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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to

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Speaker 1: the Whitetail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile

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Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light

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Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on

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Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by Matt Ross of the National

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Speaker 2: Deer Association to discuss the evolution of deer science and

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Speaker 2: management over the last ten years. All right, welcome to

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Speaker 2: the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyon,

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Speaker 2: and we are brought to you by First Light. And

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Speaker 2: if you don't know, First Light's got the Spector Whitetail

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Speaker 2: cameo pattern, and with every purchase of our Spector Whitetail Pattern,

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Speaker 2: a portion of those proceeds get donated to our pals

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Speaker 2: over at the National Deer Association. That's relevant today because

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Speaker 2: our guest is the director of Conservation for the National

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Speaker 2: Dear Association. My friend, great deer hunter, wildlife biologist, all

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Speaker 2: around good dude, Matt Ross. And we're kind of continuing

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Speaker 2: this by accident theme of a look back at the

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Speaker 2: last ten years. You know, I mentioned a while back

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Speaker 2: that Dan and I listened to our first podcast episode

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Speaker 2: ten years ago or so, and have you know started

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Speaker 2: exploring what's been going on over that time period. And

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Speaker 2: I thought it'd be interesting to take that same theme

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Speaker 2: and apply it to what we know about deer, the science,

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Speaker 2: the research, the many different projects that folks are doing

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Speaker 2: across the country to help us better understand dear behavior,

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Speaker 2: dear habitat the impacts of hunting, management strategies, disease, all

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Speaker 2: these different things. And Matt, you know, being involved with

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Speaker 2: the National Deer Association and the Quality Deer Management Association

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Speaker 2: before that, in his position, in his role, he has

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Speaker 2: a really unique view of all of this information and

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Speaker 2: research that's been coming to light. So my question to him,

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Speaker 2: and the reason why I wanted to have this podcast

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Speaker 2: was what do we know now that we didn't know

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Speaker 2: when the Wired Hunt podcast started? How have things changed?

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Speaker 2: What kind of Aha moments have we as a collective

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Speaker 2: deer community received over this past decade. What were some

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Speaker 2: of the things we had wrong back in twenty oh

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Speaker 2: nine or twenty ten or twenty twelve. Where have we

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Speaker 2: seen the most progress? What is it that we as

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Speaker 2: deer hunters today really need to make sure we know

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Speaker 2: about because of these advances in science and research and

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Speaker 2: data collection. That was our main topic of conversation today

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Speaker 2: with Matt, and some really interesting stuff related to management

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Speaker 2: practices when it comes to you know, trigger management, choosing

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Speaker 2: what deer to harvest, when it comes to the habitat,

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Speaker 2: work we might want to do, when it comes to

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Speaker 2: the impact of our hunting decisions. All of that gets

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Speaker 2: discussed today, and we also talk about an evolution in

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Speaker 2: the organization that Matt works for, the National Deer Association,

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Speaker 2: and a big piece of that has been some really

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Speaker 2: exciting new work that they're doing related to public lands,

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Speaker 2: making some really significant investments in time and energy and

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Speaker 2: resources in helping improve public land habitat for deer and

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Speaker 2: deer hunters. And we get to cover that, and I

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Speaker 2: think a lot of you will be interested and excited

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Speaker 2: to hear about what's happening. We're talking big time scale

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Speaker 2: projects that are going to improve the places that you

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Speaker 2: and I can go hunt for free public land owned

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Speaker 2: by us that is being improved because of the work

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Speaker 2: that Matt's doing and the NDA, and we also talk

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Speaker 2: about three different projects coming up that you can actually

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Speaker 2: get out there and be involved in alongside me and Matt.

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Speaker 2: We've got three of my working for Wildlife tour events

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Speaker 2: that are in collaboration with the NBA and their Public

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Speaker 2: Lands Initiative, and I'm really hoping to see some of

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Speaker 2: you guys out there on the ground doing some of

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Speaker 2: this work with us. It's gonna be a good time,

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Speaker 2: but we'll cover that at the end. In the meantime,

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Speaker 2: let's kick this sucker off. This is a great conversation

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Speaker 2: with Matt Ross. We learn a lot. If you are

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Speaker 2: interested in dear behavior, dear management, dear science, if you

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Speaker 2: are a dear nerd like me and Matt are, you're

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Speaker 2: gonna like this one. So let's get to it all.

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Speaker 1: Right with me.

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Speaker 2: Now on the line for one of several return appearances

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Speaker 2: is my longtime friend now mister Matt Ross. Welcome back

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Speaker 2: to the show. Matt.

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Speaker 3: Hey, Mark, I am thrilled to be back. Always enjoy

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Speaker 3: speaking with you, and I'm not sure how many times

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Speaker 3: I've been on the show, but it's always it's always

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Speaker 3: been a pleasure to talk about deer in life and

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Speaker 3: all the things we get into. So yeah, looking forward

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Speaker 3: to it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right right back at you, man. We were just

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Speaker 2: talking off air about how you know how long this

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Speaker 2: all has been going on, you know, the podcast being

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Speaker 2: around ten years, Wired Hunt fifteen, and I think given

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Speaker 2: all that, then you and I have known each other

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Speaker 2: for almost fifteen years then, because it was pretty early

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Speaker 2: on with Wired Hunt when I first kind of got

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Speaker 2: connected with you guys and started, you know, getting to

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Speaker 2: know you guys. And I went to that very first

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Speaker 2: Deer Steward course that was probably not the first course

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Speaker 2: for you guys, but the first one for me, which

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Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe it was like twenty ten, maybe too,

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Speaker 2: you know, maybe like thirteen years ago maybe something like that.

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Speaker 2: So it's been a ride. It's it's been a while.

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Speaker 3: That sounds about right in terms of timing. Let me guess,

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Speaker 3: was that in Missouri when we first met?

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Speaker 2: Yes?

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Speaker 3: Was it at Grant Woods's farm?

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Speaker 2: That was the one?

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Speaker 3: Yep, I remember it. I remember talking to you and

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Speaker 3: learning a little bit about this crazy guy that left

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Speaker 3: a job to Actually at that point you hadn't started,

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Speaker 3: you hadn't left, you were just developing it all. But yeah,

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Speaker 3: I do remember meeting you. I remember that course. It's

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Speaker 3: amazing that, you know, memories that you retain versus the

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Speaker 3: ones that you lose, but uh, that was a great

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Speaker 3: class and that series is that course that we put

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Speaker 3: on every year has always been great. And I've met

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Speaker 3: some longtime friends like you at those. So yeah, it's

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Speaker 3: been You're You've been quite on on quite the journey, honestly,

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Speaker 3: I mean, and developed a national communication platform to talk

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Speaker 3: about deer lot. I love everything you've done. Applaud the

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Speaker 3: look back, you know, honestly, and you you really give

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Speaker 3: a voice to a lot of a lot of folks

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Speaker 3: out there, and I think you've done an amazing job.

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Speaker 2: Mark thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. And uh,

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Speaker 2: you know, we can pat each other's backs a little

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Speaker 2: more here now because I have to thank you guys.

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Speaker 2: I mean, all those early opportunities, like the Dear Story course.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember this, but I mean

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Speaker 2: I was a kid right out of college. I didn't

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Speaker 2: have a lot of money. I was definitely like bootstrapping it.

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Speaker 2: And you guys actually provide a scholarship for me to

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Speaker 2: go to that Dear Story course. I applied for a

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Speaker 2: scholarship and then got it. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have

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Speaker 2: gone because it seemed like a lot of money and

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Speaker 2: traveled to get there and all that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 2: So that was like a formative early experience for me,

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Speaker 2: building kind of my knowledge and foundation when it came

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Speaker 2: to Whitetails and then the network that came out of that.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, so long story short, thank you to you

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Speaker 2: guys too, and it all is I guess this is

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Speaker 2: a perfect way to kind of open this conversation, Matt,

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Speaker 2: because this kind of theme of the month happened by accident.

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Speaker 2: I actually didn't have a plan for really where the

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Speaker 2: podcast were going to go this month, but we kind

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Speaker 2: of stumbled into this realization that this is the tenth

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Speaker 2: season of the podcast, and that got me and Dan

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Speaker 2: a few weeks ago reflecting on how far we've come

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Speaker 2: and how things have changed, and YadA, YadA, YadA. I

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Speaker 2: had a similar conversation last week with Tony Peterson about that,

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Speaker 2: and then I got to thinking, you know, things haven't

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Speaker 2: just been evolving with me or with other hunters. Things

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Speaker 2: have been evolving when it comes to this entire community

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Speaker 2: of folks obsessed with deer, learning about deer, researching deer,

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Speaker 2: and developing the science and the data around what we

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Speaker 2: think we know and understand about these critics that were

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Speaker 2: so infatuated with So this is a long winded way

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Speaker 2: of saying, Matt that my hope today is to kind

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Speaker 2: of grill you on where the science of deer and

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Speaker 2: deer hunting has gone over this past decade. So that's

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Speaker 2: my hope. Is that something you're game for?

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Speaker 3: Oh totally. I love deer, you know, deer hunter through

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Speaker 3: and through. That's why I do what I do in

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Speaker 3: the career that I pursued, and I really enjoy the

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Speaker 3: scientific part of my job. You know. I went through

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Speaker 3: school myself and kind of was driven by that with

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Speaker 3: you know, academia, getting a master's degree. And we pride

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Speaker 3: ourselves at the Deer Association to be science based and

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Speaker 3: just me personally leading our conservation team, our field team

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Speaker 3: that worked with the public and states and all over

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Speaker 3: the country and making sure anything that we communicate through

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Speaker 3: education and outreach is always science based. And so we

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Speaker 3: continually try to update ourselves and stay up to date,

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Speaker 3: you know, on our own working knowledge of the science

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Speaker 3: and just it's so intriguing. I mean, they are amazing

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Speaker 3: creatures and you know, both of those things my scientific

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Speaker 3: brain plus the fact that I love deer and Huntingham

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Speaker 3: makes me, you know, excited to talk about this. I

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Speaker 3: actually a couple of years ago did somewhat of a

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Speaker 3: similar retrospective look back kind of approach, but it was

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Speaker 3: in an article form where in terms of deer research,

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Speaker 3: said you know, what are the biggest things we've learned

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Speaker 3: in the past decade. It was supposed to be a

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Speaker 3: play on twenty twenty and then twenty twenty turned into COVID,

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Speaker 3: but it was like, you know, what are the twenty

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Speaker 3: biggest discoveries that we found in the last twenty years.

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Speaker 3: And as I started researching or thinking about the things

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Speaker 3: that we've learned about deer and deer science, you know,

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Speaker 3: twenty years was just too much. It was actually too

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Speaker 3: long because in ten years time so much had changed,

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Speaker 3: and so the storyline changed from the twenty biggest deer

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Speaker 3: research discoveries of the last twenty years to the last decade.

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Speaker 3: And even that in itself was full of information and

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Speaker 3: every year new research comes out, you know, kind of

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Speaker 3: speaking of COVID. COVID put a pause to a degree

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Speaker 3: on some of the well obviously the whole world, but

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Speaker 3: it was in terms of deer research being shared, there

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Speaker 3: was a lot of good science happening, and there were

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Speaker 3: still some of the major events and platforms for us

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Speaker 3: to share that research. But it was interesting. As things

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Speaker 3: have calmed down and in person events start happening more

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Speaker 3: often or regularly, again, we're seeing an uptick in the

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Speaker 3: amount of deer research that is coming out. And even recently,

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Speaker 3: you know, my one of my colleagues was at an

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Speaker 3: event in Colorado and uh just said, the amount of

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Speaker 3: posters that were there and live presentations seemed like it

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Speaker 3: was two to three times the volume, and it must

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Speaker 3: just be this lag effect. So yeah, we just we

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Speaker 3: we learned them. We don't know everything about deer, uh,

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Speaker 3: which just makes them partly why they're so cool. Uh.

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Speaker 3: And every opportunity that we can learn about them more

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Speaker 3: through science, we love it. And I'm you can grill me.

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Speaker 3: I'm ready, let's talk about let's talk about deer science.

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Speaker 3: But one of my buddies coined the term deer and

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Speaker 3: I wear it proudly and said, you're a true deer nerd,

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Speaker 3: And I don't disagree with that.

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Speaker 2: That's that's something like you said to wear proudly. So

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Speaker 2: you've got a little you've got to kind of an

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Speaker 2: interesting a slightly unique position compared to a lot of

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Speaker 2: other deer hunters, though, because you have to wear two hats.

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Speaker 2: I think you wear this hat of you know, wildlife biologist,

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Speaker 2: science based. You are steeped in the research right. Part

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Speaker 2: of your job is consuming everything. I'm sure you are

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Speaker 2: like constantly reading these reports and you're very You're more

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Speaker 2: up to date on the latest deer science and research

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Speaker 2: than probably you know, almost anyone you know. I consider

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Speaker 2: myself very up to speed on this stuff, and you

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Speaker 2: know twenty x of what I know. At the same time,

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Speaker 2: you're also a deer hunter, just just a deer hunter too,

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Speaker 2: So you're out there seeing things in real life, experiencing

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Speaker 2: things in real life, probably coming to conclusions on your

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Speaker 2: own based on what you're seeing. And so this is

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Speaker 2: something that you and I have talked about in past podcasts.

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Speaker 2: How sometimes there's this conflict between what we see as

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Speaker 2: hunters in the field and the conclusions that we're coming

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Speaker 2: to based on our own personal observations and then what

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Speaker 2: the science tells us. And sometimes those things don't always

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Speaker 2: seem to match up or it's confusing. There's a few

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Speaker 2: examples of this where I'm still like man I don't

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Speaker 2: understand how I see this thing all the time and

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Speaker 2: the science tells me this other thing. So that's all

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Speaker 2: to say, Matt. My question for you then, is, given

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Speaker 2: that weird situation you're kind of in where you're deeper

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Speaker 2: into it than a lot of people, how has your

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Speaker 2: hunting changed over the past ten years as you've been

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Speaker 2: flooded with all this new information, You've consumed, all this

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Speaker 2: new science, You've been a part of all these different things.

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Speaker 2: At the same time, you're also a deer hunter. What's

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Speaker 2: your evolution looked like? What has stood out to you

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Speaker 2: from this decade? And is that conflict that I'm talking

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Speaker 2: about been a part of that at all?

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Speaker 3: That is a great question, you know. I would know

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Speaker 3: ever claimed that I'm an expert deer hunter, you know,

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Speaker 3: and I am a biologist by trade, but I love

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Speaker 3: deer hunting, and I spend as much time as I can.

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Speaker 3: And I'll feel, you know, learning more just practical gaining knowledge,

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Speaker 3: you know, seeing things. But I try to apply what

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Speaker 3: I know through science. Uh, And there are certainly examples

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Speaker 3: where it has driven my behavior and what I do

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Speaker 3: or don't do. But I will also say and just

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Speaker 3: kind of stepping back from that, and this could this

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Speaker 3: also could come with age, but it could also come

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Speaker 3: with knowing that science is not you know, using the

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Speaker 3: scientific method to learn anything. Typically you need repeatability where

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Speaker 3: you you test a theory through the scientific method and

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Speaker 3: it's been proven in multiple landscapes or disproven and you

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Speaker 3: get accurate, precise results over and over and over again.

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Speaker 3: And then the culmination of all this evidence tells you

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Speaker 3: the preponderance of what the situation here's above average what

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Speaker 3: you can expect. But even that, there's always outliers that too.

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Speaker 3: It's a theory, and there's also things that can break

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Speaker 3: that that average or not you know, not fall in

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Speaker 3: line there. And so you know, I'm saying all that

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Speaker 3: to say, science and dear research has driven how I

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Speaker 3: hunt in many ways, but I still have that intuitive

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Speaker 3: part of me that will still follow gut, you know,

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Speaker 3: gut feel to a degree, and I will also expect

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Speaker 3: the unexpected to a degree. And so I might learn

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Speaker 3: that you know, dear behavior says you know. I'll give

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Speaker 3: an examples. The first thing to come to mind is

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Speaker 3: that you know you're not dear. Use of scrapes is

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Speaker 3: primarily supposed to be at night. You know, when I

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Speaker 3: was grown up, you'd see a scrape, you'd set up

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Speaker 3: a stand or blind or you know, pull pull up

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Speaker 3: a chair or find a stump, and you watch that

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Speaker 3: during the day and you don't see anything. Well, if

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Speaker 3: science says eighty five percent of a scrape use is

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Speaker 3: done at night, you tend to think, Okay, well, maybe

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Speaker 3: I shouldn't do that, maybe I shouldn't hunt over that place.

