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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the

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Speaker 1: modern whitetail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan,

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Speaker 1: and today we're exploring the life, legacy and teachings of

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Speaker 1: one of the godfathers of modern wild game management and conservation,

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Speaker 1: Eldo Leopold, and ultimately discussing why this stuff still matters

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Speaker 1: today for hunter's neighblors. All right, welcome to the Wired

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Speaker 1: Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light, and today

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Speaker 1: we are back for week two of our Conservation Month series. Yep,

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Speaker 1: you heard me right, we're talking conservation. We're doing that

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Speaker 1: because we only get the benefit of deer on the

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Speaker 1: landscape and wild places to explore in the opportunity to

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Speaker 1: hunt these really cool critters because a bunch of people

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Speaker 1: a long time ago gave a damn about conservation. I'm

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Speaker 1: telling you what, I really badly hope that someone forty

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Speaker 1: years from now can say the same thing. I really

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Speaker 1: want to be one of those people a long time

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Speaker 1: ago who gave a damn, and I'm betting that many

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Speaker 1: of you do too. So that is why today we're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk about Eldo Leopold. Now, you might have heard

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Speaker 1: this guy's name before, Eldo Leopold, if you have listened

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Speaker 1: to this podcast for a long time, or maybe you

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Speaker 1: listen to the Meat Eater podcast, or you watch the

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Speaker 1: Mediator show, or you read in my book That Wild Country,

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Speaker 1: or really, if you've consumed any hunting slash conservation related content.

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Speaker 1: His name and his writings and quotes from him are

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Speaker 1: widely circulated still today. He's very much still in the

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Speaker 1: cultural zeitgeist. I guess you could say, but how much

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Speaker 1: do you really know about him? Why do people keep

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Speaker 1: quoting him? Why should you care what this guy had

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Speaker 1: to say? What's there to learn from him? How is

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Speaker 1: this guy who lived more than seventy years ago relevant

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Speaker 1: at all to us deer hunters and anglers and outdoors

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Speaker 1: people today still now in That's what I want to

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Speaker 1: explore today, and by doing so, I'm thinking that we're

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Speaker 1: all going to be able to learn a little bit

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Speaker 1: more about what we as hunters and outdoorsmen and women

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Speaker 1: can do now and in the future to ensure a

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Speaker 1: better future for deer, deer hunting, and the rest of

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Speaker 1: the natural world. Sky high aspirations, I realized, but why

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Speaker 1: the hell not? So joining me today to discuss although

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Speaker 1: Leopold and his conservation philosophy are two people. First off,

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Speaker 1: some unfamiliar. We've got Doug Dern. You probably know Doug

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Speaker 1: if you've watched Mediator or if you listen to this podcast.

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Speaker 1: He's a Wisconsin landowner and hunter and a conservation advocate

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Speaker 1: who's strongly been influenced by Leopold's message and he was

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Speaker 1: now specialized to a degree in spreading that message. Now,

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Speaker 1: Doug's gonna help us ground Elder Leopold's legacy in the now,

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Speaker 1: in the today of what's what's happening for hunters and

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Speaker 1: land managers actually on the landscape. He's doing that kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff now, so he's gonna help us kind of

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Speaker 1: make this stuff tangible now. Secondly, we're joined by Stanley Temple. Now,

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Speaker 1: stan is a senior fellow at the Eldo. Leopold Foundation.

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Speaker 1: He's a conservation biologist and he previously was Professor and

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Speaker 1: conservation in the Department of Wildlife Ecology at the University

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Speaker 1: of Wisconsin Madison. That's the position that was first held

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Speaker 1: by Aldo Leopold himself back in the forties. I believe

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Speaker 1: now Stanley brings to the table a lifetime worth of

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Speaker 1: experience and insight into ELDO's teachings. He's one of the

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Speaker 1: foremost experts on Leopold's conservation legacy, and he's been a

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Speaker 1: true torch bearer of that philosophy now in the modern day. So,

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Speaker 1: my friends, what I'm trying to tell you is that

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Speaker 1: this is gonna be good. So sit back, grab a

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Speaker 1: cup of coffee or a beer, or or a water

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Speaker 1: bottle if you're on the treadmill. Maybe pull up your

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Speaker 1: copy of a Sand County Almanac if you have one,

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Speaker 1: and let's get into it all right here with me. Now,

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Speaker 1: I have Doug During and Stanley Temple. Gentlemen, thank you

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Speaker 1: for taking the time this morning and have this call.

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Speaker 1: I'm excited about it. This is a this is a topic.

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Speaker 1: This is a character we're gonna discuss who is often

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Speaker 1: on my mind but doesn't often make it onto a

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Speaker 1: podcast like this, where we're usually so focused on, you know,

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Speaker 1: how to hunt, how to do specific things in your woods,

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Speaker 1: how to improve land, how to find animals, um. But

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Speaker 1: there's this whole other layer that I think lives. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it's like an umbrella that lives over all of that.

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Speaker 1: That speaks to how it is that we have these

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Speaker 1: places and these animals in the first place. And I

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Speaker 1: think today's topic and and the person we want to

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Speaker 1: talk about, Aldo Leopold, has a lot to do with

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Speaker 1: the fact we still have these resources and opportunities. Um

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Speaker 1: and Stanley, from what I understand, you are one of

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Speaker 1: the absolute best people to speak to about Mr Leopold.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious, can you quickly give us just an introduction

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Speaker 1: to you in your history up to this point and

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Speaker 1: and what brought you to a place where you now

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Speaker 1: have dedicated your life to speaking and learning about conservation

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Speaker 1: and the legacy of All the Leopold. Sure. Mark, My

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Speaker 1: first introduction to All the Leopold came when I was

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Speaker 1: in high school and happened by chance to read a

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Speaker 1: copy of his book, The Sand County Almanac. And Um,

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Speaker 1: I was an outdoorsy kid, very much into all kinds

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Speaker 1: of outdoor activities, and that book really resonated with UM.

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Speaker 1: The opening line especially got me hooked when Leopold said

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Speaker 1: there are some who can live without wild things and

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Speaker 1: some who cannot, And I was definitely one of the nots.

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Speaker 1: So I wanted to pursue a career in in ecology

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Speaker 1: and conservation, I went to Cornell University, where I had

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Speaker 1: the good fortune of having one of All the Leopold's

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Speaker 1: former graduate students as my academic advisor, and he shared

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Speaker 1: a lot of All the Leopold Law with me. After

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Speaker 1: doing a lot of conservation work around the world, um

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Speaker 1: I was recruited at the University of Wisconsin to be

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Speaker 1: the third person to occupy the position that All the

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Speaker 1: Leopold once held, which was perhaps notable as the very

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Speaker 1: first position in academia in the world devoted to this

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Speaker 1: new field of wildlife management. After my career in academia,

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Speaker 1: in which I mostly focused on how to recover endangered

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Speaker 1: species and private land conservation, um I ended up sort

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Speaker 1: of furthering my connection with the All the Leopold Foundation

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Speaker 1: by becoming a senior fellow and over the last well, actually,

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Speaker 1: now it's it's many years, almost fifteen years. Um I've

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Speaker 1: been doing this for the Aldo Leopold Foundation, basically outreach

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Speaker 1: for them. Uh, I'm curious, why why do you Well,

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Speaker 1: let me let me take it back a step. Actually,

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Speaker 1: before we go into the y UM I guess we

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Speaker 1: should get one quick thing on the table for everybody,

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Speaker 1: because there are some folks who again have heard the

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Speaker 1: name all the Leopold, but don't know a whole lot

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Speaker 1: more about why this man is important, or why he's

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Speaker 1: someone that was so influenial to you, or why this

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Speaker 1: book you mentioned, the Sand County Almanac, is something that

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Speaker 1: so many people still have on their bookshelves and point

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Speaker 1: towards why that opening line you mentioned is something that

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Speaker 1: resonates with so many people, myself included. Um, so do

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Speaker 1: you have like a do you have an elevator pitch

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Speaker 1: for Eldo Leopold When someone who doesn't know anything about

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Speaker 1: Eldough Leopold walks up to you and says, so you

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Speaker 1: work for this foundation? Who is this guy you guys

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Speaker 1: keep talking about. Do you have a cliff Notes introduction

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Speaker 1: to this man and his legacy to kind of give

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Speaker 1: us a foundation to to start from that you could share? Sure? Um,

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Speaker 1: All the Leopold's probably best recognized as one of the

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Speaker 1: most influential, is not the most influential conservationist of the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century and still remains so into He was a

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Speaker 1: lifelong outdoorsman, lifelong hunter, birdwatcher whose career touched on many

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Speaker 1: of the newly developed ideas about conservation in North America,

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Speaker 1: and his life and career span the history of modern conservation,

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Speaker 1: and along the way he made and continues to make

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Speaker 1: important contributions to that. His three um for Leopold, He's

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Speaker 1: probably best known for US and County Almanac, the book

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Speaker 1: that he wrote at the end of his life and

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Speaker 1: has now been translated into fifteen languages, has sold millions

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Speaker 1: of copies and is widely regarded as providing the ethical

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Speaker 1: or moral foundations of the modern conservation movement. But it's

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Speaker 1: just amazing when you go back and look at his history.

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Speaker 1: He was the right person at the right time. His

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Speaker 1: life and career, as I said, touched on so many

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Speaker 1: important developments and modern conservation, and has a very skillful communicator,

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Speaker 1: Leopold was able to make substantial, sometimes paradigm shifting contributions

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Speaker 1: to that history. Yeah. And what's what's kind of unique

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Speaker 1: to me, or what maybe what just stands out to

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Speaker 1: me about Leopold is is that he not only was

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Speaker 1: influential at the end of his life with the writing

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Speaker 1: of this book, and then also of course with with

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Speaker 1: his work at the University of Wisconsin, and game management

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Speaker 1: and and that book as well. But the fact that

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Speaker 1: he had these two sides of what he did, I

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Speaker 1: suppose he had this, he had this writer side, he

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Speaker 1: had this wildlife manager and academia side, and then he

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Speaker 1: had this whole earlier life in which he was involved

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Speaker 1: with the Forest Service and in which he became a

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Speaker 1: wilderness advocate and one of the first people to really,

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Speaker 1: um you know, speak out for that need for there

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Speaker 1: to be wild places preserved. UM. So he kind of

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Speaker 1: touched a whole lot of different aspects of of wildlife

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Speaker 1: conservation UM across his life. He wasn't just a one

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Speaker 1: trick pony, I guess he he touched a lot of

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Speaker 1: different aspects of this thing UM, which which is impressive.

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Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah. That's that's quite important mark when you

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Speaker 1: look at he was born in so his early childhood

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Speaker 1: growing up, there really wasn't anything of an organized conservation

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Speaker 1: movement in North America, and as a boy he was

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Speaker 1: witnessed to the consequences of that. UM. He saw the

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Speaker 1: extinction of the passenger pigeon, that the near extinction of

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Speaker 1: the bison, and those sort of tragic events in our history.

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Speaker 1: Obviously had a big impact on him. His father was

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Speaker 1: a great outdoorsman and hunter and instilled in his son

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Speaker 1: of this idea of behaving ethically when you're in the

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Speaker 1: out of doors. Um that career that we've been talking

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Speaker 1: about started with the U. S. For US Service, a

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Speaker 1: brand new US for US Service. Leopold was one of

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Speaker 1: the first generation of recruits to manage the millions of

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Speaker 1: acres of newly created national forest. For Leopold, that was

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Speaker 1: in Arizona and New Mexico. So this Midwestern kid who

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Speaker 1: grew up in Iowa and was educated at Yale University

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Speaker 1: finds himself in a completely alien habitat in the wild

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Speaker 1: lands of the Southwest. And it was there in the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Forest Service that he made some of his important early contributions.

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Speaker 1: Especially his contributions in the Forest Service sort of have

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Speaker 1: a very important place in the history of that agency.

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Speaker 1: Leopold was one of the first to advocate for what

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Speaker 1: we now might call ecosystem management, of recognizing the ecological

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Speaker 1: limits of an ecosystem and trying to manage that ecosystem

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Speaker 1: within those boundaries, making sure you keep all the parts

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Speaker 1: in the ecosystem remains resilient. As you said, he was

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Speaker 1: also responsible, in no small Park, for the creation of

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Speaker 1: the very first wilderness area on public lands in the US.

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Speaker 1: He did that forty years before we passed the Wilderness Act,

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Speaker 1: and the Helo Wilderness stands as a testament to Leopold's

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Speaker 1: passion about protecting wild places and for your audience. In particular,

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Speaker 1: when Leopold tried to justify preserving the Halo Wilderness Um,

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Speaker 1: it was largely to preserve an opportunity for outdoor recreation

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Speaker 1: in a wilderness setting, especially hunting. He described the features

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Speaker 1: of a wilderness area as being capable of supporting a

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Speaker 1: true wild experience in which you could essentially get yourself

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Speaker 1: lost in a wilderness area for a couple of weeks

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Speaker 1: on a pack trip. And he was one of the

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Speaker 1: founders of the modern wilderness protection movement. And then his

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Speaker 1: real passions were never with forestry, they were with wildlife.

