Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to episode number twenty. I'm the Honey Collective.
Speaker 1: I'm Bet O'Brien. Today I'm joined by a return guest,
Speaker 1: the great Charles Post. He joined me an episode number
Speaker 1: eleven to talk about his background as at Berkeley train
Speaker 1: ecologist and talk about how important it is to think
Speaker 1: about ecosystems not just single game animals. There's a lot
Speaker 1: we can learn from Charles, and there's a lot he
Speaker 1: has to teach us. But in this conversation, we go,
Speaker 1: we got random, we got deep, but we ended on
Speaker 1: a great conversation around the wild horse issue in the body.
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with that issue, please listen to
Speaker 1: the full podcast because you will find out that's an
Speaker 1: issue for all of us. If you enjoy public lands
Speaker 1: and you enjoy using them, you're gonna want to hear
Speaker 1: what Charles has to say. Without further ado, here's Mr
Speaker 1: Post An episode number twenty. We're recording to Charles. I
Speaker 1: have new equipment here. We've seen and now it is
Speaker 1: very looks very It's like a whole thing. It has
Speaker 1: a blender built on top of it. Yeah, so we're
Speaker 1: nervous this again. There's regular listeners to the show would
Speaker 1: know that I did delete one remy Warren podcast early on,
Speaker 1: and so now I have the nervousness with new equipment
Speaker 1: that like this is being recorded but will never be
Speaker 1: heard by anyone. We're going to go to go with it.
Speaker 1: Hopefully our new equipment is better. The red light looks promising.
Speaker 1: It is. It's got a little ticker there. There we
Speaker 1: go taking forward. Well, where are we at? Man? We're
Speaker 1: in not that I don't know, I do know. Just
Speaker 1: tell the listeners where. Yeah, we're at my house, um
Speaker 1: my fiance and nice movement, a new place just outside
Speaker 1: of Bozeman. So we're looking at there's a bird at
Speaker 1: the feeder. Tell me what kind of bird that is?
Speaker 1: That would be a female as a light bunting yet
Speaker 1: I get yeah, it's fun. So do you sit here?
Speaker 1: What percentage of birds that land on that feed or
Speaker 1: do you know the name of Probably ninety. But there's
Speaker 1: not that. I mean, I'm new to Montana, you know, relatively,
Speaker 1: I've been here for about two years. Coming from the
Speaker 1: West Coast, I knew most of the birds. There's a
Speaker 1: lot more bird species out there, but coming to a
Speaker 1: new place, I'm just kind of seeing the season, spring.
Speaker 1: This is a this is a grand place, this this town.
Speaker 1: I've been here a few times, but yeah, I have
Speaker 1: not been the lake close by your highlight lake, say
Speaker 1: it right, but I've heard good things. Yeah, it's a spot.
Speaker 1: You're in a good spot. I would say it's like
Speaker 1: the closest ocean to Bozeman. So why Boseman for you? Originally? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so well before before Rachel, before I met my fiancee UM,
Speaker 1: I was living in northern California, and my most of
Speaker 1: my adult life had been kind of focused around ecology
Speaker 1: and working in academia and working with the scientist. So naturally,
Speaker 1: you know, you grow up and you kind of grow
Speaker 1: in this space. You're drawn to places like Yellowstone. I mean, boy,
Speaker 1: you know, for wildlife, that's kind of like the epicenter.
Speaker 1: So I was constantly trying to find ways to get
Speaker 1: out here. You know. Also, the fishing is good, the
Speaker 1: hunting is good. You know, there's all these you know,
Speaker 1: all these kind of like draws. And then I kind
Speaker 1: of got my feet wet and thought to myself, you know,
Speaker 1: one day this would be a good place. And then
Speaker 1: meeting you know, the woman of my dreams who's from here,
Speaker 1: born and raised, you know that kind of like hooked
Speaker 1: me in and you're getting married. Now this is a
Speaker 1: big deal. Yeah, right in the middle of fall September. Well,
Speaker 1: the good thing is is that we travel so much.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a great reason to be home for
Speaker 1: that month. Well us, I mean, are you nervous about
Speaker 1: the wedding? No, we didn't talk, and I'm preppy for
Speaker 1: this line of conversation. You know, I think for folks
Speaker 1: who are listening out there, everybody's wedding is different. There's
Speaker 1: different expectations, different needs, different mothers in law or mothers
Speaker 1: to cater too. Um So I think for us, we
Speaker 1: initially thought like, let's just a lope, let's keep it simple,
Speaker 1: and then we realized you couldn't do that because you know,
Speaker 1: the wedding it is for us, but it's also for
Speaker 1: our friends and family, and we wanted to make a
Speaker 1: space where we could include everybody wanted to be there.
