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Speaker 1: Ye were jack late rabbits, which is illegal, but never

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Speaker 1: a dear. There was a code, there were laws you

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Speaker 1: would not break. This episode of the Bear Grease podcast

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Speaker 1: will be an expose on two men in the outdoor

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Speaker 1: industry that you may have heard of. I don't like

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Speaker 1: to air people's dirty laundry, but we gained access to

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Speaker 1: these hunters and you may know them, maybe even respect them,

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Speaker 1: and their stories will shock you. Who I'm talking about

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Speaker 1: is me and Steve Rannella. We had a candid conversation

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Speaker 1: about the way we were raised, our history with game laws,

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Speaker 1: and a few of our regrets. The intent is to

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Speaker 1: have some honest dialogue, giving us a data point to

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Speaker 1: understand our cultural history as modern hunters that will allow

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Speaker 1: us to dictate where we're going. We'll also tell to

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Speaker 1: Austin Booth, he's a lawyer, a former marine, and now

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Speaker 1: the director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. I

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Speaker 1: want to understand the philosophy of wildlife law enforcement in

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Speaker 1: two and the status of poaching. Will also pick up

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Speaker 1: two foundational components of the North American model of wildlife

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Speaker 1: conservation that we all should know. And if you want

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Speaker 1: the dirt on me and Ranella. I'm certain you're not

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Speaker 1: gonna want to miss this one. That tipping point where

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Speaker 1: you go from consumption to conservation necessitates you looking at

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Speaker 1: poaching as a horrible thing that detracts from the resource.

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Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukelem, and this is the Bear

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Speaker 1: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search

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Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the

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Speaker 1: story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land.

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Speaker 1: Presented by f HF Gear, American made purpose built hunting

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Speaker 1: and fishing gear. It's designed to be as rugged as

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Speaker 1: the places we explore. I was raised around. Let me

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Speaker 1: put to you this way. Any of the hunters and angers,

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Speaker 1: any of the outdoors when I was raised around, and

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Speaker 1: I was raised around many of them, any of them

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Speaker 1: would have like and if an undercover agent had embedded

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Speaker 1: with them for a week or two or a month,

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Speaker 1: any of them would have racked up a bunch of

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Speaker 1: violations that would sound really bad. I didn't grow up

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Speaker 1: around anyone that didn't break game laws. I'm not kidding you,

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Speaker 1: like anyone that was serious about hunting and fishing that

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Speaker 1: didn't break game laws. Because there was the ones you

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Speaker 1: paid attend mentioned too, And there's the one that no

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Speaker 1: one paid attention to. And in fact, I now know

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of them that we had no idea

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Speaker 1: that was a law. That was Steve runnella of meat eater.

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Speaker 1: He and I are about to give an expose of

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Speaker 1: our lives, because if you're new to hunting, it might

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Speaker 1: be hard to understand where we as a culture have

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Speaker 1: come from. Let me restate that all this talk of

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Speaker 1: breaking game laws isn't a celebration, a justification or a stunt,

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Speaker 1: but rather a crisp look into reality for the purpose

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Speaker 1: of getting it right in the future, in modern times,

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Speaker 1: for us to protect this immensely valuable wildlife resource we

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Speaker 1: have on this continent. It helps if we're just honest

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Speaker 1: with ourselves. This next clip is from the Bear Grease Render,

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Speaker 1: and it's my father Gary Nucom talking about his experience

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Speaker 1: of stepping into the big game hunting world at the

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Speaker 1: age of twenty six in the mid nineteen seventies. And

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Speaker 1: so I was introduced to bow hunting and I immediately

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Speaker 1: fell in love with it, and I got the watching

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Speaker 1: people and I saw nobody. Now take this literal, I'm

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Speaker 1: telling you, like I saw it. I knew nobody that

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Speaker 1: wouldn't kill an illegal, dear, and I'm like, in a

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Speaker 1: state of shock, I'm not gonna do that. I didn't

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Speaker 1: have uncles that taught me that. I didn't have a

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Speaker 1: dad that taught me that. Now, if you run up

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Speaker 1: against Josh and he's a city boy out enjoying hunting,

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Speaker 1: you know, two or three times a year, now, he's

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Speaker 1: not gonna kill anything illegal. He read the regulations and

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Speaker 1: just did what it said. Yeah, but the die hard hunters,

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Speaker 1: I'm telling you from my perspective, you gotta keep that

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Speaker 1: in mind. My perspective, they all killed illegal stuff. So

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Speaker 1: where do you draw the line. I killed one person,

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Speaker 1: I killed fifty people. I mean, you're killing stuff. It's illegal,

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Speaker 1: And where is it bad. It's bad with one, it's

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Speaker 1: bad with ten, it's bad with thirty. The prevalence of

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Speaker 1: wanton violation of the law in the past is remarkable,

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Speaker 1: But I feel like we've turned a corner of all

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Speaker 1: the laws. Wildlife laws are tough to enforce because hunting

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Speaker 1: is done in secluded places, often alone, and animals don't

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Speaker 1: speak English. They can't tell on us. There are various

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Speaker 1: gradients of poaching, and all are bad. There are serial

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Speaker 1: poachers that leave the house with the intent to break

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Speaker 1: the law. There are those who are typically law about him,

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Speaker 1: but they make the odd exception to egregiously break the law.

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Speaker 1: There are opportunistic law breakers who violate out of convenience

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Speaker 1: or to take advantage of a unique situation. There are

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Speaker 1: those who are simply ignorant of the law. And then

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Speaker 1: there are people that flat out and make a mistake

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Speaker 1: or misjudgment in the field. But if laws are broken,

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Speaker 1: the intent or the context really doesn't matter. No one

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Speaker 1: has an excuse. I'm still on the search for understanding

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Speaker 1: our functional ideologies around game laws. In the last couple

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Speaker 1: of episodes, we've talked with game wardens, undercover agents, and

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Speaker 1: hunters trying to nail down our collective doctrine, and doctrine

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Speaker 1: isn't what we say with our mouths, is what we

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Speaker 1: actually do. Most people would tell you that their law abiding,

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Speaker 1: but when you really dig in, you might find places

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Speaker 1: where they don't always hold to the letter of the law,

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Speaker 1: or more commonly, where in the past they didn't. And

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Speaker 1: sometimes people just mess up. And the more time you

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Speaker 1: spent in the woods, the greater chance that's would happened

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Speaker 1: to you. We forget we didn't know, we justify it

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Speaker 1: this one time, or we just flat ignore a law

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Speaker 1: because we think breaking it won't hurt anyone or the resource.