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Speaker 1: In mid career, he shifts his interests to wildlife um

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Speaker 1: becomes one of the really inspirational visionary leaders of a

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Speaker 1: movement away from this idea of protecting wildlife to managing wildlife,

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Speaker 1: and he introduces what at the time was a completely

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Speaker 1: new field in ninety three with his book Game management. Uh,

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Speaker 1: that's really a sort of a limiting title. It's really

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Speaker 1: about wildlife management in its in its broadest sense. But

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Speaker 1: he was one of the first individuals surprisingly who saw

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Speaker 1: the connection between ecology and conservation, and his book Game

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Speaker 1: Management introduces this idea of science based management of populations

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Speaker 1: rather than just sort of passively protecting wildlife, and it

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Speaker 1: certainly propelled him to the pinnacle of influence in the

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Speaker 1: modern conservation movement. Um after nineteen thirty three, if you

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Speaker 1: were professionally involved in wildlife conservation, your job up to

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Speaker 1: that point was almost certainly as a game board and

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Speaker 1: after ninety three the profession transitioned into wildlife manager, really

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Speaker 1: important philosophical and practical transformation. Leopold spent the second half

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Speaker 1: of his career at the University of Wisconsin in this

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Speaker 1: brand new position that the university had created for him,

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Speaker 1: and as was true throughout his life, he was constantly evolving,

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Speaker 1: exploring new ideas, and he pretty quickly shifted his primary

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Speaker 1: sort of challenging conservation from wildlife management to the issue

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Speaker 1: of conservation on private lands and the challenge of how

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Speaker 1: you get private landowners to engage in conservation, and that

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Speaker 1: ultimately that challenge ultimately led him to what he viewed

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Speaker 1: as a solution, which was this idea of ethics, his land,

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Speaker 1: ethnic environmental ethics, sort of understanding our place in nature

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Speaker 1: and appreciating the ethics of our relationship with nature. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I want to dive into that specifically before that, Doug,

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Speaker 1: when when we speak about that specifically the idea of

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Speaker 1: conservation on private land and and some of the things

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Speaker 1: that Leopold explored on that front. Uh, that that rings

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Speaker 1: to me a lot about what you have dedicated your

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Speaker 1: life too. Can you Can you give us a little

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Speaker 1: history as to how you came to Leopold and why

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Speaker 1: he's become so relevant to you and what you do now?

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Speaker 1: I'm sure first I could listen to stand all day

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Speaker 1: about Leopold. Um. Uh. And I actually came to Leopold

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Speaker 1: in a similar way. I was in high school and

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Speaker 1: um in the library and and there's this book on

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Speaker 1: the on the counter Santoni Almanac, and UM I read that.

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Speaker 1: I began to read the book and got super interested

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Speaker 1: in it. And what was so um interesting to me

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Speaker 1: about it is that here's this guy was able to

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Speaker 1: express m so eloquently the kinds of things that I

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Speaker 1: was already experiencing, you know, Mark, you know that I

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Speaker 1: managed the farm for my family that's been in our

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Speaker 1: family almost a hundred twenty years now, and I didn't

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Speaker 1: you know, I began to appreciate at that time the

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Speaker 1: lessons that I was learning from my grandfather and my

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Speaker 1: my father about how we were taking care of Atlanta. UM.

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Speaker 1: You know, and these are two men. My my grandfather

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Speaker 1: was born about the same time that Leopold was and

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Speaker 1: my dad was born in the nineteen twenties. UM. And

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Speaker 1: the Driftless area where our farm is actually only about

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Speaker 1: thirty miles from from the Leopold check and the Leopold Foundation. UM.

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Speaker 1: Many of the practices that in that second half of

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Speaker 1: his life at the university UM that uh he discussed

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Speaker 1: and just discusses and explains and encourages, you know, we're

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Speaker 1: practiced in our area because you as a little kid,

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Speaker 1: you'd ask these questions like how come we planned the

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Speaker 1: fields like this? You know, the kind to our strips

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Speaker 1: and and UM, well of those soil management and UM

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Speaker 1: that was you know, sort of my beginning in it.

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Speaker 1: And then over a lifetime of well, lots of ods

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Speaker 1: and ends and being around the country. Conservation has sort

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Speaker 1: of been a theme through all of it. And now

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Speaker 1: and um, I guess the last third of our life,

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Speaker 1: I'm really dedicating it towards what's next um on our

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Speaker 1: farm and in our area here in the driftless um.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I think about Leopold uh in a

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Speaker 1: lot of different ways. I was actually coming across the

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Speaker 1: other day and I came through Coon Valley and I

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Speaker 1: stopped and and contemplated for a minute at the historical

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Speaker 1: marker that's there along the highway about the Soil Conservation

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Speaker 1: Project first in the name, and that Leopold was part

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Speaker 1: of the nineteen nine three the Civilian Conservation Corps. You

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Speaker 1: think about everything was going on at that time, Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Depression and in the dust bowl and

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Speaker 1: all these things, and you know, here's Leopold because out

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Speaker 1: there in front of that and engaging with people. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: here's this brilliant man who I don't know who was

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Speaker 1: you were saying who already referred to it, But here's

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Speaker 1: this brilliant man who you know, it's thinking on this

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Speaker 1: high academic level, yet the practical applications of what he

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Speaker 1: was talking about really resonated with people. And continue to

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Speaker 1: this day. And that's really where my inspiration is, um,

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Speaker 1: comes from, is from Leopold and that that kind of application.

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Speaker 1: And and how do you see or what is it

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Speaker 1: that you see from that message that you think is

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Speaker 1: most relevant today to people listening to this, to hunter us,

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Speaker 1: to too private land managers who have something that might

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Speaker 1: be primarily for hunting. Um, what of his of the

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Speaker 1: numerous things he kind of represents, What do you think

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Speaker 1: it is that's that's most relevant to what we do.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that I've figured out, um, is

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Speaker 1: that once you establish a philosophy, a personal philosophy, um.

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Speaker 1: And I certainly borrowed mind from Leopold, that when you

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Speaker 1: start to after that the application of of you know,

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Speaker 1: what the specifics are of what you're going to do.

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Speaker 1: You know, Leopold said, we abuse the land because we

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Speaker 1: regard it as a commodity. When we see the land

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Speaker 1: as a community which we belong, we begin to use

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Speaker 1: it with love and respect. Um. I kind of boiled

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Speaker 1: that down to you know, my my motto, which is

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Speaker 1: not ours, it's just our turn. And when I begin

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Speaker 1: to look at anything that we're doing on our farmer

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Speaker 1: that I talked with people about out I think about

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Speaker 1: what happened in the past, what I'm doing now, and

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Speaker 1: how that's going to affect the future. UM. And so

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Speaker 1: when we start talking about habitat management, UM I talked about,

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Speaker 1: you know, conservation, I talked about wildlife habitat versus UM

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Speaker 1: deer management or deer habitat management because g good forestry

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Speaker 1: and good good wildlife habitat is good for you know,

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Speaker 1: deer as well. So it's a bigger community rather than

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Speaker 1: UM uh, you know, being very honed in or very

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Speaker 1: specific about one m one species. I mean, we can

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Speaker 1: concern ourselves with with one species. But I'm just trying

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Speaker 1: to look at things and a from a wider standpoint.

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Speaker 1: And I think that private landowners who I work with,

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Speaker 1: and um and and thoughtful people about hunting and being

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Speaker 1: involved with the outdoors, if they keep that a philosophy

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Speaker 1: in mind, that the specifics of it UM are easier

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Speaker 1: to sort through. And that's one of the things I

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Speaker 1: really got from Leopold, and I think that people should

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Speaker 1: I would like to think that people will will will

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Speaker 1: get from UM understanding him. I mean, you can go

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Speaker 1: down big rabbit holes about specifics, but UM and and

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Speaker 1: all of the incredible works. It's the guy didn't relatively

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Speaker 1: short lifetime. But starting with philosophy, so so on the

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Speaker 1: philosophy thing stand you you had brought up there when

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Speaker 1: you were less speaking, you brought up the land ethic, which,

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Speaker 1: which is maybe what Leopold is most known for, is

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Speaker 1: this concept that has has since had a life of

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Speaker 1: its own, and people continue to point back towards um,

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Speaker 1: can you give us an explanation of what the land

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Speaker 1: ethic is that, although described in his book, what that means,

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Speaker 1: what that looks like today in any kind of in

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Speaker 1: any kind of way, it's the land ethic and what

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Speaker 1: does that matter? Well? Leopold described the land Ethic to

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Speaker 1: the world in his book The Sand County Almanac, and

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Speaker 1: he described it as the end result of his life journey.

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Speaker 1: Leopold certainly didn't anticipate when he wrote the book that

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Speaker 1: he would die of heart attack at age sixty one

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Speaker 1: before the book came into print in but the land

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Speaker 1: Ethic is widely regarded as his most sort of universal contribution,

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Speaker 1: and that it spans the entire sort of universe of conservation,

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Speaker 1: or indeed the entire relationship that we have with the

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Speaker 1: natural world. Leopold struggled throughout the last fifteen years of

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Speaker 1: his life with this challenge of how to get landowners

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Speaker 1: to do the right thing, coming as he had from

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Speaker 1: his first half of his career in the Forest Service.

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Speaker 1: His first inclination was to do it by regulations, by

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Speaker 1: God will force him to practice conservation, and after he

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Speaker 1: did some interactions with private landowners, he realized how much

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Speaker 1: resentment there would be to that approach and decided to

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Speaker 1: try something different, and that brought him into Coon Valley,

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Speaker 1: which Doug just mentioned. It was the first watership um

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Speaker 1: scale project in conservation in the US, and to Leopold's credit,

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Speaker 1: he shifted that entire project from being essentially an engineering

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Speaker 1: project on how you build check dams and and do

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Speaker 1: contour plowing and that kind of band aid approach to

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Speaker 1: soil and water conservation to being a much more holistic

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Speaker 1: look at the entire watershed, looking at it both from

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Speaker 1: the perspective of the environment and people looking at it

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Speaker 1: from the perspective of ecology and economics and sociology. Real

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Speaker 1: holistic look and Coon Valley worked because of government incentives

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Speaker 1: and subsidies, and for a time Leopold was really high

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Speaker 1: on subsidies and essentially an economic incentive for doing conservation.

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Speaker 1: But he quickly soured on that when he realized that

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Speaker 1: once the government subsidies and incentives stopped flowing, many landowners

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Speaker 1: reverted right back to some of their old irresponsible practices,

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Speaker 1: and he wanted really something that would be enduring, something

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Speaker 1: that didn't depend on regulations or economic incentives, And eventually

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Speaker 1: that leads him to this idea which was pretty much

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Speaker 1: unique to his thinking of an ethical relation with land.

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Speaker 1: He he frames it in terms of community, and I

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Speaker 1: think Leopold being a very skillful communicator and knowing how

390
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Speaker 1: to explain difficult concepts. He said that we all understand

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Speaker 1: that we live within human communities, and within that human

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Speaker 1: community there have to be some universally accepted guidelines on

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Speaker 1: what's morally acceptable to do within that community. If we don't,

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Speaker 1: the community becomes dysfunctional. And Leopold made by analogy the

395
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Speaker 1: context that the same way that we live in a

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Speaker 1: human community, we also live in an ecological community that,

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Speaker 1: as he described it includes the soils, the waters, the plants,

398
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Speaker 1: the animals, all of the other things in the natural

399
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 1: environment around us. And just as the same way that

400
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Speaker 1: there have to be some moral compasses that guide our

401
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,439
Speaker 1: behavior within the human community that we live in, have

402
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:48,880
Speaker 1: to be some ethical guidelines for living in that natural community,

403
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: and that's where his land ethic comes into play. Leopold

404
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:57,639
Speaker 1: was clever enough to realize that what he was proposing

405
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Speaker 1: was of a drum matic shift in our American view

406
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 1: of land. As Doug said, we regarded it as a

407
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:10,719
Speaker 1: commodity belonging to us, that we were free to do

408
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 1: whatever the heck we wanted to do with our land,

409
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 1: that it was our private property. And for Leopold, this

410
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Speaker 1: tension between private property and the public's interest in the

411
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 1: broader natural environment was essentially the tension that led him

412
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Speaker 1: to ethics. He reckoned that if you had a moral compass,

413
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Speaker 1: if you had a good idea of what was right

414
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: and wrong to do with your land, then you would

415
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 1: probably obey regulations, you'd probably use economic incentives to further

416
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: the health of your land, and certainly you would not

417
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: want to do things that would be harmful to your

418
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 1: land and the ecological community in which you live. So

419
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: when Leopold introduced still antithic, it was a very very

420
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 1: new idea, one that actually didn't really take hold immediately.

421
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Speaker 1: It probably wasn't until the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies,

422
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: when we sort of got into the modern environmental period

423
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: that suddenly people rediscovered Leopold and realized that he had

424
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 1: basically given the moral foundations of the modern environmental movement,

425
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:28,960
Speaker 1: this more holistic view of our relationship with the natural

426
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:32,480
Speaker 1: world and sort of reflecting that there was a big

427
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 1: time lag. Leopold's Book of Sand County Almanac was published

428
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Speaker 1: in after five different publishers had rejected it because they

429
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: didn't think there was any readership for this type of book,

430
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 1: and finally Oxford University Press took a gamble and published it.

