Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the whitetail Woods. Present it by First Light, creating proven,
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand saddler blind, First Light,
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Mark Kenyon, and this week on the show, I am
Speaker 2: joined by conservationist and author Ben Long to discuss the
Speaker 2: tool skills and knowledge necessary to raise hell. All right,
Speaker 2: welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
Speaker 2: by First Light. And before we get our episode going today,
Speaker 2: I want to give you a really quick heads up.
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Speaker 2: Seems like a great opportunity. Now with that out of
Speaker 2: the way, I want to tell you a story. So
Speaker 2: this past weekend, I told my oldest son evert that
Speaker 2: I was going to take him out on a turkey
Speaker 2: hung Now, historically, I have taken him on turkey quote
Speaker 2: unquote hunts many times before. And what that entails when
Speaker 2: I've taken my young son is that we are just
Speaker 2: out there in the field trying to call a burden.
Speaker 2: It's been a lot of fun, but I've not gone
Speaker 2: out there with a gun. We're not actually hunting. It's
Speaker 2: just you know, like like a turkey adventure.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: He's been out there doing that with me since he
Speaker 2: was I don't know, five months old. I remember the
Speaker 2: very first time I ever took him out, he was
Speaker 2: in one of those little like marsupial pouches on your
Speaker 2: chest and we went out and actually just walked into
Speaker 2: a field behind our house, and we could hear a
Speaker 2: turkey gobbling off in the distance, and I remember yelp, yelp, yelpin,
Speaker 2: and a turkey goblin and yelp, yelp, yelpin and turkey
Speaker 2: goblin back and just seeing his little, tiny baby eyes
Speaker 2: just get bigger and bigger and bigger. He had no
Speaker 2: idea what was going on, but there was some bizarre
Speaker 2: sound coming from the woods getting closer and closer. And
Speaker 2: in the years since, you know, he's continued to get
Speaker 2: exposed to that heading out into the spring woods, and
Speaker 2: we've had some some really incredible moments. I think I've
Speaker 2: probably told you guys this story a few years ago
Speaker 2: about the time when we had it out onto one
Speaker 2: of the properties at Hunt and ended up calling in
Speaker 2: three gobblers. And on this particular day, he brought an
Speaker 2: umbrella with him and we called the gobblers all the
Speaker 2: way into you know, their approaching shooting range, and my
Speaker 2: son was pretending that the umbrella was a gun, and he,
Speaker 2: you know, he held a gun up and he was
Speaker 2: whispering to me, Hey, Dad, you know, got take him yet,
Speaker 2: And I'm whispering back to him, Oh gotta wait, wait
Speaker 2: till they get closer. They get closer, and so he's
Speaker 2: got his gun up, he's already, he's breathing heavier. I
Speaker 2: can literally see him starting to shake. He's so excited
Speaker 2: as these three toms coming close. They finally get into
Speaker 2: shooting range in twenty five thirty yards something like that.
Speaker 2: I said, all right, Everett, take him, and he says,
Speaker 2: all right, Dad, I'm ready, and then he takes a
Speaker 2: deep breath and then he just yells cpo and the
Speaker 2: turkeys look up and he says copo again and they
Speaker 2: go running off. I mean, we just had so many
Speaker 2: great moments like that in the field and it's never
Speaker 2: though involved like an actual hunt for turkeys at least,
Speaker 2: so in this case, I told him, hey, you know, Sunday,
Speaker 2: we're gonna go out there and see if we call
Speaker 2: him burn and range and you can bring you know,
Speaker 2: you can bring your BB gun if you want, and
Speaker 2: we can you know, hunt for you know, squirrels or
Speaker 2: something along the way, or you can just kind of
Speaker 2: pretend holding your gun or whatever it is. And he
Speaker 2: just started to cry, and I couldn't understand it. He
Speaker 2: just started bawling and I was so confused. And you know,
Speaker 2: after a few minutes and going to his bedroom and
Speaker 2: kind of trying to pull him out of his bed,
Speaker 2: he explained that no, he really wanted to be on
Speaker 2: a real hunt this time. He wanted Dad to have
Speaker 2: the gun, and we really wanted to get a turkey,
Speaker 2: and he wanted us so so so badly, and I I,
Speaker 2: I didn't even have my stuff ready. I didn't have
Speaker 2: my license yet. I wasn't playing actually turkey hunting un
Speaker 2: till next weekend. So we had to kind of explain
Speaker 2: that and talk through all that, and I was finally
Speaker 2: able to convince him that we could still have a
Speaker 2: good time just going out there and trying to call
Speaker 2: some birds and see what we can see and what
Speaker 2: kind of adventure we might be able to have. But
Speaker 2: he was so passionate about it, he was so excited
Speaker 2: about it. He wanted the real deal. So I convinced
Speaker 2: him we could still have a good time. We head
Speaker 2: out there in the field. We worked our way down
Speaker 2: this field edge and I was like, all right, buddy,
Speaker 2: let's do a little uh, let's do a little crow call.
Speaker 2: And he said, well, day, can I can I do it?
Speaker 2: So I give him my crow call and he first
Speaker 2: tries to buzz on it's just kind of like zoo,
Speaker 2: and I tell him, you got to bite down a
Speaker 2: little more and push through a little more power from
Speaker 2: your lungs, and he does it again and gets a good,
Speaker 2: you know, good baa. And then from the other side
Speaker 2: of this hill there's a gobble and it's not that
Speaker 2: far away. So we're both very excited. I'm so all right. Ever,
Speaker 2: we got to sneak to the tree line, and so
Speaker 2: we go. We just turn and we've only got twenty
Speaker 2: yards maybe to get to the edge of these trees,
Speaker 2: and there's a hill between me and where I think
Speaker 2: this turkey is, and so we start cutting to that
Speaker 2: fence row when all of a sudden, bam, there's the
Speaker 2: turkey looking right at us, spins, turns away, runs off,
Speaker 2: and in my head I'm thinking, ah, we just blew it.
Speaker 2: We just ruined this experience that he was so excited
Speaker 2: about having. He must be so disappointed. I looked at
Speaker 2: him and he's just smiling. He say, Dad, Dad, Dad,
Speaker 2: look at this. And I'm like, what do you be
Speaker 2: look at this? Aren't you upset about the turkey? And
Speaker 2: he points at the ground. He says, turkey poop. And
Speaker 2: he was so excited we saw turkey poop. He wasn't
Speaker 2: worried about the fact we just spooked this gobblerway. He
Speaker 2: was so excited there was some poop on the ground
Speaker 2: that he correctly, I'll mind you, or remind I'll inform you. Correctly,
Speaker 2: he identified turkey poop on the ground. So we looked
Speaker 2: at the turkey poop, and then like a couple minutes later,
Speaker 2: we keep walking, say hey, Dad, you gotta look at this,
Speaker 2: you gotta look at this. I'm stressing about the fact
Speaker 2: we're not going to see the turkeys. And then there's
Speaker 2: this purple flower and he's staring at this turkey, this
Speaker 2: purple flower. And I am slowly as we go throughout
Speaker 2: this morning, realizing more and more that there's something more
Speaker 2: going on here. Even then maybe he understands, or that
Speaker 2: I understand or expected, because we continue on. We continue
Speaker 2: our walk, and you know, we're hoping here turkey's gobbling.
Speaker 2: We're looking for turkeys. And then we see off from
Speaker 2: the pond and here goes a couple wood ducks flying off,
Speaker 2: and he can't believe it. There's ducks we just saw
Speaker 2: two ducks. And he runs over there to the water says,
Speaker 2: what about frog's dad, there's probably frogs in here. And
Speaker 2: he's walking down this way and he's walking down this
Speaker 2: way and he's looking for frogs here, and he's looking
Speaker 2: for ducks there, and he's got this huge smile on
Speaker 2: his face. And then we finally just said, okay, we're
Speaker 2: gonna sit down and try to focus on turkeys for
Speaker 2: a minute. At least that's what I was thinking. I
Speaker 2: guess I'm thinking, Hey, we got to get down to
Speaker 2: the job at hand here, so let's sit down. Let's
Speaker 2: wait for a second, stop scaring everything and try to
Speaker 2: see a turkey. So we sit down and I'm just
Speaker 2: kind of getting him settled into a spot on this
Speaker 2: tree next to me. He kind of leans up against
Speaker 2: my shoulder and I sit down there and finally take
Speaker 2: a deep breath, and then ever it looks over me
Speaker 2: he says, hey, Dad, you know, I really like to
Speaker 2: sit in one place if there's animals in front of us,
Speaker 2: or if we're eating food. And I mean, that's there's
Speaker 2: something amazing about the the just incredible authentic honesty about
Speaker 2: a young child. He's five and I mean he's he's
Speaker 2: spot on that. That sounds about right. That's about the
Speaker 2: only time he'll sit in one place. Well. Fortunately I
Speaker 2: did have something I'll pulled out of my pocket too,
Speaker 2: Reese's eggs, these little chocolate and peanut butter filled half
Speaker 2: eggs that you get for Easter. And I hand him
Speaker 2: one of those to him, and he just turns and
Speaker 2: he has this look on his face, just the only
Speaker 2: you know, only only a five year old or a
Speaker 2: six year old. There's this little kid that you love
Speaker 2: with all your heart, turns, looks me in the eye
Speaker 2: and says, thanks Dad, this is the best day ever.
Speaker 2: And then bam. Turkey gobbled off of the distance back
Speaker 2: behind us. That that day, that moment, that morning, The
Speaker 2: whole thing from from his crying because he was so
Speaker 2: excited about one expectation to us spook and a bird
Speaker 2: when we finally went to him, not caring at all
Speaker 2: because he was so exceed about about the turkey poop
Speaker 2: from the flowers and the ducks and the frogs and
Speaker 2: the reeses for all of that. That is why I
Speaker 2: am raising hell for hunting and fishing and wildlife and
Speaker 2: wild places. That is why we spent a whole month
Speaker 2: talking about this stuff. It's for days like that with
Speaker 2: my son Everett and his younger brother Colton. That's why
Speaker 2: I want there to be clean water, healthy wild landscapes.
Speaker 2: That's why I want there to be well managed public
Speaker 2: lands and populations of healthy fish and wildlife and birds
Speaker 2: and bugs and bees, a stable climate, clean air, the
Speaker 2: continued privilege and the right to hunt and fish and
Speaker 2: to explore these places. That's what I want for my boys.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm doing this. That's why we're here. Can
Speaker 2: you relate? Do you have a son or a daughter?
Speaker 2: Do you want one someday? Do you have grandkids? What's
Speaker 2: the future you imagine for them? What's the future you
Speaker 2: want for them? Are you willing to fight for it?
Speaker 2: For the sake of today's episode, I'm going to assume
Speaker 2: that you are. I'm going to assume that if you
Speaker 2: are here and listening to this, if you've listened this far,
Speaker 2: I'm assuming that you are, just like I am, willing
Speaker 2: to raise some hell to protect these things. And our
Speaker 2: guest today is going to help us better understand exactly
Speaker 2: how we can do that. The guy's name is and Long.
Speaker 2: He is a journalist and a writer who's appeared everywhere
Speaker 2: from Outdoor Life magazine to our very own mediator website.
Speaker 2: He's a professional conservationist and a communications strategist who's contributed
Speaker 2: to permanent conservation of This is pretty crazy. I need
Speaker 2: to figure out a way to quantify what I do
Speaker 2: the way they've done here. But he has directly contributed
Speaker 2: to the conservation of more than one point five million
Speaker 2: acres of land. And he's the author of a terrific
Speaker 2: new book, The Hunter and Angler Field Guide to Raising Hell.
Speaker 2: And it's this, this very aptly titled book which we
Speaker 2: will be discussing today. We are going to dig into
Speaker 2: the nitty gritty of how we, as hunters and anglers
Speaker 2: can more effectively raise hell for the things we care
Speaker 2: so much about. Now. If you are a part, or
Speaker 2: a leader, or a founder of a hunting or fishing
Speaker 2: or conservation organization, you're going to walk away today with
Speaker 2: some powerful new strategies for building a movement, for influencing change,
Speaker 2: for fighting for a cause, for rallying people to that cause.
Speaker 2: But if you are just an individual out there who cares,
Speaker 2: who wants to make a difference on your own, you
Speaker 2: too will be armed with new tools and insights and
Speaker 2: specific actions you can take that I think will make
Speaker 2: you a more impactful individual and an advocate for hunting
Speaker 2: and fishing in wild places. You know, over the course
Speaker 2: of this whole last month, we've heard about many different
Speaker 2: challenges facing all sorts of wildlife across the world. Today,
Speaker 2: we've learned about, you know, some of the specific things
Speaker 2: going on with white tails, which is our main focus
Speaker 2: usually on this podcast, the good and the bad. What's
Speaker 2: going on? What do we need to be thinking about?