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Speaker 1: I think we've got to be honest with our worst

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Speaker 1: selves if we'll ever live consistently in our best selves.

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Speaker 1: I hope these stories will fortify a culture of putting

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Speaker 1: the resource first. Breaking the law is an easy thing,

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Speaker 1: and here is an example. Once during muzzleloader season, I

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Speaker 1: was walking to my deer stand in the pre dawn darkness,

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Speaker 1: and I planned to put on my hunter orange vest

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Speaker 1: in the tree. You see, I got dressed at the tree,

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Speaker 1: trying to do all the sink control stuff on the

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Speaker 1: way in, I dropped my orange vest on the ground

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Speaker 1: and didn't realize that until I was twenty five ft high.

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Speaker 1: The orange was like way back towards the truck. I

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Speaker 1: was on private land with no other hunters, and I

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Speaker 1: was bow hunting during musloader season. I continued to hunt

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Speaker 1: with just my orange hat, which didn't meet the square

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Speaker 1: inch orange minimum, and that morning I proceeded to kill

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Speaker 1: one of the largest bucks of my life with my bow. Technically,

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Speaker 1: I was in violation of the law and my poacher.

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Speaker 1: By the law, yes, but by every rational thanking human

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Speaker 1: on planet Earth, I don't think so. It would have

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Speaker 1: been more dangerous to all out of the tree and

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Speaker 1: walk to get the orange at daylight than it would

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Speaker 1: have been to stay in the tree and walk out midday.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever left your tree stand up longer than

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Speaker 1: you were supposed to on public land? Have you ever

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Speaker 1: gone fishing for the first time of the spring, only

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Speaker 1: to realize you didn't auto renew your fishing license. Have

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Speaker 1: you ever dipped your toe across a fence boundary that

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Speaker 1: you didn't have written permission to access. Have you ever

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Speaker 1: party hunted as a water fowler, which is basically a

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Speaker 1: group working to get the collective limit of everyone on

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Speaker 1: the hunt. Have you ever wasted meat? My intent and

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Speaker 1: asking these questions isn't to soften our ideas about the law,

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Speaker 1: but rather to strengthen them, and ultimately I hope this

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Speaker 1: conversation makes us be introspective about ourselves. That being said,

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Speaker 1: and I'll stand by this statement. I don't have a

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Speaker 1: history of intentionally breaking game laws. I've dedicated an incredible

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Speaker 1: amount of energy to the point of paranoia to not

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Speaker 1: break them even before I was in the outdoor industry.

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Speaker 1: I've never had a wild streak, and I grew up

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Speaker 1: in a very law abiding family, which I'm proud of.

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Speaker 1: But by sheer volume of exposure running around with the

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Speaker 1: odd ruffian, being a dumb kid and just being human,

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Speaker 1: I've made some mistakes. Here's Steve Ronnella describing the culture

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Speaker 1: of how he grew up, like I used to be

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Speaker 1: reluctant to talk about some of this stuff because of

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Speaker 1: h like a fear of getting in trouble, like elements

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Speaker 1: of hypocrisy. Whatever. Sure, we broke laws all the time. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I could sit I could sit here and and just

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Speaker 1: give you dozens of occurrences. Let me give you a

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Speaker 1: cup for instances. In the spring the rivers had come up,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes the rivers had come up so high that

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Speaker 1: it would flood out the muskrats out of their bank dens.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't muskrat season. You were not allowed to shoot

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Speaker 1: muskrats in Michigan. You had to trap them. But we

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Speaker 1: couldn't resist the temptation. We go out of twenty two

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Speaker 1: and go out in the flooded swamp and get my

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Speaker 1: scratch and just add him into the furs we sold

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Speaker 1: the next year, okay, because who's gonna notice, like some

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Speaker 1: twenty two holes and some of them. I remember in

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Speaker 1: high school my buddy Eric Kern, he's no longer with us.

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Speaker 1: A buddy Eric Kern would dip and smelt. He caught

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Speaker 1: a steel head, not allowed to do that with a net,

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Speaker 1: stuck it in his waiters and carried around in his

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Speaker 1: waiters in the boot of his waiters for the night.

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Speaker 1: I'm talking like a ten pound fish. Never in a

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Speaker 1: million years, and we had to let that fish go.

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Speaker 1: But there's some stuff we would never do. Would no way,

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Speaker 1: no how jack light a deer. We were jack late rabbits,

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Speaker 1: which is illegal, but never a deer. Wouldn't go over

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Speaker 1: a bang limit. But you had to be fourteen to

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Speaker 1: hunt with a rifle. I started hunting with a rifle

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Speaker 1: when I was thirteen. I shot a dough. My mom

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Speaker 1: came out and put her tag on it. I would

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Speaker 1: have gone down. I would have gone down and told

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Speaker 1: that story in school. It just it wasn't like you're

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Speaker 1: being secret e. It was just it was like the

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Speaker 1: attitude was how many deer are we allowed as a family?

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Speaker 1: Tell us that and then and then just leave the

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Speaker 1: rest to us. Right, And that's functionally the way they

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Speaker 1: that it was enforced too, am I right? It was like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't like we weren't checked by

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Speaker 1: people just I could. I could go on and on

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Speaker 1: like stuff that I'm the stuff that I'm ashamed about.

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Speaker 1: And I'll point out my dad was, Like I mentioned,

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Speaker 1: my dad was a veteran. His friends were veterans. These

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Speaker 1: are people who fought in World War two. These people

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Speaker 1: love their country, right, the most upstanding members of the community. Okay,

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Speaker 1: One of the guys down the road of a veteran. Uh,

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Speaker 1: he was a car salesman, mentored me all through growing up.

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Speaker 1: He fit, He lived with his wife, and his wife died,

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Speaker 1: and he fished all the time. Couldn't eat that many fish,

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Speaker 1: but he fished. I remember some days he'd fish two

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Speaker 1: d seventy days a year because he kept the track

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Speaker 1: of it a notepad. How many fish can you eat?