Speaker 1: And so it quickly went from this like, oh, we
Speaker 1: should just a lope too, And we got like winter people,
Speaker 1: you know, and we want to show them a good time,
Speaker 1: but we want to do it and I all have
Speaker 1: to have crab cakes. I don't understand why fingerfood is key.
Speaker 1: Same for my wedding, same thing. I'm like, well, let's
Speaker 1: go to Dominican Republic, Like, yeah, we'll just like swim
Speaker 1: and then we'll get married and then we'll keep swimming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll go see the turtles beat and then yeah, then
Speaker 1: you get to the reality like, well, Aunt and Sharon
Speaker 1: can't come, she can't get on the plane. Had a
Speaker 1: bad hip, damn it. Yeah, I want to do that, Sharon.
Speaker 1: Then yes, then you then you get you dialed back
Speaker 1: in a little bit. So that's a natural occurrence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but no, it's coming along. Um, we've made a lot
Speaker 1: of progress. I feel like we just hired a wedding planner,
Speaker 1: which is clutch for anybody out there. Wedding planner. Good deal, Yeah,
Speaker 1: good deal. So listen. I know you know nobody will
Speaker 1: will hear this. So if you have any fears, you
Speaker 1: want to tea me and you Yeah, and you need
Speaker 1: to talk through anything you oh gosh, any if you're nervous, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely Rachel. She'll never listen to this, so just
Speaker 1: let it out. It's cathartic to talk about it, you know.
Speaker 1: I think I think the fear is like you want it.
Speaker 1: You want it to be everything you hoped it would be,
Speaker 1: and you want your wife, your future wife to kind
Speaker 1: of have that day. So you know, I know it's
Speaker 1: gonna go. Well, I know everybody in Evolves got their
Speaker 1: heart in it. Um, yeah, I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: we have Conrad Anchor doing the words, so he'll he'll
Speaker 1: he'll tell us up. Oh yeah, is he gonna like
Speaker 1: propel in no four easy payments of Well, I say
Speaker 1: you could live stream and was follow it would be nice. No,
Speaker 1: it should be good. Rachel and the Lows. Um, he
Speaker 1: grew up together. Conrad has been a big part of
Speaker 1: her life. Um. They climbed anality together and done a
Speaker 1: bunch of cool things. He's uh, yeah, he's been a
Speaker 1: really cool kind of like mentor and what a cool person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've met him just briefly. Probably wouldn't even know if
Speaker 1: he's like I've been bribing, Like I don't know that
Speaker 1: is he has security like pull you away, yeah, like
Speaker 1: step back. But he did one time dramal tool one
Speaker 1: of my Yetti ramblers with the signature. I can't say that.
Speaker 1: How much do you sell that for? It's one sale
Speaker 1: right now. L's in to this. Click the link in
Speaker 1: the profile. Click the link the profile. Whatever you think
Speaker 1: it's worse. Why did that guy ruin your rain? That
Speaker 1: was contractor that's like I haven't signed with any things.
Speaker 1: Whenever I do, I'm like, well, now you have a
Speaker 1: twelve year old signature. Yeah, you don't want that as
Speaker 1: a kid, though, signatures are a big deal totally. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. Somewhere along my life and like, here's
Speaker 1: a guy just writing all my stuff, like don't write
Speaker 1: all my stuff, especially like sports, sports stars and things
Speaker 1: like that, and then they read in your forehead and
Speaker 1: you're like why, why why did you do that? I
Speaker 1: like that part so connected to you. I think, you know.