431
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: And you know, the other five publishers were right. The

432
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: book was a total dud. It hardly sold it all

433
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 1: through the nineteen fifties and early into the night team sixties,

434
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until nineteen sixty six when Oxford University Pressed.

435
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: I always say it was either dumb luck or brilliant

436
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 1: marketing that they came out with a paperback edition just

437
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: at the very moment when the modern environmental movement was

438
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: kicking off, and suddenly, almost twenty years after Leopold had

439
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: written about the land ethic. Suddenly there was a readership

440
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: ready to read what he had written, understand it, and

441
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 1: be motivated by it. And since then sales of a

442
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: Sand County Almanact have just been exponential. As I said,

443
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 1: it's sold millions of copies and is now read in

444
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 1: fifteen languages around the world. Sustain you bring to you

445
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 1: brought a thought to mind for me, one of these

446
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: kind of oh legacies of of our past. I suppose

447
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: that still makes makes for a number of challenges today.

448
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: You know. In the book he writes that a land

449
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 1: ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of

450
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 1: the land community two plane member and citizen of it.

451
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 1: And that seems to be the crux of making the

452
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:26,320
Speaker 1: shift to having a land ethic is to to enlarge

453
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 1: your boundaries of what you are, what community you are

454
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: part of, from just people and what we need to

455
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: also the land and the animals and and the air

456
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: and water around us, um, and looking at not as

457
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 1: commodity but as as equals in some way. UM. But

458
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 1: that is in contrast to what I think, although referred

459
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: to as an Abrahammock view of the world, UM, in

460
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 1: which you know, many people look at our role within

461
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: the natural world as those of of having dominion over

462
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: right we have. There's some that believe we have dominion

463
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: over all the land and the animal in the fish,

464
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: and we are to do whatever we want with it.

465
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 1: That's one kind of worldview, and then there's this other

466
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 1: worldview in which we're saying, hey, no, let's be a

467
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 1: part of it and enlarge the scope of who and

468
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:13,239
Speaker 1: what we care about. How do we how do we

469
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:15,160
Speaker 1: settler or how can we make sense of these two

470
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: different world views? Or what do you say to someone

471
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 1: who has this more domineering viewpoint of how we should

472
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: interact with the world that it's that's just here for

473
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 1: us to use. How do you how do you set

474
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 1: all those two viewpoints? Well, I think Leopold did it brilliantly.

475
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:37,719
Speaker 1: Um by analogy to the human community and that self

476
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 1: serving behavior um often is in conflict with the broader

477
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: community interest In the same way with land ownership, private

478
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: self centered interests are often in conflict with the broader

479
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: community interests. Whether you're talking about the human community that

480
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 1: obviously has an interest in how private landowners manage their land,

481
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: but also the health of the ecological community. So for Leopold,

482
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 1: he realized he was up against a big hurdle because that,

483
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 1: as he described, at the Abrahamic view of our relationship

484
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: with land Um and this sort of sacred regard for

485
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: private property that's part of American culture, we're huge obstacles

486
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: to overcome. And Leopold, being not just an ivory tower,

487
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 1: you know, dreamer Um, but a very practical person, recognized

488
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: that the shift that he thought was the way forward

489
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: was not going to happen quickly. In fact, in the

490
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: land Ethic, in the essay The land Ethic in Sand

491
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: County Almanac, Um, he makes the analogy to how we

492
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: treat human rights. He said, you know, we've been working

493
00:32:55,640 --> 00:33:00,040
Speaker 1: on human rights for millennia and we still have and

494
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: gotten that right. And he said, in sort of a

495
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: parallel vein that it's probably going to take a long

496
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: time for this idea of the human role in nature

497
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: changing from a domineering, self centered role UH to a

498
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 1: more ethical and as it's often described, sort of ecocentric

499
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 1: view of our place in nature. So he left a

500
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 1: challenge for us, and that is it's up to us

501
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 1: to make the shift. He can't make that for us.

502
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 1: He even says that nothing so important as an ethic

503
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 1: has ever written. It evolves in the minds of a

504
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: thinking community. And I think for Leopold, the thinking community

505
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: that he perhaps had the closest ties to in formulating

506
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: the land ethic. We're private landowners here in the Midwest,

507
00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:01,959
Speaker 1: and his hope that within that community, a thinking community,

508
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:06,840
Speaker 1: that people, once they were sort of started down this road,

509
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 1: would quickly evolve into a land ethic that not only

510
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:17,719
Speaker 1: ensured their future, but the future of the natural ecological

511
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:22,839
Speaker 1: community around them. How well we've done that well? You know,

512
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: in the seventy years since Leopold presented this idea, you

513
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: can certainly point to lots of evidence that people are

514
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 1: now treating their land with more love and respect as

515
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: as Leopold described it. Conservation is practiced on the land increasingly.

516
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 1: You don't see as much horrible land abuse as Leopold

517
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:49,360
Speaker 1: did in the twenties and thirties when he started his

518
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: work on private lands here in the Midwest. So we're

519
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: definitely making progress. You can point to all of the

520
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:00,800
Speaker 1: policies and legislation that have had and at the national

521
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: level that clearly reflects this sort of expanded view of

522
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:09,280
Speaker 1: our role in nature and our responsibility for taking care

523
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: of the world around us. Yeah, Doug, would you do

524
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 1: you have anything you would add on the overarching thoughts

525
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 1: of how we make sense of these different world views

526
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: and how we might be able to live in this

527
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: way as opposed to in that of the commander and

528
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:33,760
Speaker 1: conquer of all that's around us. Yeah, I do. UM,

529
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:37,479
Speaker 1: I don't think what a tension that uh stand talks

530
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:42,440
Speaker 1: about is. Certainly is certainly there, but this isn't a

531
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 1: it's a it's not a battle, right. I mean, it's

532
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 1: not as if we can't um uh that we can't

533
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 1: make use of and and make a living from our land. Um.

534
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:01,840
Speaker 1: But I can give you examples of of where having

535
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: a land ethic would matter. Um. You know, the contour

536
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:12,240
Speaker 1: strips of the of the hillside will still being farm um.

537
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: So you know, there might there are those who might say, well,

538
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,840
Speaker 1: you create a desert when you plant corn or soybeans

539
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: or um, you know, a road crop and then take

540
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: that road crop off and then there's a there is

541
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:29,279
Speaker 1: a desert there. Now, how we treat the soil as

542
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:31,839
Speaker 1: a you know, as a question worthwhile, But we see

543
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 1: you know, evolution in that um, you know big green

544
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 1: farmers in in some in my area, I'm seeing more

545
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: and more cover crops planted in the fall um that

546
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: are you know there are putting back into the soil

547
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:51,360
Speaker 1: UM and they are being um incentivized to do that. Sure,

548
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 1: but they're also philosophically, you know, sort of getting and

549
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 1: I've seen in my lifetime sort of the switch from

550
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:01,319
Speaker 1: really small little farms and um where there was plenty

551
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:03,839
Speaker 1: of land of you Sammy won't get me wrong. Um Heck,

552
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 1: I can point to some of it on our on

553
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:09,400
Speaker 1: our farm UM where our cricks were widened widened and

554
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: uh and and very shallow because of the amount of

555
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:16,800
Speaker 1: cattle that were in them. Now they're they're you're almost

556
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 1: new they were. It was described as as a young

557
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:25,280
Speaker 1: stream to me the other day by a hydrologist UM

558
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 1: in that there it's faster and uh and narrower, but

559
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,359
Speaker 1: the banks still aren't exactly what they would be over

560
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:34,760
Speaker 1: a period of time. Sai's something that we're talking about,

561
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: UM and we're going to be able to you know,

562
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:39,800
Speaker 1: make a difference in that that bottom sort of helping

563
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,880
Speaker 1: nature along. That that doesn't mean necessarily that we can't

564
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: um still do some passturing that we can't still do

565
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 1: some farming. And you know, so it's being thoughtful about

566
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: how you're, um, how you're you know, working with that

567
00:37:55,200 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 1: land and and and realizing economics benefit UM. And I

568
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 1: think that's really what UM, you know, part of what

569
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: Leopold was pointing at. Man, I think about a soil

570
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: conservation service, you know, from the theories in the CCC

571
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: run that work up in uh Coon Valley and looking

572
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: at my own, uh the property that I that I

573
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:18,279
Speaker 1: have a good fortune to manage, and I'm working with

574
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:21,760
Speaker 1: nrcs on a fairly regular basis, you know, with things

575
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 1: like CRP and c R e P and and and

576
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:28,759
Speaker 1: their their contracts over a certain period of time. But

577
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,720
Speaker 1: one of the things that happens as you put land

578
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:36,399
Speaker 1: into those kind of programs, UM, you realized, well, boy,

579
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,800
Speaker 1: that land, that highly erodable land, marginal land that probably

580
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:44,200
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been cropped, but we can crop up above

581
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: that if we provide those buffers and and so it's

582
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:55,000
Speaker 1: it's almost as if the incentivizeeing programs. UM. You know,

583
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: if you look at it right, that it encourages you.

584
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:00,959
Speaker 1: It encourages the philosophy of the mean with the land

585
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:04,279
Speaker 1: um and so those are examples, and I see it

586
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 1: every day around here. Yeah. I think Doug makes a

587
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 1: good point that throughout his career here in the Midwest

588
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:17,840
Speaker 1: he was dealing with working lands. By the time he

589
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 1: had got back to the Midwest and arrived in Madison

590
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 1: in four I mean, there was hardly any wild lands

591
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:28,360
Speaker 1: left in the Midwest, and certainly very little public land.

592
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:32,200
Speaker 1: But the land that he had to work on was

593
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 1: basically working lands. These were places that Leopold well understood

594
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 1: people not only lived on the land, that they had

595
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: to make a living on the land. And what he

596
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: was all about was essentially trying to shape the way

597
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 1: that we lived on the land and how we do

598
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 1: that in a way that today we might use the

599
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:55,839
Speaker 1: word sustainable, in a way that sort of preserves the

600
00:39:55,920 --> 00:40:00,360
Speaker 1: working health of the land. And certainly, when Leopold first

601
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:06,280
Speaker 1: started tackling this problem in the nineties, you would probably

602
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: have to conclude that the landscapes of the Upper Midwest

603
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 1: were about as unhealthy as they have ever been. Soil

604
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 1: and water conservation was rampant, wildlife populations were horribly depleted.

605
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: White tailed deer were scarce on the landscape, wild turkeys,

606
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:32,959
Speaker 1: and many waterfowl like like wood ducks were were virtually gone. Um.

607
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 1: I always remind people that during this period, the Wisconsin

608
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: Department of Natural Resources then the Conservation Department, actually was

609
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 1: captive breeding raccoons and releasing them around the states because

610
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 1: raccoons had become so scarce. So that was the landscape

611
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: that Leopold was working with, and obviously he struggled to

612
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: find a way out of the mess that we created

613
00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:03,520
Speaker 1: of the Midwestern landscapes. So what about today? You know,

614
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:07,280
Speaker 1: if someone's listening to this or they've read the book

615
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:09,719
Speaker 1: and they thought to themselves, you know what this land

616
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: ethic that that resonates this makes some sense to me.

617
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 1: I can I can see why it might be better

618
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: to live and try to strive to live more sustainably,

619
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 1: to try to live and look at the natural world

620
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: around us as part of a community rather than something

621
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:28,839
Speaker 1: for us simply to consume all the time. Um, if

622
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: this resonates with someone, what does this look like in action?

623
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 1: You know, Doug provide a couple of examples, but Stan,

624
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 1: could you expand maybe a little bit on on what

625
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 1: a land ethic in your life might actually look like?

626
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:43,759
Speaker 1: Coming to fruition. How do we how do we put

627
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 1: this kind of philosophy into action. Well, Leopold gave us

628
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: a golden rule. Golden rules are are really valuable. They

629
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 1: are you know, these these tight compact little maxims that

630
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:04,280
Speaker 1: um you and always use as a guidance in making decisions.

631
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 1: And for Leopold, his golden rule was a thing is

632
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 1: right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and

633
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it

634
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:21,279
Speaker 1: tends otherwise. That's just a beautiful sentence that captures the

635
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 1: essence of every time we have to make a decision

636
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: about our relationship with the natural world, to pause and

637
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: think about it. What are the consequences of our actions

638
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 1: going to be? And Leopold recognized that there does have

639
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:41,920
Speaker 1: to be obviously the economic parts of that decision for

640
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: private landowners, but it also has to involve, as he

641
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 1: describes it, you know this this golden golden rule. So

642
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: I think for most people the first step is to

643
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 1: is to basically learn what this is all about. And

644
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:00,799
Speaker 1: probably the best way to do is to go back

645
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: to the primary source. If you haven't done so, read

646
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 1: a Sand County Almanac. Understand huiah Pold's passion for the

647
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:13,839
Speaker 1: natural world. Understand what he was getting at when he

648
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 1: wrote the essay a land Ethic, and then think deeply

649
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:20,919
Speaker 1: about your own land ethic. They said, there's just one

650
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: land ethic, is not the land ethic. There's the ethic

651
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:29,359
Speaker 1: that everyone evolves in their own thinking about their relationship

652
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 1: with the land. But it should be within the boundaries

653
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 1: that Leopold sort of defined in the land ethic. And

654
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: that's fine, But then you have to do the hard work.