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Speaker 1: Sold his fish? He would encourage me to go sell

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Speaker 1: my fish to the illegal outfit that he sold his

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Speaker 1: fish too in a restaurant. No, it's a fish dealer,

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Speaker 1: fish a fish market. And he would even advise me

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Speaker 1: on how to negotiate the deals. Do you understand these

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Speaker 1: are not people that would have identified as poachers. I

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Speaker 1: don't know why. Oh, moving fish around, dumping them into

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Speaker 1: all their lakes and stuff like you name it, man like,

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Speaker 1: it was just everywhere. But there's certain lines you there was,

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Speaker 1: like lines you didn't cross. I remember. I don't want

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Speaker 1: to name the guy's names. I'm friendly with his kid.

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Speaker 1: The guy shot way more wood ducks than he was

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Speaker 1: allowed one time and did a very sloppy job of

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Speaker 1: cleaning them and just breasted some wood ducks and dumped

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Speaker 1: him out in the woods. And we found them and

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Speaker 1: told our old man about these wood ducks that weren't cleaned.

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Speaker 1: And my old man went over there and confronted the

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Speaker 1: guy that, well, something you you not do, waste the game,

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Speaker 1: don't do that. But he would do all my only way.

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Speaker 1: I would do all manners, stuff you weren't supposed to do. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it was like a spirit of the law leader

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Speaker 1: the law. I really appreciate Steve opening up about his past.

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Speaker 1: It takes some guts to do that, and his intent

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Speaker 1: is just to be honest. He nor I have nothing

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Speaker 1: to hide. I have no doubt that people who have

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Speaker 1: been involved in hunting and fishing their entire lives, and

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Speaker 1: if they've seen a few winters can relate. I know

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Speaker 1: I can. And at the end of this podcast, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to tell you my darkest secret. It's really not

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Speaker 1: a secret. But here's Steve on ethics. It's a relationship

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Speaker 1: with the game laws. It's hard to understand. I'll point

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Speaker 1: out to people. Now, people we have all these conversations

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Speaker 1: about hunting ethics. I'm like, man, here's a here's a

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Speaker 1: good way to get of the way. There follow laws.

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Speaker 1: We've codified our ethics in this country to large measure,

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Speaker 1: they changed their time at any given time. Are ethics

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Speaker 1: are mostly codified by law. If you want to be be

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Speaker 1: an ethical hunter, that typically means don't break the laws.

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Speaker 1: But my God, really loose with the laws growing up,

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Speaker 1: and I was two because I was brought up that way,

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Speaker 1: I had to later realize out of getting on board

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Speaker 1: with the program, okay, getting on board with the game

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Speaker 1: management program that we're on in this country, the journey

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Speaker 1: we're on with conservation, the journey around with game management,

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Speaker 1: like getting on board with that, and also, quite simply

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Speaker 1: and frankly, when I was in my twenties out of

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Speaker 1: fear of being in trouble. Yeah, then will I'll be

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Speaker 1: in trouble. Cleaned up our act. I got the scared

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Speaker 1: out of me by game word one time, who I

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Speaker 1: knew was on to me about something, and that scared

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Speaker 1: me pretty straight. You don't want to tell that story, Well,

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Speaker 1: I really don't tell what he asked me. Let me

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Speaker 1: tell you what he asked me. You weren't allowed to

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Speaker 1: use airs where I lived on land for land animals.

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Speaker 1: He asked me if I had been setting snares. I

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Speaker 1: told him no. He then went through over a hundred

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Speaker 1: traps in the back of my truck looking for one

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Speaker 1: that didn't have a tag on it. He didn't like

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Speaker 1: check one. He was like, I'm gonna looked at his

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Speaker 1: bundle and I'm gonna find a not tag trap and

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a citation. And you didn't find

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Speaker 1: a not tag trap, to my surprise and his because

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Speaker 1: they just fall off sometimes. But I knew that guy

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Speaker 1: knew something I've done. Uh, you know that kind of

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Speaker 1: scared straight on that stuff. I had a fur buyer

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Speaker 1: who would push snares on you catch more game license

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Speaker 1: fur buyer. He's like, hey, why don't you take some

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Speaker 1: of these bringing stuff in right, just pervasive, And there's

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Speaker 1: no way you wouldn't. There's no way you don't like

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Speaker 1: knowing where you grew up and how you grew up.

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Speaker 1: There's no way you didn't have all those same experiences. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, I had an interesting, interesting experience in that

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Speaker 1: my dad was Gary Nucom who he he did? He

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Speaker 1: He always says he didn't grow up in a hunting family,

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Speaker 1: and I don't like it when he says that, because

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Speaker 1: he did. My grandfather was a big quail hunter and

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Speaker 1: bird dog trainer. What he means to say is he

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Speaker 1: didn't grow up in a big game hunting family, which

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Speaker 1: he didn't, and so he was kind of a first

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Speaker 1: He he learned how to bow hunt on his own

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Speaker 1: and did all this stuff, and man, he was pretty

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Speaker 1: straight laced and kind of came into the hunting space

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Speaker 1: and realized that he was the only guy around that

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Speaker 1: was actually trying to obey game laws. And he just

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Speaker 1: had just kind of the right mix of following the

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Speaker 1: rules and he was he was a banker. He was

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Speaker 1: in the community that he felt like he needed to

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Speaker 1: be an upstanding citizen in which was good and man,

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Speaker 1: we came out of the shoot with a very I mean,

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Speaker 1: I wasn't afraid the game warden. I was afraid of

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Speaker 1: my dad. So it's kind of a different story. And

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Speaker 1: so I never wantingly bro game loss, even though I

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Speaker 1: did just because I was a dumb kid. You know,

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Speaker 1: a couple of times in coon hunting while we were

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Speaker 1: coon hunting, twice deer were killed on coon hunts. M M.

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Speaker 1: Steve said, well, here's the full story. I've never in

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Speaker 1: my life set out to kill a deer illegally. Ever,

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Speaker 1: but one night deep in the winter when I was seventeen,

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Speaker 1: we were on a coon hunt. I saw the glowing

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Speaker 1: eyes of an erect eared critter that hovered about twenty

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Speaker 1: inches off the ground. I immediately whispered to my buddy

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Speaker 1: with the twenty two rifle Kyo, shoot that thing. Within seconds,

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Speaker 1: a shot was fired and the glowing eyes went out.