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Speaker 3: But you know what, there's still some deer using during

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Speaker 3: the day, even if the you know, the vast majority,

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Speaker 3: and you might decide to sit there and help a

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Speaker 3: great buck over it. And so you know, that's just

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Speaker 3: kind of an example. But I still try to follow,

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Speaker 3: follow my gut, and follow my instinct as a predator.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that's what we are as humans. Sometimes you

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Speaker 3: get the feel that something might happen, or sometimes you

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Speaker 3: get the field that deer are using space in a

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Speaker 3: certain way. I'll use science to back all that up,

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Speaker 3: and I use science to help drive my my overall decisions,

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Speaker 3: or honestly, I'll use science to justify what happened, you know,

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Speaker 3: like or didn't happen. But you know, there are things

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Speaker 3: like you and I have talked about moon and weather

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Speaker 3: impacts on deer behavior and movement and what we've learned

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Speaker 3: or not, you know, things that haven't been shown. Uh,

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Speaker 3: but there's I wouldn't want anybody. I mean, I I

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Speaker 3: may be a deer nerd, but I'm a dear hunter

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Speaker 3: and first and foremost. And there are certain things that

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Speaker 3: still don't make sense to me, even though the science

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Speaker 3: has shown it. And I don't know that's you're really

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Speaker 3: in a in a strange world. If you want to

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Speaker 3: believe something unequivocally, unabashedly and say that is the Bible

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Speaker 3: on that one circumstance, that's not a good way to leave,

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Speaker 3: you know, live a life. Never mind, even like go hunting,

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Speaker 3: you have to you have to be to tap into

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Speaker 3: that that thing that's inside us that tells us what

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Speaker 3: to do sometimes. And so I wouldn't give that advice

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Speaker 3: to anybody. But I mean, we can get into some

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Speaker 3: of the the details of some of the broader patterns

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Speaker 3: of things I've learned. You know, you can kill a

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Speaker 3: deer in the middle of the day, certainly can kill

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Speaker 3: in the middle of the night. That's not legal. But

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Speaker 3: most deer movement, it's supposed to be at dawn and dusk.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that's something that has shown over and over

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Speaker 3: and over again. Otherwise or except there are some circumstances

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Speaker 3: where deer are going to be more active during I'll

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Speaker 3: give you an example, and I've said this one before,

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Speaker 3: in parts of certain portions of deer range, like in

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Speaker 3: central South Florida where the Florida panther exists, deer there

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Speaker 3: have adapted to be more active during the middle of

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Speaker 3: the day. I actually just saw a report was shared.

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Speaker 3: Kip Adams, my direct supervisor, our chief conservation officer, just

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Speaker 3: shared an article link with our entire conservation team last

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Speaker 3: week out of the research project that's been going on

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Speaker 3: for about thirteen years in Pennsylvania called the Deer four

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Speaker 3: Study out of penn State. They're sharing some stuff looking

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Speaker 3: at some strange, strange, broader patterns that they're seeing about

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Speaker 3: dear not being necessarily as crepuscular as that we thought.

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Speaker 3: So that that's a new tidbit that doesn't jibe with

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Speaker 3: all the other research. So you know, there's still some

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Speaker 3: strange stuff out there. So the caveat of don't take

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Speaker 3: one study, uh certainly as truth. You certainly want to see, uh,

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Speaker 3: you know, repeated results over and over again and different landscapes,

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Speaker 3: and then use all that as kind of telling you

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Speaker 3: what the average deer will do. But there's still going

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Speaker 3: to be outliers. There's still going to be individuals that

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Speaker 3: do something different. Yeah, and don't take don't don't lose

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Speaker 3: that as a hunter.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a great point, and it's such a

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Speaker 2: good reminder you brought up. The whole idea of the

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Speaker 2: scientific method is not to come to a absolute fact.

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Speaker 2: It's to come to the best understanding as of now.

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Speaker 2: But science is a process. It is a like it's

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Speaker 2: not like an endpoint. You know, a research study comes

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Speaker 2: to a theory based on peer review and all these

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Speaker 2: different things, But then the goal for everyone else is

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Speaker 2: to then disprove it someday right, and keep hammering that

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Speaker 2: theory and try to poke holes and explore where there

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Speaker 2: might be gaps or where there might be exceptions. And

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Speaker 2: you know, the success I think, you know saying this

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Speaker 2: is not a biologist myself, but as someone who I

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Speaker 2: guess you could say as an enthusiast, I think that

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Speaker 2: success within the scientific world is when you actually do

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Speaker 2: prove one of these things wrong and come to a

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Speaker 2: better understanding down the road. That's actually an example of

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Speaker 2: the scientific method working that we're not just stuck in

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Speaker 2: the belief we had twenty years ago, but instead we've

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Speaker 2: continued to polish and furnish and explore and poke and

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Speaker 2: prod until we do understand this thing differently. So it's

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Speaker 2: a long winded way of saying I have one more

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Speaker 2: personal kind of take. Curious on your take on this

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Speaker 2: when it comes to these different things you've looked at

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Speaker 2: over the last ten years. Is there any one study

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Speaker 2: or theory or big takeaway from the science that you

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Speaker 2: think has impacted you personally the most as a hunter.

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Speaker 2: Is there something you can think back on this last

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Speaker 2: ten years and like, man, Yeah, when I found out

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Speaker 2: that deer do X or that deer don't do why

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Speaker 2: that really did change how I hunt? Is there one

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Speaker 2: thing maybe that stands out to you?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, probably in terms of de deer movements. You know,

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Speaker 3: one of the things that has been kind of a

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Speaker 3: eye opener over the last ten years is the fact

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Speaker 3: that deer movements are not as as random as we think,

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Speaker 3: and that a lot a lot has to do with

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Speaker 3: their need for resources. And so one of the things

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Speaker 3: that you can do as a as a hunter, whether

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Speaker 3: you have the own land or not, is to change

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Speaker 3: what they do based on those resources. So just managing

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Speaker 3: so you know, even if you are a public land

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Speaker 3: hunter and you're using public land and you might not

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Speaker 3: be able to manipulate the ground, you can still pick

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Speaker 3: the locations you go to based on deer need at

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Speaker 3: certain times a year. I mean, one of the things

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Speaker 3: that we've learned in the last decade was a movement

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Speaker 3: or things that deer do they call deer excursions, which

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Speaker 3: is where you know, they live in their home range,

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Speaker 3: where they're there pretty much all year long, but they'll

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Speaker 3: go on these excursions outside of that. Those are driven

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Speaker 3: by different things that we we you know, have out

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Speaker 3: of our control in some cases, but some places you

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Speaker 3: can control. So just managing land and working with your

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Speaker 3: neighbors is probably one of the best things you can

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Speaker 3: do to influence deer use and movement and trying to

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Speaker 3: apply land management as best as you can. That's probably

401
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Speaker 3: the one something that jumps out. There's just so much

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Speaker 3: market it's hard to like sort through all of it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm gonna I want to force you to

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Speaker 2: do some more picking and sorting. Yeah, so that's this

405
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:19,040
Speaker 2: is the perfect segue though too. As far as the

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Speaker 2: most maybe impactful or interesting or paradigm shifting, you know,

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Speaker 2: advances in dear science. When you did your little look

408
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Speaker 2: back on the past twenty years or past ten years,

409
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Speaker 2: what were the things that stand out to you now?

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Speaker 2: Is like, man, these were the big ones or this

411
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Speaker 2: is the biggest. Have you been able in any kind

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Speaker 2: of way rank them, either personally or if you think

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Speaker 2: there's some kind of like scientific community consensus on what

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Speaker 2: those most important you know, realizations have been.

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Speaker 3: It depends on uh, you know, there's a typical biologists

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Speaker 3: answer is it depends right, you know, it depends on

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Speaker 3: who you're asking. But you know, asking me one of

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Speaker 3: the things that I think, I mean, I don't know

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Speaker 3: if about ranking them, but I can just kind of

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Speaker 3: list things and just tell you my viewpoint of each one,

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Speaker 3: if that's helpful. One of the things that we've learned

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Speaker 3: over the past you know, ten fifteen years or so,

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Speaker 3: is how dear nutrition affects. We certainly know that there

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Speaker 3: are if they eat a lot of good things, they're

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Speaker 3: going to be healthier and they're going to be larger

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Speaker 3: and more resilient to disease and even have larger antlers,

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Speaker 3: which is what a lot of folks care about. But

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Speaker 3: one of the things that was kind of a groundbreaking

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Speaker 3: thought for a lot of researchers was how that is generational.

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Speaker 3: There's some research out around twenty fifteen or were around

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Speaker 3: that time out of Mississippi State that discovered, you know,

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Speaker 3: deer aren't doomed quote unquote, you know, do based on

433
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:05,200
Speaker 3: where they grew up, that you can change that through nutrition.

434
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:09,439
Speaker 3: But the thing is the researchers that did that found

435
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:14,680
Speaker 3: that if their parents were born in a poor environment,

436
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 3: it takes a couple of generations to change that. And

437
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 3: so things take time, and so you have to stick

438
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 3: with whatever you know management fortitude that you kind of

439
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 3: put forth and try to change things over the long term.

440
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,679
Speaker 3: You can't nothing's a quick fix. And that that was

441
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:30,480
Speaker 3: something that was pretty pretty key.

442
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 2: Yes, so let me make sure I understand this. So

443
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:38,200
Speaker 2: you're saying, let's say I pick up a piece of property,

444
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 2: I'm going to start managing it and I'm going to

445
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 2: start trying to do some things to improve the habitat

446
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 2: to improve the health of the deer population. This study

447
00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 2: is basically showing that nothing I do tell me if

448
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 2: this is the right interpretation, but nothing I can do

449
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 2: over the next two to four years will dramatically change

450
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:01,239
Speaker 2: the you know, nutritional impact for or a deer that

451
00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:04,159
Speaker 2: was living on my farm the year I bought it.

452
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 2: It's more so going to impact you know, the fon

453
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,960
Speaker 2: of that deer's fawn or a generation or two down

454
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 2: the line. And so this is is that what I'm understanding.

455
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. It takes a couple of generations to change things.

456
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 3: I mean, what they did was they took a pregnant

457
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:27,440
Speaker 3: wild dose from different parts of the state of Mississippi,

458
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 3: and one was, you know, one group was taken from

459
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 3: what would be quote unquote a really high quality area,

460
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 3: you know, lots of ag. The deer there tend to

461
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 3: be bigger bodied, bigger antlered, produced more fawnds per unit.

462
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 3: And then a medium quality area and a poor quality area.

463
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 3: They raised their fawns, you know, because they were pregnant,

464
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 3: They raised their funds and fed them all the same

465
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 3: level of high quality forage and measured in the difference

466
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 3: in productivity of their next generation, and they all stayed

467
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:06,120
Speaker 3: the same. It was like they were within their own

468
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:10,399
Speaker 3: units of whether they came from good quality, medium or poor.

469
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 3: But they did that for generation after generation. It took

470
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 3: a couple of generations for the deer that came from

471
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 3: the poor quality area to catch up, you know, or

472
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:24,880
Speaker 3: actually produce. And they were wondering, why did it take

473
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 3: a couple of generations. It's almost like their pre programmed.

474
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,959
Speaker 3: The technical term is called epigenetics. It was almost like

475
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:40,159
Speaker 3: they're pre programmed to not respond to changes because you know,

476
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 3: evolutionarily speaking, if they were to stay in that environment,

477
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,359
Speaker 3: it would be not a good idea from them to

478
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 3: like grow quickly from that and then have a time

479
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:54,439
Speaker 3: of feasts and famine and where they go back to

480
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 3: being poor quality. Think about areas that are super arid,

481
00:27:57,800 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 3: you know, and they have dry year after dry year,

482
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 3: and then all of us sudden a really wet year

483
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of vegetation available. If those deer

484
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 3: responded the next year, they would be then back to

485
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 3: their norms. So it takes it takes time to almost

486
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 3: flip the switch on. And what that taught us as

487
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 3: managers is that one you can't blame where you're from,

488
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:22,480
Speaker 3: you know, don't blame your zip code. Don't say, well,

489
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 3: I live in such and such a place that it's

490
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 3: always going to be poor quality. I need to travel

491
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 3: to go hunt better deer, quote better dear, or I

492
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 3: need a lot of money to you know, buy property

493
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 3: to do that. No, if you have access to property

494
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 3: that you can manage, as long as you put in

495
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 3: the time and the resources you can, you can make

496
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 3: a change. It just takes time. That that was something

497
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 3: that we learned that was kind of foundational and kind

498
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 3: of a big deal.

499
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, and kind of tangential to that. Very related there

500
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 2: was another study and I'm maybe stealing a little bit

501
00:28:57,520 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 2: of your thunder here, but I think it's worth bringing up.

502
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 2: In that article you wrote, there was another study that

503
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:07,480
Speaker 2: talked about the fact that soil quality does not necessarily

504
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 2: equal plant nutrition quality. Yeah, and that's that. I think

505
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 2: that really ties down to, like, you're not stuck by

506
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 2: your you know, your your zipua necessarily. Do you want

507
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 2: to expand on that one a little bit because I

508
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 2: found that one pretty interesting.

509
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was that was a really cool long term

510
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 3: project out of University of Tennessee. And I was actually

511
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 3: able to contribute a study site to that project, which

512
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 3: made it even cooler when they came out. But doctor

513
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 3: Craig Harper and his students collected soil and plant nutrition

514
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 3: data from across the country. They had twenty thirty sites

515
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 3: from sandy soils to the high quality, highest quality soils.

516
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 3: There's five kind of physiographic regions, growing regions or soil

517
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 3: types I guess throughout the country. The thing is, they

518
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 3: they collected good to high I mean sorry, poor to

519
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 3: very high quality soils in every part of the country.

520
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 3: So they came up to the Northeast and found the

521
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 3: most you know, dirt poor, you know, pun intended areas

522
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 3: that are rocky and low quality soil nutrients based on

523
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 3: the USDA's soil map. And then they also went to

524
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 3: really high quality, deep rich soils kind of like in

525
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 3: our best ag region. They did it in the Midwest,

526
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 3: they did in the Southeast, you know, and they collected

527
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 3: the same plants from and when they say the same plants,

528
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 3: they plants had grown all they so, for example, red

529
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 3: maple is a tree, or you know, golden rod might

530
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 3: be a herbaceous plant that you can pretty much find

531
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 3: from New York to Florida. And what they did was

532
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 3: they collected all this data and looked at it, and

533
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 3: what they found was it didn't matter if said plant

534
00:30:56,120 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 3: grew in Iowa or the sandy soils of the cost

535
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 3: of South Carolina, like say pokeweed, you know that that

536
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 3: was one of the plants they collected. They all had

537
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 3: the same level of nutrients, crude protein, you know, all

538
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 3: the way down, all of the things that we need

539
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 3: nutrients out of the plant. And so if they had

540
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 3: produced a certain range of it, and the theory had

541
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 3: always been you need to go to the best soils

542
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:28,959
Speaker 3: to get the best nutrients. Well, just collecting plants across

543
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 3: the country and all these different soil types, they found,

544
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 3: well that plant pretty much always had the same nutrient levels.

545
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 3: The difference was yield, meaning the areas that had the

546
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 3: best soils just produced more of it. And if you

547
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 3: think about it from an ag standpoint, you know, thinking

548
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 3: about agricultural producers, you know, if you talk in that terminology,

549
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 3: number of bushels of corn in central Iowa and the

550
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 3: number of bushels of corn being produced in the North

551
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 3: and Lower Peninsula of Michigan are pretty different. But the

552
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 3: corn plant is probably going to have the same nutrient quality,

553
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 3: and so it just common sense. But until this research

554
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 3: really kind of opened our eyes to it was the

555
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 3: reason the most productive deer populations exist in these areas

556
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 3: that you know, you and I have gotten in trucks

557
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 3: and driven across the country to go hunt is not

558
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 3: because the soils are producing better food. They're just producing

559
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 3: more of it. And I also know that when I

560
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 3: overserve myself, you know, like if I'm going to have

561
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 3: a second portion of dinner tonight with my family, and

562
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 3: then tomorrow I do the same, and I do the same,

563
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 3: and I just do it over and over again. Guess

564
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 3: what I'm going to gain weight? It's portion size. It's

565
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 3: not like what's in that you know, venison burger that

566
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 3: I put on by plate. It's that I had two

567
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 3: of them, and that that's just common sense. But it

568
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 3: took a little bit of that to recognize that in

569
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 3: the parts of the country that have big antler deer,

570
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 3: big body deer, and just a lot of deer, it's

571
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 3: just they're they're going back for second helpings because there's

572
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 3: just so much food on the landscape and that can

573
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 3: be measured, so.

574
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 2: So a question then, you know as far as like

575
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 2: what the takeaway is for that I remember there used

576
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 2: to be you know, gosh, there might have been a

577
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 2: map like this that showed like an overlay of soil

578
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 2: quality and Booning Crockett submissions and they you know, show like, Man,

579
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 2: I remember hearing people talk about how like there's this

580
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 2: special soil along the Mississippi River corridor that is really

581
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 2: packing on the inches on these deer and and that's why.