655
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: You have to make your lifestyle reflected. You have to

656
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 1: make sure that the decisions that you make in your

657
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:49,360
Speaker 1: life about your lifestyle about the land that you perhaps

658
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 1: are responsible for, and think deeply about the consequences for

659
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 1: the natural world. And that's not enough, even though you

660
00:43:57,360 --> 00:44:00,759
Speaker 1: might be doing a good job on your land and

661
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: might be doing a good job in the decisions that

662
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: you make. There's also the challenge about spreading the word

663
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: to others. People like Doug, who have a passion for

664
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:15,200
Speaker 1: spreading their enthusiasm about a land ethic becomes an important

665
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: part of it, because, as I said, a land ethic

666
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:21,919
Speaker 1: is only going to spread when you have exemplars, when

667
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 1: you have people who demonstrate this so that others can

668
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 1: see that this is a viable way of living in

669
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: the world, and for people who have adopted a land ethic,

670
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:39,280
Speaker 1: spreading it to others contributing to the broader conservation effort.

671
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:44,239
Speaker 1: Not just focusing on your property becomes almost an imperative

672
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:48,560
Speaker 1: one that you're impelled to do as a result of

673
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 1: adapting your own land ethic. Yeah, back to you, dug

674
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 1: on on that a few of those examples. Stan was

675
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: just sharing. You know when you you read Sand County Almanac,

676
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:06,760
Speaker 1: you've grown as a land manager and as a hunter.

677
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 1: And I know over the years you have shifted how

678
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: you manage your farm, how you've approached hunting, how you've

679
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: approached land management. Um. Could could you share any specific

680
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 1: examples of how you have put the land ethic into

681
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 1: into action on your place, whether it be with how

682
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:28,320
Speaker 1: you hunt or how you've worked the land, or anything

683
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:30,840
Speaker 1: specifically that you've done, and what that shift looked like

684
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 1: for you. Well, UM, let's go to the thing that's

685
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: near into dear to both your in my heart, and

686
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:45,840
Speaker 1: that is um wait till deer hunting. UM. Southwest Wisconsin

687
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:49,360
Speaker 1: is one of the hotbeds of unfortunately one of the

688
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 1: hotbeds of chronic wasting disease. And we've been living with

689
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 1: and dealing with c w D for over twenty years,

690
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 1: and it certainly has affected UM, has affected my attitude

691
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:15,840
Speaker 1: about UM hunting. I'd like to think that UM, I

692
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 1: had sort of taking my dad's philosophy UM with me

693
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 1: at all times about hunting. That is that you're off

694
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,840
Speaker 1: also hunting for the other guy, that it's a community effort,

695
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: that it's a cooperative effort. UM. But UM, you know,

696
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:34,160
Speaker 1: I may have straight from that a little bit, UM,

697
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 1: but I don't think so. When we were the way

698
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 1: we managed, you know, we were managing deer on our property.

699
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:46,080
Speaker 1: We're very concerned about ecosystem balances, as you know, and

700
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 1: and stand those a little bit about my work with

701
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:54,799
Speaker 1: oak regeneration, well, UM, deer and O p regeneration are

702
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 1: are in conflict. A lot of deer and ok regeneration.

703
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 1: You know, they love those white oak acorns and they

704
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 1: leve those red oak seedlings. So it's really hard to

705
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 1: regenerate oak. UM. So we for for more than twenty years,

706
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: have have worked hard to have a balance of deer

707
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 1: on our property. And I thought that that meant UM

708
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:20,359
Speaker 1: that the handful of people that hunted the property UM

709
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,239
Speaker 1: would would take more dear and that we would be

710
00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 1: sure that we were, you know, UM taking dose and

711
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: working on population and at the same time UM managing

712
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 1: for you know, a balanced curtain. All the things that

713
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:36,320
Speaker 1: we talked about with the National Deer Association. One of

714
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:39,400
Speaker 1: the things that I realized UM eight or ten y

715
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 1: years ago is that I, UM, I don't want to

716
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:48,920
Speaker 1: be a deer exterminator. UM. I have too much respect

717
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 1: for the animal. And when we were trying to take

718
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 1: more deer, give you an example, on six acres this year,

719
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:58,960
Speaker 1: we took forty deer. Well, I'm not interested in in

720
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 1: in generally in taking one or two. So UM I

721
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:08,600
Speaker 1: saw the opportunity. I saw the opportunity to share our

722
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:14,400
Speaker 1: land UM with more people. And by doing that, UM

723
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: we've opened up. Last year we had over thirty people

724
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 1: almost I guess thirty five was the total of a

725
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:23,959
Speaker 1: number of people who hunted and UM. In doing that,

726
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:27,920
Speaker 1: it gives me the opportunity to talk to UM, to

727
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:32,880
Speaker 1: advocate for UM for a good conservation and in particularly

728
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:36,640
Speaker 1: good deer management. And you know, we're here to UM

729
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:40,360
Speaker 1: reduce the population and UM, and we're here to have

730
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 1: a community of hunters, and we're here to UM manage

731
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: this disease as best we can and in our small

732
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:53,240
Speaker 1: area and and hopefully that it feels like it seems

733
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: like it has, you know, spread out from our our

734
00:48:55,600 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 1: central area, but just that where I'm now allowed and

735
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: and honestly the people who are also my my family

736
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: and have have agreed that yes, we need to bring

737
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,319
Speaker 1: more people in and let them have that opportunity as well,

738
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 1: UM to interact with nature and and and harvest deer

739
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:17,799
Speaker 1: and have that whole experience and UM and then understand

740
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 1: you know, why we're doing this and how we're doing

741
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:22,880
Speaker 1: it UM. And so that's why I think one of

742
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:25,600
Speaker 1: the first things that I would point to is our

743
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:29,560
Speaker 1: deer management. Others are how we as I just mentioned,

744
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:32,440
Speaker 1: how we're regenerating red and white oak. And I've worked

745
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 1: with UM, the American Forest Foundation and the other Leopold

746
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:41,280
Speaker 1: Foundation folks UM on a project called My Wisconsin Woods

747
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:44,600
Speaker 1: and and our farm is one of the examples of that.

748
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 1: But it's it's just long term thinking, long term management, UM.

749
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 1: You know, uh, as Scan was talking, before I was

750
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 1: I was thinking, I was just writing on these words

751
00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:02,400
Speaker 1: of learn, evaluate, plan, act, and then advocate. That was

752
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:06,359
Speaker 1: the one that that UM that brilliantly began to stick

753
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 1: with me in the last eight to ten years. UM.

754
00:50:10,040 --> 00:50:16,200
Speaker 1: So I think using that Leopold's philosophy is is is

755
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:20,320
Speaker 1: a part of of everything that that I think about

756
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 1: as we UM do projects on our farm and that

757
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: we involved conservation that we share our land UM. And

758
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:30,359
Speaker 1: I hope that that's something that other landowners will think

759
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 1: about more. Yeah, you know, you kind of described an

760
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:40,919
Speaker 1: evolution of sorts there for you, Doug in a couple

761
00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 1: different ways, and it brought to mind something that I

762
00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:48,320
Speaker 1: guess I've experienced over the last ten to fifteen years. UM.

763
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:51,279
Speaker 1: And it kind of was put into words in a

764
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:53,720
Speaker 1: book I just read. It's a book called Braiding Sweet

765
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 1: Grass by Robin Walt Kimmer and and she explores UM

766
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: from her perspective, UM, indigenous wisdom and conservation and how

767
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:10,440
Speaker 1: those things intertwined and a very important concept within her

768
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,319
Speaker 1: culture is this this this idea of reciprocity with the

769
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:17,000
Speaker 1: natural world. And that just resonated really really strongly with

770
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:20,000
Speaker 1: me when I think so much about over the years

771
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:23,759
Speaker 1: how much I've gotten from the natural world, how much

772
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:26,640
Speaker 1: joy deer hunting has brought me, or how much awe

773
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:29,960
Speaker 1: I've experienced standing on a mountain or floating down a river.

774
00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:32,799
Speaker 1: I mean, so many of the very best things in

775
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:36,840
Speaker 1: my life have have stemmed from wild places and animals

776
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:38,719
Speaker 1: and and these different things out there that we get

777
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:43,080
Speaker 1: to experience. And I keep having this like weight on

778
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 1: my chest that I feel about I've taken so much,

779
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:49,040
Speaker 1: I get so much, like so much good has come

780
00:51:49,040 --> 00:51:52,359
Speaker 1: to me because of these places. I feel this overwhelming

781
00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:55,719
Speaker 1: sense of it need to reciprocate that in some way,

782
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:58,160
Speaker 1: to somehow give back to somehow even the scales. And

783
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 1: that's that's become just a constant thought that's always on

784
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:04,120
Speaker 1: my mind in one way or another. And it seems

785
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:06,319
Speaker 1: like this is something that many people have thought about

786
00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 1: for for a long long time. UM. But when when

787
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:13,800
Speaker 1: you read ELDO's words here within um San County Almanac,

788
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:16,240
Speaker 1: he talks about the land ethic, I think he gets

789
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: at a similar concept, but doesn't speak about that specifically.

790
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:23,440
Speaker 1: I'm curious stand when you when you hear me talk

791
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 1: about this idea of reciprocity UM and how indigenous cultures

792
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 1: might have thought about that and so much that they did.

793
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:32,480
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts personally on how that jives with

794
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:35,280
Speaker 1: the land ethic? What are your thoughts on what Leopold

795
00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 1: might have thought? Um, I guess I'm not sure what

796
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 1: my question is, but what are your thoughts when that

797
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:45,360
Speaker 1: comes a mind? Well, Robin's book is, you know, probably

798
00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:47,880
Speaker 1: destined to be a classic in the same way that

799
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 1: the Sand County Almanac is. It's She's a wonderful writer

800
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 1: and obviously has a land ethic that is was not

801
00:52:57,080 --> 00:53:02,320
Speaker 1: only informed by her cultural heritage, is an Indigenous woman, um,

802
00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:06,080
Speaker 1: but also basically her understanding of where all the Vehopold

803
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:08,719
Speaker 1: was coming from and all the Leopold. This is a

804
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:11,359
Speaker 1: question that comes up quite often is how much did

805
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:16,879
Speaker 1: all the Leopold borrow from indigenous cultures about our relationship

806
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:19,680
Speaker 1: with the land. And he certainly had many opportunities to

807
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:23,799
Speaker 1: to interact with with Native Americans, and he certainly understood

808
00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:27,360
Speaker 1: the relationships that they had with the land and was

809
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:31,880
Speaker 1: very respectful of those. But it's not clear that his

810
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:37,279
Speaker 1: land has a was derived directly from the sort of

811
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:41,560
Speaker 1: Native American ideas about our relationship with the land. Leopold's

812
00:53:41,719 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 1: idea was based on ecology. It was based on a

813
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:53,800
Speaker 1: science um as opposed to the indigenous relationships with nature

814
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:58,720
Speaker 1: that were evolved by their direct contacts with the land.

815
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:04,840
Speaker 1: But no question that indigenous cultures and and all the

816
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:09,640
Speaker 1: Leopold's land ethic have a lot in common about the

817
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 1: values that we get from living on this planet and

818
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:18,799
Speaker 1: living on landscapes that are healthy, that provide for our

819
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:23,319
Speaker 1: needs in exchange for our living in a sustainable way

820
00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:28,320
Speaker 1: on those those lands. So yes, definitely, All the Leopold

821
00:54:28,520 --> 00:54:34,400
Speaker 1: really has inspired the modern sort of environmental ethics movement,

822
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 1: and there are lots of individuals like Robin Kimmerer who

823
00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 1: have thought deeply about it and have provided some of

824
00:54:41,719 --> 00:54:47,000
Speaker 1: those um I don't say ideas, but some of their

825
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:52,719
Speaker 1: thoughts about the way forward. And certainly it didn't end

826
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:57,920
Speaker 1: with All the Leopold in We're continuing to evolve inspired

827
00:54:57,960 --> 00:55:02,719
Speaker 1: by people of past. But it's our challenge now. It's

828
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:06,160
Speaker 1: not up to people of the past to show us

829
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 1: how to make this happen. It's up to us to

830
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:23,759
Speaker 1: figure out how to do it. You mentioned that, you know,

831
00:55:23,800 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of positive progress in the seventies

832
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 1: some years since Leopold died. I'm curious, though, if he

833
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:37,640
Speaker 1: were still around today, what of all the events of

834
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:43,239
Speaker 1: our age in relation to the natural world, the environment, conservation, wildlife,

835
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:46,600
Speaker 1: anything like that. What do you think would keep Elder

836
00:55:46,680 --> 00:55:53,920
Speaker 1: Leopold up at night today? Well, um, given where we

837
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:56,959
Speaker 1: are right now in the conservation world, I think there's

838
00:55:57,040 --> 00:55:59,799
Speaker 1: one thing that would have kept him up at night

839
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:02,360
Speaker 1: and probably would have had a lot to say about,

840
00:56:03,239 --> 00:56:08,080
Speaker 1: and that is that, as the father of modern science

841
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:13,600
Speaker 1: based wildlife management, he would be horrified at the current

842
00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:18,000
Speaker 1: efforts to take management out of the hands of the

843
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:24,280
Speaker 1: professionals in the profession that he largely created and handed

844
00:56:24,360 --> 00:56:28,839
Speaker 1: over to politicians and special interest groups. I think the

845
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:32,000
Speaker 1: thing that Leopold would be most proud of is the

846
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 1: fact that he left this legacy of professionalism in wildlife management,

847
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:42,120
Speaker 1: that the field has expanded from its early birth here

848
00:56:42,200 --> 00:56:47,880
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, and that we now have this cadre of

849
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:53,480
Speaker 1: professionals who know how to manage wildlife in the public's interest,

850
00:56:54,400 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: and the fact that it has recently been pillar read

851
00:56:59,719 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 1: in in some circles. Uh the fact that decisions are

852
00:57:04,200 --> 00:57:07,920
Speaker 1: now being left up to people who don't have the

853
00:57:08,239 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 1: educational background, the science background, and in some cases even

854
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:18,280
Speaker 1: the philosophical background to be making broad, broad decisions about

855
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:23,600
Speaker 1: the public's wildlife. Is there any example of that that

856
00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 1: that comes to mind for you, stand of particular interest,

857
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:33,360
Speaker 1: or that keeps you up at night. Well, for me,

858
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:36,400
Speaker 1: the thing that keeps me up at night, I suppose

859
00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:39,640
Speaker 1: is that you know, I'm in my seventies, and over

860
00:57:39,720 --> 00:57:44,560
Speaker 1: my life I have I have seen the world deteriorate.