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Speaker 1: Upon retrieval, it wasn't a coyote at all. It turns

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Speaker 1: out it was a bedded doe deer, and it wasn't

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Speaker 1: even legal to shoot a cowde at night, but I

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Speaker 1: didn't know that. Rather than calling the game warden, which

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Speaker 1: would have been the right thing, to do, calling old

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Speaker 1: Jimmy Martin. We stuffed the deer in our dog box

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Speaker 1: and went home and skinned it. A second time, I

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Speaker 1: was hunting with someone older than me on his land,

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Speaker 1: and again I think I was seventeen. We saw a

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Speaker 1: pair of eyes on the hill and I said, there's

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Speaker 1: one of your cows. He said, that's not a cow,

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Speaker 1: that's a deer. I said, no, you're wrong, that's one

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Speaker 1: of your cows. He proceeded to pull out his twenty

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Speaker 1: two pistol, take aim, and dropped the animal from over

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Speaker 1: seventy five yards away. We walked up there and he

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Speaker 1: was right, it was a deer. He loaded the deer

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Speaker 1: in the truck, drove to some dude's house that needed

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Speaker 1: some meat, and no questions were ever asked. He dropped

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Speaker 1: the deer off. Since that time, I become more adept

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Speaker 1: at identifying animals by glowing eyes. I'm ashamed of these

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Speaker 1: things and learned a lot from them. Here's Steve Man.

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Speaker 1: It's hard to explain. Yeah, yeah, but there were there

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Speaker 1: was a code. There were alas you would not break.

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Speaker 1: I like, I don't know any of all the violating

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Speaker 1: I've talked about. I don't know anyone in my family's

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Speaker 1: social circle that ever shot a deer of the spotlight,

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Speaker 1: or that ever shot a deer out of season, that

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Speaker 1: would have been break. You would not do that. I

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Speaker 1: don't know why. I want to introduce you to the

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Speaker 1: director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. He's been

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Speaker 1: on the Bear Grease podcast before. His name is Austin Booth.

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Speaker 1: He's a former marine, a lawyer, a pilot, and at

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Speaker 1: the ripe age of thirty five, he's one of the

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Speaker 1: youngest directors in the agency's history, and he's making some

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Speaker 1: good waves in our state. Austin is also a lifelong hunter.

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Speaker 1: Over the next twenty minutes, I'm gonna ask him about

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Speaker 1: the agency's philosophy of law enforcement, the status of poaching

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Speaker 1: in the state, and the foundational ideology that regulates wildlife law.

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Speaker 1: Here's Austin Booth, So what is the philosophy of law

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Speaker 1: enforcement these days? And and how are we how are

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Speaker 1: we going after people that are breaking the law. So

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Speaker 1: there's a whole lot of people out there that wrongly

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Speaker 1: believe that the Arkansas Gamon Fish Commission is just out

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Speaker 1: there to write tickets. That's not true. It is written

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Speaker 1: into Arkansas law that all the revenue that we generate

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Speaker 1: from tickets goes into the county schools in which we

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Speaker 1: write that ticket in, so we never see a single

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Speaker 1: penny of that money. So there's no quota on apt

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Speaker 1: to write a ticket. There's not Would you say that's

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Speaker 1: common for state agencies outside of Arkansas? I know of

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Speaker 1: a handful of other states. There's probably more, but it's

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Speaker 1: intuitive to see that a government agency having a monetary

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Speaker 1: incentive to write tickets is probably a bad thing. So

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Speaker 1: we don't see any of that money. All right, Well, Austin,

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Speaker 1: if y'all aren't there to self funder selves through regulations enforcement,

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Speaker 1: how to y'all approach this? We enforce regulations for compliance

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Speaker 1: at the Cadet graduation for the Cadeta of Wildlife Officers

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Speaker 1: we graduated last year are Colonel Colonel Brad Young, outstanding

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Speaker 1: American said, y'all are not here to write granny a

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Speaker 1: ticket for being one day expired on her fishing license.

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Speaker 1: Make sure she gets a new license. We're not focused

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Speaker 1: on minor violations. We want to educate people and we

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Speaker 1: want to enforce for compliance. Where we do get aggressive

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Speaker 1: is on serious game violations. We issue more than thirty

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Speaker 1: five hundred citations per year on average. We issue well

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Speaker 1: over five thousand warnings per year on average. So we

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Speaker 1: really try to focus the lion's share of our enforcement

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Speaker 1: work on major violators because they do materially take away

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Speaker 1: from the resource. We had a case this year where

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Speaker 1: a gentleman had what he called a deer garden in

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Speaker 1: his yard where he had harvested over forty bucks and

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Speaker 1: and had the heads out there in the sun cleaning them.

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Speaker 1: We had a case this year young man in his

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Speaker 1: early twenties who acquired over thirteen hundred points. Now, to

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Speaker 1: provide some context for that, you only have to have

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Speaker 1: eighteen points to have your hunting license revoked. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: so he accumulated an unimaginable amount of violations. And you

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Speaker 1: can't tell me that that's not a taking from the

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Speaker 1: polit resource. Thirty five hundred citations and five thousand warnings

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Speaker 1: a year, those are big numbers. It's interesting to me

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Speaker 1: that wardens aren't incentivized right tickets. I think that most

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Speaker 1: of us wouldn't have guessed that. It kind of goes

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Speaker 1: back to some of our past discussion about a fundamental

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Speaker 1: mistrust of power. This helps us view law enforcement differently

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Speaker 1: and realize that this misperception is probably coming from our side.

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Speaker 1: I want to get Austin's opinion on the threat of

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Speaker 1: poaching in the big picture. In the big scheme of

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Speaker 1: threats to North American wildlife, are poachers at the top

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Speaker 1: of that list. And it's not really apples to apples

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Speaker 1: to compare like habitat loss, so it's not entirely apples

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Speaker 1: to apples. But I guess I'm trying to understand how

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Speaker 1: big a threat it is because I think sometimes we

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Speaker 1: can live in a bubble, some of us, especially inside

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Speaker 1: the guys that are real enthusiast inside the outdoor space.