582
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 2: And it made you think, well, okay, well, if you

583
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 2: don't live along this corridor where they have this incredible

584
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 2: mineral content and this amazing soil is depositive from the

585
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 2: the Mississippi pulling stuff down, you were just never going

586
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 2: to be quite at that level. But does this research

587
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 2: kind of disprove that and basically says, man, forget that

588
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 2: and instead, if you can somehow get the yield in

589
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 2: your neck of the woods, So in northern Michigan, if

590
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 2: I could somehow, you know, do enough work to get

591
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 2: that kind of yield, I could see those kinds of

592
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: results despite not having Iowa soil. Is that the right

593
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 2: read it is?

594
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 3: I mean it's also at a landscape scale. So you know,

595
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 3: talking earlier, you said, you know, what are the big

596
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,320
Speaker 3: what's the biggest take home? And I said, land management

597
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 3: works without a doubt, and work with your neighbors, because

598
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,760
Speaker 3: when you manage a property, you know, you can affect

599
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 3: x number of deer, but as a landscape, it gets impacted.

600
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 3: You know. If you're talking about working with multiple neighbors

601
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 3: and they're all doing the same thing, then you're affecting

602
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:45,320
Speaker 3: a population. And so yeah, I mean yes and no.

603
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 3: You can definitely make a difference for an individual, but

604
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 3: it depends. It's all about scale, right, you know, So

605
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:56,799
Speaker 3: the deer that are on your northern Michigan property are

606
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 3: likely not living there one hundred percent of the time,

607
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 3: and so they have to come and go. You can

608
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 3: make a detractor for them to want to be there

609
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:06,720
Speaker 3: as much as possible, and they can spend the majority

610
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:09,800
Speaker 3: of their time there, but they're also eating and traveling

611
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:12,360
Speaker 3: and going to different places. So it is it is

612
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 3: about you know, bigger, bigger than that. You have to

613
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 3: you have to work on a on a more landscape scale.

614
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 2: Another thing that I heard a lot about when I

615
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:41,280
Speaker 2: first like dove into this you know, next level obsession

616
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 2: with deer that kind of took that next step for

617
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 2: me in college and I remember just like diving into

618
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 2: every single book every magazine, every whatever that I could find.

619
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,279
Speaker 2: That's when became a quality white tail subscriber. And and

620
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:56,400
Speaker 2: one of the things I remember hearing a lot about

621
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 2: back then, you know, two thousand and seven, eight now

622
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:03,959
Speaker 2: nine was culling. That was a thing people talked about.

623
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:07,760
Speaker 2: Shoot the spikes, shoot the little genetically inferior books, and

624
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:10,960
Speaker 2: you know that will help you, you know, eventually have

625
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:14,239
Speaker 2: better deer, improve the genetics. It sounds like in the

626
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 2: last ten years that has I mean, it doesn't sound

627
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 2: like I know from reading things and seeing things that

628
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 2: that has become much much more out of style than

629
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 2: it was ten fifteen years ago. And I think that

630
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 2: relates pretty well. We're talking about here too, on a

631
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 2: different side of it, what have they found on that.

632
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:36,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's been a couple of big projects on you know,

633
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 3: our ability to change through selectivity. You know, the simplest

634
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:45,920
Speaker 3: thing to talk about when you're talking about culling. Obviously,

635
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 3: I always start at that conversation that culling is the

636
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 3: idea that we can change said quality of deer. And

637
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 3: when you talk about said quality, people are talking about

638
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 3: Antler quality. I mean, all we all know that that's

639
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:02,440
Speaker 3: kind of the thing there and I always I always

640
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 3: try to mention and talk to anybody about culling as saying, well,

641
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,360
Speaker 3: that's you know, your value system is on the size

642
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 3: of the antlers. I mean, there's a lot obviously a

643
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 3: lot of other things that bring value to deer hunting

644
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 3: and our organization. Going back to formerly known you know,

645
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 3: Quality Deer Management Association, A lot of people aligned QTM

646
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 3: or you know the QTMA as growing big antlers, but

647
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:28,879
Speaker 3: we always try to push age, you know, and her

648
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 3: health and her balance and uh, you know, I personally

649
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 3: find a lot of value in just trying to shoot

650
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 3: older deer, no matter how big their antlers are. And

651
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 3: so my value is the amount of wear on the

652
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:44,720
Speaker 3: job bone. I certainly want to shoot a big antler deer,

653
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 3: but if I'm if I'm gauging my steps based on

654
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 3: job bone wear or taught tea toothwear, culling certainly doesn't

655
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 3: play a role. It's just a matter of letting deer

656
00:37:56,440 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 3: go into they're older. But from a culling perspective, what

657
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 3: we've learned is that we can't we can't change it. Uh,

658
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 3: partly because you know, there is no strong haritabill uh,

659
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 3: you know, connection between antler size and what the offspring

660
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:19,919
Speaker 3: of that deer that you know, if that deer sires deer,

661
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:22,879
Speaker 3: what more bucks, what the antlers are going to look

662
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 3: like on that And that's because part of the genes

663
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:30,000
Speaker 3: are coming from something that you have no ability to

664
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 3: assess antler quality, and that's the dough.

665
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 4: Uh.

666
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 3: You know, Mark, I've said this before. You and I

667
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 3: have stood in the same room a bunch of times.

668
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:42,000
Speaker 3: I'm not a very tall person. Uh. We had My

669
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 3: brother and I had the same parents, but I have

670
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 3: I'm five eight and my brother's six ' one. We

671
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 3: both got genes seem two people. And somehow he got

672
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:55,120
Speaker 3: tall jeans and I didn't. And so you know, you

673
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 3: can't tell what a buck is going to produce one

674
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 3: hundred percent because fifty percent genes come from the dough.

675
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 3: But probably the biggest nail in the coffin research was

676
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:10,240
Speaker 3: done in the last decade was a project in Texas

677
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 3: where they did a scale of one hundred thousand acres

678
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 3: and nobody owns one hundred thousand acres that's listening to this,

679
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 3: I can almost guarantee you. And they they set up

680
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 3: efforts that would be beyond what you know money could

681
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 3: buy almost in every circumstance where they had intensive and

682
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 3: moderate and then kind of a control area where they

683
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 3: were not culling deer, and all all three of those

684
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 3: kind of situations had similar herd and habitat characteristics. And

685
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 3: for a series of seven years, they hunted and then

686
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:48,240
Speaker 3: captured at a helicopter every buck that they could find,

687
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 3: and they had certain criteria that the deer need needed

688
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:57,279
Speaker 3: to meet, and if deer did not meet a certain criteria,

689
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 3: they were they were killed. And so dear that the

690
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 3: rest of the year were released, including bucks that were

691
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:10,360
Speaker 3: captured within the control and they just measured that over time,

692
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 3: and what they found was, you know, at that scale

693
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 3: for almost ten years, and you know, capturing deer with helicopters,

694
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 3: and if you know, for every age class one and

695
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 3: a half, two and a half, every adult male age

696
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 3: class one and a half all the way up to maturity,

697
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:32,560
Speaker 3: and they removed here a year after year for over

698
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 3: seven years, and still there was no difference. And so

699
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 3: unless you own one hundred and one thousand acres and

700
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 3: you own a fleet of helicopters, you're not going to

701
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 3: make any impact. And so anybody listening to this at

702
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 3: least should know at that scale culling didn't work at

703
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 3: that rate and at that intensity. So for the average

704
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 3: person that hunts whatever, you know, the acres is twenty acres,

705
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 3: forty acres, one hundred acres, you're not going to make

706
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:04,239
Speaker 3: a difference if if, unless you apply greater pression than that,

707
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 3: and even that we don't know if it's possible.

708
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 2: So then you know the most effective levers you have

709
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 2: to pull if you're trying to have you know, bigger deer,

710
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 2: healthier deer, that's going to be which things age?

711
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 3: You know, in terms of antler size, the three things

712
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 3: that affect affect antler size our age, then nutrition, and

713
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 3: then genetics. That's the third part of it. And so

714
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:40,919
Speaker 3: just letting deer get older by not shooting in them

715
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 3: at young ages makes the biggest jump in terms of

716
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 3: antler size and quality, because white tails will shed and

717
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 3: regrow antlers, and as long as they can reach a

718
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 3: year older, antler growth will will will increase up until maturity,

719
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:02,920
Speaker 3: which is between five and seven years of age generally.

720
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 3: QDM and the you know, the advent of the Quality

721
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 3: Deer Management Association always promoted and we still do in

722
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 3: some places trying to advance age at least up in

723
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:16,840
Speaker 3: two and a half, you know, just letting the yearling

724
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,279
Speaker 3: age class go because that's the largest jump in the

725
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 3: antler quality. But honestly, you know, you know, one of

726
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 3: the things that I wrote about in this other article

727
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:26,919
Speaker 3: is and you know, really looking back, it would be

728
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 3: probably the one of the biggest things I've you know,

729
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 3: just kind of thinking about this, one of the biggest

730
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:34,840
Speaker 3: things that we've learned over the ten years is about

731
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 3: hunting strategy. You know, I talked about excursions a little bit,

732
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 3: but really hunting pressure. That's probably a whole category that

733
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 3: we should talk about. Is you know, how deer react

734
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:48,719
Speaker 3: to us. That that there's a whole suite of research

735
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:51,200
Speaker 3: that we've learned that I think I probably take to

736
00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 3: the woods more more with me than anything else. Is

737
00:42:54,400 --> 00:43:00,360
Speaker 3: just what what my presence does to to deer behavior

738
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:03,640
Speaker 3: and deer movement. I started talking about excursions earlier, but

739
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:06,920
Speaker 3: really what what I was trying to get at is

740
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 3: just hunter pressure, like our presence. But I would be

741
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 3: remiss to not talk about you know, some of the

742
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:17,879
Speaker 3: bigger things that we're worried about with deer are things

743
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:19,880
Speaker 3: like chronic wasting disease, which I know you cover a

744
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 3: lot on this podcast and your listeners have heard about,

745
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:25,359
Speaker 3: and we probably shouldn't get into that too deep because

746
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 3: you'll fill a whole podcast on that, But you know,

747
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 3: thinking about calling and antler quality and selectivity, you know

748
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 3: there is this we're I mean, you just had Kip

749
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 3: on your podcast earlier this year to talk about our

750
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 3: Deer Report, and we track the composition of deer harvest

751
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 3: nationally every year, numbers of deer and age classes of

752
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 3: deer and rates that were taking them. And you know,

753
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 3: as Kip always says, we're in our heyday right now.

754
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 3: You know, age classes are more well rounded and balanced,

755
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:01,799
Speaker 3: and more older box are in the harvest now than

756
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 3: ever before in more places in the country. And that's

757
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:09,360
Speaker 3: all true. But you know, as I think about national

758
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 3: issues and about you know, what we've learned, certainly, chronic

759
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 3: waste disease has expanded enormously in the past decade. I mean,

760
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 3: thinking back ten years twenty thirteen. You know, if you

761
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:26,440
Speaker 3: and I were in Missouri in twenty thirteen or twelve

762
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 3: talking to each other, the landscape and what it looked

763
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 3: like for CWD back then is very different. Than it

764
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:37,240
Speaker 3: is right now, and trying to decide and tell people

765
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 3: how to manage deer herds is different. You have to

766
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 3: think about it. It still impacts a small percentage of our

767
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 3: total landscape, but it's a big enough issue that you

768
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:49,040
Speaker 3: need to be aware of it. You know, every hundred

769
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 3: needs to be aware of it and at least be

770
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 3: cognizant of managing. For really, herd health is the goal,

771
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 3: and so managing deer populations is what's most important first

772
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 3: and foremost, you know, just right, making sure that there's

773
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 3: not too many deer for what the landscape can handle.

774
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:13,360
Speaker 3: That's that's rule number one for QDM. Honestly, instead of

775
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 3: talking about age or sex ratio or some of those

776
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:21,240
Speaker 3: other parts of deer management, it's just numbers of deer.

777
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 3: And unfortunately we still have. You know, actually, you and

778
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 3: I got into some really good conversations probably five years ago.

779
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 3: We're actually a little bit more than that. When deer

780
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 3: harvests were starting to crash around the country, you know,

781
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 3: we were really starting to come down and it was

782
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:41,800
Speaker 3: something everybody was looking at, Well that's it ebbs and flows,

783
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 3: and today we're at, you know, pretty good deer harvest

784
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:46,279
Speaker 3: we're not at national highs, but we're not far off

785
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:50,360
Speaker 3: from them, and so we're at that point where we're

786
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:53,840
Speaker 3: starting to talk nationally about you know, you need to

787
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 3: do deer just here in general, because we have too

788
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 3: many deer in a lot of places. Outside of talking

789
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 3: about disease managed and so I'm true and true a

790
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,799
Speaker 3: deer manager, and I do try to manage for herd

791
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:10,400
Speaker 3: health and balance and all those things. But one of

792
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 3: the messages that you know, I think people should hear

793
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 3: is that it's our responsibility as hunters to manage populations.

794
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:21,399
Speaker 3: That's the first thing that we should worry about. And

795
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:26,759
Speaker 3: so if you are withholding harvesting enough deer because you're

796
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:31,839
Speaker 3: really trying to push antler quality, that's you're missing a

797
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:34,879
Speaker 3: little bit of the first messages. You need to make

798
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:38,279
Speaker 3: sure that the deer density is not too high, and

799
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 3: we do that through various methods of looking at their

800
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:45,240
Speaker 3: impact on vegetation. You know, browse lines, you can actually

801
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:47,879
Speaker 3: measure this stuff. But if you're just seeing a lot

802
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 3: of deer, or too many deer, if there's a lot

803
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,920
Speaker 3: of car accidents, that's what state wildlife agencies need us

804
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 3: to do is manage populations, and so that that's my

805
00:46:56,640 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 3: number one priority when I'm hunting, is if the state,

806
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:03,800
Speaker 3: whether I'm hunting in needs, is looking to reduce deer dancy,

807
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 3: I'm trying to shoot deer. You know, those would be

808
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 3: my goal because they're the one that's producing more deer.

809
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 3: But that's that's the first thing that I take on.

810
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 3: And so I know we're talking about research and I'm

811
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 3: I'm chasing rabbits here, not deer. But you know, when

812
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 3: you talk about calling and what we've learned, I want

813
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:25,400
Speaker 3: the listeners to understand don't get too tied up in

814
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:28,760
Speaker 3: calling or antler size for one, because you can't control

815
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:32,000
Speaker 3: it unless you own helicopters and more than one hundred

816
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 3: thousand acres. And then number two, our responsibilities to manage

817
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 3: a population first as as a hunter, and we should

818
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 3: care about that.

819
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, you make you make a great point, and it

820
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 2: kind of triggered a thought in my mind which goes

821
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:47,720
Speaker 2: back to one of the first things we talked about,

822
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 2: that being you know the impact of soil quality and

823
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 2: nutrition on deer health. And if someone is worried about

824
00:47:56,200 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of people, myself included, who

825
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 2: get excited about big Bucks and have wanted to do

826
00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 2: habitat improvement to try to get more food on the

827
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 2: ground and thinking like, man, this is going to be

828
00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 2: great for these deer and we're going to have more

829
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 2: big healthy bucks, YadA YadA, YadA. Well, if one of

830
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 2: the main takeaways from that earlier study was that, hey,

831
00:48:16,080 --> 00:48:18,239
Speaker 2: you're not going to necessarily change the nutrition that the

832
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:22,279
Speaker 2: plants can provide. You're just going to impact the yield.

833
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 2: So you could do impact. You could you could look

834
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:27,560
Speaker 2: at yield and if yield is the thing that's going

835
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:29,839
Speaker 2: to get more food to a buck to make it

836
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:31,759
Speaker 2: easier for him to pack on weight and antlers and

837
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff, one thing you could do,

838
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:35,400
Speaker 2: which is a lot of people jump to is the

839
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 2: easiest option. It's not, but they will jump to this

840
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 2: being that the sexy option, I guess is like more food,

841
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:43,799
Speaker 2: more food, more food plots, more this, more of that.

842
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:46,440
Speaker 2: Let's spend thousands and thousands of dollars to put in

843
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 2: fifty acres of clover food plots and soybeans and all

844
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff, because I want my deer to

845
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:52,919
Speaker 2: have all the protein and all the whatever they need

846
00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:57,400
Speaker 2: to grow big. That will get more yield, supposedly, But

847
00:48:57,440 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 2: at the same time, you could take a different approach,

848
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 2: which is just manage your overpopulated deer population to cut

849
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 2: down on the number of deer on the landscape. That

850
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 2: also gets more yield to the deer. Right that would

851
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 2: have a you would if you would take a deer

852
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 2: population and cut in half, you all of a sudden

853
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 2: have twice as much food available to those you know,

854
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 2: fifty remaining deer. So managing your deer population to be

855
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 2: in balance with the habitat is just as effective of

856
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:29,799
Speaker 2: a way to chase your big mature buck kind of

857
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 2: dreams as well. Absolutely so, I think.