Speaker 1: Speaking of signatures, though, I think there's something to be
Speaker 1: said for like whether or not you get the signature,
Speaker 1: like making that step towards like a mentor hero, you know,
Speaker 1: and just having the chance. I mean, I remember in
Speaker 1: grad school of my advisor, she always said, like, you'll
Speaker 1: make more progress in the space by knocking on doors
Speaker 1: and shaking hands and being curious than you will with
Speaker 1: like a straight a or an EMPIC paper or good search. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think you find most people are good people, especially
Speaker 1: if you share a passion with them or whatever. Most
Speaker 1: people are just good, totally. Yeah, and they they feed
Speaker 1: off passion. I think that's what's so cool about your podcast.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know you. It's just that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the conversations that you've had on your
Speaker 1: show come from a space of passion. You know, come
Speaker 1: from a place of of of curiosity and like wanting
Speaker 1: to learn. It's not you know, I'm drawn to those
Speaker 1: narratives that come from a place of of curiosity as
Speaker 1: opposed to you know, let me tell you how it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's conversations are good. I always I've said this
Speaker 1: many times. It's like you get off of a good
Speaker 1: podcast where you're sitting with somebody. We're just sitting at
Speaker 1: a table in your kitchen or dining this is the
Speaker 1: dining room. I'm not good at naming house rooms. And
Speaker 1: it's just it's just like we're hanging out talking. And
Speaker 1: when I was tell my wife about it, she's like,
Speaker 1: why do you like it so much? Because I was
Speaker 1: excited for coming to boson this weekend because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do a bunch of podcasts, And she's like, why are
Speaker 1: you so excited about the podcast portion of it because
Speaker 1: it's fun. And when you get off of a good,
Speaker 1: good conversation, you're like, man, I'm excited that person's passion.
Speaker 1: If I can just get a little bit of that
Speaker 1: every time, I'm gonna be way better for it totally.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why people listen to any podcast,
Speaker 1: Like a good conversation is worth more than you think
Speaker 1: it is, even in the moment. And so we just
Speaker 1: now we just record all our good conversations to be
Speaker 1: stored forever. Ever. Everyone that's true, Well, we congratulations on
Speaker 1: your marriagehen is gonna happen September. We already said that hopefully,
Speaker 1: you said, hopefully Rachel's getting her hunting license this year.
Speaker 1: She can't with me. Last year, Um, I was able
Speaker 1: to connect with an amazing elk And she looked at
Speaker 1: me right after She's like, I'm going to pick one.
Speaker 1: I was like, sweetheart, can we just like enjoy the
Speaker 1: fact takes some time to get before we become a
Speaker 1: real hunting enjoy the little things. But hopefully we're gonna
Speaker 1: spend some time. You know, we're kind of dedicating that
Speaker 1: month to just being out on the hills and really
Speaker 1: enjoying home and our first fall in this house and wow,
Speaker 1: yeah it should be good. Well, that's awesome, that's awesome. Alright,
Speaker 1: this place is uh this time of year, I mean,
Speaker 1: what's it mid mid July right now. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's a little warm, but freaking beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: just drove down the canyon. It's a big sky and
Speaker 1: they're just looking around like this. People people live here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's and there's there's so much kind I mean, Bozeman
Speaker 1: is awesome because it has so much going on. You know,
Speaker 1: you have the university, you have I think a pretty
Speaker 1: amazing suite of people with different backgrounds and perspectives and ideals. Um,
Speaker 1: it's pretty diverse, especially for this part of the country.
Speaker 1: And then you can go, you know, five ten minutes
Speaker 1: in they direction and you're out there, you know, which
Speaker 1: is kind of the time out there. Yeah, to public land,
Speaker 1: to national forests everywhere. Yeah, Rachel grew up just a
Speaker 1: few mines from town, and you know, we've seen moose
Speaker 1: and we saw a wolf run through right next to
Speaker 1: their house, and we've seen grizly bears and the hills
Speaker 1: up here, and you know, it's fice to say I
Speaker 1: like it here. Yeah, it's a good place, the nice place.
Speaker 1: Airport's awesome. It is awesome, you know, super easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my kid would landed. My kid found like have you
Speaker 1: ever when you go out of security to go in
Speaker 1: the airport there's that little store and there's like a
Speaker 1: stuff bear that's two feet tall. He just he just
Speaker 1: ran over hug that bear and just picked it up,
Speaker 1: walking like, son, that's theft. But and you're like, it's
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars dollar bear, so you can't have it.
Speaker 1: Put it back, you can cut its paw off, don't
Speaker 1: take that home. But yeah, it's like he if he
Speaker 1: goes into the Chicago airport, he's just looking around like,
Speaker 1: don't don't hurt me. Totally. Yeah, this is a very
Speaker 1: like I think you step off the plane and it's
Speaker 1: it feels approachable. Yeah, you know, accept when it's negative
Speaker 1: twenty in February. Well, anyway, don't move to Montana and
Speaker 1: nobody wants people that live here. Don't let you to
Speaker 1: move here. We're just staging before I moved to Orlando. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh it's nice this time it is. Have you the fishing, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the dolphins in the sand in the tank and
Speaker 1: the Dolphs. Did they still have dolphins in the wild?
Speaker 1: Dolphins dam in the wild? Do they still have them
Speaker 1: in the tanks where the people watch them? Like sea? What?