Speaker 2: Most recently, we dove deep into the nuts and bolts
Speaker 2: of you know, what's probably going to be the most
Speaker 2: impactful conservation related piece of legislation to hit this entire year.
Speaker 2: We've learned a lot, but learning something, hearing something, thinking
Speaker 2: about something, that's just a first step. It's all just
Speaker 2: happening up between our ears. It's nothing if it never
Speaker 2: ends up out of our heads and leading to something
Speaker 2: real in the world. And that real thing that you know,
Speaker 2: I think we got to hope that all this leads
Speaker 2: to that real thing is action, action, action, action action.
Speaker 2: We need to take action if we want to keep
Speaker 2: our hunting traditions alive. We need to take action if
Speaker 2: we want them to be fish for our kids or
Speaker 2: grandkids to pull up out of the river of the
Speaker 2: lake someday. If we want our kids to be able to,
Speaker 2: you know, fall down crying because they want to go
Speaker 2: chase turkeys for real, we need to take action if
Speaker 2: we want to keep our forests and grasslands and swamps
Speaker 2: and mountains and all these places around for us to
Speaker 2: go hiker crossed or camp on or bike through, whatever
Speaker 2: it might be. Action is the name of the game.
Speaker 2: It's the necessary final thing that has to come to life,
Speaker 2: and it can come to life in so many different forms.
Speaker 2: There are many many different ways we can take action
Speaker 2: and make a difference for all of these things we've
Speaker 2: talked about, but it requires a first step. Any kind
Speaker 2: of real change requires taking that first step. Any little
Speaker 2: thing does help, Every little thing does get that ball rolling.
Speaker 2: And I was just actually this past weekend with some
Speaker 2: folks who were doing that very thing. They were getting
Speaker 2: the ball rolling. We are up north northern Michigan at
Speaker 2: an event that was a part of my working for
Speaker 2: Wildlife Tour. This is the second event of our series.
Speaker 2: This was in partnership with mucc A Terrific Michigan conservation organization,
Speaker 2: and there were dozens of people there, dozens and dozens
Speaker 2: and dozens of folks. I think it was their biggest
Speaker 2: volunteer habitat day ever, full of folks who love hunting
Speaker 2: and fishing and the outdoors, who were doing something good
Speaker 2: with their hands right then and there. They were working
Speaker 2: for wildlife. We were building, in this case small game habitat.
Speaker 2: There were some cuttings going on to create new wildlife
Speaker 2: openings and maintain the edges, the kinds like edge feathering.
Speaker 2: There was a whole bunch of creating brush piles and
Speaker 2: rabbit habitat, small mammal habitat. This was great stuff for
Speaker 2: all sorts of critters, not just rabbits and squirrels and
Speaker 2: shoot snakes, grouse, birds, deer, you name it. But more
Speaker 2: than just the actual on the ground impact we were
Speaker 2: making on that I don't know, twenty acres, thirty acres,
Speaker 2: fifty acres, whatever, that ripple effect is out from those
Speaker 2: actual places. I think what was extra exciting was this
Speaker 2: sense of building momentum. You could feel literally tangibly feel
Speaker 2: it when you talk to folks there, and I felt
Speaker 2: it myself when we were engaging with each other out
Speaker 2: there doing something. You could feel this energy, You could
Speaker 2: feel the good vibes coming from taking some action. We
Speaker 2: were actually doing something that was helping. Who weren't just
Speaker 2: listening to somebody talk about how some critters disappearing or
Speaker 2: how there's this threat to our hunting rights in this
Speaker 2: state or that state. We weren't just hearing it and
Speaker 2: worrying about it. We were doing something that in some
Speaker 2: small way was helping move the needle. And that that
Speaker 2: like switches some it moves some wires around in your
Speaker 2: head and it reconfigures what seems possible. And I think
Speaker 2: that action volunteering, you know, this past week, and I
Speaker 2: think that can lead to the next thing. It can
Speaker 2: kind of build you up, fortify you, refuel the tank
Speaker 2: for the next thing and the next thing where you know,
Speaker 2: maybe it's not building small inhabitat. Maybe that's just hate.
Speaker 2: Some calls have got to be made. Or maybe the
Speaker 2: next time it is, hey, we need people to show
Speaker 2: up at this place and hold some signs, Or maybe
Speaker 2: the next time is you know what, I really got
Speaker 2: to tell all your friends and family that we got
Speaker 2: to get out and support x or y or Z.
Speaker 2: I really do see feel and believe in the power
Speaker 2: of taking that first step of action and then letting
Speaker 2: it snowball on down the hill. That's why I hope
Speaker 2: you know more than anything else that after our chat
Speaker 2: today you will feel armed and ready and willing to
Speaker 2: do that, to take some kind of action, to start
Speaker 2: raising some hell. Because I love this stuff. I bet
Speaker 2: you do too. I bet you have not listened to
Speaker 2: me rant for seventeen minutes unless you love this stuff.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: What is your why? What's your version of that story
Speaker 2: I told at the top. What do you care so
Speaker 2: much about that it keeps you up at night? What
Speaker 2: is it about this wild world, wild creatures, hunting, fishing,
Speaker 2: the outside? What is it that you can't imagine living without?
Speaker 2: Think about that? See that, imagine that, and then let's
Speaker 2: get to work. Let's do the work to keep fish
Speaker 2: in the water, keep deer in the woods, keep wild
Speaker 2: places on the ground, and hunters and anglers out there
Speaker 2: enjoying them. Let's just do the damn thing and keep
Speaker 2: the good times rolling, because that's our torch to bear.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: There are folks, over many, many decades in our past
Speaker 2: that have done this work to provide and to have
Speaker 2: kept what we have now here available. We only have
Speaker 2: these hunting opportunities, these fishing opportunities, these critters, these places.
Speaker 2: We only have it because other people gave a damn
Speaker 2: and did the work ten years ago, fifty years ago,
Speaker 2: one hundred years ago. We are those people.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: That's our job now, and that's I guess the message
Speaker 2: that I want us all to have on our minds today,
Speaker 2: during this conversation and as we leave it, as we
Speaker 2: wrap up this month of conservation stories and lessons and
Speaker 2: hopefully inspiration. Let's take this and carry it with us
Speaker 2: throughout the rest of this year. Let's do that work.
Speaker 2: Let's be those people that fifty years from now they
Speaker 2: can point back to and say, hey, you know what,
Speaker 2: we've got a pretty darn good because of them. So,
Speaker 2: but I all said, let's get to my chat with
Speaker 2: mister Ben Long, who is going to give us the
Speaker 2: knowledge and the tools necessary to do it. Here we go,
Speaker 2: all right here with me now on the show for
Speaker 2: the finale of Conservation Month is Ben Long. Ben, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for doing this.
Speaker 3: Absolutely happy to be here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to get to chat. Finally. You know,
Speaker 2: we've exchanged a few notes over the years, over the
Speaker 2: over the web, and I've followed your writing for many
Speaker 2: years now and really appreciated your contributions there. So I
Speaker 2: just told you before we start recording. But when I
Speaker 2: saw this book pop up on social media a few
Speaker 2: weeks ago, I thought to myself two things. Number One,
Speaker 2: I thought, dang it, that's the kind of book I
Speaker 2: wanted to write someday, but I never got to it,
Speaker 2: and now Ben beat me to it. And then number two,
Speaker 2: I'm so glad that you Ben beat me to it
Speaker 2: because someone had to cover this topic in a book
Speaker 2: in a packaged way that someone could pick up and
Speaker 2: get a good idea from beginning to end of how
Speaker 2: to deal with these kinds of things, and I was
Speaker 2: too slow to move on it. So so thank you
Speaker 2: Ben for writing this book, The Field Guide to Raising
Speaker 2: Hell for Hunters and Anglers. It's a great read, so kudos.
Speaker 3: Well thanks. You know, it's a long time coming. It's
Speaker 3: been a seat in the back of my head for
Speaker 3: decades too. I've been lucky enough to you know, put
Speaker 3: to be involved in various conservation efforts, oh gosh, for
Speaker 3: thirty years, most of some of that beginning as a journalists.
Speaker 3: And then the last twenty five is well, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of a more of a on the campaigns themselves.
Speaker 3: So I've I think I have never added them up,
Speaker 3: but I've been involved in you know, had a front
Speaker 3: row CD and about twenty million acres of conservation and
Speaker 3: you know, and you know, don't mean to brag. I
Speaker 3: was just part of the campaign. You know, it's not
Speaker 3: like I did that all by myself. It's parts of
Speaker 3: ucky to be parts of those campaigns and have a
Speaker 3: view of how things worked and learned a lot along
Speaker 3: the way and learned about a lot of things that
Speaker 3: didn't work along the way. So I just wanted to
Speaker 3: share that. So that's that's how I put it in
Speaker 3: the pages.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So was there a moment for you? I mean,
Speaker 2: it sounds like you said this has kind of been
Speaker 2: slow burning in the back of your mind, but is
Speaker 2: you know, was there any flash point or an incident
Speaker 2: or something where you realized, Okay, I can't wait any longer.
Speaker 2: This has to be in the world. Was there any
Speaker 2: kind of moment or epiphany like that for you?
Speaker 3: I mean the book itself, yeah, or the idea I think,
Speaker 3: you know, I part of how I make My living
Speaker 3: is by consulting with conservation groups on on the different
Speaker 3: campaigns and goals. And I worked with backcountry hunters and
Speaker 3: anglers on the Lanta Water Conservation Fund. That's probably going
Speaker 3: back five or six years. And there was an effort
Speaker 3: to well, they did, you know, reauthorize permanently reauthorized and
Speaker 3: permanently fund the land of Water Conservation Fund. And I
Speaker 3: worked with a bunch of leaders in Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: A bunch of leaders from around the country from BHA,
Speaker 3: and you know, did my usual routine of teaching people
Speaker 3: how to create a message, how to speak to legislators, lawmakers,
Speaker 3: and one of the you know, I had a little
Speaker 3: one page handout and unbeknownst to me, one of the
Speaker 3: one of the leaders went back to Pennsylvania and used
Speaker 3: the same handout for convincing the legislator in Pennsylvania to
Speaker 3: loosen up on the blue laws and to increase you know,
Speaker 3: hunting access now hunting opportunities by ending the Sunday Van
Speaker 3: on hunting and incrementally but made progress on that. And it,
Speaker 3: you know, it brought to mind that the fundamentals of this,
Speaker 3: the fundamentals of a good campaign work no matter what
Speaker 3: you're trying to do. No matter whether you're trying to
Speaker 3: influence a local county commission or a local hunting and
Speaker 3: fishing or fishwats and parks commission, or whether you're trying
Speaker 3: to get a built through Congress, you know, the basics
Speaker 3: are just the same. And so I thought, well, let's
Speaker 3: just capture that and something that that people can can
Speaker 3: put in their pocket and and you know, you can
Speaker 3: read it on an airplane when you're flying someplace, you
Speaker 3: can read it on a commute, you can read it
Speaker 3: in an evening, you can refresh it. It's just supposed
Speaker 3: to be accessible, and you know, just the fundamentals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what do you what's the the goal of this?
Speaker 2: Like when you when you look at this book and
Speaker 2: the materials you you compiled here, I mean there's a
Speaker 2: lot of different articles and books and podcasts and films
Speaker 2: that all tackle different aspects of you know, how we
Speaker 2: engage in conservation work. With this specific project, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm curious what your like dream goal was for this book.
Speaker 2: What are you hoping that actually happens? Is this that
Speaker 2: you're hoping that individuals use this to do a B
Speaker 2: and C? Are you hoping that this becomes field guide
Speaker 2: for organizations to do a B or C. What what
Speaker 2: is it specifically that you're hoping comes out of this
Speaker 2: or what does that success look like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the point of raising hell? And the field
Speaker 3: guys they're ising hell? Right? Yeah, and so I you know,
Speaker 3: if you look across you know of any any group
Speaker 3: of people, but let's just say hunters in this case,
Speaker 3: that there's a a a spectrum, right, and there's generally
Speaker 3: three categories. There's like people who watch, like see what's
Speaker 3: going on and like it, don't feel engaged. There people
Speaker 3: who join who care enough to say, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 3: to you know, become a member of my local rod
Speaker 3: and gun club or Ducks on Limit or whatever. And
Speaker 3: then there are people who do the people who like
Speaker 3: actually go to the meetings, who knock on the doors,
Speaker 3: who raise the money, who do that. And so I'm
Speaker 3: hoping that this book Field guid They're raising Hell speaks
Speaker 3: to all those people and like get more people inspired
Speaker 3: to join organizations. You get the watchers to join, gets
Speaker 3: the joiners to do, and gets the doers to be
Speaker 3: more effective and to win. And so it's definitely you
Speaker 3: know that's kind of the niche. You know, it's definitely
Speaker 3: a niche audience, but it's this important one and I've
Speaker 3: seen over the years how you know, the hundred angler
Speaker 3: conservation voice is really what tips the scales in so
Speaker 3: many policy issues. I've just seen that happen so many
Speaker 3: times that you know, I'm a I'm a true believer
Speaker 3: that this star voice needs to be heard because we
Speaker 3: have a lot of common sense. We have a lot
Speaker 3: of you know, boots in the mud kind of experiences
Speaker 3: that people, you know, the people in power trust and
Speaker 3: the people who want to make good decisions want to
Speaker 3: hear from. So just trying to make people, you know,
Speaker 3: spend less time crying in their beer and more time
Speaker 3: making real positive change.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I one hundred percent agree with you, And
Speaker 2: I've thought about this a lot. I really do think
Speaker 2: that the hunting and fishing community has a superpower as
Speaker 2: far as the impact we can have on, you know,
Speaker 2: especially on conservation or environmental or wildlife related issues. Because
Speaker 2: you made a great point, we have that on the ground,
Speaker 2: real world experience with the resource, with the animal, with
Speaker 2: the place. That's and oftentimes unique compared to most other stakeholders.