858
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:38,839
Speaker 3: The easiest thing for us to do is manage you know,

859
00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 3: buy that bullet In terms of that, everybody wants to

860
00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:44,319
Speaker 3: see deer when they're hunting, and I admit, you know,

861
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:48,920
Speaker 3: if you go hours and hours without seeing animals, well

862
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 3: it makes you a better hunter, honestly, but you know,

863
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:55,360
Speaker 3: it can be boring, but it is important. And that's

864
00:49:55,480 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 3: you know, using using a firearm, bow, whatever implement to

865
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:03,040
Speaker 3: try to manage the population is one of the things

866
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:07,320
Speaker 3: we should do. Uh. And when I've managed properties, including

867
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 3: the ones I hunt today, one of the first, you know,

868
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:14,120
Speaker 3: the first things we did was assess where's the population

869
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:17,239
Speaker 3: at and tried to reduce the number of mouths to

870
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 3: the point where when we started doing habitat improvements, honestly

871
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 3: where I live and where you live as well, and

872
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 3: actually you know everywhere in the country. I guess now

873
00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:28,440
Speaker 3: that I'm thinking about it, you have a lot of

874
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 3: competing invasive plant species that are not eaten by deer,

875
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:35,759
Speaker 3: whereas most of the preferred natives will be eaten by

876
00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:38,359
Speaker 3: deer because they've grown up, you know, volved and lived

877
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:41,879
Speaker 3: there for eons eating those plants. And so my goal

878
00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:44,960
Speaker 3: has always been on a new piece of property before

879
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:48,560
Speaker 3: I start doing habitat management is get the deer den

880
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:51,840
Speaker 3: deer numbers in check. That way, when you open the

881
00:50:51,880 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 3: canopy uh in the woods, which is my next you

882
00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:59,919
Speaker 3: know thing I would jump on is the tree regeneration

883
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:05,239
Speaker 3: response from the increase in sunlight is more of your natives.

884
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:08,520
Speaker 3: Although you might have some invasive show up, you're going

885
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:11,279
Speaker 3: to have those natives show up as well, and you

886
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:15,759
Speaker 3: can manage that through mechanical or chemical or fire or

887
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:18,120
Speaker 3: something like that. But if you have a lot of

888
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:20,919
Speaker 3: deer on the ground, you're going to be fighting two

889
00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:23,440
Speaker 3: different things to you know, to push and pulls. Whereas

890
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:26,759
Speaker 3: it's not only these invasive shown up, but the deer

891
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:30,439
Speaker 3: actually a catalyst by removing the ones that you want

892
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,000
Speaker 3: to be there, because they're selectively picking those things out.

893
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 3: And so that is the first thing I tried to

894
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:38,279
Speaker 3: do when when looking at a piece of properties, get

895
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:41,359
Speaker 3: the deer density and check. And then the second thing

896
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:44,880
Speaker 3: is work in your woods because it's the cheapest and

897
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:47,399
Speaker 3: most properties, at least in the Northeast where I live,

898
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:52,800
Speaker 3: they're primarily wooded. And so that's by proportion, the most

899
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:55,719
Speaker 3: land is in forest, and you know, by trade. I'm

900
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:59,239
Speaker 3: also a forester, and so I know that you can

901
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:02,400
Speaker 3: manage trees and make money from it, which then you

902
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:05,480
Speaker 3: can go into things like food plots or you know

903
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 3: whatever fuel for your side by side or whatever else.

904
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 3: And then you're getting the sunlight and the forage or

905
00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:14,320
Speaker 3: vegetative response in the woods. Those those two things alone,

906
00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:18,800
Speaker 3: bullets and chainsaw, you know, barloo bin oil and fuel

907
00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:22,040
Speaker 3: for your chainsaw. You can change the world, and you

908
00:52:22,080 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 3: can change you can change deer herd health on a

909
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:26,359
Speaker 3: pretty large landscape. It doesn't cost that much.

910
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not a bad way to go about it

911
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 2: at all. So speaking of managing with the bullet you

912
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:37,319
Speaker 2: you kind of alluded a second ago to you know,

913
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 2: how much progress has been when it comes to the

914
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:44,960
Speaker 2: science of deer behavior and deer reacting to pressure and

915
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 2: and deer movement and all that kind of stuff. Do

916
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:49,160
Speaker 2: you want to touch on a couple of the biggest

917
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 2: takeaways in the last decade on that front.

918
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:55,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's been some awesome stuff and I don't that

919
00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:59,000
Speaker 3: has come out in the last decade about uh, you know,

920
00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:04,360
Speaker 3: deer response to people or hunters, you know, one of

921
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:07,200
Speaker 3: the things that we've learned. And there's some biological things

922
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 3: too about like how do you see that I can

923
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 3: get into, but you know, from multiple projects that have

924
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:21,440
Speaker 3: looked at sites that where hunters start entering the woods

925
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:24,240
Speaker 3: and watch how deer change their behavior, what we've learned

926
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:27,759
Speaker 3: is that generally, dear deer know that you're out there,

927
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:32,560
Speaker 3: and they respond quickly to it, and that it takes

928
00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:34,919
Speaker 3: them a couple of days they will go back. It's

929
00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 3: not like they're gonna, you know, leave and never come back.

930
00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 3: Because deer have something called high site fidelity, meaning once

931
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 3: they've once they're an adult and they're living in this

932
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 3: place their home range. They they are stuck there. I mean,

933
00:53:51,000 --> 00:53:52,719
Speaker 3: that's where they're going to live. They're not going to

934
00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 3: just leave. What they do is change where they may

935
00:53:55,719 --> 00:53:57,799
Speaker 3: go within their home range and when they go to

936
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 3: those places. So it's not like if you scare a

937
00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 3: big buck, he's gone on unless he gets shot, you

938
00:54:05,600 --> 00:54:08,439
Speaker 3: know while he's running away, but he's gone forever. It's

939
00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:10,320
Speaker 3: still going to be using that, it just might change

940
00:54:10,640 --> 00:54:14,359
Speaker 3: change how it uses. So generally the projects have all

941
00:54:14,400 --> 00:54:19,840
Speaker 3: agreed that within honestly want one visit to the woods,

942
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:25,120
Speaker 3: you know, first interaction deer alerted, they're going to change

943
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:27,759
Speaker 3: what they're doing, and that it takes two to three

944
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:30,920
Speaker 3: days for them to kind of go back and behave

945
00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 3: the way that they were before. And those projects have

946
00:54:34,280 --> 00:54:40,720
Speaker 3: been done in various forms and different areas of the country,

947
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:43,880
Speaker 3: not just the southeast, but also in the in the

948
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:49,000
Speaker 3: Midwest and in the Northeast as well. And so you

949
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:52,560
Speaker 3: think about how you hunt and when you go to

950
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:56,080
Speaker 3: the woods, just recognize even if you don't see a

951
00:54:56,120 --> 00:55:00,600
Speaker 3: deer run, I mean for the most part, that's going

952
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:04,000
Speaker 3: to be throughout the season. Uh, the one time that

953
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:11,040
Speaker 3: I personally will not use that science and affect how

954
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:13,480
Speaker 3: I hunt is during the absolute peak of the rout,

955
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:17,799
Speaker 3: because at that point deer are not paying attention to

956
00:55:17,960 --> 00:55:20,359
Speaker 3: us as much they as they are during other times

957
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:22,200
Speaker 3: the year. So there's about probably a week to ten

958
00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:25,839
Speaker 3: days where if I bumped a deer or if I'm

959
00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:28,720
Speaker 3: going in the woods, I'm not really really thinking hard

960
00:55:28,760 --> 00:55:31,840
Speaker 3: about where I'm going next. I'm just gonna try to

961
00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 3: hunt as much as possible during daylight hours because they

962
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:38,359
Speaker 3: they are not paying attention as much as they are

963
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 3: during the rest of the year. But during the pre rut,

964
00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:45,200
Speaker 3: even early in the rut, you know, after the breeding season,

965
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:47,320
Speaker 3: going into the you know, end of the end of

966
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 3: the hunting season. For the most part, I am really

967
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:53,160
Speaker 3: conscious of where I walk into a property, how many

968
00:55:53,280 --> 00:55:56,720
Speaker 3: days it's been, and what deer might be doing because

969
00:55:56,760 --> 00:55:57,000
Speaker 3: of it.

970
00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:01,440
Speaker 2: You know, one thing I can't remember seeing. I might

971
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,319
Speaker 2: have missed it. But has there been a study that

972
00:56:04,400 --> 00:56:10,080
Speaker 2: has looked at how hunting pressure impacts the time of

973
00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:13,600
Speaker 2: day deer move, So not if they move, how much

974
00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:16,440
Speaker 2: they move, and not where they move. But basically what

975
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:19,959
Speaker 2: I'm getting at is, you know how hunting pressure will

976
00:56:20,040 --> 00:56:23,680
Speaker 2: force deer to move more during darkness versus during daylight.

977
00:56:25,160 --> 00:56:27,719
Speaker 3: There has been some I'm picturing there has been some

978
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:31,680
Speaker 3: research on that I'm picturing a project. We present a

979
00:56:31,719 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 3: whole session in our Dear Steward course in the Level

980
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:41,279
Speaker 3: one class, which is an online course that you can take,

981
00:56:42,080 --> 00:56:46,280
Speaker 3: and through that presentation that we give, I can picture

982
00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:51,080
Speaker 3: some graphs in I believe it was in a project

983
00:56:51,080 --> 00:56:57,439
Speaker 3: in Georgia where they had a study site and they

984
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:02,279
Speaker 3: looked at deer changing more too. They still see it

985
00:57:02,400 --> 00:57:05,560
Speaker 3: was the same parts of these properties, but did them

986
00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:10,200
Speaker 3: more during dark. And then another project in Maryland, this

987
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:13,600
Speaker 3: is actually one of the first projects that had GPS

988
00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:18,880
Speaker 3: collars on deer. This was at Chesapeake Farm with under

989
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:24,160
Speaker 3: dark doctor Mark Connor and others, where the same thing

990
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:27,320
Speaker 3: happened is that deer tended to use the same parts

991
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:30,400
Speaker 3: of the study site, but they did it at night

992
00:57:30,440 --> 00:57:34,320
Speaker 3: as opposed to during dawn or dusk hours. It was

993
00:57:34,400 --> 00:57:36,600
Speaker 3: just more dark. And so you know, a lot of

994
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:40,560
Speaker 3: hunters have always said they're gonna go nocturnal, and those

995
00:57:40,600 --> 00:57:45,080
Speaker 3: projects just provided evidence that that was true. Yes, they

996
00:57:45,120 --> 00:57:49,000
Speaker 3: are spending more time in the dark than they would

997
00:57:49,040 --> 00:57:50,880
Speaker 3: be during the day. So it's kind of a you know,

998
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:53,920
Speaker 3: a duh moment, but yes, that has been shown.

999
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:58,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it also does that also back

1000
00:57:58,680 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 2: up the idea that you're not typically going to blow

1001
00:58:02,600 --> 00:58:05,240
Speaker 2: a deer out of the country, right I think, you know,

1002
00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:07,480
Speaker 2: I used to think like man, if I go in

1003
00:58:07,600 --> 00:58:09,440
Speaker 2: in the wrong time and spook a buck, or if

1004
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:11,240
Speaker 2: I go in there a couple of times, he's gone,

1005
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:13,040
Speaker 2: he's out of here, he's going to be in the

1006
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:14,720
Speaker 2: next property, or he's going to be a mile down

1007
00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 2: the road, and I'm never gonna see him again. Like

1008
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:20,680
Speaker 2: you said, usually white tails are a high site fidelity critter.

1009
00:58:21,040 --> 00:58:22,880
Speaker 2: When they find a home, they want to stay in

1010
00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:26,160
Speaker 2: that home, but you certainly can change when they expose

1011
00:58:26,240 --> 00:58:29,400
Speaker 2: themselves around that or in certain parts of that home.

1012
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:30,880
Speaker 2: Is that right?

1013
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:35,240
Speaker 3: It is? And you know I will add h you know,

1014
00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:39,480
Speaker 3: and it depends type of answer to that. You know,

1015
00:58:39,880 --> 00:58:42,200
Speaker 3: if you ask me, does it happen, the answer is yes,

1016
00:58:42,680 --> 00:58:45,480
Speaker 3: because I can I can picture these projects and I

1017
00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:48,000
Speaker 3: you know, I remember seeing and reading some of the research.

1018
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:52,160
Speaker 3: But my take home message on that is, you know,

1019
00:58:52,520 --> 00:58:55,160
Speaker 3: where we started this podcast is would I use that

1020
00:58:55,280 --> 00:58:58,320
Speaker 3: as gospel to how deer react, No, that is not

1021
00:58:58,400 --> 00:59:00,560
Speaker 3: how I would react. In fact, if you said what

1022
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:03,520
Speaker 3: does the average do? You know, what does the average

1023
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:06,680
Speaker 3: deer do? And I would say buy and large. What

1024
00:59:06,720 --> 00:59:10,040
Speaker 3: the average deer does is just shifts its use of

1025
00:59:10,080 --> 00:59:13,120
Speaker 3: its home range to another place. And so they're still

1026
00:59:13,120 --> 00:59:15,320
Speaker 3: going to be active at dawn and dusk, but they're

1027
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:20,040
Speaker 3: going to go to those corners or sometimes not even corners,

1028
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:25,440
Speaker 3: but places within their average home range where you're not going.

1029
00:59:25,960 --> 00:59:29,720
Speaker 3: And they could be, you know, a deep swamp, it

1030
00:59:29,760 --> 00:59:32,480
Speaker 3: could be right along the road where you're driving past.

1031
00:59:32,880 --> 00:59:35,680
Speaker 3: It's just the places you haven't been. So what does

1032
00:59:35,720 --> 00:59:40,000
Speaker 3: the average deer do? That answer is it just changes

1033
00:59:40,240 --> 00:59:43,640
Speaker 3: where it's going to be, not when it is traveling.

1034
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:48,120
Speaker 3: But that is definitely the average or that it would

1035
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:50,600
Speaker 3: be my take home for folks. And so I think

1036
00:59:50,640 --> 00:59:52,800
Speaker 3: the smartest hunters and you do a great job of

1037
00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:59,480
Speaker 3: like finding some profiles of people or profiling really successful

1038
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:02,880
Speaker 3: hunters that do repeatedly, you know, are successful out there

1039
01:00:02,920 --> 01:00:07,200
Speaker 3: even in higher pressure situations. Those folks do shot probably

1040
01:00:07,280 --> 01:00:10,040
Speaker 3: change when they hunt to a degree. But you tell me,

1041
01:00:10,120 --> 01:00:12,040
Speaker 3: I'm going to turn it around on you, Mark. I mean,

1042
01:00:12,120 --> 01:00:14,840
Speaker 3: you've learned and interviewed a bunch of these guys and

1043
01:00:14,880 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 3: gals around the country. Is it more that they are

1044
01:00:19,040 --> 01:00:21,560
Speaker 3: going to places where hunters aren't going or is it

1045
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:24,960
Speaker 3: that they're going in at different times from when they

1046
01:00:24,960 --> 01:00:26,000
Speaker 3: were earlier in the year.

1047
01:00:27,280 --> 01:00:32,120
Speaker 2: Probably some combination of both, depending on all sorts of situations.

1048
01:00:32,160 --> 01:00:37,520
Speaker 2: But yes, I mean, those consistently most successful hunters know

1049
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:42,280
Speaker 2: how to find the places where those most consistently successful

1050
01:00:42,360 --> 01:00:46,640
Speaker 2: deer have found to be safe. Right because the bucks

1051
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:49,400
Speaker 2: that survived to year three, four or five, you know,

1052
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:52,480
Speaker 2: they're the ones who find the safe place and have

1053
01:00:52,760 --> 01:00:55,760
Speaker 2: stuck to it and have found I have understood when's

1054
01:00:55,800 --> 01:00:58,200
Speaker 2: it safe to expose myself in this place and when's

1055
01:00:58,240 --> 01:01:02,480
Speaker 2: it not? And that the bucks that didn't find those places,

1056
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:04,120
Speaker 2: of the bucks that did not have that the pre

1057
01:01:04,440 --> 01:01:09,560
Speaker 2: you know, disposition to be particularly cautious or particularly wary. Uh,

1058
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:12,120
Speaker 2: those ones got eliminated out of the gym pool early on.