861
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:50,240
Speaker 1: I've seen places that I deeply, deeply loved and cared

862
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 1: about deteriorate. Species that were there when I was a

863
00:57:53,840 --> 00:57:58,240
Speaker 1: kid are no longer there. The impact of climate change

864
00:57:59,280 --> 00:58:03,680
Speaker 1: is visible anyone who takes even a casual notice of

865
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:08,160
Speaker 1: the world around them, and it keeps me up at

866
00:58:08,240 --> 00:58:11,000
Speaker 1: night realizing that I've only got a few more years

867
00:58:11,080 --> 00:58:14,840
Speaker 1: to make my impact, and that many of these changes

868
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:18,240
Speaker 1: that are happening, if we don't reverse them now, they're

869
00:58:18,280 --> 00:58:21,200
Speaker 1: going to be practically irreversible, at least in a human

870
00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:25,160
Speaker 1: time scale. So I think you know, for me, the

871
00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:29,920
Speaker 1: thing that keeps me up at night is worrying about

872
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 1: my legacy really and whether I've really done enough, whether

873
00:58:33,720 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 1: I've done the right things during my life and career

874
00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:40,640
Speaker 1: to have truly made made a difference in the things

875
00:58:40,680 --> 00:58:45,960
Speaker 1: that I really care about. What do you if you

876
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:48,920
Speaker 1: had to look back on that career of yours, Stanley,

877
00:58:49,200 --> 00:58:52,600
Speaker 1: and what you have done, and you you you sit

878
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:55,240
Speaker 1: here and you wonder about what that legacy is and

879
00:58:55,280 --> 00:58:58,360
Speaker 1: what you've done. What are you the most proud of?

880
00:58:58,560 --> 00:59:01,360
Speaker 1: What have you What that you've spent your life on

881
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:05,840
Speaker 1: do you feel has had the most impact? Well? As

882
00:59:05,600 --> 00:59:10,200
Speaker 1: an educator, UM, I sort of put a high rank

883
00:59:10,360 --> 00:59:15,960
Speaker 1: on the students that I've influenced. When I retired, the

884
00:59:16,040 --> 00:59:20,400
Speaker 1: department figured out that more than ten thou students had

885
00:59:20,440 --> 00:59:24,160
Speaker 1: taken my classes in ecology and conservation. And I know

886
00:59:24,720 --> 00:59:27,360
Speaker 1: that all of those students, I hope went on to

887
00:59:27,400 --> 00:59:32,080
Speaker 1: be responsible citizens. They are the things you know that

888
00:59:32,240 --> 00:59:35,240
Speaker 1: I am particularly proud of my graduate students, who have

889
00:59:35,280 --> 00:59:39,560
Speaker 1: all gone on to positions of substantial leadership in the

890
00:59:39,600 --> 00:59:43,960
Speaker 1: conservation world, and I know will carry with them and

891
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 1: often pass on to their own students to things that

892
00:59:47,160 --> 00:59:49,560
Speaker 1: they learned when they were at the University of Wisconsin.

893
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:54,000
Speaker 1: At a personal level, UM, the things that I've done,

894
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:57,520
Speaker 1: I know that there are species that would be extinct

895
00:59:58,080 --> 01:00:00,160
Speaker 1: if it hadn't been for the work that my student

896
01:00:00,280 --> 01:00:03,800
Speaker 1: and I have done. I know that the habitats on

897
01:00:03,920 --> 01:00:07,680
Speaker 1: which they depend that we had a substantial role in

898
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:11,440
Speaker 1: making sure that those areas were protected or managed in

899
01:00:11,480 --> 01:00:15,520
Speaker 1: such a way that they would continue to sustain those species.

900
01:00:16,320 --> 01:00:19,440
Speaker 1: I know that my public outreach, the things that I'm

901
01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:23,600
Speaker 1: doing right now have reached even larger audiences of the

902
01:00:23,640 --> 01:00:27,000
Speaker 1: students who were in my classroom. And that's why, as

903
01:00:27,000 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 1: it was senior fellow at the Alta Veehicole Foundation, I

904
01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:33,400
Speaker 1: take my role as sort of an outreach person very

905
01:00:33,400 --> 01:00:36,520
Speaker 1: seriously and try as hard as I can to to

906
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:40,160
Speaker 1: reach as many people in many different audiences as possible

907
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 1: with messages about hope really and how we have the

908
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:50,320
Speaker 1: opportunity if we care to to change the way that

909
01:00:50,360 --> 01:00:53,200
Speaker 1: we live on this planet and make it a better

910
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:58,000
Speaker 1: place for for the future. So, speaking of hope, UM,

911
01:00:58,080 --> 01:01:02,280
Speaker 1: you mentioned you mentioned and that there are certain species

912
01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:05,040
Speaker 1: that are still present on the Earth today because of

913
01:01:05,080 --> 01:01:08,200
Speaker 1: some of the work that you and your students have done. UM.

914
01:01:08,480 --> 01:01:14,000
Speaker 1: It brought to mind this this one of the major

915
01:01:14,080 --> 01:01:17,080
Speaker 1: environmental crises I think of our day. We're starting to

916
01:01:17,120 --> 01:01:22,760
Speaker 1: become more and more aware related to biodiversity across the world. UM,

917
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:25,320
Speaker 1: but I think that this is something that some people

918
01:01:25,400 --> 01:01:29,080
Speaker 1: here in America, probably hunters specifically, might have a hard

919
01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:33,880
Speaker 1: time believing in because we are in the golden age

920
01:01:33,960 --> 01:01:38,400
Speaker 1: of of deer, populations, of black populations of turkeys, of

921
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 1: of so many game species that that hunters specifically are

922
01:01:42,240 --> 01:01:45,240
Speaker 1: so interested in. They might be thinking, jeez, things are

923
01:01:45,280 --> 01:01:48,720
Speaker 1: better than they ever have been. Um, it's great, But

924
01:01:49,160 --> 01:01:52,720
Speaker 1: if you were to widen the your lens and look

925
01:01:52,760 --> 01:01:57,120
Speaker 1: beyond that, there's obvious examples that that's not the case. Um.

926
01:01:57,200 --> 01:01:59,040
Speaker 1: Can you can you just fill us in a little

927
01:01:59,080 --> 01:02:01,840
Speaker 1: bit about what's going on across the rest of the

928
01:02:01,880 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 1: country and across the rest of the world that's different

929
01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:07,120
Speaker 1: than the success we've seen with whitetail deer and turkeys

930
01:02:07,120 --> 01:02:10,800
Speaker 1: and other game species here in North America, Because you know,

931
01:02:10,840 --> 01:02:14,720
Speaker 1: there's increasing talk of the sixth massiest extinction event and

932
01:02:14,760 --> 01:02:17,520
Speaker 1: we're losing animals so quickly in in both big and

933
01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:20,200
Speaker 1: small ways. I know that's something you've worked on with

934
01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:23,360
Speaker 1: your working conservation biology. Is that something you can give

935
01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:27,320
Speaker 1: us a little incento? Well, it certainly is. You know,

936
01:02:27,840 --> 01:02:31,320
Speaker 1: a golden age for some of the species that have

937
01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:37,240
Speaker 1: been sort of brought back by modern wildlife management um.

938
01:02:37,280 --> 01:02:39,800
Speaker 1: Some of the species that we've been talking about, especially

939
01:02:40,760 --> 01:02:44,240
Speaker 1: game species, that were so depleted in the early twentieth

940
01:02:44,280 --> 01:02:49,240
Speaker 1: century and have been brought back by proper management. The

941
01:02:49,320 --> 01:02:52,280
Speaker 1: reason that they were brought back is that we had

942
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:55,920
Speaker 1: a high regard for those species as resources. They were

943
01:02:55,960 --> 01:03:00,520
Speaker 1: species that we used in some way, and therefore we

944
01:03:00,600 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 1: had a sort of a selfish reason for wanting to

945
01:03:03,840 --> 01:03:08,280
Speaker 1: see them come back. And part of the real tragedy

946
01:03:08,360 --> 01:03:12,800
Speaker 1: for the loss of biodiversity is that many of the

947
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:16,960
Speaker 1: vast majority of the species that are disappearing from the

948
01:03:17,040 --> 01:03:22,960
Speaker 1: planet are non resources. People don't necessarily recognize them as

949
01:03:23,120 --> 01:03:27,720
Speaker 1: being as valuable says as a white tailed here, and

950
01:03:27,760 --> 01:03:30,320
Speaker 1: as a result, we don't pay as much attention to them,

951
01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:35,680
Speaker 1: and we certainly don't put as much effort into trying

952
01:03:35,680 --> 01:03:40,080
Speaker 1: to prevent their extinction. We are in the dark ages

953
01:03:40,200 --> 01:03:45,680
Speaker 1: in terms of extinction. What we're experiencing now is almost

954
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:49,840
Speaker 1: unprecedented in the history of life on this planet that

955
01:03:50,040 --> 01:03:55,080
Speaker 1: so many species are disappearing so quickly. Essentially, you know

956
01:03:55,240 --> 01:04:00,320
Speaker 1: in the span of a human lifetime that us is

957
01:04:00,360 --> 01:04:06,959
Speaker 1: really concerning about the future, because extinction, as they often say,

958
01:04:07,080 --> 01:04:10,080
Speaker 1: is forever. Once they're gone. We can't bring them back.

959
01:04:10,160 --> 01:04:12,840
Speaker 1: Once the passenger vision was gone, there's no there's no

960
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:18,280
Speaker 1: bringing it back. So these are decisions about the future

961
01:04:19,040 --> 01:04:23,120
Speaker 1: that to some extent become irreversible if we don't pay

962
01:04:23,160 --> 01:04:26,440
Speaker 1: attention to preserving these species. Now they're going to be

963
01:04:26,440 --> 01:04:28,800
Speaker 1: gone and we're not going to get them back. It's

964
01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:32,400
Speaker 1: not the same situation that we faced with the species

965
01:04:32,440 --> 01:04:37,800
Speaker 1: like white tailed deer, where they didn't disappear completely um

966
01:04:37,800 --> 01:04:40,120
Speaker 1: and they could be brought back. But for many of

967
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:43,480
Speaker 1: the species that were most worried about, they become endangered.