Speaker 2: But then another thing, I think and you tell me
Speaker 2: if you think this is true or not as well,
Speaker 2: but it seems like, you know, the other folks that
Speaker 2: might be trying to raise hell about the environment or
Speaker 2: a habitat issue or an animal wildlife issue, they might
Speaker 2: be folks who traditionally fall into that environmentalist camp that
Speaker 2: might be a little bit more left leaning, and so
Speaker 2: certainly those appeals would be heard by the left side
Speaker 2: of the aisle, but I think a lot of times
Speaker 2: the right side of the aisle might ignore those folks completely.
Speaker 2: And on the flip side though, traditionally, and I'm overgeneralizing here,
Speaker 2: but traditionally the hunting and england community has that right
Speaker 2: side of the aisle ear has their ear a little
Speaker 2: bit more. And if all of a sudden, folks are
Speaker 2: advocating for these environmental or habitat or wildlife related issues
Speaker 2: to folks in the left from the traditional environmental community,
Speaker 2: but then uniquely on the right from the hunting and
Speaker 2: fishing community, that becomes something you can't ignore any longer,
Speaker 2: I think, And that doesn't happen without us, would you?
Speaker 2: Is that is that a fair assessment?
Speaker 3: That's one hundred percent? I mean, it's it's you know,
Speaker 3: we live in an era where partisanship is unfortunately very high. Right.
Speaker 3: We live in a time of history when when you know,
Speaker 3: everybody seems to be each other's throats, and everybody wants
Speaker 3: to say, oh, you know that those guys over there
Speaker 3: are wrong, they're bad from America and that's not going
Speaker 3: to go way but they But still even so, like
Speaker 3: seventy percent of the legislation that passes even these this
Speaker 3: day and age, has to have by parsonan support, I
Speaker 3: mean just just in the short term, just to get
Speaker 3: it over the just to get it done, and in
Speaker 3: the long term, it's absolutely critical to have broad public
Speaker 3: support for any kind of conservation measure to be durable,
Speaker 3: to last over time. Right that this the social buy in,
Speaker 3: the social support. This is like hunting and fishing laws, right,
Speaker 3: the idea that the chance of you and I getting
Speaker 3: caught by game board it's a pretty slim. I can't
Speaker 3: remember the last time I saw a game warden in
Speaker 3: the woods, you know, away from the truck. But we
Speaker 3: believe we have followed those laws basically because we understand them.
Speaker 3: We understand why they're good for us, we understand why
Speaker 3: you know that when people cheat on them, it hurts us.
Speaker 3: And so that kind of broad social understanding, the social
Speaker 3: buy in, in my opinion, is just as important as
Speaker 3: as you know, winning at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: because we happen to get more votes. But you have to,
Speaker 3: you know, to create these policies. We do have to
Speaker 3: get the votes, and it's not going to be a
Speaker 3: good future if the things we care about are only
Speaker 3: the you know, the venue of one or the other
Speaker 3: political party. We have to you know, and then keeep,
Speaker 3: there are people on both sides of the party, in
Speaker 3: both sides of the aisle who are doing good conservation
Speaker 3: work today and they all need to be supported for
Speaker 3: that work. You know. A couple sessions are a couple
Speaker 3: of episodes ago. You you interviewed my friend Doug Chadwick,
Speaker 3: and you know, Doug Shawk talked a lot about you know,
Speaker 3: kind of the big pictures and how a lot of
Speaker 3: these you know, around the world. You know, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of you know, the biodiversity crisis, and a lot
Speaker 3: of nature's in a lot of trouble getting crowded off
Speaker 3: the planet in a lot of places. But you'll look
Speaker 3: at America and you look at like, Okay, so across
Speaker 3: the across North America. A lot of bird species are
Speaker 3: in a deep trouble. Grassland birds, for example, are in deep,
Speaker 3: deep trouble. Uh, stage grouse, say, you know, prairie grouse.
Speaker 3: You know, bubble links exists. All those are like on
Speaker 3: this steep, steep decline. But you look at what class
Speaker 3: of birds are doing very very well right now or
Speaker 3: doing relatively well right now, and it's waterfowl, you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's ducks and geese. And there's a reason for that,
Speaker 3: right The reason is hunters and anglers, mostly hunters and
Speaker 3: duck hunters. You know, early on recognize the value of regulations,
Speaker 3: recognized the value of protecting wetlands, restoring wetlands. And you
Speaker 3: know those wetlands are still facing a lot of challenges,
Speaker 3: but we have an infrastructure for conserving them. We have
Speaker 3: things like the North American Wetland Conservation Act, We had
Speaker 3: the Clean Water Act, and you know, the duck hunters
Speaker 3: were absolutely critical to getting that happening. And we're seeing
Speaker 3: the real world effect isn't just like history. This is
Speaker 3: like playing out now. This is the bright spot that
Speaker 3: you know, Doug talked a lot about how worldwide, you know,
Speaker 3: large carnivores are in dire straits and disappearing across the world.
Speaker 3: But when you look at the United States, you know,
Speaker 3: mountain lions are expanding their range, wolves are expanding their range,
Speaker 3: black bears are expanding their range, wolf rings are expanding
Speaker 3: the range. Why is that? That's because hunters and anglers
Speaker 3: set the table with the prey species. Right, you're not
Speaker 3: going to have those predators. And maybe some some hunters
Speaker 3: wish we had fewer of them. But if you if
Speaker 3: you like you know, large charismatic megafauna like wolves and
Speaker 3: bears and lions, well you better be grateful that the
Speaker 3: hunters and anglers have set the table for them so
Speaker 3: they can they can thrive. And so I think we
Speaker 3: do have that superpower you're talking about, and you know,
Speaker 3: we're seeing in real time the benefits of that, and
Speaker 3: I think we need to, you know, really celebrate that
Speaker 3: and tell those success stories because you know, the doom
Speaker 3: and gloom does not motivate anybody. The things that motivate
Speaker 3: people are the idea, the empowerment that yeah, we make
Speaker 3: a difference and we do good things, and these little
Speaker 3: things we do like putting up a wood duck box,
Speaker 3: we do it enough, and we'll bring wood ducks back
Speaker 3: from extinction and make them. Uh so that's a story
Speaker 3: we need to tell it owns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's so true. It's it's interesting. I we've
Speaker 2: got a little bit of a shifting baseline syndrome going
Speaker 2: two different ways that I think can cause maybe some apathy.
Speaker 2: And you bring up a great point that we need
Speaker 2: to recognize, like what a success we have experienced over
Speaker 2: the last one hundred years bringing back so many of
Speaker 2: these animals, and recognize that, you know, right now, we
Speaker 2: have folks I think there's a lot of folks who
Speaker 2: are relatively young, you know, let's say, in their forties
Speaker 2: or younger, who have never known a Michigan or a
Speaker 2: Montana or a Georgia that wasn't filled to the brim
Speaker 2: with white tailed deer, that didn't have all sorts of
Speaker 2: turkey hunting opportunities, that didn't have you know, great clean
Speaker 2: waters and terrific fishing opportunities. Like we are living in
Speaker 2: the golden days for a lot of these critters. And
Speaker 2: so I think sometimes if you're kind of stuck in
Speaker 2: your little silo, like if you're just living in Michigan
Speaker 2: or living in Montana doing your thing, hunting and fishing.
Speaker 2: You might be feeling like, man, things are great. I
Speaker 2: don't know why folks are worried. I don't know why
Speaker 2: anyone needs to be raised in Hell. Because I'm seeing
Speaker 2: a ton of deer, I'm having great deer hunting. I've
Speaker 2: catching a lot of trout. And so there's this worry
Speaker 2: that if we don't remember the past and the hard
Speaker 2: work it took to get to where we are now,
Speaker 2: we won't keep doing that hard work. But then also
Speaker 2: on the flip side, it's also easy to get focused
Speaker 2: on like your you know, you can get stuck in
Speaker 2: like my favorite species world and yeah, be so focused
Speaker 2: on how great it is for white tails right now
Speaker 2: that you completely ignore some of the other things you mentioned,
Speaker 2: like songbirds, like grassland birds, upland certain upland species. You know,
Speaker 2: there are these things going on. So it's this tricky
Speaker 2: balancing act, it seems like, of appreciating what we have now,
Speaker 2: remembering how we got here, not being gloom and doom,
Speaker 2: but also recognizing that none of these things last forever,
Speaker 2: none of them are guaranteed unless we stay on it
Speaker 2: and keep raising Hell. Because even with the good work
Speaker 2: we're doing. We are seeing these problems in this spot,
Speaker 2: in this spot, in this spot. How do you balance
Speaker 2: all that personally? For you, Ben, how do you deal
Speaker 2: with that kind of phenomena that I'm describing here?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Right, I mean I think that that, yeah, that
Speaker 3: they're I mean, they're there. I mean I I'm guilty
Speaker 3: of it because I you know, I've made a choice
Speaker 3: and worked hard, been lucky to live in a place
Speaker 3: where the water's clean, and you know, I mean nine
Speaker 3: species of big game and living in the county where
Speaker 3: I live, so you know, it's in a lot of
Speaker 3: species that are rare elsewhere. So I can kind of
Speaker 3: get that, you know, that kind of blinkered view too
Speaker 3: of you know, And I to me that the issue
Speaker 3: is engagement. I mean, I think that if people get
Speaker 3: involved at whatever level, and I don't care what level
Speaker 3: people get involved in the outdoors, you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: a it's a lifelong process. It's an idea of like
Speaker 3: oh this, I you know, I enjoy white tail deer.
Speaker 3: I enjoy hunting white tail deer, enjoy watching white tail deer.
Speaker 3: I want to learn about white tail deer. Oh I
Speaker 3: didn't know that one hundred and fifty years ago, they
Speaker 3: were almost you know, there was they were almost extinct,
Speaker 3: but there were very very few of them. Why was that?
Speaker 3: And then in my in my journey, you know, I
Speaker 3: educated myself on that, read about that, learned about that.
Speaker 3: That led me to other writers, That led me to
Speaker 3: other history books, other you know, that led me to conservation.
Speaker 3: And so I think that, you know, to me, like
Speaker 3: the most radical thing you can do, if and the
Speaker 3: most important thing you can do as a conservation is
Speaker 3: just get young people engaged. You know, I've volunteered for
Speaker 3: the first time this year as a hunter. Education in
Speaker 3: structure is a great experience, and you know, I want
Speaker 3: to do that to you know, make sure kids have
Speaker 3: a safe experience, make sure we hunt on the US
Speaker 3: on the hunting legacy. But I also do it because
Speaker 3: I know it's so important. What's so important for me
Speaker 3: to have time outdoors as a kid and as an adult,
Speaker 3: and so to me that the I don't people are
Speaker 3: going to explore this as their own journey and they're
Speaker 3: you know, and be interested in what interests them, and
Speaker 3: you know, if that leads them to you know, a
Speaker 3: deeper understanding of one species, whether it's ducks or whether
Speaker 3: it's white tails or whether it's you know, songbirds or whatever,
Speaker 3: it leads them to so much the better. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's plenty of work to be out there for everybody.
Speaker 3: So I think, you know, to me, it's just like
Speaker 3: get people started on the right track and good things
Speaker 3: will happen. But it is, you know, I think if
Speaker 3: there's a there's a real I believe in like strategic optimism.