1059
01:01:12,280 --> 01:01:15,760
Speaker 3: Exactly so. And and you know the places deer want

1060
01:01:15,800 --> 01:01:19,520
Speaker 3: to go typically, uh, you know, the thicker the cover,

1061
01:01:20,480 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 3: the more safe they're gonna feel. But that's not necessarily

1062
01:01:23,240 --> 01:01:30,600
Speaker 3: always going to be true. It's just lack of human presence. Yeah, Key,

1063
01:01:30,680 --> 01:01:33,440
Speaker 3: in on. And so it could be places like I

1064
01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:37,000
Speaker 3: said that are along highways and nobody's hunting. They could

1065
01:01:37,000 --> 01:01:40,040
Speaker 3: be wide open stands of trees. Uh, they could be

1066
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:42,920
Speaker 3: a little you know, uh, like an island, or a

1067
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:45,480
Speaker 3: mot of of shrubs in the middle of an open field,

1068
01:01:45,480 --> 01:01:47,240
Speaker 3: and they just know they can see you coming, and

1069
01:01:47,280 --> 01:01:51,200
Speaker 3: so they'll go there. They know, through their use of

1070
01:01:51,200 --> 01:01:55,120
Speaker 3: their five senses, where we do not go. And if

1071
01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:57,520
Speaker 3: they live long enough, like you said, they've been, they've been.

1072
01:01:57,560 --> 01:02:01,600
Speaker 3: The ones that make mistakes don't last long. But the

1073
01:02:01,600 --> 01:02:05,600
Speaker 3: ones that survive tend to experience those things and learn,

1074
01:02:06,360 --> 01:02:09,960
Speaker 3: and they end up going. And so the best suite

1075
01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:12,040
Speaker 3: of projects that I can think of that have had

1076
01:02:12,080 --> 01:02:15,600
Speaker 3: GPS collars on deer when in some of them have

1077
01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:21,120
Speaker 3: also had GPS armbands on hunters or even did like

1078
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:24,040
Speaker 3: aerial surveys of everybody and were able to pick up

1079
01:02:24,080 --> 01:02:27,560
Speaker 3: through infrared imagery where the hunters were and where the

1080
01:02:27,600 --> 01:02:32,680
Speaker 3: deer were. But through all of these projects, in all

1081
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:36,600
Speaker 3: these different landscapes, deer go to places where we don't go.

1082
01:02:37,480 --> 01:02:40,160
Speaker 3: That that is the take home. Not necessarily do they

1083
01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:43,720
Speaker 3: shift to being nocturnal, It's just they will they will

1084
01:02:43,760 --> 01:02:46,880
Speaker 3: find these places. There was some really cool projects out

1085
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 3: there that watched and so how deer did it in

1086
01:02:49,800 --> 01:02:51,560
Speaker 3: some of them that were colored for more than one

1087
01:02:51,640 --> 01:02:55,680
Speaker 3: hunting season would go to the same places you're you know,

1088
01:02:55,960 --> 01:02:58,640
Speaker 3: in the same fall, so like around the same time

1089
01:02:58,680 --> 01:03:01,919
Speaker 3: when guns started going off, they would they would find

1090
01:03:01,920 --> 01:03:05,120
Speaker 3: the same locations and go where they were safe the

1091
01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:07,160
Speaker 3: year before. And obviously that's a learned behavior.

1092
01:03:07,720 --> 01:03:12,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating stuff. How they they just they

1093
01:03:12,720 --> 01:03:15,840
Speaker 2: know when the time to get in there is and

1094
01:03:15,880 --> 01:03:19,000
Speaker 2: they they prosper because of it. So so in the

1095
01:03:19,040 --> 01:03:23,840
Speaker 2: interest of time, Matt, if there was one other major takeaway,

1096
01:03:24,120 --> 01:03:27,680
Speaker 2: one major shift in our understanding of deer, one major

1097
01:03:27,840 --> 01:03:32,280
Speaker 2: aha moment in the deer science community, what's that last

1098
01:03:32,280 --> 01:03:33,520
Speaker 2: thing you think we should touch on?

1099
01:03:35,960 --> 01:03:41,760
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know, Mark, There's just so much out there.

1100
01:03:42,400 --> 01:03:43,800
Speaker 2: You can throw a dart of the wall and pick

1101
01:03:43,800 --> 01:03:44,760
Speaker 2: any one of them if you want.

1102
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:49,200
Speaker 3: Then yeah, I you know, I my my, my brain

1103
01:03:49,240 --> 01:03:54,160
Speaker 3: always goes back to on the deer research stuff on

1104
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:58,160
Speaker 3: the big picture is like CWD related stuff. You know,

1105
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:03,520
Speaker 3: how how dear past set and how we can keep

1106
01:04:03,560 --> 01:04:07,520
Speaker 3: that from occurring and so follow the rules. I guess

1107
01:04:07,560 --> 01:04:12,560
Speaker 3: you know, from from a hunter's perspective, ravel anywhere to

1108
01:04:12,640 --> 01:04:17,280
Speaker 3: hunt to to you know, bring back your boned out meat,

1109
01:04:17,960 --> 01:04:20,320
Speaker 3: because we've learned that, you know, in the baliant of

1110
01:04:20,400 --> 01:04:23,480
Speaker 3: what past ten fifteen years, how this disease moving is

1111
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:26,560
Speaker 3: moving around, you know, leaving leaving some of those places,

1112
01:04:26,640 --> 01:04:29,760
Speaker 3: those places will take justin enison and leave the skull

1113
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:32,160
Speaker 3: and the spinal cord and the bones and all of

1114
01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:34,720
Speaker 3: that stuff, you know, where you were hunting, and then

1115
01:04:34,800 --> 01:04:38,680
Speaker 3: don't put out things that congregate deer. That's that's the

1116
01:04:38,720 --> 01:04:41,960
Speaker 3: big thing we're fighting, you know, honestly, and there's a

1117
01:04:42,000 --> 01:04:45,720
Speaker 3: lot of research being done on it. Unfortunately we have

1118
01:04:45,800 --> 01:04:47,320
Speaker 3: to spend a lot more on it to learn a

1119
01:04:47,320 --> 01:04:50,240
Speaker 3: lot more. But I take that very seriously. I know

1120
01:04:50,280 --> 01:04:52,120
Speaker 3: you do as well, and as a hunter, I know

1121
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:54,400
Speaker 3: you have a lot of people listening to this, and

1122
01:04:54,440 --> 01:04:57,040
Speaker 3: I want people to take that stuff seriously. You know,

1123
01:04:57,080 --> 01:04:59,680
Speaker 3: it's great talking about big antlers, and it's great talking

1124
01:04:59,680 --> 01:05:04,960
Speaker 3: about selectivity and habitat management and even hunting pressure because

1125
01:05:06,160 --> 01:05:09,840
Speaker 3: I use that information. But I want people to leave

1126
01:05:09,880 --> 01:05:13,320
Speaker 3: this podcast knowing, hey, you can make a difference. You know,

1127
01:05:13,960 --> 01:05:17,040
Speaker 3: we all don't hunt in chronic WASTINGO these areas, but

1128
01:05:17,120 --> 01:05:21,280
Speaker 3: we all, we all have the ability to slow it spread,

1129
01:05:21,800 --> 01:05:23,640
Speaker 3: no matter if you hunt there or not, by just

1130
01:05:23,720 --> 01:05:26,440
Speaker 3: being an advocate and making good decisions and listening to

1131
01:05:26,600 --> 01:05:29,280
Speaker 3: your stay wildlife agency. And that's kind of where the

1132
01:05:29,320 --> 01:05:31,840
Speaker 3: research ends for me right now. Anyway.

1133
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:35,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully there's more to come now that some new

1134
01:05:35,120 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 2: funding has been sent that direction. Hopefully we'll continue to

1135
01:05:38,960 --> 01:05:40,600
Speaker 2: learn more about how to deal with it and how

1136
01:05:40,600 --> 01:05:44,080
Speaker 2: to slow it and you know, hopefully turn things around.

1137
01:05:44,960 --> 01:05:48,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry to be such a bummer. I'm like the

1138
01:05:48,920 --> 01:05:51,000
Speaker 3: DeBie Downer of the deer world.

1139
01:05:51,080 --> 01:06:11,320
Speaker 4: I guess.

1140
01:06:04,360 --> 01:06:06,120
Speaker 2: Let's end on a high note then, so that we

1141
01:06:06,240 --> 01:06:10,160
Speaker 2: don't depress too many folks. I want to get a

1142
01:06:10,200 --> 01:06:13,080
Speaker 2: little bit more detail from you on one more thing

1143
01:06:13,520 --> 01:06:17,760
Speaker 2: before we wrap this up, which is a evolution in

1144
01:06:18,240 --> 01:06:21,640
Speaker 2: your organization, as you mentioned, formerly known as the Quality

1145
01:06:21,680 --> 01:06:25,760
Speaker 2: Deer Management Association, now the National Deer Association. You guys

1146
01:06:25,840 --> 01:06:28,760
Speaker 2: kicked off something that I just think is really really cool,

1147
01:06:28,920 --> 01:06:32,080
Speaker 2: which is the Public Lands Initiative, And we haven't talked

1148
01:06:32,080 --> 01:06:35,640
Speaker 2: about that here on the podcast before you and I

1149
01:06:35,680 --> 01:06:38,080
Speaker 2: can you update us on what that is, what you

1150
01:06:38,120 --> 01:06:41,280
Speaker 2: guys are doing, what you guys have achieved already, and

1151
01:06:41,320 --> 01:06:43,800
Speaker 2: then we should talk about our little collaboration too.

1152
01:06:44,920 --> 01:06:47,120
Speaker 3: I would love to, honestly, this is one of the

1153
01:06:47,160 --> 01:06:51,000
Speaker 3: most satisfying things that I'm working on right now and

1154
01:06:51,120 --> 01:06:55,040
Speaker 3: have been for the past two years. So, you know,

1155
01:06:56,400 --> 01:06:58,800
Speaker 3: the public Lands initiative, but you know, bigger picture in

1156
01:06:58,880 --> 01:07:02,320
Speaker 3: terms of the evolution of the organization. As I mentioned

1157
01:07:02,640 --> 01:07:06,160
Speaker 3: at the beginning, Now, I've been here a while and

1158
01:07:06,520 --> 01:07:11,800
Speaker 3: I've seen the company grow and change and adapt to

1159
01:07:11,880 --> 01:07:14,000
Speaker 3: a lot of the things that you know are out

1160
01:07:14,040 --> 01:07:16,800
Speaker 3: there in terms of the need of all we have

1161
01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:19,360
Speaker 3: to do as a conservation organization. I could not be

1162
01:07:19,480 --> 01:07:22,280
Speaker 3: more proud, honestly of where we are as an organization.

1163
01:07:22,320 --> 01:07:25,640
Speaker 3: It's easy for me to say, but you know, things

1164
01:07:25,760 --> 01:07:30,680
Speaker 3: are things are really good at NDA. We are we

1165
01:07:30,720 --> 01:07:33,600
Speaker 3: are doing a lot of things in policy as you mentioned,

1166
01:07:33,640 --> 01:07:36,880
Speaker 3: you know, a CWD funding a few minutes ago, and

1167
01:07:36,960 --> 01:07:43,600
Speaker 3: part of our transition from qtm A, my former employee employer,

1168
01:07:43,720 --> 01:07:47,400
Speaker 3: to the National Deer Association, and we created a new

1169
01:07:47,680 --> 01:07:51,240
Speaker 3: strategic vision, long term vision for the company, and as

1170
01:07:51,360 --> 01:07:53,200
Speaker 3: part of that we said, you know, we're the biggest

1171
01:07:53,440 --> 01:07:57,280
Speaker 3: issues affecting deer and deer management and deer hunting into

1172
01:07:57,280 --> 01:07:59,720
Speaker 3: the future and what can we do as an organization,

1173
01:08:00,080 --> 01:08:02,760
Speaker 3: can our members do and our followers do to to

1174
01:08:02,800 --> 01:08:06,240
Speaker 3: effect change, And things like CWD came up, you know,

1175
01:08:06,400 --> 01:08:10,600
Speaker 3: R three getting new hunters out there, and we really

1176
01:08:10,680 --> 01:08:14,400
Speaker 3: think you personally and meat Eater about you know, the

1177
01:08:14,440 --> 01:08:16,839
Speaker 3: donation of the back forty. That was just one small

1178
01:08:16,840 --> 01:08:20,200
Speaker 3: part of being able to advocate for more and new

1179
01:08:20,400 --> 01:08:25,519
Speaker 3: non traditional audiences and getting hunting. But another arm of

1180
01:08:25,920 --> 01:08:30,440
Speaker 3: one of our strategic visions was doing more on public land.

1181
01:08:31,040 --> 01:08:36,879
Speaker 3: As an organization. We we talk about private land management

1182
01:08:36,920 --> 01:08:39,799
Speaker 3: a lot. We did today, you know. And the fact

1183
01:08:39,880 --> 01:08:43,400
Speaker 3: is most deer hunting, white tailed deer hunting occurs on

1184
01:08:43,439 --> 01:08:45,840
Speaker 3: private land and that was in our Deer Report and

1185
01:08:45,880 --> 01:08:47,800
Speaker 3: I know you you and Kip got a chance to

1186
01:08:47,880 --> 01:08:52,559
Speaker 3: chat about that. But as an organization that cares about

1187
01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:58,800
Speaker 3: recruiting new hunters and cares about the land, our organization

1188
01:08:59,600 --> 01:09:03,120
Speaker 3: has worked worked really well with state wildlife agencies and

1189
01:09:03,200 --> 01:09:07,879
Speaker 3: state game areas or WMAs and managing and providing education

1190
01:09:08,000 --> 01:09:11,679
Speaker 3: outreach through states. But one thing we have not done,

1191
01:09:11,760 --> 01:09:14,719
Speaker 3: admittedly well in the past thirty five years is doing

1192
01:09:14,920 --> 01:09:20,080
Speaker 3: more with our federal partners and so kind of wrapping

1193
01:09:20,120 --> 01:09:25,240
Speaker 3: all that up into an initiative. We thought, we need

1194
01:09:25,640 --> 01:09:30,600
Speaker 3: a vision of doing more on federal lands under the

1195
01:09:31,120 --> 01:09:37,120
Speaker 3: guise of basically helping do more management so that if

1196
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:41,400
Speaker 3: these properties are improved, access is opened, we can recruit

1197
01:09:41,439 --> 01:09:46,240
Speaker 3: more hunters because most new hunters, you know, going back

1198
01:09:46,240 --> 01:09:50,000
Speaker 3: to the R III movement, typically don't own land they're

1199
01:09:50,000 --> 01:09:53,040
Speaker 3: coming from. I mean, some of them do, but research

1200
01:09:53,040 --> 01:09:56,000
Speaker 3: shows that most of them do not. And new hunters,

1201
01:09:56,120 --> 01:10:01,320
Speaker 3: especially adult hunters, typically live in subourbon and urban areas.

1202
01:10:02,280 --> 01:10:06,320
Speaker 3: They're of college education or greater, and they don't have

1203
01:10:06,400 --> 01:10:08,840
Speaker 3: anywhere to go. And so one way that we could

1204
01:10:08,840 --> 01:10:14,120
Speaker 3: support our R three work is to work with federal

1205
01:10:14,160 --> 01:10:17,559
Speaker 3: partners open up more lands, do more on public land

1206
01:10:19,000 --> 01:10:21,800
Speaker 3: so that those places are better for deer because the

1207
01:10:21,880 --> 01:10:24,800
Speaker 3: reality is that a lot of them are unmanaged or

1208
01:10:24,880 --> 01:10:30,200
Speaker 3: not managed for you know, larger populations of deer or

1209
01:10:30,360 --> 01:10:34,479
Speaker 3: supporting huntable populations. And so if we did more, it

1210
01:10:34,520 --> 01:10:37,320
Speaker 3: would provide more opportunities, and that's the least we can do.

1211
01:10:37,920 --> 01:10:42,960
Speaker 3: And we created an initiative and launched it in twenty one,

1212
01:10:43,000 --> 01:10:47,000
Speaker 3: so just two years ago. It's called Improving Access, Habitat

1213
01:10:47,080 --> 01:10:50,479
Speaker 3: and Deer Hunting on Public Lands and we have a

1214
01:10:50,640 --> 01:10:54,040
Speaker 3: goal to improve a million acres by twenty twenty six,

1215
01:10:54,080 --> 01:10:58,360
Speaker 3: and we're already two years into it. And part of

1216
01:10:58,400 --> 01:11:03,240
Speaker 3: that was to you know, state wildlife management agencies own

1217
01:11:03,479 --> 01:11:05,559
Speaker 3: a lot of land, but to really make an impact,

1218
01:11:05,560 --> 01:11:08,559
Speaker 3: we needed to work with our federal partners to scale

1219
01:11:08,800 --> 01:11:11,559
Speaker 3: at that level. And so we're working with the US

1220
01:11:11,640 --> 01:11:14,120
Speaker 3: Forest Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service in

1221
01:11:14,160 --> 01:11:18,120
Speaker 3: many places. Uh and uh. You know, as part of

1222
01:11:18,160 --> 01:11:23,160
Speaker 3: that project, I oversee a team of stewardship coordinators. These

1223
01:11:23,160 --> 01:11:27,639
Speaker 3: are people, you know, uh, people that are educated in

1224
01:11:27,680 --> 01:11:33,080
Speaker 3: experience and land management, specifically administering work on the ground. Uh.