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Speaker 1: Like I said it before, the cool kids obey the laws,

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Speaker 1: Like that's what that's the culture we're building, is that

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Speaker 1: we want to obey laws. We want we're all on

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Speaker 1: the same team. We want to see more wildlife. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to kill thirty turkeys. But because sometimes in

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Speaker 1: this space we're sur rounded by the by the good guys,

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00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:05,720
Speaker 1: in a sense, you don't see what's I don't I

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Speaker 1: don't always see what's happening on the outside. And is

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Speaker 1: poaching a major threat to wildlife? It is? And to

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Speaker 1: bring us back to the last time we were on

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Speaker 1: a podcast together. We were talking about ducks and g trs,

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Speaker 1: and you said, and in closing one of the podcasts,

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Speaker 1: you said that when an animal is treasured by people,

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Speaker 1: it thrives. And so if you take that that sentiment,

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Speaker 1: the appreciation of wildlife and their role that they play

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Speaker 1: in the ecosystem and in people's lives, that appreciation is

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Speaker 1: front and center with the loss of habitat, and it's

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Speaker 1: front and center with poaching too, because the question, as

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Speaker 1: hunters shouldn't be do we appreciate this resource enough to

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Speaker 1: hunt it? It's to be do we appreciate do we treasure?

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Speaker 1: Do we adore this resource enough to conserve it? And

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Speaker 1: that tipping point where you go from consumption to conservation

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Speaker 1: necessitates you looking at poaching as a horrible thing that

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Speaker 1: detracts from from the resource. So are we losing more ducks,

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Speaker 1: more turkey two, loss of habitat, absolutely than we are

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Speaker 1: compared to say, poachers. But it's a common foundation of

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Speaker 1: lack of appreciation for the resource. Right, how do you

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Speaker 1: think we remedy that inside the culture, Because it's clear,

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Speaker 1: it's a clear world view to me in a in

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Speaker 1: a compelling lifestyle to live a life that is in

428
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 1: accordance with the game laws. It's easy for me to

429
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: say that too, because I have a pretty privileged life

430
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: when it comes to hunting. But there's also you know,

431
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: I spoke about how there was real skin side of

432
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 1: me telling the stories that I've told the last couple

433
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:10,920
Speaker 1: of podcasts, the risk of it glamorizing essentially rebellion against authority.

434
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: So there is some of that. How do we like

435
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: projecting forward twenty five years? Because you go back twenty

436
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 1: five years from two and it was a pretty different

437
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 1: world in this state, for sure. You go back another

438
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 1: twenty five and it was like a different planet. And

439
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,119
Speaker 1: today it's just different than that, I think, and I

440
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 1: think we've improved, but there's still some of this culture

441
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:35,439
Speaker 1: that values that. I don't know, what do we do?

442
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: How do we build the culture to continue to progress? Well,

443
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 1: I think there's lots of complex contributions to that that

444
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 1: are this isn't a complex conversation, awesome, that are well

445
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 1: outside what you and I can control. We need more

446
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: stable households that have a deep commitment to not only

447
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:00,879
Speaker 1: making sure that young boys and girls make good grades,

448
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 1: but that there are men and women of character. I

449
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 1: think kids, uh and even adults need to have a

450
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: better understanding of ecology and the importance of conserving not

451
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: just individual species, but also conserving the ecosystem as a whole.

452
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:21,719
Speaker 1: But I think the number one thing that we can do,

453
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 1: in addition to exposing more young people to the outdoors

454
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,440
Speaker 1: is doing exactly what you're doing on this podcast. And

455
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 1: let's talk about the nexus of wild things, wild places,

456
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 1: and people and how these resources don't just exist to exist,

457
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: but they exist for us to for us to steward

458
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: them and to enjoy them, and the only way to

459
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:50,400
Speaker 1: do that in perpetuity is to take care of them

460
00:27:50,520 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: the best we can. I want to get to the

461
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 1: foundation of why we have game laws. This is the

462
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:06,359
Speaker 1: language that we should all be familiar with and be

463
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 1: able to wield in intelligent ways as we continue to

464
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: carve out a stable position in modern society. Remember this

465
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: the public trust doctrine. So, the public trust doctrine is

466
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: one of the foundational pillars of the North American model

467
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 1: of wildlife conservation, and it is a repudiation of the

468
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:32,239
Speaker 1: European model, which is essentially that if you owned a

469
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 1: tract of land that you also owned the wildlife though

470
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:40,479
Speaker 1: that that rana. So you can go back hundreds of

471
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 1: years ago, if there was a peasant that lived adjacent

472
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: to royalty or some other aristocrat, and there was some

473
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: way to prove that the peasant killed a deer that

474
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: that came from the rich person's land, then they could

475
00:28:55,880 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: be convicted for it. So private ownership, private ownership life

476
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 1: of wildlife. Yes, yeah, The public trust doctrine repudiates that

477
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: and says that there is such a universal interests in

478
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: wildlife and seeing them flourish and the opportunity to enjoy

479
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: wildlife that wildlife are universally owned by the public in

480
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: the present and in the future. Now, that would have

481
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 1: been radical doctrine that was unique to North America. Is

482
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 1: that right? From a global perspective, Yes, that's correct. So

483
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: this was something that was was part of what Shane

484
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:39,560
Speaker 1: Mahoney called American genius inside of the North American Mile

485
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: of wildlife conservation that we It's so counterintuitive too, because

486
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: you would think if you wanted to protect something that

487
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: you would sent it down to centralized control and not

488
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: let everybody else in on it. But we're saying everybody

489
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 1: owns wildlife, So dear on my property, even though they're

490
00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 1: on my property, are not mine. That's there owned by

491
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 1: my neighbor and by you and by people in Nebraska.

492
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: That's correct. And the context for the public trust doctrine,

493
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: I think is very important because a lot of it,

494
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: the broad public support for it was born out of

495
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:21,480
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds when we had exhausted wildlife to

496
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: extra pation throughout the country and so from a conservation

497
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 1: sportsman perspective, as a country, we were picking up the

498
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: pieces and saying, how do we make this better? How

499
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: do we not only increase wildlife on the landscape but

500
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 1: also ensure that this doesn't happen to the next generation.

501
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: So there was a big appeal at that time. There

502
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 1: was like it made a ton of sense that that's

503
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 1: what we needed to do. Are you saying that now

504
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: there's voices that are saying that is not as relevant. Yeah.

505
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: It has some challenges. Uh, It's met some resistance in

506
00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: other states, fortunately not Arkansas, but people are often tempted

507
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: to think more about wildlife as an agricultural resource. There

508
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: are some states where all animals and high fence farms,

509
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: including native wildlife, are completely under private management and ownership.

510
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: This is a new idea. Basically, high fences and privately

511
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: owned native wildlife can threaten the public trust doctrine on

512
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: which we've had so much success. Here's Austin on the

513
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 1: impact of poaching on the system and a personal story.