Speaker 3: I think that uh, you know, there's a you know,
Speaker 3: we're it's a scary time, but it's always been a
Speaker 3: scary time. Every generation has, you know, something looming over
Speaker 3: over that. When I was a kid, you know, everybody
Speaker 3: is concerned about transcontinental ballistic missiles in nuclear war, you know,
Speaker 3: and now we have other concerns that are kind of
Speaker 3: rising to the top. And it's easy to let those
Speaker 3: things make us pessimistic or like cynical or like just say, oh,
Speaker 3: how with it? It's unfixable. And maybe it's a personality thing,
Speaker 3: but I just can't live like that. I just believe
Speaker 3: I've seen that's like good people getting together make you know,
Speaker 3: make a huge difference, and not like heroes, not big
Speaker 3: rich people, not big powerful people, but just like every day,
Speaker 3: every day folks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's one of the most one
Speaker 2: of the best things about studying the history of this stuff,
Speaker 2: of the hunting and fishing community, of our conservation past.
Speaker 2: One of the best things about learning that studying that,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, is just all of a sudden realizing
Speaker 2: that real regular people have made a difference. Like none
Speaker 2: of these things we have here today happened by accident.
Speaker 2: They are not here by chance. They're here because folks,
Speaker 2: that's like you or me and a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: our buddies and a whole about bunch of folks who
Speaker 2: cared about this stuff did something that's that's very encouraging
Speaker 2: to me. That's empowering to when I'm feeling ever doom
Speaker 2: and glow, I remember that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it can be. I mean yeah, you
Speaker 3: have to have like what's the right scope to look
Speaker 3: at things, right, I mean? And and if if we're
Speaker 3: all like read the media and like doom scroll all
Speaker 3: day long, and that's that's great, that's the world we
Speaker 3: live in, that's our society. But you know that's not reality, right,
Speaker 3: That's that's not what's really you know, wait to know
Speaker 3: reality you got to get out and look at it.
Speaker 3: You got to go and you know, tromp around and
Speaker 3: you know, smell what's going on and look at the changes.
Speaker 3: And I think that as soon as you get older,
Speaker 3: I mean you'll see those changes. And you know we
Speaker 3: all have. You know, change can be hard for anybody.
Speaker 3: But there's like changes I see. I mean I can
Speaker 3: just around here. It's you know, it's it's you know,
Speaker 3: I can see a lot of things have changed, like
Speaker 3: you know, like there weren't any wolves in Idaho when
Speaker 3: I was growing up. Now there's speak of and now
Speaker 3: there's lots of them. So there's changes like that. But
Speaker 3: the habitat has changed so much, you know, so much
Speaker 3: of the land has been the winter range has been
Speaker 3: gobbled up with with subdivisions. The the weeds are much different,
Speaker 3: the forest fires are you know, changed it. And so
Speaker 3: you know, the changes will be in your face, you know.
Speaker 3: I think, I don't think just the times we live in,
Speaker 3: it's just like a very unstable time. So I think
Speaker 3: there's there's always gonna be things that people can get
Speaker 3: engaged about. And some of them are really big and
Speaker 3: some of them are are not are more really local
Speaker 3: and you know, different people are different appetites and different
Speaker 3: levels for for grappling with however it is. But you know,
Speaker 3: I believe in making it fun. I believe in like,
Speaker 3: we're not going to do this if it's not rewarding,
Speaker 3: and winning is a lot more rewarding than losing. And
Speaker 3: that's that's what the Field Guide a help about it.
Speaker 2: I want to get into how to win, how to
Speaker 2: make a difference. But I do have one last kind
Speaker 2: of foundational question, because you know this book is about
Speaker 2: raising hell for it seems like you know four categories
Speaker 2: of related issues that are important to our community. That's
Speaker 2: you know, and you correct me if I'm wrong here,
Speaker 2: But right, we could maybe bucket the types of things
Speaker 2: we're talking here into something that might influence hunting and
Speaker 2: fishing opportunity, something that might influence wildlife populations in general,
Speaker 2: and something that might impact habitat. And so there's a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of different possible targets out there. You brought
Speaker 2: it up. These are unstable times. There are plenty of
Speaker 2: things if you do them scroll enough, there will be
Speaker 2: plenty of things you can find to cause you to
Speaker 2: lay listlessly in bed at night and worry if you
Speaker 2: let yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious, as you were writing this book or
Speaker 2: as you're sitting here now starting to talk to people,
Speaker 2: talk to people about this book, what's keeping you up
Speaker 2: at night? Is there anything that in your mind you're thinking, Man,
Speaker 2: I sure hope this book helps tackle X because I
Speaker 2: personally am worried about this in our future. Is there
Speaker 2: anything that stands out on that front?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You know a lot of people worry about you know,
Speaker 3: like you know, the environmental is too far this way,
Speaker 3: or you know, hunting rights is too far that way.
Speaker 3: And you know, the thing that worries me is like
Speaker 3: just people won't give a damn. The thing that worries
Speaker 3: me the mo I don't think we're going to you know,
Speaker 3: the thing that's gonna that's you know, just destroyed the
Speaker 3: caribou and Idaho during my lifetime. That is destroying the
Speaker 3: salmon in the steelhead that I grew up around. That's
Speaker 3: you know, that potentially is going to destroy sage grouse
Speaker 3: for example. You know, isn't that people that they just
Speaker 3: people care, but most people don't. Most people, you know,
Speaker 3: don't think about it all, don't know where their electricity
Speaker 3: comes from. And would rather, you know, save a few
Speaker 3: bucks at the gas pump or a few bucks on
Speaker 3: their electric bill, and and would write off a species
Speaker 3: or an ecosystem because of that and change our hunting
Speaker 3: and fishing opportunities forever. It just because they're ignorant or
Speaker 3: because they just don't care. To me, that's the thing
Speaker 3: that It's like, I just want to like get people outside.
Speaker 3: I want to like grab them by the sort of collar,
Speaker 3: drag them out of their cars, drag them out of
Speaker 3: the city, and say, look at this, you know, look
Speaker 3: at this place. You know, how can we squander this freedom?
Speaker 3: How can we squander this beauty? And I think most
Speaker 3: people don't want to, but they just they either feel
Speaker 3: they're they're overwhelmed with the you know, the basics of life,
Speaker 3: which I get it. They don't feel they feel like
Speaker 3: the system is rigged. And I get that too. I
Speaker 3: feel like that or they've just never been introduced to it.
Speaker 3: And so that's to me, that's the saddest thing of all,
Speaker 3: is just like people are just gonna just squander what
Speaker 3: we have as far as our freedom to to hunt
Speaker 3: and fish, as far as the habitat, you know. To me,
Speaker 3: it's like the habitat is the foundation of it all,
Speaker 3: just because they'll we stopped to say no, no, we
Speaker 3: had a better vision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that that's on my mind a lot too.
Speaker 2: And I guess that that I think sets up perfectly
Speaker 2: this next portion of your book. I feel like our
Speaker 2: conversation kind of mirrors your book in a way. Is
Speaker 2: you kind of set that foundation in context at the beginning,
Speaker 2: and then you move into the tactics, that being the
Speaker 2: steps to success for tackling one of the issues or
Speaker 2: mounting in defense. Yeah, I'm curious, first clarifying question of
Speaker 2: sorts would you find that or when you were when
Speaker 2: you're putting this together and you were developing these steps
Speaker 2: for success? Is this equally applicable to an individual and
Speaker 2: an organization?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Is this is this something that me, Mark Kenyon could
Speaker 2: do something with this or is this more like, hey,
Speaker 2: Mark Kenyon, if you want to get your local rod
Speaker 2: and Gun club to tackle this problem, or if you
Speaker 2: want to get your chapter of NDA or BHA or
Speaker 2: Trout Unlimited to tackle this issue, or if you want
Speaker 2: to you know, do something like that. You know, what's
Speaker 2: the who are these steps most applicable to? Or how
Speaker 2: should we think about these differently if we are in
Speaker 2: one of those groups of the other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that it's both. I think the one
Speaker 3: individual action is actually critical and like understanding strategy, you know,
Speaker 3: just like not wasting your time on you know, on
Speaker 3: rabbit holes, you know, but like focusing and all that
Speaker 3: is super important if you want to make a difference
Speaker 3: as an individual. At the same time, you're not, It's
Speaker 3: just the nature of politics is you're not going to
Speaker 3: get very far if you're only operating as an individual.
Speaker 3: And you know, there's a lot of ways to do conservations.
Speaker 3: The Field Guide focuses on, you know, policy, how to
Speaker 3: change policies, which are powerful, powerful things. But it's it's either,
Speaker 3: it's it's both. It's like, we need to act as individuals,
Speaker 3: but we are social creatures and we are trying to
Speaker 3: change social structure, social norms, and that requires working with
Speaker 3: other people, whether you know it's an ad hoc a
Speaker 3: bunch of friends trying to do something for their local
Speaker 3: you know, the backyard, or whether it's you know, something
Speaker 3: larger that's you know, pushing a bigger agenda across with
Speaker 3: larger geography.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. So so with that in mind,
Speaker 2: then could could you walk me through these steps for success?
Speaker 2: And if you if it's if you think this makes
Speaker 2: sense to you, could we maybe walk it through with
Speaker 2: an example as if like, okay, let's imagine that. I
Speaker 2: don't know, like either you an example, imagine anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I don't have to imagine. We got we
Speaker 3: gotta get pullsed them out.
Speaker 2: So we talked through through.
Speaker 3: That and like these steps are and this is kind
Speaker 3: of like the real meat of the book, Like you said,
Speaker 3: the book has kind of some some you know, throat
Speaker 3: clearing it first, which is kind of like a lot
Speaker 3: of people in your audience probably know that already. Some
Speaker 3: of the history kind of the you know, the fundamentals
Speaker 3: of the North American model and the history of conservation.
Speaker 3: And then the middle of it is this the steps
Speaker 3: to successes, Like what is like the roadmap, right, like
Speaker 3: how do we get to where we want to get
Speaker 3: to and how do we get there? And this steps
Speaker 3: I mean, I've just like I said, over twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five years, this has really evolved. It's changed over those times.
Speaker 3: But it's like these are the fundamentals. These are a
Speaker 3: real good way to think about it, and you know,
Speaker 3: the First, the first thing is is like deciding what
Speaker 3: you want right, And a lot of campaigns fail because
Speaker 3: the goal is just too amorphous, people want to do
Speaker 3: too much, or people don't have agreement of what they
Speaker 3: want to get done. They don't know what success looks like.
Speaker 3: And so you know, dreaming is strategic, right, So like
Speaker 3: the first thing that any anything is like oftentimes is
Speaker 3: catalyzed around some a threat or a problem people see.
Speaker 3: But you know, but the biggest successes are you know,
Speaker 3: dreaming are like things that we want to see in
Speaker 3: the future. And so that's you know that. And if
Speaker 3: you if you haven't done that, if you don't know
Speaker 3: where you want to go, you're never going to know
Speaker 3: when you get there. And so I often tell people like,
Speaker 3: imagine yourself sitting around a campfire in five years, you know,
Speaker 3: having beers with your buddies and say, wow, we did that.
Speaker 3: We really this is different and the world is different,
Speaker 3: our state is different, our county is different because we
Speaker 3: you know, because we cheat something and so what would
Speaker 3: that something be? Yeah, and so uh, you know, you
Speaker 3: can I guess. One example I'll use is and I
Speaker 3: touched on it at the beginning of the book it's
Speaker 3: a real place here in in northwestern Montana. I call
Speaker 3: it Hubble Basin. In the book was really called Haskell Basin,
Speaker 3: and my buddy Steve Thompson and I have have used
Speaker 3: it for thirty years now. It's kind of mid elevation habitat.
Speaker 3: It's timberland. It's right next to a booming ski town.
Speaker 3: It's got you know, because it's you know, fairly early successional,
Speaker 3: but really well managed. Timberland is good for whitetails, just
Speaker 3: a really reliable place to find white tails. It's always
Speaker 3: been open to hunting and fishing and trapping. It's it's
Speaker 3: just a it's it's also a habitat for grizzly bears,
Speaker 3: elk moose, black bear links. It's just it's just a
Speaker 3: really neat, rich piece of habitat. And it's like I said,
Speaker 3: it's like it's got the ski town that's just booming
Speaker 3: with a you know, big trophy homes, big no trespassing signs,
Speaker 3: big like I said, death by a thousand driveways, strip malls.
Speaker 3: You know, you can you can see all around what's
Speaker 3: going to happen to this land and around here. A
Speaker 3: lot of the timber companies became real estate trusts and
Speaker 3: have been selling their land as real estate. And we knew,
Speaker 3: and Steve knew as a leader in this community, that
Speaker 3: this this land was going to be on the chopping
Speaker 3: block soon because everything around it was and it was
Speaker 3: going to get sold. It's going to get sold for
Speaker 3: you know, very high sk high scale what's the word.