1225
01:11:33,080 --> 01:11:39,559
Speaker 3: And we are working through the country right now on

1226
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:43,680
Speaker 3: we're in seven national forests that we have executed agreements

1227
01:11:44,120 --> 01:11:47,400
Speaker 3: in six different states. I got a bunch more that

1228
01:11:47,439 --> 01:11:51,880
Speaker 3: are about to be developed and signed this year. We're

1229
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:54,479
Speaker 3: working with other NGOs, which is even awesome. You know.

1230
01:11:54,720 --> 01:11:57,600
Speaker 3: Even more awesome is that we're working with other conservation

1231
01:11:57,720 --> 01:12:03,160
Speaker 3: groups and the go go. There is just fine places

1232
01:12:03,640 --> 01:12:09,840
Speaker 3: that need management to help increase capacity that might help.

1233
01:12:09,920 --> 01:12:14,000
Speaker 3: You know, deer are opportunittunistic and they adapt really well,

1234
01:12:14,040 --> 01:12:17,599
Speaker 3: and so if you're managing land generally, deer respond if

1235
01:12:17,600 --> 01:12:21,000
Speaker 3: you're managing vegetation, you know, if you're just changing the

1236
01:12:21,040 --> 01:12:24,759
Speaker 3: composition of vegetation and creating disturbance and just making it healthier.

1237
01:12:24,800 --> 01:12:26,880
Speaker 3: The great thing about deer is they're resilient and that

1238
01:12:26,920 --> 01:12:29,120
Speaker 3: they will respond quickly. And then there's a lot of

1239
01:12:29,160 --> 01:12:31,840
Speaker 3: other species that benefit as well. And so we do

1240
01:12:31,920 --> 01:12:34,720
Speaker 3: it under the umbrella of deer management and because there's

1241
01:12:34,720 --> 01:12:36,479
Speaker 3: a lot of support there, but we're helping a lot

1242
01:12:36,520 --> 01:12:40,320
Speaker 3: of other things as well, and we thankfully have the

1243
01:12:40,360 --> 01:12:48,680
Speaker 3: support of our board are really really excited about this initiative.

1244
01:12:49,360 --> 01:12:51,960
Speaker 3: Our staff is really excited. We even have groups like

1245
01:12:52,720 --> 01:12:56,840
Speaker 3: bass Pro and Cabela's Outdoor Fund financially supporting it. And

1246
01:12:56,880 --> 01:12:59,679
Speaker 3: so there's been a lot of energy behind this initiative

1247
01:12:59,720 --> 01:13:03,080
Speaker 3: and the last two years, and it's growing fast. It's

1248
01:13:03,120 --> 01:13:07,160
Speaker 3: actually taking up a fair amount of my time, and

1249
01:13:07,280 --> 01:13:08,680
Speaker 3: in a good way. I'm not saying that in a

1250
01:13:08,680 --> 01:13:11,320
Speaker 3: negative way. I mean, I am working on this initiative

1251
01:13:13,600 --> 01:13:17,320
Speaker 3: the majority of my weeks almost every week, and it's

1252
01:13:17,360 --> 01:13:19,000
Speaker 3: just because there's a lot of moving parts and we're

1253
01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:21,919
Speaker 3: talking to a lot of different people, and so that's

1254
01:13:22,000 --> 01:13:24,640
Speaker 3: going to create really good things as a byproduct of that.

1255
01:13:24,680 --> 01:13:26,559
Speaker 3: I mean, I think our organization is going to grow

1256
01:13:26,600 --> 01:13:29,400
Speaker 3: from it. I'm talking about, like you know, from an

1257
01:13:29,439 --> 01:13:31,880
Speaker 3: internal we're probably gonna end up having a staff up

1258
01:13:33,320 --> 01:13:35,639
Speaker 3: and we're going to have to. We are seeing some

1259
01:13:35,680 --> 01:13:40,280
Speaker 3: real opportunities for us to make a major impact, and

1260
01:13:40,400 --> 01:13:41,759
Speaker 3: it's got us all very excited.

1261
01:13:42,520 --> 01:13:45,479
Speaker 2: So give me a little bit more tangible idea of

1262
01:13:45,520 --> 01:13:48,800
Speaker 2: like what you're doing here. Number one, I'm pretty sure

1263
01:13:48,840 --> 01:13:51,559
Speaker 2: I read a press release or something recently that said, like,

1264
01:13:51,680 --> 01:13:55,080
Speaker 2: already you guys have improved something like two hundred thousand

1265
01:13:55,120 --> 01:13:58,000
Speaker 2: acres or something like that. What's the what's the right number?

1266
01:13:58,320 --> 01:14:02,360
Speaker 2: Because it's incredible? And then b what's what kind of

1267
01:14:02,400 --> 01:14:06,080
Speaker 2: actual work are you guys doing? So you're managing for wildlife,

1268
01:14:06,080 --> 01:14:08,439
Speaker 2: you're making it better for dear other critters. But if

1269
01:14:08,479 --> 01:14:11,680
Speaker 2: somebody were to, you know, show up in this new

1270
01:14:11,680 --> 01:14:13,759
Speaker 2: piece of or not new piece, but on this national

1271
01:14:13,760 --> 01:14:15,920
Speaker 2: forest that you guys did work on, what are they

1272
01:14:15,920 --> 01:14:18,080
Speaker 2: going to see that's different than it was two years ago?

1273
01:14:18,840 --> 01:14:21,640
Speaker 3: Sure, a lot of it falls. So I can go

1274
01:14:21,680 --> 01:14:25,360
Speaker 3: through some specifics and it's about three hundred thousand acres

1275
01:14:25,400 --> 01:14:28,720
Speaker 3: that we're estimating right now that have actually been approved

1276
01:14:29,160 --> 01:14:33,320
Speaker 3: and Some of that is on state wildlife management lands

1277
01:14:33,320 --> 01:14:36,880
Speaker 3: that we have done work on through with state wildlife agencies,

1278
01:14:37,240 --> 01:14:41,160
Speaker 3: both through our national partnerships with the NDA, and also

1279
01:14:41,240 --> 01:14:45,559
Speaker 3: some of our branches, our local volunteer chapters or we

1280
01:14:45,600 --> 01:14:48,559
Speaker 3: call them branches, that have done work in the past

1281
01:14:48,600 --> 01:14:52,360
Speaker 3: twelve months or you know, honestly to the last twenty

1282
01:14:52,360 --> 01:14:54,719
Speaker 3: four months, so the last two years. We do take

1283
01:14:55,479 --> 01:14:57,559
Speaker 3: at the end of every calendar year, we ask all

1284
01:14:57,560 --> 01:14:59,800
Speaker 3: of our chapters or branches, you know, what they've done

1285
01:15:00,200 --> 01:15:03,920
Speaker 3: for education and outreach, and if they've been working on things,

1286
01:15:04,400 --> 01:15:08,120
Speaker 3: if they've donated venison. But by and large, the majority

1287
01:15:08,120 --> 01:15:12,000
Speaker 3: of that is through Forest Service partnerships, and I'll go

1288
01:15:12,080 --> 01:15:16,599
Speaker 3: through some of those here in a second. From the

1289
01:15:16,720 --> 01:15:22,160
Speaker 3: state game areas. A lot of our branches have done improvements.

1290
01:15:22,720 --> 01:15:24,920
Speaker 3: Some of it could be clean up days, some of

1291
01:15:24,960 --> 01:15:28,040
Speaker 3: it could be planting food plots or just doing work,

1292
01:15:28,160 --> 01:15:32,320
Speaker 3: doing infrastructure improvements, and those vary. But the things that

1293
01:15:32,360 --> 01:15:35,559
Speaker 3: I directly oversee and managed with the US Forest Service

1294
01:15:36,080 --> 01:15:39,040
Speaker 3: is we have something called a Master Stewardship Agreement which

1295
01:15:39,080 --> 01:15:41,679
Speaker 3: allows us to work in certain parts of the country.

1296
01:15:41,680 --> 01:15:44,040
Speaker 3: It covers Regions eight and nine. And then we have

1297
01:15:44,120 --> 01:15:47,280
Speaker 3: agreements in other regions of the US Forest Service system

1298
01:15:47,520 --> 01:15:52,360
Speaker 3: out west. Each of those agreements gives us the ability

1299
01:15:52,400 --> 01:15:59,040
Speaker 3: to basically sign a what's called a supplemental project agreement,

1300
01:15:59,160 --> 01:16:02,960
Speaker 3: so that's forest specific, meaning pick a national forest, and

1301
01:16:02,960 --> 01:16:06,000
Speaker 3: that's we're working with the district ranger in that national

1302
01:16:06,000 --> 01:16:08,679
Speaker 3: forest and their staff to say what do you need

1303
01:16:09,000 --> 01:16:12,880
Speaker 3: done there? A lot of it is helpful for deer

1304
01:16:12,960 --> 01:16:16,599
Speaker 3: hunting and deer but they all tear up to their

1305
01:16:16,680 --> 01:16:20,400
Speaker 3: forest plans. Basically, they have these long term ten year

1306
01:16:21,040 --> 01:16:24,599
Speaker 3: forest management plans that they're trying to achieve and change

1307
01:16:24,680 --> 01:16:27,439
Speaker 3: the forest or improve the forest. And so when we

1308
01:16:27,479 --> 01:16:31,760
Speaker 3: start our conversations with them with an individual forest, we'll

1309
01:16:31,800 --> 01:16:34,799
Speaker 3: go and say, okay, you know, we'll go through the document,

1310
01:16:35,200 --> 01:16:41,040
Speaker 3: talk about the different NEPA clear that's you know, Environmental

1311
01:16:41,080 --> 01:16:45,759
Speaker 3: Policy Protection Agency cleared work that has already been gone

1312
01:16:45,800 --> 01:16:48,799
Speaker 3: through the vet vetting process of being able to say

1313
01:16:49,200 --> 01:16:53,080
Speaker 3: is this environmentally something that can be done? And things

1314
01:16:53,080 --> 01:16:56,920
Speaker 3: that are NEPA cleared that our work that they need

1315
01:16:56,960 --> 01:17:00,439
Speaker 3: to get to varies, it varies from and all. I'll

1316
01:17:00,479 --> 01:17:03,680
Speaker 3: talk about those examples. Now. Our first agreement that we

1317
01:17:03,760 --> 01:17:06,240
Speaker 3: developed was in Mississippi, which you and I will be

1318
01:17:06,240 --> 01:17:08,360
Speaker 3: a mississipulator and this year we'll talk about that in

1319
01:17:08,400 --> 01:17:13,719
Speaker 3: a second. On the national forests system there, we're working

1320
01:17:13,800 --> 01:17:18,600
Speaker 3: in DeSoto National Forest, the Chickisaway National Forest, and in

1321
01:17:18,680 --> 01:17:21,720
Speaker 3: discussions in Bienville National Forest, three different national forests in

1322
01:17:21,720 --> 01:17:24,600
Speaker 3: the state of Mississippi. A lot of that work is

1323
01:17:24,720 --> 01:17:29,000
Speaker 3: long leaf restoration, but it's not all long restoration. We're

1324
01:17:29,040 --> 01:17:35,799
Speaker 3: doing invasive plant like removal and some fire prescribed burning.

1325
01:17:36,520 --> 01:17:39,800
Speaker 3: The invasive plant removal is cogon grass springing. That's an

1326
01:17:39,800 --> 01:17:44,479
Speaker 3: invasive grass species that shows up and slows the growth

1327
01:17:44,520 --> 01:17:47,640
Speaker 3: of other natives. And so we're doing a lot of

1328
01:17:47,680 --> 01:17:53,320
Speaker 3: acres of long leaf work and invasive species down there.

1329
01:17:54,479 --> 01:17:58,600
Speaker 3: We're also working up in Michigan in the Upper Peninsula

1330
01:17:59,160 --> 01:18:03,439
Speaker 3: in Hiawatha and Ottawa National Forest. There's two national forests

1331
01:18:03,439 --> 01:18:05,519
Speaker 3: we're working there. In fact, I was talking to one

1332
01:18:05,560 --> 01:18:09,000
Speaker 3: of our stewardship coordinators about an hour ago is there

1333
01:18:09,040 --> 01:18:11,920
Speaker 3: getting a crew started. They had their first day of

1334
01:18:12,280 --> 01:18:17,040
Speaker 3: looking at things end Up there, we're marking timber to

1335
01:18:17,080 --> 01:18:21,479
Speaker 3: be cut in areas. We're also doing something called common

1336
01:18:21,520 --> 01:18:24,720
Speaker 3: stand exams, which is basically inventorying the trees that are

1337
01:18:24,720 --> 01:18:27,719
Speaker 3: out there that hasn't been done in fifty sixty years

1338
01:18:27,720 --> 01:18:30,080
Speaker 3: in certain parts of that forest because it's so large

1339
01:18:30,439 --> 01:18:33,240
Speaker 3: and so they don't know what's growing and the value

1340
01:18:33,240 --> 01:18:36,439
Speaker 3: of those species, and so basically just taking tabs on

1341
01:18:36,479 --> 01:18:40,679
Speaker 3: what's out there, and that's our contract there, although that's

1342
01:18:40,720 --> 01:18:45,519
Speaker 3: supposed to be growing as well. And we are working

1343
01:18:45,680 --> 01:18:51,639
Speaker 3: in Virginia on the George Washington Jefferson National Forest doing

1344
01:18:52,400 --> 01:18:57,519
Speaker 3: some restoration, some mountaintop restoration work and some opening of

1345
01:18:58,200 --> 01:19:03,000
Speaker 3: the forest to create early success habitat. We're working in

1346
01:19:03,280 --> 01:19:07,799
Speaker 3: Kentucky on Daniel Boone National Forest. That project is wide

1347
01:19:07,840 --> 01:19:10,640
Speaker 3: and varied. It's actually on two different Ranger districts on

1348
01:19:10,760 --> 01:19:15,000
Speaker 3: Cumberland and London Ranger Districts. You and I'll be in

1349
01:19:15,080 --> 01:19:20,040
Speaker 3: Kentucky as well, and that also that includes some engineering work,

1350
01:19:20,320 --> 01:19:25,080
Speaker 3: road improvements and installing culverts so that people can can travel,

1351
01:19:25,920 --> 01:19:30,240
Speaker 3: some timber management, actually cutting some trees. We are also

1352
01:19:30,360 --> 01:19:35,560
Speaker 3: working on something called their open Lands, their Open Lands Program,

1353
01:19:35,720 --> 01:19:39,600
Speaker 3: which is a NEPA cleared process that's looking at basically

1354
01:19:39,640 --> 01:19:43,280
Speaker 3: creating more open space because it's such a closed canopy forest.

1355
01:19:44,320 --> 01:19:47,920
Speaker 3: We're working in Idaho on the Idaho Panhandle National forest.

1356
01:19:48,960 --> 01:19:52,960
Speaker 3: That's in obviously northern Idaho. Most of that work is

1357
01:19:53,080 --> 01:19:57,720
Speaker 3: fire resiliency and pre commercial thinning out there, you know,

1358
01:19:57,800 --> 01:20:02,599
Speaker 3: just north of where you are today, there are fire

1359
01:20:02,880 --> 01:20:08,719
Speaker 3: There are fire at risk forests because the trees get

1360
01:20:08,760 --> 01:20:12,040
Speaker 3: like a root, raw and disease and insects, and they

1361
01:20:12,080 --> 01:20:16,360
Speaker 3: tend to be able to carry fire a bunch a

1362
01:20:16,400 --> 01:20:20,920
Speaker 3: lot faster because the preferred species are not out competing

1363
01:20:21,000 --> 01:20:23,640
Speaker 3: some of these other species of trees, and so you

1364
01:20:23,720 --> 01:20:27,639
Speaker 3: get these fuel loads where the trees get very dense

1365
01:20:28,880 --> 01:20:33,040
Speaker 3: in how they're growing and then their limbs die and

1366
01:20:33,120 --> 01:20:35,880
Speaker 3: these latter fuels are created where the fire can actually

1367
01:20:35,880 --> 01:20:38,360
Speaker 3: climb and make it through the forest really fast, and

1368
01:20:38,400 --> 01:20:41,240
Speaker 3: there's just a lot of acres. The problem is a

1369
01:20:41,280 --> 01:20:43,680
Speaker 3: lot of those acres are not of the size of

1370
01:20:43,720 --> 01:20:45,599
Speaker 3: trees where you can actually cut them and make any

1371
01:20:45,640 --> 01:20:48,920
Speaker 3: money from it. So it costs something. And so that's

1372
01:20:48,960 --> 01:20:52,000
Speaker 3: called pre commercial thinning. And so we're treating like fifteen

1373
01:20:52,080 --> 01:20:55,360
Speaker 3: hundred acres of pre commercial thinning just this year, and

1374
01:20:55,400 --> 01:20:58,439
Speaker 3: so it just adds up real fast. I mean, all

1375
01:20:58,479 --> 01:21:02,280
Speaker 3: of these places where are amples, but we're talking to

1376
01:21:02,360 --> 01:21:05,920
Speaker 3: forests all over the country at this point. It's quite

1377
01:21:05,920 --> 01:21:07,640
Speaker 3: a task to kind of keep up with it. And

1378
01:21:07,680 --> 01:21:09,880
Speaker 3: that's why it's so exciting. I mean, we're just we're

1379
01:21:09,920 --> 01:21:12,240
Speaker 3: doing a lot of different work. We're else we're working

1380
01:21:12,240 --> 01:21:14,519
Speaker 3: in Arkansas. I didn't mention that, but just it goes

1381
01:21:14,560 --> 01:21:15,040
Speaker 3: on and on.