Speaker 1: I know? The orca thing has a big deal. That's
Speaker 1: a big deal. I don't know enough about that to
Speaker 1: talk about that. Yeah. Blackfish, Yeah, Blackfish is a film
Speaker 1: to watch. I'm not seeing it, but heard a lot
Speaker 1: about it. Um, we're rambling, man, We're full. I like rambling.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling feeling like it's a good rambling day. So
Speaker 1: I don't really I want to get all serious or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Well, I appreciate you reaching out. I
Speaker 1: think that first podcast was that was fun. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: you know what got me thinking about that one? You
Speaker 1: live here. Obviously we've never met in person. But second, um,
Speaker 1: gear Junkie did an article and of the best hunting podcasts,
Speaker 1: mine was on there and it was like, what's the
Speaker 1: best what was the best episode and they put the
Speaker 1: one with you. Well, let's do another one. So thank
Speaker 1: you gear Junkie. Yeah, thank you. I gotta check out
Speaker 1: the article. Yeah, it just says how great you are
Speaker 1: or Yeah, maybe it's a reflection that people like nerdy
Speaker 1: science psychology stuff or just different stuff or just different
Speaker 1: a conversation that goes a different direction, because I find that,
Speaker 1: like being in the industry is troublesome for me because
Speaker 1: you don't really have just a regular person's perspective on
Speaker 1: hunting anymore. It's kind of impossible to have that, even
Speaker 1: for me when I walk in you know, I've been
Speaker 1: a writer and then working at Yeddie and you know,
Speaker 1: you work in the industry, you get free product, like
Speaker 1: it's just part of the deal, not not ashamed to
Speaker 1: say it. So when you walk going past bro you're like, well,
Speaker 1: m it's expensive. It's a lot of money. So there
Speaker 1: is a bubble in our industry that you get in.
Speaker 1: It's very easy to one. It's kind of like a
Speaker 1: boys club where you you know, you hit the rumor
Speaker 1: mill and you talk about everybody, and but you lose
Speaker 1: your perspective on gear and you lose your perspective on
Speaker 1: one hunting really is, and how hard it really is
Speaker 1: to get into for people that don't do it, and
Speaker 1: to people that do take part, how hard it is
Speaker 1: on your pocketbook and in your time if you have
Speaker 1: a family, These things are hard up. So when you're
Speaker 1: doing it for a living air quotes, you lose that perspective,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's the goal, because you every really love
Speaker 1: to do it for a living. That that haunts. But
Speaker 1: I think when they hear your perspectives, just watched like, hey,
Speaker 1: here's a guy who's not talking about these amazing adventures
Speaker 1: in a way that that's his business. He started studying
Speaker 1: ecology and moved into this, and so those perspectives are
Speaker 1: my God, that's important to me. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and I think that, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I remember my mentor and graduate
Speaker 1: school told me was, you know, some of the most
Speaker 1: um inspiring people that we've had on Earth have married
Speaker 1: to kind of disconnected worlds. You know. It's like the
Speaker 1: mathematician who's a samocist who figures out how to like
Speaker 1: patch a heart, you know, where it's the the farmer
Speaker 1: who's really good at chemistry he figures out how to
Speaker 1: make the cropper system strain. And I think that kind
Speaker 1: of blend of perspective is kind of hopefully, you know,
Speaker 1: works towards removing that kind of island dynamic that can
Speaker 1: happen in certain communities. You know, whatever field, whether you're
Speaker 1: in sports or science or hunting. You know, you kind
Speaker 1: of get on your island. You talked to your tribe,
Speaker 1: and you can kind of predict what people are gonna say,
Speaker 1: how they're gonna react. Um, obviously there is some some
Speaker 1: flux of new ideas and new perspectives, but it can
Speaker 1: be kind of that insular space. Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: a good a good point. Like anymore, I'm firmly pro
Speaker 1: nuance and I'm firmly anti tribalism like that, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I can describe myself, like what do you believe? Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know those two things for sure. I feel
Speaker 1: like you have to be those two things, Especially if
Speaker 1: you live in a digital space and put content out,
Speaker 1: you gotta be like, let's leave room for nuance and
Speaker 1: let's not get in our bubble. Let's let's try to
Speaker 1: like look at everything that an open mind. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, one of the pillars of of
Speaker 1: science is this idea that science is a perfect science
Speaker 1: builds um the you know, our predecessors work. It stands
Speaker 1: on the shoulders of the people that inspired us. And
Speaker 1: the best science stems from the best question and they're
Speaker 1: always the best science always presented with this idea that
Speaker 1: that we are confident in our results. That leaves an
Speaker 1: inherent five unknown. So I think that's something that's that
Speaker 1: I find interesting with hunting or conservation or ecology or
Speaker 1: whatever that society, we the media, whatever, there's this inclination
Speaker 1: to be definitive and to say like it's this way
Speaker 1: or that way, and there's two bins. But what I
Speaker 1: always try to say, like you're talking about that nuance
Speaker 1: that minutia, the weeds are where the magic happens, and
Speaker 1: the weeds are where the truth comes from. Um. So
Speaker 1: it's it's hard because folks, you know, we're we're looking
Speaker 1: for answers, but oftentimes, you know, like I just got
Speaker 1: back fro this horse project, there are answers that are
Speaker 1: applicable to a population, to a herd, to a herd
Speaker 1: management area, um to a season, to a rainfall regime,
Speaker 1: you know, and then the second like that place that
Speaker 1: used to have two inch the rain gets no rain,
Speaker 1: then it's a whole different answer. So it's it makes yeah,
Speaker 1: But I think that's that's the beauty of, you know,
Speaker 1: of looking at the world that way, that there's always
Speaker 1: room to improve and it also takes a long time. Science.
