on in the world, and it's just built overwhelming.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my gosh, Like what problem do I
Speaker 1: pick to get involved with? Like it's not just related
Speaker 1: to conservation, It's related to everything. And I think myself
Speaker 1: is just a citizen, Like I just don't even know
Speaker 1: where to get worried sometimes. And I live and work
Speaker 1: in Washington, Um, but I am zeroed in on conservation policy.
Speaker 1: So like with my family calls you like what's going
Speaker 1: on with like healthcare, I'm like, I have no clue.
Speaker 1: I don't follow it, Like I'm zeroed in on a
Speaker 1: very specific niche um. And I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: what I would relay to members too, is like find
Speaker 1: your niche, like or the listeners, Like, you know, if
Speaker 1: it's grasslands policy, um, you know, follow your trusted organization
Speaker 1: that really focuses on grasslands. If it's fisheries, you're probably
Speaker 1: gonna be looking at different organizations and news sources. But
Speaker 1: you know, I personally just kind of have to filter
Speaker 1: my areas of concern or of conservation concern um, because
Speaker 1: it is really broad. Yeah, uh so wrapping things is
Speaker 1: up here. Then you've mentioned that, you know, there was
Speaker 1: a period a year, year and a half ago or
Speaker 1: whatever it was when we were kind of putting this
Speaker 1: coalition of supporters together that you had to get some
Speaker 1: action going. But the bill has not been introduced yet,
Speaker 1: and I know it's important not to push people to
Speaker 1: action until it's really go time. Uh. Where where do
Speaker 1: we stand, like how soon until go time? Bethany? And
Speaker 1: what should we be waiting for or what should we
Speaker 1: be doing now? Um? If there is something we can
Speaker 1: do now, what what should the listeners be paying attention
Speaker 1: to or doing? Sure? Um? Well, you know, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, there's many paths, um. I think the most
Speaker 1: likely is a Senate bill introduction sometime this spring. I
Speaker 1: can't give you or we can't give you an exact
Speaker 1: date because we don't know. Um. Probably again that all change,
Speaker 1: but my projection would be that you'll you'll hear from
Speaker 1: many of our POLISHIP members about a bill announcement sometime
Speaker 1: in the spring. UM, that would be our goal, and
Speaker 1: then the next step would be recruitment, and that would
Speaker 1: be the active step I think UM for our members,
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, now we have a bill introduced, we're
Speaker 1: going to ask you to contact your senator and to
Speaker 1: join the bills in order, in other words, to become
Speaker 1: a co sponsor. I perceived those as the next step,
Speaker 1: UM touring you that you're what your crystal ball is
Speaker 1: telling you to. Yeah, I think that's spot on. UM.
Speaker 1: We as best any said Senator Widen has really taken
Speaker 1: the lead on this and we're sort of waiting to
Speaker 1: see how it plays out with UM original co sponsors
Speaker 1: and sponsors to you know, get this introduced. But once
Speaker 1: that happened, it's go time. And so we will be
Speaker 1: asking folks to contact their senators UM to ask them
Speaker 1: to join the legislation and then move it through committee
Speaker 1: and ultimately to the Senate floor, and then from there
Speaker 1: we'll will tackle the House. And we do have UM
Speaker 1: pretty good support in the House already too, and so
Speaker 1: that would likely be you know, a secondary effort UM.
Speaker 1: But right now we're really just focused on by getting
Speaker 1: it introduced in the Senate this spring and then making
Speaker 1: headway in the Senate. So then in that case, it
Speaker 1: sounds like the most important thing that we as the
Speaker 1: listeners can do is just make sure that we're connected
Speaker 1: to a group like the National Deer Association or Pheasants
Speaker 1: Forever and making sure that we're on your news list
Speaker 1: so that when this happens, you will be able to
Speaker 1: tell us, Hey, it's been introduced. Now it's go time.