514
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 1: So when you think about the public trust doctrine and

515
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 1: the success of the North American model of wildlife conservation

516
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 1: writing on the back of this idea of public trust

517
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 1: giving incentive for the common man to want wildlife to

518
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 1: thrive on a macro scale, that's really what's happened. But

519
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 1: someone that would infringe on those game laws would essentially

520
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 1: be violating the public trust doctrine or stealing from it.

521
00:31:56,920 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: And just saying I can take as much wildlife as

522
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:02,280
Speaker 1: I want, I can take more than I want. They're

523
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:06,200
Speaker 1: violating not just the wildlife but everyone else. And so

524
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the whole story of poaching. That's hurting

525
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 1: the whole system. And when someone violates a game law

526
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: in the form of poaching, essentially what they're saying is

527
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: that they believe they have a higher claim to that,

528
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: to that critter than than anyone else does. If we

529
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: had that on at broad scale, our wildlife as we

530
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: know it would wither and die. Just to illustrate that,

531
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a personal story. Uh Hantaalis in Arkansas.

532
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 1: Uh and put some work into it in the off

533
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: season last year. And it was a thing for my

534
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 1: eight year old daughter and I to go out there

535
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: and work. And then when deer season got closer, you know,

536
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 1: morning time before school or church, she would crawl up

537
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: in my lap and I've been drinking a cup of

538
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: coffee and she wanted to look at trail camp pictures.

539
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 1: So we had a good number of bucks out there,

540
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 1: a lot of them were young. We're super excited getting

541
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 1: ready for a season, and uh, then the rut comes around.

542
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: There's no deer and I I just kind of chalked

543
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 1: it up to you know, mother nature, the rut being off,

544
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 1: it being warm. And then uh, the farmer that was

545
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 1: there cut his beans. Uh he was late getting him

546
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: in that he was like getting him out. And when

547
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 1: he cut his beans, we found eleven dead bucks. There

548
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: were no tire tracks leading up to him. All the

549
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: horns are still on them. And so somebody's shooting these

550
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: deer just to shoot him and my coach to the highway. Yes,

551
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: very close to highway and my eight year old daughter

552
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 1: asked me where did all the deer go? Dad? I said, well,

553
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: somebody killed him? What did you kill him? No, honey,

554
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 1: who killed him? I don't know? Well why don't you know?

555
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: Well they did this thing called poaching. And I explained

556
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 1: to her what poaching was, and she said, are they

557
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:55,719
Speaker 1: going to get caught? And I said, I hope so,

558
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: but probably not. And she kind of thought about it

559
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: for a little bit and she thought, well, if they're

560
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 1: not going to get caught, can we or anybody else

561
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 1: do the same thing? And to me, that's one sad

562
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:15,280
Speaker 1: to not only shows the amount of investment that people

563
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: put into wildlife, and when somebody poaches, they're taking not

564
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,640
Speaker 1: necessarily the wildlife from them, but that investment from them.

565
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 1: And then thirdly, just the secondary effects of poaching on

566
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 1: on how people, even my eight year old daughter, views

567
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 1: institutions and how they should behave if they don't think

568
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 1: that they're going to get caught. In my opinion, this

569
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: is the most egregious form of poaching, killing for killing sake.

570
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 1: It's not hunters that do this. These people would fit

571
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:52,239
Speaker 1: into another category and don't deserve the label hunter. I

572
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:55,480
Speaker 1: want to ask Austin about the other types of poaching

573
00:34:55,520 --> 00:35:00,879
Speaker 1: that are going on today. Food scarcity is a real

574
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: thing in Arkansas. But the poachers that we catch, the

575
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: narrative of I'm poaching because I have to that is

576
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:13,759
Speaker 1: non existent. The people that the Arkansas Game of Fish

577
00:35:13,880 --> 00:35:19,720
Speaker 1: apprehends for poaching, they oftentimes have night vision technology, thermal scopes,

578
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 1: infra red spotlights, and there is a high level of

579
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 1: investment and work in time that often goes into their

580
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: hardened decision to violate the law. A hardened decision to

581
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:35,759
Speaker 1: violate the law, that's the place you don't want to

582
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:39,720
Speaker 1: find yourself. Austin is now going to explain the open

583
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 1: fields doctrine, which governs wildlife law enforcement. This is another

584
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:46,919
Speaker 1: thing that would be good to keep in your repertoire.

585
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 1: I bet y'all didn't know that I could speak French.

586
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: So the open fields doctrine is the notion that if

587
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 1: you have a wildlife officer out there trying to enforce

588
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: game law US, then they can freely cross from public

589
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,479
Speaker 1: land on private land. This is not just something that

590
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 1: the Arkansas Game Fish came up with. This actually comes

591
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:11,359
Speaker 1: from the United States Sprent Court. It was a case

592
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:16,759
Speaker 1: in nineteen Hester versus the United States that said, uh,

593
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:21,280
Speaker 1: special protection a quartered by the Fourth Amendment in their persons,

594
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 1: Houses and Effects, which is in the Constitution, does not

595
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 1: extend to open fields. And the reasoning they're being from

596
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court which open fields describe that terminology to me,

597
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: I don't understand that that's where I was going with it,

598
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 1: is that the Fourth Amendment protections generally revolve around thinks

599
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 1: that you have an expectation of privacy, and that comes

600
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: from the Cat's case. The reasoning behind open fields is

601
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 1: if you have a broad expanse of land, your expectation

602
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: of privacy does not go to every single corner of

603
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: the land that that it's insulated around your dwelling and

604
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 1: what the court calls curtilage like tense trailers, cars that

605
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:11,959
Speaker 1: you have that kind of stuff. Uh. And so Arkansas

606
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:16,799
Speaker 1: and nearly every other state. If a game warden is

607
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 1: is trying to get after a poacher and they believe

608
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,279
Speaker 1: that there's a poacher on private land, then under the

609
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 1: open field doctrine, they can go apprehend that poacher without

610
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 1: a search warrant. They couldn't search the house without a warrant.

611
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:33,320
Speaker 1: They couldn't search a mobile home next to the house.