1382
01:21:15,080 --> 01:21:18,600
Speaker 2: Mark, no wonder, no wonder. This is taken up a

1383
01:21:18,600 --> 01:21:20,960
Speaker 2: lot of your time, you guys. This is it's ambitious,

1384
01:21:21,040 --> 01:21:21,800
Speaker 2: it's incredible.

1385
01:21:23,200 --> 01:21:26,160
Speaker 3: It's very exciting, I mean, honestly, and we don't want

1386
01:21:26,200 --> 01:21:29,400
Speaker 3: to stop there. We're probably in conversations right now with

1387
01:21:30,240 --> 01:21:33,320
Speaker 3: almost two dozens of forests and some of my various

1388
01:21:33,360 --> 01:21:36,720
Speaker 3: stages of agreements. Some are going to come online here

1389
01:21:36,760 --> 01:21:38,760
Speaker 3: in the next couple of months, probably a few more

1390
01:21:38,800 --> 01:21:41,800
Speaker 3: by September, and so it's one of those things that

1391
01:21:43,360 --> 01:21:45,600
Speaker 3: you know, certainly by twenty twenty six we're going to

1392
01:21:45,680 --> 01:21:48,720
Speaker 3: be we're going to be well on our way, if

1393
01:21:48,760 --> 01:21:53,120
Speaker 3: not achieving that that goal. And I'm excited to see

1394
01:21:53,120 --> 01:21:55,080
Speaker 3: where this goes because I think it's going to become

1395
01:21:55,280 --> 01:21:57,040
Speaker 3: a major part of what the NDA does.

1396
01:21:57,400 --> 01:22:00,479
Speaker 2: Well. It's pretty exciting too, because I think it flips

1397
01:22:00,560 --> 01:22:04,240
Speaker 2: on its head. One of the old misconceptions about the

1398
01:22:04,320 --> 01:22:08,320
Speaker 2: QTUMA now the NBA, which was a previous misconception was

1399
01:22:08,320 --> 01:22:10,799
Speaker 2: that you guys were just for the private land manager.

1400
01:22:11,160 --> 01:22:14,920
Speaker 2: You were just a conservation organization for landowners that want

1401
01:22:14,920 --> 01:22:17,600
Speaker 2: to grow big bucks. And I think this is an

1402
01:22:17,760 --> 01:22:22,320
Speaker 2: incredible example of how untrue that is today in the

1403
01:22:22,360 --> 01:22:25,160
Speaker 2: incredible impact you guys are having on public lands for

1404
01:22:25,600 --> 01:22:28,240
Speaker 2: all those deer hunters and other folks out there who

1405
01:22:28,280 --> 01:22:30,680
Speaker 2: do depend on public land, I think it's going to

1406
01:22:30,720 --> 01:22:33,160
Speaker 2: be hard to make an argument that there's anyone within

1407
01:22:33,200 --> 01:22:35,720
Speaker 2: the conservation space in the deer world at least that's

1408
01:22:35,760 --> 01:22:39,680
Speaker 2: doing more for public land now and making you know,

1409
01:22:40,040 --> 01:22:44,439
Speaker 2: high quality hunting experiences possible for you, regardless of your

1410
01:22:44,479 --> 01:22:46,280
Speaker 2: own land, regardless if you live in the city or

1411
01:22:46,280 --> 01:22:48,160
Speaker 2: in the country, if you are a new hunter an

1412
01:22:48,160 --> 01:22:51,320
Speaker 2: old hunter. You guys, as you say you know in

1413
01:22:51,400 --> 01:22:55,040
Speaker 2: the one of your taglines is like you are for

1414
01:22:55,360 --> 01:22:58,439
Speaker 2: deer hunters of all stripes and types, and you know

1415
01:22:58,479 --> 01:23:01,479
Speaker 2: this is a great put in your money and time

1416
01:23:01,520 --> 01:23:03,840
Speaker 2: where your mouth is kind of moment So uh, big

1417
01:23:03,920 --> 01:23:05,479
Speaker 2: kudos to you guys for doing that.

1418
01:23:06,280 --> 01:23:07,800
Speaker 3: Thanks Mark. You know, one of the things that I've

1419
01:23:07,840 --> 01:23:10,719
Speaker 3: like really enjoyed working for this organization, like really looking

1420
01:23:10,760 --> 01:23:13,000
Speaker 3: back up my career since we're having an episode where

1421
01:23:13,040 --> 01:23:15,559
Speaker 3: you kind of look back. You know, it's about time

1422
01:23:15,600 --> 01:23:18,800
Speaker 3: and place, and I think the one thing that we've

1423
01:23:18,840 --> 01:23:21,000
Speaker 3: done well as a company depend on, you know, no

1424
01:23:21,000 --> 01:23:26,160
Speaker 3: matter who's been part of our organization, you know, membership

1425
01:23:26,280 --> 01:23:29,840
Speaker 3: up to our staff, up to our leadership at the

1426
01:23:29,880 --> 01:23:32,680
Speaker 3: board level, and our partners and sponsors people, you know,

1427
01:23:32,760 --> 01:23:36,200
Speaker 3: companies that support us, is we also are about you know,

1428
01:23:36,240 --> 01:23:40,800
Speaker 3: we're we're always about Isshian sales. We're always about what

1429
01:23:40,800 --> 01:23:44,840
Speaker 3: what is important now, like what's impacting deer. And you know,

1430
01:23:44,880 --> 01:23:47,000
Speaker 3: we know that close to ninety percent of the deer

1431
01:23:47,080 --> 01:23:49,360
Speaker 3: are in the country on an in the basis are

1432
01:23:49,439 --> 01:23:51,960
Speaker 3: killed on private land. But if you're looking back ten

1433
01:23:52,040 --> 01:23:55,200
Speaker 3: years ago, you know, twenty thirteen, or we were, if

1434
01:23:55,240 --> 01:23:59,599
Speaker 3: we were having the same conversation, it's different today. Uh

1435
01:24:00,120 --> 01:24:02,439
Speaker 3: not that the percentage of deer shot on public or

1436
01:24:02,439 --> 01:24:06,200
Speaker 3: private land has changed, It's just at that time, hunters

1437
01:24:06,240 --> 01:24:11,440
Speaker 3: across the country were still adopting the concept of QDM

1438
01:24:11,720 --> 01:24:15,760
Speaker 3: of like making decisions and that you know, what we

1439
01:24:15,840 --> 01:24:19,040
Speaker 3: do matters in terms of what we shoot, working with

1440
01:24:19,080 --> 01:24:22,200
Speaker 3: our neighbors, like I mentioned earlier, habitat management, all of

1441
01:24:22,240 --> 01:24:24,519
Speaker 3: these things as science has shown like where we started

1442
01:24:24,560 --> 01:24:29,120
Speaker 3: the episode. But today, you know, as an organization, we

1443
01:24:29,200 --> 01:24:34,320
Speaker 3: look and all hunters practice QTM. And I'm not just

1444
01:24:34,360 --> 01:24:38,080
Speaker 3: saying that, I mean there is there are not many

1445
01:24:38,200 --> 01:24:41,000
Speaker 3: hunters out there today that aren't practicing some form of

1446
01:24:41,040 --> 01:24:44,160
Speaker 3: deer management, whether they are trying to improve nutrition or

1447
01:24:44,200 --> 01:24:47,200
Speaker 3: get pictures of deer on trail cameras or thinking about

1448
01:24:47,200 --> 01:24:50,080
Speaker 3: what they shoot. I would argue, you know, and the

1449
01:24:50,160 --> 01:24:53,000
Speaker 3: data shows it, and it supports it, that one hundred

1450
01:24:53,040 --> 01:24:56,639
Speaker 3: percent of hunters are quality deer management minded. That's what

1451
01:24:56,680 --> 01:24:59,120
Speaker 3: they do. They might do parts of it. Ten years

1452
01:24:59,120 --> 01:25:02,640
Speaker 3: ago that yeah, ten years ago, that was probably not

1453
01:25:02,800 --> 01:25:05,000
Speaker 3: that number. It was a majority, you know. I think

1454
01:25:05,040 --> 01:25:07,479
Speaker 3: it was probably closer to eighty percent of hunters, and

1455
01:25:07,520 --> 01:25:09,639
Speaker 3: ten years before that it probably was like less than

1456
01:25:09,640 --> 01:25:12,639
Speaker 3: fifty percent. So those were the things that we worked

1457
01:25:12,680 --> 01:25:16,840
Speaker 3: as an organization. But today, you know, not only has

1458
01:25:17,360 --> 01:25:20,920
Speaker 3: everybody adopted and they're practicing it now, we're looking at

1459
01:25:21,040 --> 01:25:23,840
Speaker 3: at other things like recruiting new hunters. That is a

1460
01:25:23,880 --> 01:25:26,599
Speaker 3: major issue, and you've done a great job promoting that

1461
01:25:26,680 --> 01:25:30,559
Speaker 3: and helping support that. Diseases are a big issue and

1462
01:25:31,040 --> 01:25:34,800
Speaker 3: public land management is a big issue. You know, there's

1463
01:25:34,840 --> 01:25:37,880
Speaker 3: a lot of things out there that are impeding our

1464
01:25:38,040 --> 01:25:42,840
Speaker 3: US Forest Service managers and staff from getting done what

1465
01:25:42,880 --> 01:25:45,720
Speaker 3: they need to do. They get litigated a lot the

1466
01:25:45,800 --> 01:25:51,599
Speaker 3: process of getting releasing jobs to get cut mills, and

1467
01:25:51,680 --> 01:25:54,479
Speaker 3: the markets aren't not what they used to be to

1468
01:25:54,520 --> 01:25:57,000
Speaker 3: be able to sell this would and so they are

1469
01:25:57,040 --> 01:26:00,880
Speaker 3: stewarding like one hundred and ninety million acres of land

1470
01:26:00,880 --> 01:26:04,679
Speaker 3: that we can go hunt new hunters can go out

1471
01:26:04,760 --> 01:26:08,000
Speaker 3: and use, you know, because they don't own land, and

1472
01:26:09,000 --> 01:26:11,559
Speaker 3: we need to do everybody that our community needs to

1473
01:26:11,560 --> 01:26:14,880
Speaker 3: do a better job managing it. And thankfully, you know,

1474
01:26:15,160 --> 01:26:18,800
Speaker 3: not only NDA, but all of our sister conservation organizations

1475
01:26:18,840 --> 01:26:22,040
Speaker 3: are working in this space as well. You know, I

1476
01:26:22,360 --> 01:26:25,800
Speaker 3: can just tell you Mule Deer Foundation, Turkey National Wild

1477
01:26:25,840 --> 01:26:31,360
Speaker 3: Turkey Federation, Uh, even you know, Trout Unlimited, the Nature Conservancy.

1478
01:26:31,479 --> 01:26:33,960
Speaker 3: It's not just game specific groups. There's a lot of

1479
01:26:33,960 --> 01:26:36,280
Speaker 3: groups that are working and partnering with the for Service.

1480
01:26:36,360 --> 01:26:39,719
Speaker 3: But we all need to chip in because one hundred

1481
01:26:39,720 --> 01:26:41,920
Speaker 3: and ninety three million acres is a lot of land,

1482
01:26:42,560 --> 01:26:45,960
Speaker 3: and every year, every year, more of that land is

1483
01:26:46,000 --> 01:26:51,920
Speaker 3: getting to a state where it's not supporting good wildlife species,

1484
01:26:52,200 --> 01:26:56,640
Speaker 3: plant diversity, and Luckily we can change that, and so

1485
01:26:57,439 --> 01:27:00,880
Speaker 3: you know, I'm excited about it. And it's not to

1486
01:27:00,920 --> 01:27:04,719
Speaker 3: say that we're changing our tune because of we're chasing

1487
01:27:04,760 --> 01:27:08,719
Speaker 3: the latest golden nugget. Honestly, we need to care about

1488
01:27:08,720 --> 01:27:11,840
Speaker 3: this stuff and it's a focus of ours right now

1489
01:27:11,840 --> 01:27:14,599
Speaker 3: because we need to recruit new hunters and that's where

1490
01:27:14,600 --> 01:27:17,360
Speaker 3: they can go. And in that space, the US Forest

1491
01:27:17,439 --> 01:27:25,320
Speaker 3: Service and federal lands, those places need as much work

1492
01:27:25,360 --> 01:27:29,559
Speaker 3: as they not chip in. And so I'm excited about

1493
01:27:29,560 --> 01:27:31,000
Speaker 3: it because it's real opportunity.

1494
01:27:31,439 --> 01:27:33,680
Speaker 2: So you talked about the fact that we all need

1495
01:27:33,680 --> 01:27:36,920
Speaker 2: to chip in, which I couldn't agree more with, and

1496
01:27:38,080 --> 01:27:41,000
Speaker 2: that I think leads us perfectly to the last plug

1497
01:27:41,040 --> 01:27:44,400
Speaker 2: I want to make, which is an opportunity for listeners

1498
01:27:44,479 --> 01:27:46,880
Speaker 2: to come out and chip in on this very project

1499
01:27:46,920 --> 01:27:50,439
Speaker 2: you're talking about. We've got three of my working for

1500
01:27:50,560 --> 01:27:53,960
Speaker 2: wildlife tour events are in partnership with you and the

1501
01:27:54,040 --> 01:28:00,160
Speaker 2: NBA and the Forest Service. I well, I guess I'll

1502
01:28:00,240 --> 01:28:02,240
Speaker 2: let you share whatever you want to share about it,

1503
01:28:02,400 --> 01:28:04,559
Speaker 2: in as much detail as you want or as little detail.

1504
01:28:04,560 --> 01:28:06,320
Speaker 2: We can just send folks to the website and give

1505
01:28:06,360 --> 01:28:08,080
Speaker 2: them the dates, or if you want to give a

1506
01:28:08,160 --> 01:28:10,400
Speaker 2: quick If you have time to give a quick overview

1507
01:28:10,439 --> 01:28:13,479
Speaker 2: of each of those three events, you can do that too.

1508
01:28:13,640 --> 01:28:16,920
Speaker 2: But I've talked about on the podcast before. I think

1509
01:28:16,920 --> 01:28:19,839
Speaker 2: anyone listening should know about what the Working for Wildlife

1510
01:28:19,840 --> 01:28:24,599
Speaker 2: tour is. But I'll give you the twenty second general overview. Basically,

1511
01:28:24,600 --> 01:28:27,599
Speaker 2: this is a series of events that I am helping

1512
01:28:27,680 --> 01:28:30,840
Speaker 2: shine a spotlight on and participate in, hoping to bring

1513
01:28:30,960 --> 01:28:35,680
Speaker 2: to everyone's attention how many great volunteer opportunities there are

1514
01:28:35,720 --> 01:28:38,519
Speaker 2: across the country to actually get out there and do

1515
01:28:38,640 --> 01:28:41,920
Speaker 2: good work for wildlife on public lands. So been all

1516
01:28:41,920 --> 01:28:46,320
Speaker 2: over the country chipping in, partnering with different conservation organizations

1517
01:28:46,360 --> 01:28:49,519
Speaker 2: to improve habitat or pick up trash or do whatever

1518
01:28:49,520 --> 01:28:51,880
Speaker 2: it is. It's going to make these public places better

1519
01:28:51,920 --> 01:28:55,760
Speaker 2: for hunters, anglers and for the credits out there. And

1520
01:28:56,120 --> 01:28:58,599
Speaker 2: We've got three really really cool events that I'm excited

1521
01:28:58,640 --> 01:29:00,840
Speaker 2: about with you MAP, So do you want to give

1522
01:29:00,920 --> 01:29:04,280
Speaker 2: us some level of detail about those three I.