Speaker 1: Am I right on? That is that the number one
Speaker 1: thing we should do right now is make sure everybody
Speaker 1: listening is signed up for one of your groups news
Speaker 1: lists so that we can get the call to action
Speaker 1: when the time's right. Yeah, that's the best. That's the
Speaker 1: best for us too. And so we put out our
Speaker 1: weekly newsletter and then on big items, um and like
Speaker 1: this one, when it is good time, we'll send a
Speaker 1: separate action or email to everybody that signed up. Perfect. Well,
Speaker 1: that's easy, everyone listening. This is the easiest action I've
Speaker 1: ever asked for. Just sign up for a newsletter. This
Speaker 1: is great. Um. I appreciate you guys walking us through this.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you helping us kind of connect the dots
Speaker 1: between this this landscape back to the things that we love. UM,
Speaker 1: I'm glad to see that there's something coming down the
Speaker 1: pipeline that's going to help put more of this ground
Speaker 1: out there and keep it healthy and intact and able
Speaker 1: to support wildlife populations. This is uh, this is good stuff.
Speaker 1: So uh, Bethany, do you have any closing thoughts? Are you?
Speaker 1: Are you good to go? Yeah? It's want to thanks
Speaker 1: thank you for inviting us on and sharing this concept
Speaker 1: with your listeners. And uh, I would ask for folks
Speaker 1: to just please uh stay tuned and and follow this
Speaker 1: effort as it moves and when we ask for your help,
Speaker 1: we very much appreciate if you'd pick up the phone
Speaker 1: and call your member of Congress excellent and torn any
Speaker 1: last thoughts from you? No, I agreed, Thank you for
Speaker 1: the platform. Mark, You're always always willing to tackle sort
Speaker 1: of these big conservation issues that aren't always or at
Speaker 1: least outwardly don't always direct Um. It seemed to be
Speaker 1: directly tied to the hunting and the hunting strategy that
Speaker 1: you typically talk about. But it's important that we have
Speaker 1: these conversations and that its hunters and outdoor enthusiasts and
Speaker 1: conservationists that we are engaged, you know, in the back
Speaker 1: end on on these policy initiatives. So I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And the same thing, um, once you do get those
Speaker 1: auction items, whether that's from the NBA or Pheasants or
Speaker 1: from any of the other organizations, we really appreciate you
Speaker 1: taken action it. It does make a difference, um when
Speaker 1: you submit that form. And I know it's such an
Speaker 1: easy task and it seems so simple that it doesn't
Speaker 1: always seem like you actually make the difference, but it
Speaker 1: does perfect well, Uh, Torn Bethany, thank you as well.
Speaker 1: I appreciate this is this has been interesting for me.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see where this goes and uh hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll have some good news to discuss uh later this year,
Speaker 1: next year, or however long it takes. So so thank
Speaker 1: you for doing the good work. All right, that's it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in. I appreciate it. I think
Speaker 1: we now know, um, we now know our our action,
Speaker 1: we know our our our orders. We know we gotta
Speaker 1: do we gotta stay tuned, we gotta keep our ears
Speaker 1: to the ground so that when this thing is ready
Speaker 1: to get out there, when this thing's hitting the pavement,
Speaker 1: we can make some noise about it. We can call
Speaker 1: our representatives, our senators, our congressmen and women. We can
Speaker 1: sign the petitions, we can leave the comments, we can
Speaker 1: send the emails. Whatever we gotta do to make sure
Speaker 1: that we can keep more grassland habitat out there, we
Speaker 1: can do it. So appreciate you listening to this. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you all being a part of a community that
Speaker 1: makes a difference. We're not just hunters. Were advocates for
Speaker 1: these animals and for these places, and that is a
Speaker 1: powerful and pretty special thing. So I'm proud to be
Speaker 1: standing side by side with all of you and uh
Speaker 1: making sure that deer hunters give back just as much
Speaker 1: as we take. That's what it's all about. Friends, I'll
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Have a great day, a great week, a
Speaker 1: great weekend, and until next time, stay wired to hunk
Speaker 1: M