968
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:47,520
Speaker 1: They reached this sort of critical low threshold where even

969
01:04:47,560 --> 01:04:50,600
Speaker 1: our best attempts to try to bring them back are

970
01:04:51,120 --> 01:04:54,560
Speaker 1: largely going to fail just because we've let the situation

971
01:04:54,640 --> 01:04:59,960
Speaker 1: deteriorate so much. So definitely, you know the golden Aide

972
01:05:00,040 --> 01:05:03,720
Speaker 1: in terms of a few wonderful success stories of modern

973
01:05:03,760 --> 01:05:07,360
Speaker 1: wildlife management in the dark ages. In terms of the

974
01:05:07,400 --> 01:05:10,640
Speaker 1: bigger picture of life on the planet, I know there's

975
01:05:10,680 --> 01:05:16,920
Speaker 1: a million different um variables that are leading this to

976
01:05:16,960 --> 01:05:19,440
Speaker 1: be the case, But can you describe a few of

977
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:22,960
Speaker 1: the major pressures that are leading to this happening so

978
01:05:23,040 --> 01:05:29,280
Speaker 1: quickly and so such on such a widespread basis. Well,

979
01:05:29,360 --> 01:05:33,400
Speaker 1: you can point to the very specific issues of habitat loss,

980
01:05:33,760 --> 01:05:39,200
Speaker 1: spread of harmful invasive species, the fact that in some

981
01:05:39,240 --> 01:05:44,080
Speaker 1: cases we still are over harvesting uh some species, and

982
01:05:44,120 --> 01:05:47,840
Speaker 1: the fact that that the ecosystems of the world are

983
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:54,760
Speaker 1: starting to deteriorate because of climate change and other pervasive activities. Um,

984
01:05:54,800 --> 01:05:59,040
Speaker 1: but you boil it down and the ecologist Paul Arelic

985
01:05:59,600 --> 01:06:03,040
Speaker 1: to the brilliant job of breaking it all down to

986
01:06:03,160 --> 01:06:07,840
Speaker 1: its root causes, and he described it as the eye

987
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:13,720
Speaker 1: path equation. It's a simple little idea that I stands

988
01:06:13,760 --> 01:06:17,040
Speaker 1: for the impact that humans have on the environment. And

989
01:06:17,120 --> 01:06:22,760
Speaker 1: he said, it's proportional or or equal to P, which

990
01:06:22,840 --> 01:06:25,360
Speaker 1: is how many of us there are on the planet,

991
01:06:26,400 --> 01:06:31,120
Speaker 1: and a our affluents, the rate at which we are

992
01:06:31,160 --> 01:06:37,760
Speaker 1: consuming the world's resources, and t the damaging technologies that

993
01:06:37,920 --> 01:06:41,800
Speaker 1: we use to get those resources. And when you think

994
01:06:41,840 --> 01:06:47,360
Speaker 1: about the biodiversity crisis, climate change, all of these big

995
01:06:47,480 --> 01:06:50,720
Speaker 1: global issues that we're facing, and you think about it

996
01:06:50,760 --> 01:06:55,680
Speaker 1: in terms of this simple iPad equation, it's us. It's

997
01:06:55,720 --> 01:06:58,600
Speaker 1: the number of us, it's our consumption of resources, and

998
01:06:58,640 --> 01:07:01,200
Speaker 1: it's the damage that we're doing to the environment while

999
01:07:01,200 --> 01:07:06,760
Speaker 1: we get those resources. You know, I worry sometimes with

1000
01:07:06,880 --> 01:07:11,360
Speaker 1: this type of thing where the on the ground experience

1001
01:07:11,400 --> 01:07:14,560
Speaker 1: that someone like me but might be having in Michigan

1002
01:07:15,120 --> 01:07:18,200
Speaker 1: is different than what you're describing right as I mentioned,

1003
01:07:18,200 --> 01:07:20,360
Speaker 1: like here on the ground in Michigan, I'm seeing more

1004
01:07:20,360 --> 01:07:22,800
Speaker 1: wildlife than ever, and it might be easy for me

1005
01:07:22,840 --> 01:07:24,880
Speaker 1: to selfishly think, Wow, I've got it great here. Why

1006
01:07:24,920 --> 01:07:28,000
Speaker 1: should I care about or if I if I'm really

1007
01:07:28,040 --> 01:07:30,440
Speaker 1: into deer, why should I care about the monarch butterflies

1008
01:07:30,480 --> 01:07:32,200
Speaker 1: out here? Or why should I care about the quail

1009
01:07:32,240 --> 01:07:33,920
Speaker 1: if I'm not hunting them, or why should I care

1010
01:07:33,960 --> 01:07:37,880
Speaker 1: about the whatever um? And when I think about that,

1011
01:07:38,680 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 1: I get another line from Leopold comes back to mind,

1012
01:07:41,120 --> 01:07:43,080
Speaker 1: where he said something along the lines of the key

1013
01:07:43,160 --> 01:07:46,840
Speaker 1: to management or I think it was tinkering with the

1014
01:07:46,920 --> 01:07:48,880
Speaker 1: natural world or something like that. The key to that

1015
01:07:49,040 --> 01:07:52,160
Speaker 1: was keeping all the parts. Like the number one thing

1016
01:07:52,160 --> 01:07:53,840
Speaker 1: we've got to think about before anything else is we've

1017
01:07:53,880 --> 01:07:55,840
Speaker 1: got to keep all the parts around, because whether we

1018
01:07:55,920 --> 01:07:58,959
Speaker 1: understand the part they play, they do have a role,

1019
01:07:59,480 --> 01:08:03,360
Speaker 1: which I think is another reminder to us who maybe

1020
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:06,640
Speaker 1: have a predisposition to care about certain species, to remember

1021
01:08:06,680 --> 01:08:10,560
Speaker 1: that it's not just all about deer, the butterflies, the amphibians,

1022
01:08:10,600 --> 01:08:14,000
Speaker 1: everything else has a part to play. Uh. And then

1023
01:08:14,040 --> 01:08:15,840
Speaker 1: we too then have a part to try to not

1024
01:08:16,000 --> 01:08:18,040
Speaker 1: manage just for the deer we want to hunt, but

1025
01:08:18,800 --> 01:08:23,719
Speaker 1: for the whole system as well. Um hm, Doug, what

1026
01:08:23,560 --> 01:08:25,960
Speaker 1: is what does all this? How does all this resonate

1027
01:08:26,280 --> 01:08:31,919
Speaker 1: with you and the things that you do? Now? Uh?

1028
01:08:31,960 --> 01:08:34,760
Speaker 1: I like where you're going with that? That that management

1029
01:08:35,000 --> 01:08:38,720
Speaker 1: that you know, being so involved private landmment that I am.

1030
01:08:38,760 --> 01:08:42,880
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's ecosystem management and that respect for

1031
01:08:42,920 --> 01:08:45,759
Speaker 1: all the species. You know, they were We've been talking about,

1032
01:08:46,560 --> 01:08:48,760
Speaker 1: you know, some pretty dire stuff here. But one of

1033
01:08:48,800 --> 01:08:51,160
Speaker 1: the one of the success stories, and it's one that I,

1034
01:08:51,600 --> 01:08:54,680
Speaker 1: um I'd love to hear Sam talked about, is that

1035
01:08:54,760 --> 01:08:58,160
Speaker 1: of the sand hill crane um. I've had the amazing

1036
01:08:58,280 --> 01:09:02,479
Speaker 1: experience to to share some time with him at the

1037
01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:06,679
Speaker 1: Leopold Foundation and walked down to the to the river

1038
01:09:06,760 --> 01:09:13,320
Speaker 1: and witness witness the gathering, the afternoon gathering um sand

1039
01:09:13,400 --> 01:09:16,120
Speaker 1: hill cranes is they're they're getting ready for their migration.

1040
01:09:16,920 --> 01:09:20,840
Speaker 1: And stand correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe

1041
01:09:20,920 --> 01:09:25,160
Speaker 1: Leopold thought that the sand hill crane um would could

1042
01:09:25,240 --> 01:09:29,600
Speaker 1: very well be extinct in his lifetime and through incredible

1043
01:09:30,600 --> 01:09:34,200
Speaker 1: work and and some of that is Stands work and

1044
01:09:34,280 --> 01:09:37,919
Speaker 1: his graduate students work. Um, the sand hill crane is

1045
01:09:37,920 --> 01:09:43,879
Speaker 1: is thriving. Now. Yeah, well, Doug, that was a wonderful

1046
01:09:43,880 --> 01:09:46,400
Speaker 1: evening that we spent on the river and sant Hill

1047
01:09:46,479 --> 01:09:50,360
Speaker 1: cranes are a beautiful example of a twentieth century conservation

1048
01:09:50,479 --> 01:09:54,799
Speaker 1: success story. They were nearly wiped out in the Upper Midwest,

1049
01:09:54,880 --> 01:09:58,400
Speaker 1: and in the nineteen thirties when Leopold wrote his very

1050
01:09:58,400 --> 01:10:02,000
Speaker 1: point in essay marsh Land Oology, Um, he expected they

1051
01:10:02,000 --> 01:10:07,080
Speaker 1: were going to go extinct in the Midwest. Uh, despite

1052
01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:11,120
Speaker 1: the fact that they had been protected by the Migratory

1053
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:15,480
Speaker 1: Bird Treaty Act, something that Leopold was a great advocate

1054
01:10:15,560 --> 01:10:22,640
Speaker 1: for back early in his career and certainly fors Antio cranes. Tragically,

1055
01:10:22,680 --> 01:10:26,200
Speaker 1: the reason they almost disappeared from the Midwestern landscape was

1056
01:10:26,280 --> 01:10:31,240
Speaker 1: quite simply because we killed them. We kill them for

1057
01:10:31,360 --> 01:10:35,280
Speaker 1: the market with market hunting. We killed them because we

1058
01:10:35,400 --> 01:10:39,439
Speaker 1: thought they thought cranes were a threat to their agricultural crops.

1059
01:10:40,680 --> 01:10:44,599
Speaker 1: But once we sort of changed our relationship with cranes,

1060
01:10:44,640 --> 01:10:48,519
Speaker 1: and especially once we stopped killing them. San hill cranes

1061
01:10:48,720 --> 01:10:53,200
Speaker 1: were very adaptable species and made the recovery pretty much

1062
01:10:53,240 --> 01:10:56,880
Speaker 1: on their own without any special efforts on the part

1063
01:10:56,880 --> 01:11:00,559
Speaker 1: of the conservation community. And they stand to day, as

1064
01:11:00,600 --> 01:11:04,160
Speaker 1: I said, as one of those remarkable success stories from

1065
01:11:04,160 --> 01:11:09,200
Speaker 1: the species that nearly disappeared, uh to one that's now thriving.

1066
01:11:09,800 --> 01:11:13,880
Speaker 1: But it's important to point out that the threat to

1067
01:11:13,960 --> 01:11:18,479
Speaker 1: sand hill cranes it was pretty simple to correct. Stop

1068
01:11:18,600 --> 01:11:22,280
Speaker 1: killing them at a rate that the population couldn't sustain,

1069
01:11:22,760 --> 01:11:26,439
Speaker 1: and they'll take care of themselves after that. For many

1070
01:11:26,479 --> 01:11:30,080
Speaker 1: other species, the problems are much more complicated. That they've

1071
01:11:30,160 --> 01:11:36,400
Speaker 1: lost their habitat, that their habitat is polluted in some way, uh,

1072
01:11:36,479 --> 01:11:39,960
Speaker 1: that they're affected by these big global issues of things

1073
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:45,560
Speaker 1: like climate change that are a lot more difficult to

1074
01:11:45,760 --> 01:11:49,519
Speaker 1: tackle and turn around. It can't be turned around quite

1075
01:11:49,560 --> 01:11:52,040
Speaker 1: simply in the matter of a few years or a

1076
01:11:52,040 --> 01:11:55,080
Speaker 1: few decades the way things were turned around for sant

1077
01:11:55,160 --> 01:11:59,720
Speaker 1: hill cranes. But no question, the conservation community can can

1078
01:12:00,040 --> 01:12:02,799
Speaker 1: take a lot of credit for species like the Santio

1079
01:12:02,920 --> 01:12:08,400
Speaker 1: crane that did come back dramatically after we changed our behavior. Yeah,

1080
01:12:08,640 --> 01:12:12,439
Speaker 1: that's so interesting because um, because it was such a

1081
01:12:12,439 --> 01:12:16,000
Speaker 1: simple solution. And then we have UH species like the

1082
01:12:16,000 --> 01:12:19,720
Speaker 1: white tailed deer and UH and UH raccoons. And I

1083
01:12:19,720 --> 01:12:22,479
Speaker 1: didn't know the raccoon story that you told earlier, and

1084
01:12:22,520 --> 01:12:24,400
Speaker 1: it was just kind of stunned by it because we're

1085
01:12:24,439 --> 01:12:28,599
Speaker 1: just overrun by them now. UM. But that that there

1086
01:12:28,600 --> 01:12:34,559
Speaker 1: are so many of these species that do well UH

1087
01:12:34,600 --> 01:12:37,720
Speaker 1: on the landscape that's been like like southwest Wisconsin is

1088
01:12:37,800 --> 01:12:41,479
Speaker 1: highly manipulated by land or they they're winners in that

1089
01:12:41,640 --> 01:12:45,280
Speaker 1: in the in the relationship with with mankind and our

1090
01:12:45,520 --> 01:12:48,960
Speaker 1: and the way we UH work on the land. Yet

1091
01:12:49,000 --> 01:12:53,439
Speaker 1: there's so many that that don't and that we also

1092
01:12:53,520 --> 01:12:56,880
Speaker 1: needed to to care for and be thinking about. And

1093
01:12:58,040 --> 01:13:01,599
Speaker 1: um and I was just thinking about how um sitting

1094
01:13:01,600 --> 01:13:04,760
Speaker 1: here listening just how it's you know, it's informing even

1095
01:13:04,800 --> 01:13:07,400
Speaker 1: more of my philosophy as I'm thinking about management on

1096
01:13:07,439 --> 01:13:10,080
Speaker 1: the property that I'm at and then going up to

1097
01:13:10,160 --> 01:13:12,479
Speaker 1: ten thousand feet and looking over the driftless area and

1098
01:13:12,560 --> 01:13:15,720
Speaker 1: my neighbors and and the public lands that are near

1099
01:13:15,760 --> 01:13:17,960
Speaker 1: me and and all of that, and how these things

1100
01:13:18,000 --> 01:13:22,000
Speaker 1: are also interconnected and how sure a deer at raccoon,

1101
01:13:22,840 --> 01:13:26,960
Speaker 1: coyotes um um, you know are the ones at sand

1102
01:13:27,040 --> 01:13:29,400
Speaker 1: hill cranes now too, are the ones that come to mind,

1103
01:13:29,479 --> 01:13:32,479
Speaker 1: But it's the it's the ones that are so much

1104
01:13:32,479 --> 01:13:37,519
Speaker 1: more sensitive to um, to the degradation of their of