612
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 1: They couldn't search a car next to the house unless

613
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 1: they witness the crime happen and the individual rain that's

614
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:45,840
Speaker 1: completely different. But for for warrant purposes, if they have

615
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,840
Speaker 1: evidence or reason to believe that there's poaching going on

616
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:53,359
Speaker 1: on private lands again out you know, outside the home

617
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 1: or or the curtilage of a dwelling place, then they

618
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:01,440
Speaker 1: can go hop offense and try to apprehend that poacher

619
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: without a search one. That's right, And the reason that's

620
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: important is because the deer can cross defense too. If

621
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: our natural resources, especially wildlife, can traverse private property and

622
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 1: public property freely, then it's important for wildlife officers to

623
00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: be able to do the same to enforce the game laws.

624
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:27,919
Speaker 1: That's even more important going forward because if you look

625
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 1: at the landscape, we're suffering from loss of habitat right

626
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: and so as public land and private land become increasingly intermingled,

627
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:42,320
Speaker 1: it's a big deal to Americans that that game laws

628
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 1: be enforced equally, that public land hunters are not more

629
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:51,399
Speaker 1: susceptible to game laws than say, private land hunters are,

630
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:54,319
Speaker 1: simply because of where they choose to hunt, and is

631
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 1: that in jeopardy. Uh, not in Arkansas, but just in

632
00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 1: that it's been undermined and other just actions. How has

633
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:05,840
Speaker 1: that happen? They believe that the rights of rights of

634
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: privacy in private property are more compelling than equal protection

635
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:15,840
Speaker 1: of the laws for private land hunters and public lean hunters.

636
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: That's a tricky one, isn't it, Because we like, we

637
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 1: all respect the rights of private land owners and we

638
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:26,839
Speaker 1: want that right. But in the macro picture of protecting wildlife,

639
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: that's a that's a right that you know, we kind

640
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:32,799
Speaker 1: of choose to give away in a sense that we

641
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 1: didn't choose it, but but we're okay with it. I mean,

642
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 1: I want a game warden to be able to go

643
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 1: on this guy's land and enforced game laws and in

644
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: the same way you can do it on my land.

645
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 1: I hope this conversation is giving us some more robust

646
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:52,279
Speaker 1: understanding of wildlife law enforcement, and I hope it's making

647
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:57,720
Speaker 1: us evaluate our own relationship with the law. This next

648
00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:02,240
Speaker 1: story is extremely personal and meaningful to me. At the time.

649
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 1: It shaped my life and it continues to do so.

650
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:11,280
Speaker 1: Here's me telling old Steve Ronnella about it. How humiliating

651
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 1: I was bow hunting public land and had been walking

652
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: for miles and miles and miles with a bow in hand, scouting,

653
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 1: and I see a squirrel and I mean, I'm I'm

654
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 1: not joking when I say this is maybe. I maybe

655
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 1: shot a squirrel with a bow two other times in

656
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 1: my life, and I mean, you know, kept the squirrel

657
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 1: because it is not something I make a practice of.

658
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 1: But just on that day, at the right time, the

659
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 1: squirrel set there for long enough, and I said, man,

660
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot that squirrel. And I shoot that squirrel

661
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:45,879
Speaker 1: just at long shot, like I didn't think i'd hit him,

662
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: you know, thirty yards and just nail him and the

663
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 1: air goes through his hips and I go up and

664
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:57,280
Speaker 1: I actually set there looking at that squirrel, just thinking,

665
00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 1: doc Hunt, Why did I do this? And this ended

666
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: up being a pretty formative moment in my young adult

667
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: life for real, because I made a conscious decision that

668
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:11,360
Speaker 1: was like, man, the meats run, you know, broad head

669
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 1: through the hams of this squirrel, and I just decided

670
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 1: that I wasn't gonna take it, which I mean, only

671
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:20,360
Speaker 1: I know if this is true when I say it,

672
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: but it's like highly out of character for me to

673
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: or do something like that. And I walk out and

674
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: on a I'm on a lonely stretch of public land. No,

675
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:32,920
Speaker 1: I mean, you still see cars out here, very much

676
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:37,759
Speaker 1: much less a game warden. And I'm walking to the

677
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:41,879
Speaker 1: road and I can see the road and I see

678
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: a car coming. Now the car can't see me, and

679
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: it's a dead end road, Steve so that this truck

680
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 1: is going towards the dead end. My trucks at the

681
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: end of the dead end. And I see that it's

682
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:58,280
Speaker 1: a game boarding truck. And when I saw that truck,

683
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 1: I knew that I was gonna be held accountable for

684
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 1: what I did. And and to be honest with you,

685
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: I knew that God was gonna hold me to account

686
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:09,400
Speaker 1: of it because I could have just sat there. I

687
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:11,959
Speaker 1: could have just like hidden the woods until he turned around,

688
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:13,440
Speaker 1: because it is there's only one way for him to

689
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:16,320
Speaker 1: come out. And I knew that if I did that

690
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 1: that I would be in big trouble with somebody that

691
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 1: I was more worried about. And I walked right out

692
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,360
Speaker 1: to the road, and I didn't know how it was

693
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: gonna come up, Like I wasn't gonna bring it up

694
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 1: that I had shot a squirrel and left it in

695
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: the woods. But I walked and start walking down the road,

696
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: and sure enough, the the guy is coming back and

697
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: he sees me. I could have stepped off the road

698
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 1: and he'd have passed right by me, and there was nothing.

699
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:43,800
Speaker 1: I didn't have anything on me that would have given away.

700
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: And there's no really no noticeable blood on the arrow.

701
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:50,120
Speaker 1: And he gets out and he's like, hey, what youre doing?

702
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 1: And we talked and he's real nice guy. Since this time,

703
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:57,479
Speaker 1: me and this guy become friends, communicate with him. Every

704
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:01,360
Speaker 1: couple of years, I'll call him and man, that sucker

705
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 1: spotted a speck of blood on my shoe about as

706
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:08,239
Speaker 1: big as a tic tac, you know. I mean, just

707
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 1: a tiny speck of blood on my shoe that I

708
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:14,080
Speaker 1: hadn't even seen. And he was all funning games, and

709
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:17,319
Speaker 1: then he was like, what's that And I looked down

710
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: I see that blood and he just turned stone cold,

711
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: and I said, I shot a squirrel and I left

712
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:26,759
Speaker 1: in the woods. I just straight up just told him

713
00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 1: what had happened. And he said, why did you do that?

714
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:31,839
Speaker 1: And and I just I mean, I told the story.