Speaker 3: I'm looking for upper scale trophy homes, you know, seasonal
Speaker 3: trophy homes. And we're gonna get locked out, and it
Speaker 3: was gonna lose a lot of havebat value and so
Speaker 3: you know, so that that came Steve's goal, and it
Speaker 3: turns out other people in the community had shared similar concerns.
Speaker 3: But the idea is how do we maintain what we've got.
Speaker 3: The goal would be we want this piece of ground
Speaker 3: to stay as you know, roughly as it is. Of course,
Speaker 3: change happens. You can't stop change. But we wanted to
Speaker 3: remain open for hunting and fishing. We wanted to we
Speaker 3: wanted we wanted we want to be well managed, we
Speaker 3: want you know, to be to be taken care of.
Speaker 3: We want to we want to be a forest, not
Speaker 3: a subdivision. And so so that is the goal, right,
Speaker 3: That's what the goal wanted. I mean, that's what the
Speaker 3: what Steve wanted, and that's what his friends and I
Speaker 3: wanted and so did. So that was the important thing
Speaker 3: is to have that vision, you know, paint a picture
Speaker 3: of the world that you want, and then lead to people,
Speaker 3: show a path to lead people to that world. That
Speaker 3: was the path we wanted was Haskell Basement remains in
Speaker 3: tim in private ownership, but in in production. Yeah, the
Speaker 3: working landscape. So that was the that's the first step.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense, Yeah, it does. I like the
Speaker 2: analogy used in the book about flock shooting about how yeah, right, right,
Speaker 2: if you just try to shoot into the flock of
Speaker 2: ducts coming through, you're you're oftentimes going to miss. You
Speaker 2: need to be very particular. You have to pick one,
Speaker 2: very specific target aim at that.
Speaker 3: I learned that hunting truckers in northern Idaho. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like you'd work all day climbing up out of
Speaker 3: the canyon and you'd flush a you know, somebody twenty
Speaker 3: five fifty birds in a flock sometimes and it's just
Speaker 3: like the first few times I did it, I used
Speaker 3: to just point the shotguns and start shooting and nothing falls,
Speaker 3: you know, and then be with someone who knows what
Speaker 3: they're doing, and they're picking a bird, picking a bird,
Speaker 3: picking a bird, and they drop a triple and so
Speaker 3: you know, that's that's totally right. I mean, it's all
Speaker 3: the flock shooting, you know, is is is exactly what
Speaker 3: people tend to do with you know, they are They
Speaker 3: just have these kind of grandiose if we want to
Speaker 3: educate the public about the importance of hunting, fishing, or
Speaker 3: we want to you know, protect habitat and pass on
Speaker 3: our legacies, like Okay, that's all great, those are all
Speaker 3: great visions, but like, what does that look like in
Speaker 3: the real world? Yeah, and people, you know, that's the
Speaker 3: number one reason all these campaigns, a lot of campaigns
Speaker 3: fail is because yeah, you know they they people don't
Speaker 3: know what they want.
Speaker 2: Yeah I heard something.
Speaker 3: But in that situation, basically we know what we want to.
Speaker 2: Yeah I heard something, I don't I'm I wish I
Speaker 2: could attribute this quote correctly, but I can't remember where
Speaker 2: I heard it, So for forgive me if you're listening,
Speaker 2: But I heard someone say once they you know, to
Speaker 2: do something like this to make a difference, to tackle
Speaker 2: an issue, you need to have a compass and a map.
Speaker 2: So by that, you need a compass which points to
Speaker 2: true North, so you know, like what you're what you're
Speaker 2: actually shooting towards, what are you dreaming for? What is
Speaker 2: your end goal? So you need that compass to always
Speaker 2: make sure you're pointed in the right direction. But then
Speaker 2: you also need a map, and the map gives you
Speaker 2: the actual step by step directions of how do you
Speaker 2: get to this place you're trying to go, Because if
Speaker 2: all you do is follow true North, you're gonna hit
Speaker 2: the canyon at one point and you're not gonna be
Speaker 2: able to get across it. Or you're gonna hit a
Speaker 2: river and you're not going to realize there's actually a
Speaker 2: spot you could forward that river, you know, half a
Speaker 2: mile down. So the map is like, okay, what do
Speaker 2: I do next? What do I do next? Because I
Speaker 2: know this absolute destination and here's the right way to
Speaker 2: get to that destination. So you need these two things
Speaker 2: and you need them to be explicit. And I think
Speaker 2: for any kind of campaign like this, any kind of
Speaker 2: whether it's a local you know, fishing hole that you're
Speaker 2: worried is going to get bought up and you know,
Speaker 2: become a pond of a trophy home, or if it's
Speaker 2: you know, just trying to participate in some larger issue
Speaker 2: that an organization is doing. I think thinking about this
Speaker 2: and helping, you know, talking to leadership or as you
Speaker 2: the leader, being very clear about defining that goal, defining
Speaker 2: those steps. It just seems so so crucial.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is. And it's amazing how much you
Speaker 3: know people just they you know, they know something's wrong,
Speaker 3: they know that there's something that can be fixed, but
Speaker 3: they don't know that something is yet. And this distraction
Speaker 3: is such because these things take time. It takes a
Speaker 3: lot of patience. There's so many corollaries between conservation and
Speaker 3: hunting and fishing in general, but you know, patience is
Speaker 3: one of them destroyed. I went on a I've saved
Speaker 3: up my money and went on a backcountry elkon, you know,
Speaker 3: hired out through with horses to go way back deep
Speaker 3: in the bob something I always wanted to do. And
Speaker 3: you know, there's Mulder up there too, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: you should, you know, try to tell my buddies to
Speaker 3: buy a mule tag. He's like, no, this is an Elkhon.
Speaker 3: You know, Mulder season will be open, but we are
Speaker 3: focusing on elk and you know, it's a lot like that.
Speaker 3: It's easy to get kind of oh, I'll do this,
Speaker 3: but they need missed the whole point of the trip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so true. So so we define very clearly and
Speaker 2: explicitly what our goal is, what we're trying to change
Speaker 2: in the world, what threat we want to address, whatever
Speaker 2: it is. And second step is then knowing your target audience.
Speaker 2: Can you can you talk about that?
Speaker 3: That's right? Sure, I mean, that's that's the thing is,
Speaker 3: we don't don't have to convince everybody. You know, our
Speaker 3: campaigns do not have to be like household names. We're
Speaker 3: not like McDonald's trying to sell Hamburgers on every on
Speaker 3: every street. Warner. It's the idea that we just have
Speaker 3: to talk to the people who we need to talk to.
Speaker 3: And so the key is, and it's really key and
Speaker 3: almost as key as knowing what you want to do,
Speaker 3: But it's like who matters, Who are the decision makers,
Speaker 3: Who are the people who have their hands on the
Speaker 3: levers of power, who have the who are going to
Speaker 3: make these changes? And that varies compared depending on what
Speaker 3: you want. If you want to create a ballot initiative,
Speaker 3: which we did in one of my first campaigns was
Speaker 3: a state wide ballot initiative in Montana to reform enforcement
Speaker 3: for game farm reform, and we try to reform you know,
Speaker 3: the game farm industry in Montana. You know, we had it.
Speaker 3: We our goal was to pass a statewide initiative. In
Speaker 3: order to do that, you have to convince fifty of
Speaker 3: the voters that year plus one to vote your way, right,
Speaker 3: So our target audience in that case was everybody who's
Speaker 3: going to vote in that election. I mean it's like
Speaker 3: two thousands and so that's a bit of you know,
Speaker 3: in the United States, if it's a larger election or
Speaker 3: a congressional thing, it's an even bigger scope. Right on
Speaker 3: the other hand, if like other campaigns I've worked on
Speaker 3: are like trying to get a county. You know, Montana,
Speaker 3: we have a lot of beautiful trout streams. People like
Speaker 3: to build their homes right next to the trout streams,
Speaker 3: and a lot of counties have created setbacks. So like's
Speaker 3: created a rule that in this county you have to
Speaker 3: build your house so much so far away from from
Speaker 3: the stream. There's a lot of good benefits from that,
Speaker 3: you know, for trout habitat and all flood control and
Speaker 3: all sorts of things. But let's let's get a county
Speaker 3: county zoning rule to pat to create this this this benefit. Well,
Speaker 3: in that case, your county commission is who you're trying
Speaker 3: to convince, and all you need is a majority of
Speaker 3: county commissions, and much of Montana and much of the country,
Speaker 3: county commissions are three people, so they have an enormous
Speaker 3: amount of influence in local communities. All you have to
Speaker 3: convince is two people that this is a good idea
Speaker 3: and they have the power to make it happen. But
Speaker 3: everything else funneled out of who are we trying to
Speaker 3: talk to, Who do we need to to, Who do
Speaker 3: we need to convince? Who is the decider who has
Speaker 3: the power? Sometimes it's Congress and the President of United States.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's you know, two people on the local county commission.
Speaker 3: But that's that's absolutely critical because then that forms everything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a great point and easily missed though.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, like you said, it's so easy
Speaker 2: to all of a sudden think that you need to
Speaker 2: shout your message from the mountaintop to everyone. And I
Speaker 2: think there can be a lot of wasted effort and
Speaker 2: energy if you do that, and that being.
Speaker 3: Huge wasted energy. I mean, it's it's expensive, whether it's
Speaker 3: effort or money to get your message out there, to
Speaker 3: talk to people, and like you're gonna it's it's it's
Speaker 3: like one of the most time consuming, exhausting things of
Speaker 3: any campaign, and is the communications part. And if you're
Speaker 3: doing it to people who don't care, don't matter, you're
Speaker 3: just wasting your effort. And then the other thing people
Speaker 3: often do is is spend a lot of time arguing
Speaker 3: with their opponents. They spend a lot of energy. You know.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like our opponents sometimes are the the
Speaker 3: guy with the laser beam and where the cats chasing
Speaker 3: them around. You're chasing a little red light around. You know.
Speaker 3: It is like you waste a ton of energy and
Speaker 3: a ton of time doing that, and it's just a
Speaker 3: waste of time to it's and it's disrespectful and it's
Speaker 3: just it's just it's just not a good idea. It's
Speaker 3: it's they spend a lot of your time trying to
Speaker 3: convince somebody who's already made up their mind. Right. It's
Speaker 3: like I say, in the field, guys like it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not going to convince you to eat
Speaker 3: a lot of tofu or to give up venison for tofu.
Speaker 3: I may not convince somebody that, like, you know, it's
Speaker 3: fun to sit in in a tree, you know, on
Speaker 3: a cold November morning when nothing's happening. I might not
Speaker 3: convince them either. But if you're looking for the open
Speaker 3: minded people, your audience is like this spectrum is like,
Speaker 3: you got your base of support. The people who know you,
Speaker 3: love you, will will follow you where you want to go.
Speaker 3: The people who are you know, who get it, who
Speaker 3: are inspired that. Those people are really important because you
Speaker 3: need those people to to do a lot of the
Speaker 3: hard work. But you also need the the the open
Speaker 3: minded people in a political contact often call that the
Speaker 3: swing voter. So the people who did it's getting smaller
Speaker 3: and smaller in politics, but it's different in conservations, like
Speaker 3: the people who just haven't thought about it yet, who
Speaker 3: just who who? Who? Who might be with you? It
Speaker 3: might be you know, might follow your way, might fall
Speaker 3: another way, depending on who who, Who's whose argument's best,
Speaker 3: who they feel most the inspired buyer compelled by and
Speaker 3: so those two people your base of support, and those
Speaker 3: kind of open minded people in the middle of the spectrum.
Speaker 3: Those are the people you need to spend time talking
Speaker 3: to the the people on you know, your dead set
Speaker 3: against that's just wasting your time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we clearly define what we're trying to do.
Speaker 2: We then clearly define who is this target audience that
Speaker 2: has some level of influence over our issue and or
Speaker 2: who is this movable middle who is open to what
Speaker 2: we're trying to talk about the next thing that you
Speaker 2: talk about of importance is building coalitions. Can you can
Speaker 2: you expand on that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go. Let's go back to that example up
Speaker 3: up in here in northwestern Montana with my friend Steve
Speaker 3: and Haskell Basin. Steve likes Haskell Basin, I do too,
Speaker 3: because it is good hunting and you know, you can
Speaker 3: find huckleberries in the summertime morel's in spring. But you know,
Speaker 3: it's a good it's a good close spot where you
Speaker 3: can go after work and you know, right in the
Speaker 3: book the but but not everybody cared about that, right,
Speaker 3: that's just you know, but so okay, So the goal
Speaker 3: they set was to create They talked to the timber.