1105
01:13:37,560 --> 01:13:40,479
Speaker 1: the landscape and of their ecosystem that we really need

1106
01:13:40,479 --> 01:13:45,960
Speaker 1: to be thinking about. Yeah, you know, you mentioned the

1107
01:13:46,280 --> 01:13:50,960
Speaker 1: sand hill crane, and I'm I'm glad you brought that up, Doug,

1108
01:13:51,080 --> 01:13:53,800
Speaker 1: because it is this example of a win, you know,

1109
01:13:53,800 --> 01:13:55,280
Speaker 1: of one of these things that we are able to

1110
01:13:55,320 --> 01:14:00,880
Speaker 1: bring back, and you know there's another. I love you

1111
01:14:00,960 --> 01:14:04,400
Speaker 1: made a great point stand that Leopold made. Part of

1112
01:14:04,400 --> 01:14:06,960
Speaker 1: what made his books so impactful, I think is that

1113
01:14:07,000 --> 01:14:12,160
Speaker 1: he has a wonderful way of of of articulating an

1114
01:14:12,200 --> 01:14:14,960
Speaker 1: important idea in a single line or two. He has

1115
01:14:15,000 --> 01:14:18,920
Speaker 1: these little maxims that somehow he's he's dropped throughout this

1116
01:14:18,960 --> 01:14:21,679
Speaker 1: book that now still today so many of us remember

1117
01:14:21,720 --> 01:14:24,920
Speaker 1: these little lines, these these single thoughts that encapsulate these

1118
01:14:24,960 --> 01:14:28,200
Speaker 1: larger issues, and he so clearly and concisely articulated them

1119
01:14:28,240 --> 01:14:30,639
Speaker 1: that it's still the easiest way for us to bring

1120
01:14:30,680 --> 01:14:32,559
Speaker 1: something up. So we keep on referencing back to well,

1121
01:14:32,640 --> 01:14:34,920
Speaker 1: Leopold sell that said this, and he just said it

1122
01:14:34,960 --> 01:14:37,160
Speaker 1: so darn well. I mean One of the things he

1123
01:14:37,240 --> 01:14:39,400
Speaker 1: said that comes to my mind now is he said

1124
01:14:39,439 --> 01:14:42,040
Speaker 1: that that something along this a paraphrase. But the downside

1125
01:14:42,040 --> 01:14:45,640
Speaker 1: of an ecological education is, you know, being alive in

1126
01:14:45,680 --> 01:14:47,360
Speaker 1: a in a world of wounds, like you, you have

1127
01:14:47,439 --> 01:14:51,599
Speaker 1: your eyes opened to all the things that are going

1128
01:14:51,640 --> 01:14:53,759
Speaker 1: on in the world that are bad for the environment.

1129
01:14:53,760 --> 01:14:55,400
Speaker 1: All the bad news. We all of a sudden start

1130
01:14:55,479 --> 01:14:57,679
Speaker 1: seeing it once you start paying attention to these things.

1131
01:14:57,720 --> 01:15:01,360
Speaker 1: And you know, fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, as

1132
01:15:01,400 --> 01:15:04,000
Speaker 1: a young person, I was blissfully ignorant to any of

1133
01:15:04,000 --> 01:15:09,479
Speaker 1: the issues impacting you know, species diversity, impacting the environment,

1134
01:15:09,520 --> 01:15:11,599
Speaker 1: et cetera. And as soon as you start really getting

1135
01:15:12,200 --> 01:15:15,200
Speaker 1: tapped into this, you you can get overwhelmed with the

1136
01:15:15,240 --> 01:15:17,240
Speaker 1: bad news you mentioned. We are on the dark ages

1137
01:15:17,320 --> 01:15:19,840
Speaker 1: of of so many other things, even though you know

1138
01:15:19,920 --> 01:15:23,280
Speaker 1: deer and deer hunting and that side is doing so well. Um,

1139
01:15:23,320 --> 01:15:26,840
Speaker 1: it's easy to to lose hope when you start seeing

1140
01:15:26,960 --> 01:15:31,559
Speaker 1: endless examples and stories and alarms about this species going extinct,

1141
01:15:31,720 --> 01:15:38,200
Speaker 1: or the ocean pollution or loss of bird populations, butterflies, grasslands,

1142
01:15:38,760 --> 01:15:42,519
Speaker 1: air quality, water quality, and there's so much bad news

1143
01:15:42,520 --> 01:15:46,040
Speaker 1: out there. Uh if if I could. If I could

1144
01:15:46,040 --> 01:15:48,920
Speaker 1: bring Elder Leopold back for one night and have dinner

1145
01:15:48,960 --> 01:15:52,720
Speaker 1: with him, I think I would ask him how he

1146
01:15:52,880 --> 01:15:56,080
Speaker 1: kept hope or how he would keep hope today in

1147
01:15:56,120 --> 01:15:58,639
Speaker 1: the face of that, in the face of all these

1148
01:15:58,680 --> 01:16:01,960
Speaker 1: things that seem to be looming on the horizon. Um.

1149
01:16:02,000 --> 01:16:04,360
Speaker 1: But I can't bring Leopold back to ask him that,

1150
01:16:04,400 --> 01:16:07,360
Speaker 1: So I guess I'll ask you, guys, how how do

1151
01:16:07,479 --> 01:16:10,360
Speaker 1: you go about keeping hope? And how can we keep

1152
01:16:10,400 --> 01:16:13,559
Speaker 1: hope for everyone else out there who's trying to learn

1153
01:16:13,600 --> 01:16:16,000
Speaker 1: about this stuff, who wants to get involved. How do

1154
01:16:16,080 --> 01:16:18,720
Speaker 1: we share these messages? How do we talk about these

1155
01:16:18,720 --> 01:16:21,559
Speaker 1: things without people just getting so depressed that they turn

1156
01:16:21,720 --> 01:16:23,479
Speaker 1: that they tune it out and just say, well, I

1157
01:16:23,479 --> 01:16:26,040
Speaker 1: can't do anything about this disaster. I'm just gonna go

1158
01:16:26,120 --> 01:16:29,639
Speaker 1: back to watching basketball or playing video games. Stan, Well,

1159
01:16:29,640 --> 01:16:32,400
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on that? Well, it's a it's

1160
01:16:32,400 --> 01:16:36,200
Speaker 1: a good point. And certainly Leopold was a hopeful, hopeful person,

1161
01:16:36,280 --> 01:16:39,080
Speaker 1: as as am I, as as are you and and

1162
01:16:39,080 --> 01:16:43,080
Speaker 1: and Doug. And I think a hopeful person is someone

1163
01:16:43,360 --> 01:16:48,720
Speaker 1: who recognizes that the odds are stacked against them, but

1164
01:16:48,840 --> 01:16:52,320
Speaker 1: they're willing to give it their best. Shot despite the odds.

1165
01:16:52,320 --> 01:16:54,760
Speaker 1: A pessimist, on the other hand, to somebody who knows

1166
01:16:54,880 --> 01:16:57,479
Speaker 1: that the odds are so stacked against them, that's what's

1167
01:16:57,600 --> 01:17:01,719
Speaker 1: what's the use um, as opposed to an optimist, somebody

1168
01:17:01,720 --> 01:17:04,479
Speaker 1: who knows that the odds are so stacked in their favor,

1169
01:17:05,320 --> 01:17:08,400
Speaker 1: uh that they don't have to worry about the outcome.

1170
01:17:08,760 --> 01:17:15,439
Speaker 1: But being hopeful obviously requires that you have a reason

1171
01:17:15,640 --> 01:17:18,960
Speaker 1: to be hopeful. And for Leopold, the reason that he

1172
01:17:19,160 --> 01:17:23,080
Speaker 1: was so hopeful, I think was that he had faith

1173
01:17:23,320 --> 01:17:28,960
Speaker 1: in humanity. He had faith in our ability uh to

1174
01:17:29,160 --> 01:17:34,680
Speaker 1: see things clearly, to understand what's going on around us,

1175
01:17:35,520 --> 01:17:40,679
Speaker 1: and to make decisions that were informed by by what

1176
01:17:40,720 --> 01:17:45,760
Speaker 1: we've learned, what we see, our own personal experiences, and

1177
01:17:45,760 --> 01:17:49,360
Speaker 1: and to have an inherent ability to want to do

1178
01:17:49,479 --> 01:17:54,519
Speaker 1: the right thing. And that that sort of motivation to

1179
01:17:54,600 --> 01:17:57,799
Speaker 1: do the right thing is why he was so hopeful

1180
01:17:58,320 --> 01:18:02,599
Speaker 1: that a land ethic would be the way forward, that

1181
01:18:02,600 --> 01:18:05,839
Speaker 1: that would be a turning point, that having that moral

1182
01:18:06,000 --> 01:18:11,120
Speaker 1: compass was going to be what really gave him hope

1183
01:18:11,280 --> 01:18:15,200
Speaker 1: for the future, that once that moral compass was firmly

1184
01:18:15,400 --> 01:18:20,360
Speaker 1: in place, that people would be inclined to always make

1185
01:18:20,439 --> 01:18:29,120
Speaker 1: decisions that would favor a healthy environment. Yeah, Doug, would

1186
01:18:29,160 --> 01:18:33,200
Speaker 1: you would you add anything to to your perspective on that?

1187
01:18:34,640 --> 01:18:38,080
Speaker 1: I would In reading Um, Leopold one of the words

1188
01:18:38,120 --> 01:18:41,360
Speaker 1: that he uses from time to time, and it's it's

1189
01:18:41,640 --> 01:18:47,000
Speaker 1: a wonderful word is delight, the delight of it. UM.

1190
01:18:47,040 --> 01:18:51,800
Speaker 1: I'm a simpler person, so I use the word fun um,

1191
01:18:51,960 --> 01:18:55,800
Speaker 1: but fun and interesting. I mean, I think that UM

1192
01:18:56,000 --> 01:18:59,240
Speaker 1: one of the opportunities that I have and Mark you

1193
01:18:59,320 --> 01:19:01,599
Speaker 1: and I haven't. Course, Stand has had his whole career,

1194
01:19:01,640 --> 01:19:03,880
Speaker 1: but you and I have because of our The work

1195
01:19:03,960 --> 01:19:07,080
Speaker 1: that we do in in outdoor media is is to

1196
01:19:07,200 --> 01:19:12,080
Speaker 1: start of sharing this the fun and delight in UM,

1197
01:19:12,160 --> 01:19:18,400
Speaker 1: in management and in thoughtfulness UM, mindfulness UM, of of

1198
01:19:18,840 --> 01:19:23,960
Speaker 1: working and being in um nature. UM. You know one

1199
01:19:24,000 --> 01:19:26,200
Speaker 1: of my favorite, one of the one of the favorite

1200
01:19:26,200 --> 01:19:28,360
Speaker 1: things that I did when you and I were working

1201
01:19:28,400 --> 01:19:30,200
Speaker 1: together on the back port, he was to leave you

1202
01:19:30,560 --> 01:19:32,720
Speaker 1: leave that tree for you to plant with your son.

1203
01:19:33,920 --> 01:19:36,479
Speaker 1: And when you did that, I mean I get the

1204
01:19:36,520 --> 01:19:39,200
Speaker 1: biggest smile in my face when you sent that picture

1205
01:19:39,240 --> 01:19:42,840
Speaker 1: to me about about planting that and you know that

1206
01:19:42,960 --> 01:19:48,840
Speaker 1: that that that passing that I had a young man. Gee,

1207
01:19:48,880 --> 01:19:50,280
Speaker 1: I don't even know how old Owen he was. I

1208
01:19:50,280 --> 01:19:55,120
Speaker 1: think the tenant came and uh and spent some time

1209
01:19:55,160 --> 01:19:57,760
Speaker 1: on the farm with his uncle and another one of

1210
01:19:57,840 --> 01:20:02,240
Speaker 1: my sharing the land cooperators, and uh boy, to get

1211
01:20:02,280 --> 01:20:06,200
Speaker 1: the opportunity to to you know, sort of nurture that

1212
01:20:06,320 --> 01:20:11,200
Speaker 1: delight in that young man is wonderful in that uh

1213
01:20:11,720 --> 01:20:14,280
Speaker 1: and watching his face light up. And I wasn't even

1214
01:20:14,280 --> 01:20:15,960
Speaker 1: trying to make his face light up so much as

1215
01:20:16,040 --> 01:20:18,280
Speaker 1: his face was just live up all the time. You know.

1216
01:20:18,320 --> 01:20:21,000
Speaker 1: One of the things Leopold said was what more delightful

1217
01:20:21,040 --> 01:20:23,280
Speaker 1: advocation than to take a piece of land and be

1218
01:20:23,400 --> 01:20:27,400
Speaker 1: cautious and by cautious experimentation to prove how it works.

1219
01:20:27,880 --> 01:20:31,280
Speaker 1: What more substantial service to conservation to practice it on

1220
01:20:31,280 --> 01:20:36,160
Speaker 1: one's own land. I work with landowners, you know, regularly.