715
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 1: I just told you, and he thought I was lying. Uh,

716
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: he thought I'd killed something bigger and it was hiding

717
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 1: it or something, and he said, well, put your bow

718
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 1: in the truck. We're gonna go find that squirrel. And

719
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 1: I just went, man, I don't know if I can

720
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: find that squirrel. That that that country down there is

721
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 1: thick pine plantations, I mean like thickets, and it was

722
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:55,160
Speaker 1: way back. I've been walking for hours, and so I

723
00:43:55,200 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 1: started saying, man, I don't know if I can find it,

724
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 1: and he thinks I'm lying, and I'm just tell him

725
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: the truth. I was so naive that actually said, well,

726
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 1: you stay here and I'll go get the squirrel. You

727
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:07,879
Speaker 1: don't have to come with me. I'll bring it back

728
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 1: to you. And he was like, no, sir. You know,

729
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 1: he thought I was gonna and I didn't. I was like,

730
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:15,399
Speaker 1: why would you want to follow me? This is gonna

731
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:18,400
Speaker 1: be torture. And then I realized, you know, later that

732
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:21,440
Speaker 1: he thought I was gonna go hide something, you know,

733
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:23,760
Speaker 1: which was dumb for me. I wasn't a very good criminal.

734
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 1: And anyway, luckily I was able to go back to

735
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: the squirrel and found it just like he said. And

736
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: he goes back to the truck and we have a

737
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:36,759
Speaker 1: long talk and while I skinned that squirrel on his

738
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:40,400
Speaker 1: tail gate. I didn't know the tail method or anything

739
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:42,400
Speaker 1: back then. I was just like pecking on it with

740
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: a puggy knife. You know. It was at this point

741
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: that the game warden issued me a citation for wanting waste.

742
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:54,359
Speaker 1: I was devastated, and I deserved it. But if there's

743
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:58,800
Speaker 1: one thing I believe, it's this. Everything happens for a purpose,

744
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 1: and if you look yourself to that purpose, as painful

745
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:06,239
Speaker 1: as it can be, sometimes ten years later you'll be

746
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:11,200
Speaker 1: glad that you did. At that time, I had I

747
00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:15,720
Speaker 1: had just started diving into doing some stuff in outdoor media,

748
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 1: and Man I told him that. I said, man, I

749
00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: write articles about hunting. And I was just I wasn't

750
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 1: trying to defend myself. The ticket was already written, but

751
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:31,280
Speaker 1: I was just like this, you busted me as something

752
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: that is not typical for me, and uh, and he

753
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: said you need to write about it. He immediately said,

754
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:38,920
Speaker 1: just come out with it, Clay. I mean, we became

755
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 1: buddies in that moment. And I talked to him for

756
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 1: probably forty five minutes after that, and he said that

757
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: what you should do is just come out with it.

758
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 1: And so I went home and wrote an article that

759
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:52,760
Speaker 1: was published in a regional magazine. The article was centered

760
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 1: around what I learned through the event. It revolved around

761
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: a very unique section of the Book of Proverb about

762
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:05,799
Speaker 1: hunting and diligence. So there's a verse and proverbs in

763
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: the Bible. It's uh, it's probably probably twelve seven says

764
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 1: lazy people don't even cook the game that they catch,

765
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 1: but the diligent make use of everything they find. And man,

766
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 1: what really it was a major turning point when I

767
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 1: realized that I had lost some diligence. And since that time,

768
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: I've been diligent with everything that I've done to the

769
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,920
Speaker 1: best of my ability, inside of following game laws and

770
00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 1: doing everything right. And uh, yeah, I was ashamed of

771
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 1: that for years. Well, I mean that's still in ashamed

772
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:42,800
Speaker 1: of it, but it was, you know, I'm I'm sparing

773
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 1: my own kids what I went through. I'm just from

774
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 1: the get go being that we just follow the rules.

775
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:53,759
Speaker 1: You might make a stake right, you might misunderstand something

776
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:55,920
Speaker 1: to make mistake, for get something I don't know, but

777
00:46:56,040 --> 00:47:00,800
Speaker 1: we follow the rules. We talked about what they are celebrated. Um,

778
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:04,319
Speaker 1: that's like a new generation. Yeah, I don't like to

779
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:06,840
Speaker 1: tell I don't like to tell. Oh, I don't like

780
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:09,880
Speaker 1: to tell the stories of growing up in a way

781
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,839
Speaker 1: that that's made to like celebrate it. You know, I'm

782
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:20,320
Speaker 1: just that happened. Nothing good comes from that. It's arrogant.

783
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: It's arrogant. You know. I'm glad there was a I'm

784
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:27,240
Speaker 1: glad there was a sort of governor on it, meaning

785
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:29,760
Speaker 1: that that there was a there was a real limit

786
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:33,880
Speaker 1: to what people would do. But it's, uh, it's just

787
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 1: baffling and like a little embarrassing. The degree to which

788
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 1: just like this, like you know better m in two

789
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 1: is wildlife and wild places continue to be jeopardized by

790
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:57,799
Speaker 1: shifting cultural value systems and the encroachment of civilization. Are widespread.

791
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:01,360
Speaker 1: Adherence to getting with the program AM, as Steve said,

792
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 1: will be key to the continued success of the North

793
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:07,640
Speaker 1: American model of wildlife conservation. We gotta turn in poachers,

794
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:10,840
Speaker 1: we gotta watch our own selves, we gotta love the

795
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 1: resource enough to sacrifice for it. Listening to the stories

796
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:19,360
Speaker 1: of my dad and hearing about Steve's upbringing, I truly

797
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: think that we've come a long way in the last

798
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 1: thirty years. It's my hope that the stuff I've done

799
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:29,359
Speaker 1: in media has carried with it a strong values, integrity

800
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:32,880
Speaker 1: and character based message, but I never wanted to paint

801
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 1: the picture that I'm in Ivory Tower. A good dose

802
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 1: of transparency is healthy, and I hope it tightens us

803
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: down into positions of respect for the law, and one

804
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 1: of my most valued practices is becoming deeply introspective and

805
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 1: learning from mistakes. I can't thank you folks enough for

806
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 1: listening to Bear Grease. Be sure to check out the

807
00:48:57,160 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 1: Bear Grease merchandise on the meat eater dot com um,

808
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:04,160
Speaker 1: and please share our podcast with a friend and leave

809
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 1: us a review on iTunes. Oh oh, that wasn't as

810
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 1: good as russ arts right off, Bros. Right on