1523
01:29:04,200 --> 01:29:06,200
Speaker 3: Would be more than that, do you, Mark? I'm pumped

1524
01:29:06,200 --> 01:29:09,880
Speaker 3: about these events. Were involved with you on this year

1525
01:29:10,880 --> 01:29:13,880
Speaker 3: when you first came you know, for folks listening still,

1526
01:29:14,840 --> 01:29:16,640
Speaker 3: you know when you first approached us and came up

1527
01:29:16,720 --> 01:29:20,280
Speaker 3: with the idea. I remember being as enthusiastic about it

1528
01:29:20,360 --> 01:29:23,880
Speaker 3: then as I am now, and I thought initially, like

1529
01:29:23,960 --> 01:29:27,879
Speaker 3: immediately I should say of places we could tap into

1530
01:29:28,040 --> 01:29:30,360
Speaker 3: because of these agreements that I'm working on with the

1531
01:29:30,400 --> 01:29:35,360
Speaker 3: Forest Service, and in fact, some of them require us

1532
01:29:35,479 --> 01:29:39,320
Speaker 3: to bring in volunteers, and we have our own membership

1533
01:29:39,360 --> 01:29:43,280
Speaker 3: base that where we were already planning on advertising opportunities

1534
01:29:43,280 --> 01:29:45,599
Speaker 3: to come out. But as soon as you said you're

1535
01:29:45,640 --> 01:29:48,639
Speaker 3: thinking about promoting things, I said, well, even better, because

1536
01:29:48,640 --> 01:29:50,760
Speaker 3: that's just allowed our megaphone to get people to pay

1537
01:29:50,800 --> 01:29:54,280
Speaker 3: attention to it. And so the places that were we

1538
01:29:54,400 --> 01:29:59,360
Speaker 3: lined up to work on this year are late July

1539
01:29:59,520 --> 01:30:04,000
Speaker 3: July twe nin in northern Idaho on the Idaho Panandle

1540
01:30:04,120 --> 01:30:09,200
Speaker 3: National Forest. That location we are working with the Forest

1541
01:30:09,240 --> 01:30:13,880
Speaker 3: Service on Idaho Panandal National Forest as well as the

1542
01:30:13,920 --> 01:30:17,200
Speaker 3: Idaho Fish and Game Department. And one of the things

1543
01:30:17,280 --> 01:30:21,439
Speaker 3: that both entities or organizations are trying to do is

1544
01:30:21,560 --> 01:30:26,240
Speaker 3: promote more aspen growth. And they have some places where

1545
01:30:26,960 --> 01:30:31,559
Speaker 3: conifers are starting to grow and out compete and encroach

1546
01:30:31,640 --> 01:30:35,599
Speaker 3: on young aspen stands, and these young aspen are really

1547
01:30:35,640 --> 01:30:39,519
Speaker 3: good game forage they're also good for the diversity of

1548
01:30:39,520 --> 01:30:43,360
Speaker 3: the forest and forest resilience and fire resilience to have

1549
01:30:43,479 --> 01:30:46,080
Speaker 3: aspen growing out there as opposed to some of these

1550
01:30:46,160 --> 01:30:49,240
Speaker 3: other trees that will die out from the understory and

1551
01:30:49,240 --> 01:30:53,400
Speaker 3: then catch fire quickly. And so we are going to

1552
01:30:53,439 --> 01:30:59,080
Speaker 3: be working with both of those partners to remove those

1553
01:30:59,160 --> 01:31:04,240
Speaker 3: conifers by hand, create some brush piles and brush fences

1554
01:31:05,240 --> 01:31:09,880
Speaker 3: and enhancing and getting more aspens to grow. And so

1555
01:31:10,000 --> 01:31:17,320
Speaker 3: that's July twenty ninth, and then in Mississippi on July

1556
01:31:17,840 --> 01:31:22,360
Speaker 3: September twenty third, we are working with again the Forest Service.

1557
01:31:22,360 --> 01:31:25,400
Speaker 3: This is on Desodo National Forest, but we're also working

1558
01:31:25,439 --> 01:31:29,479
Speaker 3: with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks and

1559
01:31:29,560 --> 01:31:32,920
Speaker 3: the Leaf River Wildlife Management Area. Leaf River WMA is

1560
01:31:32,920 --> 01:31:37,800
Speaker 3: actually inside DeSoto National Forest. And we also have a

1561
01:31:37,840 --> 01:31:43,639
Speaker 3: corporate partner, Mississippi Power, that's helping as well. Mississippi Power

1562
01:31:43,680 --> 01:31:45,880
Speaker 3: owns a bunch of line right away to cross the

1563
01:31:45,960 --> 01:31:49,639
Speaker 3: National Forest Service there, and so we just actually met

1564
01:31:49,640 --> 01:31:52,640
Speaker 3: earlier today. I have partner meetings once a month to

1565
01:31:52,760 --> 01:31:54,640
Speaker 3: talk about these events and what we're going to do.

1566
01:31:55,439 --> 01:31:58,040
Speaker 3: That one. We're doing a variety of things. They actually

1567
01:31:58,040 --> 01:32:01,720
Speaker 3: have this old headquarter building that was actually part of

1568
01:32:01,760 --> 01:32:06,679
Speaker 3: the original deer restocking efforts mark back in nineteen thirty eight,

1569
01:32:07,080 --> 01:32:10,040
Speaker 3: and so that building needs a little bit of tender

1570
01:32:10,080 --> 01:32:11,800
Speaker 3: love and care. So we're gonna have some people working

1571
01:32:11,800 --> 01:32:15,240
Speaker 3: on that. We're gonna have some people helping us. They're

1572
01:32:15,240 --> 01:32:20,000
Speaker 3: going to be disking in and applying applying pre emergent

1573
01:32:20,040 --> 01:32:25,040
Speaker 3: herbicide on some cog grass areas prior to us going there.

1574
01:32:25,040 --> 01:32:29,840
Speaker 3: And we're going to be seeding in clover and some

1575
01:32:30,400 --> 01:32:33,639
Speaker 3: oats in some areas, and then also regenerating some other

1576
01:32:34,120 --> 01:32:36,479
Speaker 3: and then we're gonna be doing some tree planting as well.

1577
01:32:37,240 --> 01:32:39,960
Speaker 3: We're gonna have some fruit bearing trees and we're gonna

1578
01:32:39,960 --> 01:32:42,920
Speaker 3: have a tree planting crew. So that's again September twenty third,

1579
01:32:43,439 --> 01:32:46,599
Speaker 3: and then the last one is October fourteenth. These are

1580
01:32:46,600 --> 01:32:50,639
Speaker 3: all Saturdays, and this is in Kentucky Daniel Boone National Forest.

1581
01:32:50,640 --> 01:32:54,040
Speaker 3: It's on the London Ranger District and actually there's a

1582
01:32:54,160 --> 01:32:57,720
Speaker 3: WMA there, Cane Creek WMA. So we're working with the

1583
01:32:57,720 --> 01:33:01,479
Speaker 3: Forest Service, Kentucky Department Official Life Resources, but we're also

1584
01:33:01,520 --> 01:33:06,000
Speaker 3: working with the Division of Forestry in the University of Kentucky.

1585
01:33:06,120 --> 01:33:09,200
Speaker 3: And an independent stave. Independent stave is a they make

1586
01:33:09,240 --> 01:33:13,320
Speaker 3: staves for like whiskey barrels, bourbon barrels. They buy a

1587
01:33:13,360 --> 01:33:16,439
Speaker 3: lot of white oak from the National Forest. And so

1588
01:33:16,600 --> 01:33:20,679
Speaker 3: our objective that day, and this is actually per our agreement,

1589
01:33:20,800 --> 01:33:23,920
Speaker 3: is we're going to be collecting acorns off the ground

1590
01:33:24,560 --> 01:33:28,040
Speaker 3: and we need we have a goal of collecting somewhere

1591
01:33:28,080 --> 01:33:30,920
Speaker 3: between five hundred and thousand pounds of acorns that day,

1592
01:33:31,000 --> 01:33:32,960
Speaker 3: and so we'll be doing some scouting ahead of time,

1593
01:33:33,760 --> 01:33:36,120
Speaker 3: and those acorns are going to be brought to the

1594
01:33:36,160 --> 01:33:40,599
Speaker 3: State Nursery and grown to bare root size, and then

1595
01:33:40,680 --> 01:33:43,360
Speaker 3: those bare root seedlings are actually going to get used

1596
01:33:43,400 --> 01:33:47,599
Speaker 3: to replant back into the National Forest in areas where

1597
01:33:47,640 --> 01:33:49,920
Speaker 3: they're trying to regenerate oak where they can't get it

1598
01:33:49,920 --> 01:33:52,720
Speaker 3: to oak, so they're using a local seed source with

1599
01:33:52,840 --> 01:33:55,080
Speaker 3: a little bit of help by getting it started at

1600
01:33:55,120 --> 01:33:58,400
Speaker 3: the State Nursery, and those will eventually become trees someday

1601
01:33:58,439 --> 01:34:02,200
Speaker 3: and hopefully up in acorns for deer that our grandkids

1602
01:34:02,200 --> 01:34:04,880
Speaker 3: are hunting, or they'll end up being staves and a

1603
01:34:04,920 --> 01:34:07,880
Speaker 3: bourbon barrel that you know, our grandkids drink out of.

1604
01:34:07,920 --> 01:34:11,600
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but that's a local reforestation project. So

1605
01:34:11,920 --> 01:34:13,880
Speaker 3: all three of those are going to end with some

1606
01:34:13,920 --> 01:34:18,360
Speaker 3: really awesome camaraderie and some food and we're just hoping

1607
01:34:18,400 --> 01:34:20,439
Speaker 3: everybody can come out. And if you want to learn more,

1608
01:34:20,880 --> 01:34:23,680
Speaker 3: if you go to NDA's website and go to the

1609
01:34:24,200 --> 01:34:27,360
Speaker 3: menu option get involved, and I know you have a

1610
01:34:27,400 --> 01:34:29,800
Speaker 3: link to that will guide people to the same place.

1611
01:34:30,760 --> 01:34:32,680
Speaker 3: So that's that's how you how you find it.

1612
01:34:33,200 --> 01:34:37,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, so these are awesome. I'm so excited about how

1613
01:34:37,080 --> 01:34:40,160
Speaker 2: this has all come together, and it happened upon a

1614
01:34:40,240 --> 01:34:44,240
Speaker 2: secret short URL to make it even easier for people.

1615
01:34:44,240 --> 01:34:47,479
Speaker 2: If you go to Deer Association dot com slash w

1616
01:34:47,920 --> 01:34:52,320
Speaker 2: f W that's Working for Wildlife. That's the short r

1617
01:34:52,439 --> 01:34:54,760
Speaker 2: L to take your right to the page that you

1618
01:34:54,760 --> 01:34:58,559
Speaker 2: guys have set up for these three events, which is great.

1619
01:34:58,640 --> 01:35:01,640
Speaker 2: All the details, the regis stration, everything you need to know.

1620
01:35:02,120 --> 01:35:04,760
Speaker 2: So if you're in Kentucky or Mississippi or Idaho or

1621
01:35:04,880 --> 01:35:08,040
Speaker 2: any state near there, come on out. This is gonna

1622
01:35:08,040 --> 01:35:08,840
Speaker 2: be a lot of fun.

1623
01:35:09,320 --> 01:35:09,439
Speaker 4: Uh.

1624
01:35:09,960 --> 01:35:13,479
Speaker 2: As as match just said, I mean, these are really interesting,

1625
01:35:13,520 --> 01:35:16,840
Speaker 2: impactful product projects and uh you know, if I've taken

1626
01:35:16,920 --> 01:35:19,599
Speaker 2: anything away from the first two events that we've done already,

1627
01:35:20,479 --> 01:35:22,640
Speaker 2: it's just how much fun this thing is too, Like

1628
01:35:22,680 --> 01:35:26,479
Speaker 2: the camaraderie aspect of it, the energy when you're out

1629
01:35:26,479 --> 01:35:28,840
Speaker 2: there doing good stuff with other people that you know

1630
01:35:28,880 --> 01:35:32,960
Speaker 2: are excited about this too. It's just it's contagious, it's exciting,

1631
01:35:33,120 --> 01:35:37,840
Speaker 2: and it's like rejuvenating. So, Man, I'm excited to see

1632
01:35:37,880 --> 01:35:40,519
Speaker 2: you here in about a month and a half up

1633
01:35:40,520 --> 01:35:42,439
Speaker 2: there in northern Idaho. Man, it's gonna be it's gonna

1634
01:35:42,439 --> 01:35:42,800
Speaker 2: be great.

1635
01:35:43,479 --> 01:35:45,600
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to to it. Mark. I you know,

1636
01:35:45,680 --> 01:35:48,240
Speaker 3: I I've been to idoh probably twice in the last

1637
01:35:48,280 --> 01:35:51,080
Speaker 3: six months, maybe three times. I go up often, I

1638
01:35:51,120 --> 01:35:54,120
Speaker 3: would say, but I'm I'm really looking forward to that,

1639
01:35:54,320 --> 01:35:58,240
Speaker 3: to that trip. And everybody I talked to up there,

1640
01:35:58,240 --> 01:36:01,360
Speaker 3: with all of our partners, are really excited, I can

1641
01:36:01,360 --> 01:36:02,880
Speaker 3: tell you. So we're gonna have a great time.

1642
01:36:03,280 --> 01:36:08,080
Speaker 2: Awesome. Well, I've kept you significantly longer than I said that.

1643
01:36:08,320 --> 01:36:12,040
Speaker 2: So thank you for doing this, Thanks for doing all

1644
01:36:12,040 --> 01:36:15,839
Speaker 2: this good work. Thanks for being such a great advocate

1645
01:36:15,880 --> 01:36:18,400
Speaker 2: for deer and for deer hunters, and you know, just

1646
01:36:18,640 --> 01:36:22,679
Speaker 2: a friend of the Wired hunt community and myself and man,

1647
01:36:23,320 --> 01:36:26,479
Speaker 2: another great example of wildlife having you on the podcast. Man,

1648
01:36:26,560 --> 01:36:27,200
Speaker 2: thanks for all this.

1649
01:36:28,479 --> 01:36:31,200
Speaker 3: Thanks Mark and hope everybody has a great fall. Hope

1650
01:36:31,320 --> 01:36:33,000
Speaker 3: hope to see at one of these events. If you

1651
01:36:33,040 --> 01:36:35,639
Speaker 3: can make it, I'll be there, so see you there.

1652
01:36:36,040 --> 01:36:38,799
Speaker 2: Don't miss them, all right, And that is a wrap.

1653
01:36:39,040 --> 01:36:42,000
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. As I mentioned that ur L to

1654
01:36:42,120 --> 01:36:44,320
Speaker 2: sign up for these events we were just talking about,

1655
01:36:44,360 --> 01:36:50,800
Speaker 2: it's Dear Association dot com slash w f W and

1656
01:36:52,000 --> 01:36:54,599
Speaker 2: f Y. There is one more Working for Wildlife Tour

1657
01:36:54,640 --> 01:36:57,519
Speaker 2: event coming up that's not with the NDA. It's one

1658
01:36:57,560 --> 01:37:00,960
Speaker 2: we have in partnership with backcountry Hunters and Anglers and

1659
01:37:01,040 --> 01:37:04,760
Speaker 2: that is August twelfth, And if you google Working for

1660
01:37:04,840 --> 01:37:08,080
Speaker 2: Wildlife Tour you'll see the website we have over on

1661
01:37:08,120 --> 01:37:11,759
Speaker 2: the Meat Eater website with links to register for that event.

1662
01:37:11,880 --> 01:37:14,840
Speaker 2: And that's in Missouri. So if you're in Missouri or

1663
01:37:14,880 --> 01:37:18,920
Speaker 2: somewhere around there, come join us on August twelfth. We're

1664
01:37:18,960 --> 01:37:20,840
Speaker 2: gonna be doing some really cool stuff on some public

1665
01:37:20,920 --> 01:37:23,720
Speaker 2: land near the Mississippi River. If you don't want to

1666
01:37:23,720 --> 01:37:25,639
Speaker 2: be there for that one, if that one's too far away,

1667
01:37:26,240 --> 01:37:28,559
Speaker 2: you just heard about the options available to you with

1668
01:37:28,720 --> 01:37:33,360
Speaker 2: matt Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi. Want to see you there. So

1669
01:37:33,720 --> 01:37:36,960
Speaker 2: with that said, thank you, for joining. Hope you enjoyed

1670
01:37:37,000 --> 01:37:41,360
Speaker 2: this one, and until next time, stay wired time