Speaker 3: Timber company wanted to keep that that land in timber
Speaker 3: production because they had a saw mill to feed. But
Speaker 3: they were under a enormous amount of an economic pressure
Speaker 3: to sell the land because the profits were just that's
Speaker 3: where the profits were. So they figured out, well, if
Speaker 3: they got some piece of land, they could keep their
Speaker 3: board their directors happy, if they got some compensation for it,
Speaker 3: and then they could put a conservation easement on it.
Speaker 3: They could own the land but basically sell the development
Speaker 3: right so it would never be developed to the city
Speaker 3: of the local city there. So the goal was to
Speaker 3: create they have a local option tax, a local sales tax,
Speaker 3: and the goal was to create a local sales tax
Speaker 3: where the city would pay you know, everybody who shopped
Speaker 3: there would pitching a penny for every dollar to help
Speaker 3: support this conservation easement to basically pay the timber company
Speaker 3: so they could put it and it could afford to
Speaker 3: keep it to conservation easement and they could still use it.
Speaker 3: So that's the goal came about over a lot of time,
Speaker 3: a lot of discussions. So what are the different reasons.
Speaker 3: So if you if you just got the deer hunters
Speaker 3: to support it, that's not enough to get us to
Speaker 3: that crisp that threshold of fifty percent plus one. We needed,
Speaker 3: we needed more people, and so what did other people
Speaker 3: care about? And that again is like the key of
Speaker 3: knowing your audience, and then the challenge is to put
Speaker 3: yourself in the audience's shoes and say, why would they care?
Speaker 3: So what what's the big deal? And for the timber company,
Speaker 3: the big deal was that needed the timber supply. For
Speaker 3: the people who worked in the sawmill, and the people
Speaker 3: who sold you know, trucks to the logging companies, and
Speaker 3: the people who you know, the bankers and all that,
Speaker 3: they they are very interested in keeping that sawmill going.
Speaker 3: The local municipitality was very interested because that watershed, that
Speaker 3: basin actually was the source of their drinking water for
Speaker 3: this entire little city which was going under a lot
Speaker 3: of growth pressure, and they just pure, pure clean water
Speaker 3: comes out of it. If they had to like create
Speaker 3: another water filtration system and develop another water source, that
Speaker 3: would cost taxpayers millions and millions of dollars. So you
Speaker 3: had these So you had the timber companies, You had
Speaker 3: the the hunters and anglers. You had the other recreationists
Speaker 3: who you'd like to use this land for mountain biking,
Speaker 3: across country skiing. You had the timber companies, and you
Speaker 3: had the city and the local taxpayers, and they all
Speaker 3: had their own reasons for supporting this plan. But they're
Speaker 3: all different, they're all individual and they don't necessarily have
Speaker 3: anything to do with anybody. But they developed the camp
Speaker 3: pain that wrapped their arms around all of those different
Speaker 3: viewpoints and they put it to the to the to
Speaker 3: the local voters, and the local voters support that proposal
Speaker 3: by like the first time they did it was like
Speaker 3: seventy percent, and then the second time they did it,
Speaker 3: it was eighty five percent of the voters supported to
Speaker 3: tax themselves penny a dollar to protect this watershed. So
Speaker 3: that was a pretty cool example of like, you know,
Speaker 3: knowing what you want, knowing who has the power to
Speaker 3: make the decision, and then understanding how those people are thinking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, power, strength, and numbers. When you build those.
Speaker 3: There's absolutely absolutely that.
Speaker 2: Group of folks, diverse voices, who are all working towards
Speaker 2: that same goal. All of a sudden, you know, the
Speaker 2: possibilities expand dramatically.
Speaker 3: Yep, And yeah, we just don't have the numbers. It's
Speaker 3: a simple mathematics game. I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: people who hunt fish it's about fifty million people who
Speaker 3: hunt fish in the United States, but there's you know,
Speaker 3: hundreds of millions of voters, and even if we rallied
Speaker 3: all the hundreds of fishermen, we just don't have enough
Speaker 3: to get over that threshold of you know, fifty percent
Speaker 3: plus one. And uh, that's why we just just need you,
Speaker 3: just need you. Just there's no other way that we
Speaker 3: have to to build alliances.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I feel like also like when when it
Speaker 2: comes to trying to influence policy makers too. You know,
Speaker 2: if there's only one contingent of folks who are advocating
Speaker 2: for an issue, you might be able to, you know,
Speaker 2: give them a cold shoulder. And maybe that's just a
Speaker 2: group of people that doesn't matter to that policy maker
Speaker 2: or to that commissioner, or to whatever. But if all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, you are hearing the same thing from
Speaker 2: this group, and then this different kind of group, and
Speaker 2: then this surprisingly new perspective of you know, from a
Speaker 2: different group of people. If all of a sudden, you're
Speaker 2: hearing from here, here, here, and here, it becomes really
Speaker 2: hard to ignore because one of those groups or some
Speaker 2: of those will be in one way or another influential
Speaker 2: to you. And what your personal goals are as this
Speaker 2: decision to maker or whatever it might be. And I
Speaker 2: feel like this side, this coalition building step to success
Speaker 2: ties in really closely to the next one on your list,
Speaker 2: which is building and maintaining trust. I think those two
Speaker 2: things have to happen hand in hand to make it work.
Speaker 2: Can you expand on that next one and how it
Speaker 2: kind of pairs with this, because if we're trying to
Speaker 2: build a group of people to address you know, this
Speaker 2: this issue, this challenge, whatever it is, you know, we
Speaker 2: have to build some cohesion within the group and then
Speaker 2: ultimately with that target audience too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right, it's all about credibility. And you know,
Speaker 3: credibility obviously is like the basic currency of communication. If
Speaker 3: if people don't trust you, you're sunk, right, if people
Speaker 3: think you're a weasel, you're not going to get anywhere.
Speaker 3: And so it's really easy to blow credibility. But that's
Speaker 3: you know, a crucial thing, and that's a crucial thing
Speaker 3: for like these where these relationships ships come up because
Speaker 3: not everybody is going to be credible on every perspective
Speaker 3: of He never underestimates the power Hunter's anglers. That is
Speaker 3: the side story we we worked in the Montana legislature
Speaker 3: this year, there were some some bills that would have
Speaker 3: handcuffed the local Fishing Game Agency, Fishwife and Parks from
Speaker 3: owning conservation eastmans, some you know, kind of small government
Speaker 3: Republicans thought, you know, physical conservatives that was like, why
Speaker 3: are we putting money into this? And so there there's
Speaker 3: the bills that were gonna gonna you know, really cripple
Speaker 3: our ability to protect access through conservations. And the legislator
Speaker 3: who well, my local legislator said, you know, he voted
Speaker 3: for the he voted against the bill. Is bad bill.
Speaker 3: He voted against the bill, and he said, you know
Speaker 3: I would it was just up to me. I would
Speaker 3: support this bill, but the hunters and anglers, the hunters
Speaker 3: are against it, and I am too old about run
Speaker 3: the hunters, so I got to vote with them. And
Speaker 3: so it was like, you know, he they had credible
Speaker 3: that he cared about about that constituency enough on its own.
Speaker 3: But in that case, we you know, again we like
Speaker 3: these conservation diseasements are hugely important. They're huge important, hugely
Speaker 3: important for for for ranchers, for who you know, and
Speaker 3: family farms and ranches are under a lot of stress
Speaker 3: in a lot of places. They're extremely important for the
Speaker 3: timber industry. If the timberan trees can survive in Montana,
Speaker 3: these these easements are are key. And so we built
Speaker 3: this coalition of of you know, the people who came
Speaker 3: a support on our side on this was you know,
Speaker 3: Montana Docroad Association, Montena Woodroduct Association, Montena Logging Association, Rocking
Speaker 3: A Mount Elk Foundation, back countree hunters and anglers along
Speaker 3: with you know environmental groups like the Wild Montana, Montana
Speaker 3: Conservation Voters. All those kind of groups try to limit it,
Speaker 3: you know. So we brought all these different groups together
Speaker 3: and that together they had the credibility. And it's like
Speaker 3: I couldn't say as a as a a conservationist, writer, hunter,
Speaker 3: and you know, I can't say, oh, this is important
Speaker 3: for the timber industry. You need the timber industry guy
Speaker 3: to say. They're the guy with the sawdust and and
Speaker 3: his you know on his shoulders, who like works in
Speaker 3: the woods and as you know, makes a payroll because
Speaker 3: he's cut in two by four us. We need that
Speaker 3: guy to make that case. Nobody else can make that
Speaker 3: case for him, for her, And so you know, and
Speaker 3: and then and you have to have your facts right.
Speaker 3: We had that, We did the research. We we knew,
Speaker 3: you know, the how many acres, how many individual operators,
Speaker 3: whether there you know, AG operators or timber operators support
Speaker 3: these things. We knew how how many hunter angler days
Speaker 3: are used on these lands. You know, you get your
Speaker 3: facts right, but couch them in a larger story with
Speaker 3: compelling characters.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's there's no substitute for the credibility of
Speaker 2: real on the ground experience and having different voices that
Speaker 2: represent those aspects of the issue.
Speaker 3: And to me, that's why it's one of the reasons
Speaker 3: it's so important to that we all as hunters be
Speaker 3: good ambassadors of the sport. Yeah, because people have a
Speaker 3: perspective often you know, misinformed about what h what hunting
Speaker 3: is all about. And and you know, hunting is supported
Speaker 3: by most people, you know, things that we do hunting
Speaker 3: deer for example, for food and recreation, it's support like
Speaker 3: seventy five eighty five percent of America. It's hugely popular.
Speaker 3: So we have credibility, but we don't want to blow it.
Speaker 3: And people do trust us, but but they don't you know,
Speaker 3: But we need.
Speaker 2: More than just that yeah, and this really nicely than
Speaker 2: dovetails into the last of your major points, which is
Speaker 2: one that I spend a lot of time thinking about,
Speaker 2: uh personally, which is how do we communicate about these things?
Speaker 2: I have so many questions around how we communicate all
Speaker 2: these things because because everything I mean, figuring out how
Speaker 2: to reach a target audience, figuring out how to build coalitions,
Speaker 2: figuring out how to build and main trust, all of
Speaker 2: that is dependent on what your communication strategy is. How
Speaker 2: you're going to speak to people about this, how you're
Speaker 2: going to reach them, how you're going to educate them
Speaker 2: or inspire them or activate them. There's there's so much.
Speaker 3: They find them right, Yeah, No, He's really complex, and
Speaker 3: again it depends. Every campaign is unique. I think generally,
Speaker 3: the the rules of thumb are that the most personal
Speaker 3: communication is the most effective communication. Right, there's no substitute
Speaker 3: for one on one sitting down and you know, face
Speaker 3: to face. That's just that's the best. That's just how
Speaker 3: human beings are are wired to be, you know. But
Speaker 3: then we can't reach very many people that way, so
Speaker 3: and we have to use the mass media, and of
Speaker 3: course that mass media is changing all the time. You know,
Speaker 3: everything from email change to social media platforms to you know,
Speaker 3: old old school media media like newspapers and opas and
Speaker 3: letters of the editor. Does are all have a have
Speaker 3: a role, But it all comes back to where do
Speaker 3: where do my where do my deciders? Where's my audience?
Speaker 3: Where did they get their information? And so like I
Speaker 3: try to understand that, try to understand like where, so
Speaker 3: who do these people trust and where do that? What
Speaker 3: what sources of information do they trust? And then go
Speaker 3: there and and you know, so that's the first thing
Speaker 3: is like personal communication is best. Meet people where they are,
Speaker 3: you know, don't try to meet them halfway. Understand their language,
Speaker 3: understand their their values, understands their hopes and fears, understand
Speaker 3: where they're coming from, and go there, you know, don't
Speaker 3: try to you know, if if people don't understand why
Speaker 3: this is so important, we have to explain why it's important.
Speaker 3: Don't assume that they know what we're talking about. You know,
Speaker 3: use the kind of language that they can understand, and
Speaker 3: try to avoid you know, the kind of jargon, the
Speaker 3: kind of stuff that we can fall into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like just jumping in really quick this
Speaker 2: and maybe I'm actually interrupting you before you bring up
Speaker 2: the next point.
Speaker 3: But but when when.
Speaker 2: It comes to this, I think it's such a great reminder.