1221
01:20:36,200 --> 01:20:42,920
Speaker 1: I interact with landowners regularly, and um, I just find

1222
01:20:43,080 --> 01:20:47,840
Speaker 1: those kinds of opportunities to be um you know the

1223
01:20:47,880 --> 01:20:50,879
Speaker 1: best and you can you can sort of see those

1224
01:20:51,040 --> 01:20:54,040
Speaker 1: um you know ripples that I been thinking about that

1225
01:20:54,240 --> 01:20:56,720
Speaker 1: the tree that I gave you said that Leopold said

1226
01:20:56,760 --> 01:20:59,719
Speaker 1: to plant the pine for example, one neither be neither

1227
01:20:59,800 --> 01:21:02,760
Speaker 1: be God nor poet. One need to only need a

1228
01:21:02,760 --> 01:21:08,040
Speaker 1: good shovel, there are those there are those kinds of

1229
01:21:08,040 --> 01:21:14,200
Speaker 1: things there. It's amazing how Leopold was able to, um,

1230
01:21:14,400 --> 01:21:18,360
Speaker 1: both speak so on such high levels and so eloquently,

1231
01:21:18,520 --> 01:21:20,920
Speaker 1: and study and all of the science of all this

1232
01:21:21,000 --> 01:21:23,439
Speaker 1: and then break it down to a simple phrase like

1233
01:21:23,520 --> 01:21:27,400
Speaker 1: one just needs a good shoffle um and I find

1234
01:21:27,439 --> 01:21:31,680
Speaker 1: that stuff to be just delightful. So if we can, um,

1235
01:21:31,720 --> 01:21:36,000
Speaker 1: you know, continue to advocate in a in a positive way,

1236
01:21:36,080 --> 01:21:38,680
Speaker 1: to be serious when we need to be serious, but

1237
01:21:38,800 --> 01:21:41,000
Speaker 1: then you know, point out the joy and the fun

1238
01:21:41,080 --> 01:21:45,519
Speaker 1: of it all, um, um, that that will help us,

1239
01:21:45,800 --> 01:21:51,240
Speaker 1: um be more uh more aware and that people will

1240
01:21:51,360 --> 01:21:53,960
Speaker 1: you know, pick you know, continue to pick it up

1241
01:21:54,000 --> 01:21:58,440
Speaker 1: and and and move forward with with constrvation and interact

1242
01:21:59,160 --> 01:22:03,880
Speaker 1: with the natural world world in an ethical way. Yeah. Yeah,

1243
01:22:03,920 --> 01:22:07,920
Speaker 1: that's that's such a great point. Uh well, stand do

1244
01:22:07,960 --> 01:22:09,720
Speaker 1: you want to do? You want to wrap this up

1245
01:22:09,760 --> 01:22:11,880
Speaker 1: for us? Um, I want to hear a little bit

1246
01:22:11,920 --> 01:22:16,360
Speaker 1: about Leopold week um, for those who want to dive

1247
01:22:16,400 --> 01:22:18,760
Speaker 1: more into some of these ideas and philosophies and learn

1248
01:22:18,800 --> 01:22:21,280
Speaker 1: more about Leopold. Um. You guys have got a great

1249
01:22:21,400 --> 01:22:24,280
Speaker 1: slate of events coming up here in just a matter

1250
01:22:24,320 --> 01:22:27,840
Speaker 1: of days. Um, would you first be willing to share

1251
01:22:27,880 --> 01:22:29,920
Speaker 1: any final thoughts on what we've talked about, Say, if

1252
01:22:29,920 --> 01:22:31,519
Speaker 1: there's anything else you want to leave us with a

1253
01:22:31,560 --> 01:22:35,040
Speaker 1: final call to action or or anything. Um, we'd love

1254
01:22:35,080 --> 01:22:36,760
Speaker 1: to hear that. And then we'd love to hear more

1255
01:22:36,800 --> 01:22:41,400
Speaker 1: about where we can enjoy Leopold Week. Sure well. The

1256
01:22:41,479 --> 01:22:44,320
Speaker 1: All the Leopold Foundation, which was created by all the

1257
01:22:44,400 --> 01:22:49,959
Speaker 1: Leopold's five children UH to further their father's legacy, basically

1258
01:22:50,000 --> 01:22:54,160
Speaker 1: has some pretty simple mission statements. You know, one is

1259
01:22:54,439 --> 01:22:58,599
Speaker 1: promoting the land ethic and spreading it to different communities. UM.

1260
01:22:58,640 --> 01:23:00,599
Speaker 1: And one of the ways we do that is through

1261
01:23:00,680 --> 01:23:05,280
Speaker 1: outreach efforts, and one of those is, of course the celebration,

1262
01:23:05,360 --> 01:23:09,000
Speaker 1: if you will, of Leopold Week. It's a period in

1263
01:23:09,120 --> 01:23:13,200
Speaker 1: early March in which we encourage and provide opportunities for

1264
01:23:13,320 --> 01:23:17,439
Speaker 1: communities to get together to perhaps do communal readings of

1265
01:23:17,479 --> 01:23:21,320
Speaker 1: the Sand County Almanac, or to listen uh to hopeful

1266
01:23:21,400 --> 01:23:27,720
Speaker 1: messages UM and and be inspired by Leopold's legacy. And

1267
01:23:27,920 --> 01:23:31,479
Speaker 1: the Leopold Week coming up the second week in in March,

1268
01:23:32,360 --> 01:23:36,160
Speaker 1: there's a big slate of activities that the Leopold Foundation

1269
01:23:36,320 --> 01:23:40,680
Speaker 1: is hosting all online of course this year, and you

1270
01:23:40,680 --> 01:23:43,880
Speaker 1: can tune into those and find out whether there are

1271
01:23:43,960 --> 01:23:47,599
Speaker 1: things that you might be especially interested in by simply

1272
01:23:47,640 --> 01:23:51,000
Speaker 1: going to the Leopold Foundation website, which is really simple.

1273
01:23:51,160 --> 01:23:54,879
Speaker 1: It's although Leopold dot org and look at the lineup

1274
01:23:55,360 --> 01:23:57,840
Speaker 1: and see whether there are things there that might well,

1275
01:23:57,880 --> 01:24:00,799
Speaker 1: I almost guarantee there will be things there will interest

1276
01:24:00,960 --> 01:24:04,719
Speaker 1: interest you, So tune it in and perhaps think about

1277
01:24:05,439 --> 01:24:11,400
Speaker 1: doing some type of of Leopold Week event in your community. UM.

1278
01:24:11,439 --> 01:24:16,200
Speaker 1: There's nothing more sort of beneficial than spreading the word

1279
01:24:16,240 --> 01:24:18,960
Speaker 1: to your to your immediate neighbors, and often a good

1280
01:24:18,960 --> 01:24:21,040
Speaker 1: way to do that would be to to host some

1281
01:24:21,160 --> 01:24:24,839
Speaker 1: type of an event that UH involves all the Leopold

1282
01:24:24,920 --> 01:24:29,800
Speaker 1: and his legacy terrific Well, UH stand and dug A,

1283
01:24:29,960 --> 01:24:33,439
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you taking the time to kind of

1284
01:24:33,960 --> 01:24:39,000
Speaker 1: just what's I don't know, just just coming as a

1285
01:24:39,040 --> 01:24:41,160
Speaker 1: community and talk about this stuff. I'm not quite sure

1286
01:24:41,200 --> 01:24:42,599
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say here, other than the fact

1287
01:24:42,600 --> 01:24:44,800
Speaker 1: that it has been cathartic. It has been good to

1288
01:24:44,880 --> 01:24:48,320
Speaker 1: just sit here and talk about UH an important person,

1289
01:24:48,400 --> 01:24:52,519
Speaker 1: an important philosophy, and important set of ideas. I feel

1290
01:24:52,560 --> 01:24:55,720
Speaker 1: recharged to get back after it, after this chat. So

1291
01:24:55,920 --> 01:25:00,240
Speaker 1: so thank you Doug, thank you Stan. You're welcome. It's

1292
01:25:00,280 --> 01:25:03,320
Speaker 1: like a good walk in the woods, yes, which we

1293
01:25:03,320 --> 01:25:08,160
Speaker 1: could always use more of. All right, that is a rap.

1294
01:25:09,160 --> 01:25:11,280
Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoyed this. I hope it's giving

1295
01:25:11,320 --> 01:25:14,080
Speaker 1: you some things to think about. But I want to

1296
01:25:14,120 --> 01:25:16,120
Speaker 1: give you a couple more action items, a couple of

1297
01:25:16,120 --> 01:25:20,400
Speaker 1: pieces of homework. First, if you haven't read a Sand

1298
01:25:20,439 --> 01:25:23,599
Speaker 1: County Almanac yet, this book we keep referencing, what are

1299
01:25:23,600 --> 01:25:25,760
Speaker 1: you waiting for? Pick this thing up. You can get

1300
01:25:25,760 --> 01:25:28,320
Speaker 1: it for I don't know, fifteen bucks or something. It's

1301
01:25:28,320 --> 01:25:32,000
Speaker 1: a small book. It is just packed full of wisdom,

1302
01:25:32,040 --> 01:25:35,759
Speaker 1: great writing. It's worth it. Check it out a Sand

1303
01:25:35,880 --> 01:25:39,840
Speaker 1: County Almanac. Secondly, i'd recommend you take stand up on

1304
01:25:39,880 --> 01:25:43,040
Speaker 1: his offer to tune into the Leopold Week events coming

1305
01:25:43,120 --> 01:25:45,360
Speaker 1: up here in the next few days. It's running from

1306
01:25:45,360 --> 01:25:51,479
Speaker 1: March fourth through March in particular. You might be interested

1307
01:25:51,479 --> 01:25:54,720
Speaker 1: in one of these events. It's a wominar with Nick Offerman.

1308
01:25:54,880 --> 01:25:57,840
Speaker 1: That's Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec. A lot of

1309
01:25:57,840 --> 01:25:59,400
Speaker 1: you guys must have watched Parks and Rec. It's a

1310
01:25:59,400 --> 01:26:03,439
Speaker 1: great show. The Ron Swanson character is Nick offered him.

1311
01:26:03,479 --> 01:26:05,799
Speaker 1: He's written a number of great books. He's just recently

1312
01:26:05,800 --> 01:26:09,040
Speaker 1: written a book about conservation in the outdoors and nature,

1313
01:26:09,560 --> 01:26:11,640
Speaker 1: and in this talk he's going to discuss his his

1314
01:26:11,680 --> 01:26:14,519
Speaker 1: own conservation, awakening of sorts, and a number of other things.

1315
01:26:14,560 --> 01:26:17,200
Speaker 1: I'm sure. So that one is on March tenth at

1316
01:26:17,280 --> 01:26:20,080
Speaker 1: seventh Central. Another one that might be interesting is a

1317
01:26:20,120 --> 01:26:22,760
Speaker 1: webinar with Michelle knee Heist. I believe that's how you

1318
01:26:22,760 --> 01:26:25,360
Speaker 1: pronounce her last name. And she wrote a really interesting

1319
01:26:25,400 --> 01:26:29,080
Speaker 1: book called Beloved Beasts. It's about the history of conservation

1320
01:26:29,120 --> 01:26:32,680
Speaker 1: of wildlife in America and where things are headed. I

1321
01:26:32,720 --> 01:26:35,880
Speaker 1: read the book, I enjoyed it. Um, it might be

1322
01:26:35,920 --> 01:26:37,880
Speaker 1: worth watching that one as well. There's a number of

1323
01:26:37,880 --> 01:26:39,519
Speaker 1: other good ones too, but those are just two that

1324
01:26:40,000 --> 01:26:42,080
Speaker 1: stood out to me. So you can find all that

1325
01:26:42,120 --> 01:26:44,519
Speaker 1: and you can sign up for those video events at

1326
01:26:44,560 --> 01:26:50,120
Speaker 1: although Leopold dot org. And that's it. I appreciate you

1327
01:26:50,200 --> 01:26:56,000
Speaker 1: being here, appreciate you tuning in. Um yeah, I UM.

1328
01:26:56,120 --> 01:26:57,800
Speaker 1: I'm glad you guys are on this journey with me.

1329
01:26:57,880 --> 01:27:00,920
Speaker 1: It's been a journey over ten five ten years now,

1330
01:27:01,160 --> 01:27:03,760
Speaker 1: as I've gone from being someone who just really wanted

1331
01:27:03,760 --> 01:27:06,720
Speaker 1: to figure out how to kill deer, to figuring out

1332
01:27:06,720 --> 01:27:09,040
Speaker 1: how do you kill more dear, to figuring out how

1333
01:27:09,040 --> 01:27:11,519
Speaker 1: do you kill big bucks? To figure out how do

1334
01:27:11,600 --> 01:27:15,920
Speaker 1: you grow big bucks and managed land, to then at

1335
01:27:15,960 --> 01:27:18,120
Speaker 1: some point realizing how do you make sure these things

1336
01:27:18,160 --> 01:27:19,559
Speaker 1: are around in the long term and how do we

1337
01:27:19,600 --> 01:27:22,160
Speaker 1: make sure we're given back. That's been my journey over

1338
01:27:22,200 --> 01:27:25,200
Speaker 1: this last fifteen years on wired Hunt, and for all

1339
01:27:25,240 --> 01:27:28,840
Speaker 1: of you who have rode along with me, I can't

1340
01:27:28,840 --> 01:27:30,599
Speaker 1: tell you how much I appreciate it. I hope you're

1341
01:27:30,640 --> 01:27:35,960
Speaker 1: enjoying it, And until next time, stay wired to Hunt.