Speaker 2: It's so easy to not do this. Like I think
Speaker 2: it's very easy when you have an issue you care
Speaker 2: about and you're trying to advocate on behalf of it's
Speaker 2: so easy to want to like bulldoze everyone with your
Speaker 2: perspective and be like, here's this thing, and this is
Speaker 2: why it's so important to me, and this is how
Speaker 2: it's going to mess up my life, or this is
Speaker 2: how you can fix this thing in my life, and
Speaker 2: and and the person on the other side of that feel,
Speaker 2: you know, like you're running him over and why does
Speaker 2: this matter to him or her? And I think one
Speaker 2: example where this probably plays out, and I think something
Speaker 2: that is really important for folks listening who want to
Speaker 2: try to start taking action, like this is like what
Speaker 2: we do and what we say when we talk to
Speaker 2: a congressman or woman, when we talk to one of
Speaker 2: our representatives, and we're if we're worried about an issue,
Speaker 2: we want to reach out and share our perspective. I
Speaker 2: think it's tempting to just be like, hey, Senator Danes,
Speaker 2: I think that you are doing this thing wrong. Or
Speaker 2: this thing or this thing, and I think that you
Speaker 2: should do X, Y and Z because this matters to me,
Speaker 2: and that making that phone call or sending that email
Speaker 2: is better than nothing. But there might be a better
Speaker 2: way to do that, which is meeting this person where
Speaker 2: they are and recognizing what shared common values they have
Speaker 2: with you. So maybe thinking about is you just described like, Okay,
Speaker 2: what does Senator Danes say he cares about or what
Speaker 2: does Senator Stabanaw say she cares about? And maybe let's say,
Speaker 2: well with Senator Stabanaw here in Michigan, let's say, all right,
Speaker 2: Debbie Stabinow, you have talked so much about how you
Speaker 2: support agricultural interests, and you talk about the importance of
Speaker 2: you know, helping folks on the ground, you know, with
Speaker 2: private land conservation and this thing and that thing. I've
Speaker 2: heard you talk about this, it's in your platform. Well,
Speaker 2: let me tell you about this issue that directly impacts
Speaker 2: the well being of the farming and agricultural community and
Speaker 2: also supports private land conservation of wildlife in our state.
Speaker 2: And this is why the farm bill might be something
Speaker 2: that you know, you should be looking at. A B
Speaker 2: and C. You're speaking to speaking to someone about the
Speaker 2: things they've already said they cared about. You're talking to
Speaker 2: them in their language, and all of a sudden, on
Speaker 2: the other end, they might be all to say, well
Speaker 2: to shoot, you know how, yeah, he or she's right,
Speaker 2: this does matter to me. And if that's a thing
Speaker 2: that matters to this other value I have, then I
Speaker 2: need to take this seriously and look at this. It
Speaker 2: just seems like a much more effective way to reach people,
Speaker 2: not pounding them over the head with what we think,
Speaker 2: but discussing about what.
Speaker 3: They care about, what they care about. That's exactly that's
Speaker 3: what I mean by he really encapsulated that. Well, it's
Speaker 3: like meet people where they are. I remember being at
Speaker 3: a cocktail party with the with the U. S. Senator
Speaker 3: and he's no longer in the US Senate though we
Speaker 3: were talking about some issue and the guy next you know,
Speaker 3: we're like trying to get him engaged, and he just
Speaker 3: said the point playing because how votes to all this
Speaker 3: bring me? And we hadn't we didn't have an answer
Speaker 3: to that question, like maybe a couple of I don't know,
Speaker 3: you know, And it was just like this and this
Speaker 3: conversation guy walked away and talk to somebody else. I mean,
Speaker 3: he was, he was just they are that they want
Speaker 3: to know how this represents, how this benefits their constituency.
Speaker 3: How can they bring this home and say, this is
Speaker 3: one thing I did for my constituency. My voters, you know,
Speaker 3: are concerned about the plight of family farms and ranches
Speaker 3: in Montana. So by god, we got this provision in
Speaker 3: the farm bill that is going to or you know,
Speaker 3: this is going to help that, or they you know,
Speaker 3: got rid of this bad thing, you know whatever. They
Speaker 3: you got to be able to translate it back to
Speaker 3: their constituency. And so that's that's that's exactly right. Like
Speaker 3: think about It's like back at Haskell Basin again. You know,
Speaker 3: if we went to the city council and said, hey,
Speaker 3: we need you to put millions of dollars. We're gonna
Speaker 3: tax a bunch of people because we really want our
Speaker 3: white tail to your spot protected, we would have gotten
Speaker 3: laughed out of the room who had never gotten in
Speaker 3: the room. But when we could go, hey, do you
Speaker 3: know where your water comes from? Do you knowed to
Speaker 3: how much that would cost to replace if you have
Speaker 3: to replace that watershed? Have we got a parade for
Speaker 3: you to get ahead of you know, we got to
Speaker 3: you know, make it look like this is going to
Speaker 3: be a winner for you guys, you know, not like
Speaker 3: this is going to be something we want you to do,
Speaker 3: something so onerous for us. But this is going to
Speaker 3: make you popular. This is going to solve problems for
Speaker 3: you and your constituents. That's that's how you get people engaged,
Speaker 3: like so what you have to answer that question, so what?
Speaker 3: And when the other thing is it's not all. The
Speaker 3: other thing people tend to do is dump a bunch
Speaker 3: of facts on people's heads, right. I remember the first
Speaker 3: came pain I go game farm reform campaign. I was,
Speaker 3: you know, I had been a journalist before that, and
Speaker 3: I got hired onto that campaign. And the first thing
Speaker 3: I did is write, we'll started writing white papers. You know,
Speaker 3: I like wrote white papers on game farms and chronic
Speaker 3: wasting disease. And like I had white paper. I had
Speaker 3: a stack of white papers that like thoroughly research. And
Speaker 3: the guy who was the leader of the campaign, Doug
Speaker 3: Mitchell I learned a lot from you know, took them
Speaker 3: all and said thank you very much for this hard work,
Speaker 3: and like put them on the corner of the desk.
Speaker 3: They stayed there. He says, Remember, he's got to speak
Speaker 3: to the heart first, it's the head second. And a
Speaker 3: lot of us are like trained a certain way. You know,
Speaker 3: we're trained to produce an essay and layout facts and
Speaker 3: here's the here's the data, here's the counter data, here's
Speaker 3: the conclusion. You know, we're taught to think that way.
Speaker 3: And you know, but that's not how people generally think.
Speaker 3: That's not what people People are motivated by their hearts by.
Speaker 3: I'm not just talking about like, you know, exploitably, you know,
Speaker 3: pushing hot emotional hotbuns, but by understanding that people want
Speaker 3: to engage from uh, from the place of their values,
Speaker 3: from the place of their emotions, and that's where that's where,
Speaker 3: you know, you have to get people to open the
Speaker 3: door for the even will consider the facts. And that's
Speaker 3: just that's just human psychology. We need to know as
Speaker 3: part of meeting people where they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's that's uh, something I've had driven home
Speaker 2: in recent years, just the power of story and that
Speaker 2: connecting through the heart. You know, there's uh, I don't
Speaker 2: know if this quotes exactly right, but it says something
Speaker 2: along the lines of, you know, the the greatest argument
Speaker 2: in the world, the greatest set of facts, the most
Speaker 2: white papers, none of that's ever changed. In mind, the
Speaker 2: only thing that ever really has is a good story.
Speaker 2: And and there's a lot of truth to that. Now,
Speaker 2: you can you can use facts and threats and tactics
Speaker 2: and different things to build that story. But if there's
Speaker 2: not a narrative, if there's not the connective tissue of
Speaker 2: emotion that tie or values that tie into that, it's
Speaker 2: really hard to get someone to actually care and do something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you think about it. It's just like
Speaker 3: it's how human beings share information. It's like our you know,
Speaker 3: and I think I think it ties directly to hunting.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, with you imagine yourself as a hunter,
Speaker 3: you know, in the beginning of our species on the
Speaker 3: on the savannahs, like Okay, we're going to teach this
Speaker 3: person how to survive, you know, we're going to tell
Speaker 3: them stories. And it always follows that same arc, you know,
Speaker 3: like here's a problem, here's the rising, you know, the plot,
Speaker 3: the rising, drama, the characters, the setting, all that there.
Speaker 3: And you know, not every culture has you know, peer
Speaker 3: reviewed our journals. Not every culture has bar charts or
Speaker 3: Iambic Pintamodra. But every single culture has stories. So we
Speaker 3: you know, that's part of a good campaign has a
Speaker 3: good story, and you let your audience become part of
Speaker 3: that story, invite them to be a hero in that story,
Speaker 3: and that's that's a hugely powerful thing.
Speaker 2: I really like this formula that you end your section
Speaker 2: about communication with you describe, you know, kind of how
Speaker 2: to develop your messaging, and I think this is something
Speaker 2: that you know, an individual could use when trying to
Speaker 2: develop an email to a senator or a phone call,
Speaker 2: or this could be used if you are trying to
Speaker 2: reach out to the general public to to engage your
Speaker 2: chapter members, or to engage you know, your community, or
Speaker 2: to even as simple as a social media post and
Speaker 2: you're trying to get your friends and family to rally
Speaker 2: around this thing. Can you walk me through your your
Speaker 2: formula for that message.
Speaker 3: It's it's sure, sure, so like like what is a message?
Speaker 3: And you talked about compass and to me, a message
Speaker 3: is is kind of like a compass to keep point,
Speaker 3: keep you pointing the way I want to go. And
Speaker 3: it's every campaign has to have a message. It's just
Speaker 3: it's just the fundamental part of every any any campaign,
Speaker 3: and it's it's a it's a statement that's designed to
Speaker 3: influence the opinion or the action of your target audience.
Speaker 3: And you need to hear that all the time. And
Speaker 3: political walky talk it's like you know, are they on
Speaker 3: message or off message? And the idea is like you
Speaker 3: have something used to say and you want to get
Speaker 3: it across and you need to repeat it over and
Speaker 3: over again. And so basically the components you have to
Speaker 3: answer the question of so what why does this matter?
Speaker 3: And that's that's that's like the opening, like the bridge
Speaker 3: to you to this person. I mean, I I like
Speaker 3: the example I use is like, uh, somebody came and
Speaker 3: knocked on my door the other day because this is
Speaker 3: a long time ago now, but knocked on my door,
Speaker 3: opened the door and they said, hello, you have did
Speaker 3: you have? You look like you have kids and there's
Speaker 3: toys all over the front or yes I And he
Speaker 3: said and it looks like that do your Uh did
Speaker 3: you know that the kids in the neighborhood walking to
Speaker 3: school like because of this new subdivision, we have so
Speaker 3: much more traffic on the street, and then that the
Speaker 3: kid and the kids are almost getting hit on their
Speaker 3: way to school. So no, I didn't know that. I said, well,
Speaker 3: we want to have a crossing guard at this intersection.
Speaker 3: So that sounds like a good idea, And will you
Speaker 3: please call the school board and call the city council
Speaker 3: to make sure we get that crossing guard. Here's the
Speaker 3: number to call. Absolutely happy to do it. Thank you, goodbye.
Speaker 3: That kind of exchanged. Okay, that message had that all
Speaker 3: the elements. It started out speaking to heart first, to
Speaker 3: core values. That is, you know, my family, right, what
Speaker 3: what we the week? That's something we will go to
Speaker 3: the wall force and thing we care deeply about. You know,
Speaker 3: there are things like that freedom, our community, our family, o,
Speaker 3: our prosperity. You know, those are the kind of like
Speaker 3: what's the what, what's what matters here? Right? Opening with that,
Speaker 3: the second thing is what's the problem we're trying to solve.
Speaker 3: What's the threat? It has to be clear, it has
Speaker 3: to be understandable, and a certainly I could understand more
Speaker 3: traffic going down the street, and so you know that's
Speaker 3: the that's the problem I can relate to. I've seen it.
Speaker 3: I not I have thought about it, but it's something
Speaker 3: that makes sense to me. Then it's like okay, so
Speaker 3: what do we do about it? Well, we have a
Speaker 3: solution again, a common sense solution that's easy to understand.
Speaker 3: We're gonna put across the guard. It works, works all
Speaker 3: over the town. We just need one here. And then
Speaker 3: what are we going? Okay, great idea, what do you
Speaker 3: want me to do about it? We want you to
Speaker 3: call the city council, call the school board and make
Speaker 3: sure it happens, which are easy for me to do. Happy,
Speaker 3: happy to help. So had all those four components of
Speaker 3: the values, the problem or the threat to those values,
Speaker 3: the solutions, how we're going to fix the problem, and
Speaker 3: then the the ask, the empowerment, like what what can
Speaker 3: I do about it? And if you don't have all
Speaker 3: those four components, you don't have a message. And you
Speaker 3: need to go back to the drawing board and think
Speaker 3: it through. And it just again take it through from
Speaker 3: the perspective of your audience and that that's that's the
Speaker 3: those that's the component of a message. It's and you know,
Speaker 3: so do anyway that's that's that that works. And if
Speaker 3: you don't have them all, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2: It's such it's a simple thing like when we when
Speaker 2: I hear it out loud, or when I saw it
Speaker 2: in the page, it's like, yeah, of course, But I
Speaker 2: don't think that we think that all the way through
Speaker 2: most of the times when we're developing a piece of
Speaker 2: marketing materials or a social media post, or or have
Speaker 2: planning a podcast or calling whoever. Like I think explicitly
Speaker 2: calling out each one of those things is powerful. Like
Speaker 2: that little formula right there, I might get it tattooed
Speaker 2: on my arm, ben because because it's so important.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like in a campaign, like I will, like
Speaker 3: if I'm talking to a lot of reporters or a
Speaker 3: lot of bloggers or whatever about it, I will like
Speaker 3: take that as four bullet points value threat solution, and
Speaker 3: and I will put on an index card and tape
Speaker 3: it to my you know, to my phone or keep
Speaker 3: it in my pocket. You know. So no matter what,
Speaker 3: no matter you know, I'm I know what to say,
Speaker 3: I know where to go. And again, you need to
Speaker 3: tailor it for the audience. A lot of groups in
Speaker 3: a particularly kind of waste, these classic environmental groups, you know,
Speaker 3: have a have a habit of over emphasizing the threat
Speaker 3: of like pounding the drama of like, you know, and
Speaker 3: it kind of becomes the sky is falling kind of thing.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, yeah, people just tune it out. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: we know there's those sorts of bad things in the world.
Speaker 3: But what do you want me to do it. It's like,
Speaker 3: so you have this, people over emphasize the threat and
Speaker 3: underemphasize the solution. It's like, no, we have you know,
Speaker 3: and we don't have to solve the whole problem all
Speaker 3: at once. We're not going to solve all of the
Speaker 3: biodiversity crisis at once, but by god, we can protect
Speaker 3: this habitat, and that habitat is important. You know. We
Speaker 3: may not clean up the entire Mississippi River of uh,
Speaker 3: you know, runoff and pollution, but we can protect this stream,
Speaker 3: we can protect this this headwater, we can connect this
Speaker 3: stream to that stream, and so you know, make it,
Speaker 3: make it less overwhelming, make it, make it solvable. So
Speaker 3: that solution. I I really think it's important that we
Speaker 3: spend more time emphasizing solutions in less time, you know,
Speaker 3: drumming bad news into people's heads.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so so true. And that's that's something I've I've
Speaker 2: thought a lot about, as you know, wanting to discuss
Speaker 2: these things, wanting to bring these things to folks attention,
Speaker 2: but trying to figure out how do you do it
Speaker 2: without losing people? How do you do it without issue
Speaker 2: fatigue setting in? How do you do it without apathy
Speaker 2: and folks tuning it out because Hey, I just want
Speaker 2: to see big deer, I want to do this thing
Speaker 2: or that thing. And it's natural for all of us
Speaker 2: to get war out by these things. But it's funny
Speaker 2: you mentioned the same thing, and Jim Poswitz mentions the
Speaker 2: same thing, and you cite one of his essays in
Speaker 2: your book. And I talked to Randy Newberg about this recently.
Speaker 2: He mentioned the same thing, and and it's this importance
Speaker 2: of of hope. You cannot effectively advocate or communicate about
Speaker 2: any of these things unless you also can can bring
Speaker 2: hope to the table.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think yeah,
Speaker 3: doom and gloom inspires people. Dooming gloom inspires people to
Speaker 3: change the channel and turn you off doing gloom. If
Speaker 3: dooming gloom inspired people to save the world, we would
Speaker 3: have saved the world a long time ago, you know.
Speaker 3: But that again, that gets back to the superpower of
Speaker 3: hunters and angles is you know we've done this ship,
Speaker 3: you know, we were in the you know, the bottom
Speaker 3: of the ninth on so many species and we you know,
Speaker 3: and we lost some, but we have showed how, you know,
Speaker 3: if you protect habitat, if you you know, get some
Speaker 3: manners about how you treat these creatures, we can win.
Speaker 3: And that is you know, that that was you know,
Speaker 3: poss I don't know if you never knew pause, but
Speaker 3: you know that's just his personality too. He was just
Speaker 3: a glowing, optimistic person and he just it was just
Speaker 3: a jolly fight for him every time. I'm sure in
Speaker 3: private moments that wasn't the case, but that's he just
Speaker 3: ex he just he just kind of bubbled with like, yeah,
Speaker 3: we can, We've done it, people have done it. Here's
Speaker 3: a story. I'll tell you how somebody did it. Here.
Speaker 3: You know, this is what really matters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so powerful.
Speaker 3: As with kids, you know, I'm really I'm really concerned
Speaker 3: about kids these days and the messages were sending them
Speaker 3: about their future and you know, I know there's a
Speaker 3: lot of data behind a lot of doom and gloom,
Speaker 3: but it's it's not going to it's not going to
Speaker 3: change anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I've been hearing about this phenomenon now they're
Speaker 2: calling like doomerism. I think, yeah, and just this this
Speaker 2: idea that there's a growing segment of folks who are
Speaker 2: just throwing their hands up and saying, ah, forget it.
Speaker 2: What can I do? There's nothing I can do. Everything
Speaker 2: is going to hell and handbasket in this way and
Speaker 2: that way and this way. So I'm going to bury
Speaker 2: my head and sand and play my video games or
Speaker 2: or you know, just do my one thing, or just
Speaker 2: hunt and fish and ignore everyone around me. And unfortunately
Speaker 2: that might be therapeutic to ignore everything that's going on
Speaker 2: around and not do anything about it, but it's it's
Speaker 2: not going to lead to a practical outcome that's going
Speaker 2: to be good for in the future either.
Speaker 3: You remember that, You remember that Far Side cartoon where's
Speaker 3: like the guys are fishing in the little rowboat and
Speaker 3: there's like a mushroom cloud going off in the horizon
Speaker 3: and goes you know what that means, Joe, It means
Speaker 3: screw the limit. It's just like I think it was
Speaker 3: like people kind of do this like that kind of
Speaker 3: end of the end times kind of nihilism, and it's
Speaker 3: just so cheap and easy, you know, it's so easy
Speaker 3: to be cynical. It's just like it just gives you
Speaker 3: an opt out. This is like I don't have to
Speaker 3: work hard, I don't have to think about it because
Speaker 3: this is you know, and we all you know, we're
Speaker 3: all born to our point in history. We have no
Speaker 3: control over that. But I do believe the best is
Speaker 3: yet to come.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think I think history can guide us
Speaker 2: and can inspire us. Like you said, like we're we're
Speaker 2: right there on the precipice, and we pulled out of it,
Speaker 2: and we saved a lot of these things, and we
Speaker 2: are we have a much better situation than we could
Speaker 2: have if folks didn't stand up and raise some hell
Speaker 2: one hundred, one hundred and thirty years ago. And now
Speaker 2: it's it's our turn, you know, we I think I
Speaker 2: think there's something powerful in your identity and as a
Speaker 2: hunter and angler, we can proudly point back to our
Speaker 2: history of doing these things. People just like us, our grandparents,
Speaker 2: the folks who lived in our community ten years ago,
Speaker 2: fifty years ago, one hundred years ago, the people that
Speaker 2: did this kind of stuff, cared about these kinds of things,
Speaker 2: stood up, they raised hell, they acted, they did something
Speaker 2: about it. And we have these amazing wild places and
Speaker 2: wild critters and hunting and fishing opportunities today only because
Speaker 2: of that, And we are the same people. We've got
Speaker 2: that same DNA, we've got that same culture. We are
Speaker 2: those people now that I really hope fifty years from
Speaker 2: now people will be telling stories about us. And I
Speaker 2: think it's true. I think it can happen.
Speaker 3: It's true. I've seen it, you know, and I'm getting
Speaker 3: up there, but I've seen it in my I mean,
Speaker 3: I've got local heroes, national heroes, and it doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be huge, you know, it doesn't have to be
Speaker 3: Teddy Roosevelt. You know, I think sometimes we get in
Speaker 3: trouble like, well, it's it's the job of the president
Speaker 3: to do this. It's like all of our jobs to
Speaker 3: do this, our job to create the pressure to force
Speaker 3: the politicians to do it. Yeah, you know who uncle
Speaker 3: Robbie Roosevelt was. Yeah, you've heard the story about rob Roosevelt. Right,
Speaker 3: It's like Teddy's uncle who was kind of a philanderer
Speaker 3: and kind of a playboy and not really very well respected,
Speaker 3: but he took Teddy fishing, and he took Teddy birdwatching.
Speaker 3: When Teddy Roosevelt was a little boy and got Teddy
Speaker 3: Roosevelt interested in the outdoors and went on to become this,
Speaker 3: you know whatever. It was, conservation giant, President, Meglo Mayac,
Speaker 3: all those things that Teddy Roosevelt was, But none of
Speaker 3: it would happen if if Uncle Robbie hadn't taken him
Speaker 3: out fishing. And so it's not always the big it's
Speaker 3: not always the the big powerful people who are important.
Speaker 3: I mean, they are important, we need them, but it's
Speaker 3: you never know, you never know how these things we
Speaker 3: do are going to play out and how they can
Speaker 3: like have huge benefits for for generations to come. You know,
Speaker 3: that's just that's just beyond our ability to conceive sometimes,
Speaker 3: and to me, that's a hopeful thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And uh, and I'll say I'm very glad that we've
Speaker 2: got a tool like this book to help us do that,
Speaker 2: to help raise some hell you old.
Speaker 3: Guide to raise them hell. And it's fun. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's conservation is fun. It's it's fun. It's
Speaker 3: like a funny word. Maybe it's not the best word,
Speaker 3: but it's rewarded. It's like it's like it's not fun
Speaker 3: to elk hunt and and you know, get up in
Speaker 3: the middle of the night to climb them out and
Speaker 3: then to pack eighty pounds of meat off your bag.
Speaker 3: That's always fun. But when you slam the tailgate shut,
Speaker 3: it's enormously rewarding. And it's the same thing with conservation.
Speaker 3: There's a certain amount of work to it, there's a
Speaker 3: certain amount of drudgery to it, but my gosh, when
Speaker 3: it works and you can sit back and say, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, this place would be totally different, this little
Speaker 3: piece of nature, this mountain range. And I've worked on
Speaker 3: like six million acre projects up in the High Arctic.
Speaker 3: I've worked on one square mile projects in the outskirts
Speaker 3: of Los Angeles, and you know, it's you're making a
Speaker 3: difference for people in the long run, no matter where
Speaker 3: you are, what scale you're working on, and it's a
Speaker 3: damn cool.
Speaker 2: Thing, awfully rewarding, that's for sure. Well, Ben, I wish
Speaker 2: we had another hour or two talk, because there's there's
Speaker 2: a lot here that I love talking about and it
Speaker 2: is fun. But in the interest of me getting my
Speaker 2: son to school in time today, we've got to it up.
Speaker 2: But uh, I thank you, that's thank you so much
Speaker 2: for your writing.
Speaker 3: Sometime we can get together and talk talk, talk hunting
Speaker 3: my tails more. But right now, I really appreciate it again.
Speaker 3: The book is called The Field Guide to Raising Hell
Speaker 3: Hunter and Angler Field Guy to Raising Hell. You can
Speaker 3: find it on Amazon, and I appreciate the chance to
Speaker 3: talk about you.
Speaker 2: You're very welcome and I can't recommend it enough. I
Speaker 2: think it's a great tool for folks to look back
Speaker 2: on to be reminded how to do these things in
Speaker 2: a smart, thoughtful, strategic way, how to really make a difference.
Speaker 2: This book gives you the tools to do that. So
Speaker 2: go out, buy a copy and get to work.
Speaker 3: All right, Thanks a lot man, keep up the great work.
Speaker 2: All right, Thank you, my friends. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 2: this as much as I did. I appreciate you being
Speaker 2: with me on this journey. Over the last month. We've
Speaker 2: learned a lot. I think we've had to think about
Speaker 2: a lot of things. We've hopefully been armed with the
Speaker 2: tools and the ideas and the knowledge and the skills
Speaker 2: to know what that next step is that we can take.
Speaker 2: I think, as we talked about on the front end
Speaker 2: of this conversation, that to be a deer hunter today
Speaker 2: or a hunter of any kind, to be an angler
Speaker 2: of any kind. It's going to require more than just
Speaker 2: being good at shooting stuff or scouting or casting a
Speaker 2: line or set in the hook. That's all great and good,
Speaker 2: and it's fun, and it's what gets us fired up
Speaker 2: and out there. But none of it, none of these
Speaker 2: six hundred and fifty some podcasts I've done in here,
Speaker 2: none of it's possible unless we have the resource, the places,
Speaker 2: the deer, the creatures, the opportunities, the privileges, And none
Speaker 2: of that is guaranteed. We are owed none of it.
Speaker 2: We've got to fight for it. So let's raise some hell,
Speaker 2: let's do some good work. Let's have a good time
Speaker 2: until next time. Let's stay wired to hunt.