Speaker 1: You can't you can't look at something like, well, I
Speaker 1: got it. Here's my scientific the final scientific conclusion to
Speaker 1: this problem. I just figured out except extinction that that's
Speaker 1: pretty obvious. Are we haven't seen him in a while,
Speaker 1: the one on the ground, and that's he looks like
Speaker 1: you might be the last one the way that he's dead,
Speaker 1: which is such a bummer. Yeah, there's so few finalities
Speaker 1: in the exploration of the out the outside or natural world.
Speaker 1: There's no finality in the scientific exploration of it. There
Speaker 1: seems to be finality in our opinions when we, you know,
Speaker 1: dial up the rigidity of our own you know, ideologies
Speaker 1: and philosophies and dial it up a little bit, which
Speaker 1: seems a lot of people have done, and then you
Speaker 1: leave no room to one change your mind when something happens,
Speaker 1: to change your mind, and to have any kind of
Speaker 1: discourse about something that you may even slightly disagree with
Speaker 1: someone else on. And so I think those things are
Speaker 1: you know, scientific approaches. The scientific approach to life might
Speaker 1: be a little bit better than the way some folks
Speaker 1: are approaching it right now, because it's you know, on
Speaker 1: a lot of issues especially in our entire society, but
Speaker 1: in our hunting space to outdoor space too. I think
Speaker 1: it's those those rigid opinions are annoying as ship totally.
Speaker 1: And I think the oversimplification is annoying because people some
Speaker 1: people are looking for that, you know. I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: that's because we've been trained by the media to look
Speaker 1: for that, because that's a lot of headlines are is
Speaker 1: just an oversimplification, a skewed perspective. You know, it's hard
Speaker 1: to make a living being liminal. It's hard to make
Speaker 1: a living being you know, acknowledging the complexities. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: I think in general we shouldn't do this, But let
Speaker 1: me just tell you, here's ten other reasons why you
Speaker 1: might be able to in this context. But out of
Speaker 1: that context, I disagree with it. And people like, well,
Speaker 1: he this guy sucks. He's anti whatever he just said.
Speaker 1: Even though he said it sometimes you could do it,
Speaker 1: he doesn't want you to do it. And he's had
Speaker 1: a plastic water bottle. Yeah that's a single use. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard. But I would say, and I think
Speaker 1: you're a good example of it, and Rachel as well
Speaker 1: as a good example of it. If you if you
Speaker 1: admit that those energies like hey, look, it's positivity, it's curiosity.
Speaker 1: It's like I want to go outside, I want to learn,
Speaker 1: I want to learn, I want to soak this up.
Speaker 1: Then people will pick up on that, and you do. Eventually,
Speaker 1: then you're not even talked about controversial subjects that much
Speaker 1: because it's just something you're passionate about. You're not talking
Speaker 1: about it because it is a controversy. You're addressing it
Speaker 1: because you're passionate about it, whether it's an argument or not.
Speaker 1: You know, And then that's what's way easier than you know,
Speaker 1: even me as a writer or a journalist, like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a controversy, Well you need to address that now,
Speaker 1: but like I don't really care about that thing, right, Like,
Speaker 1: let me be passionate about what I'm talking about before
Speaker 1: I dive into the next controversy, because that's the thing
Speaker 1: that people are talking about today. Well it's hard because
Speaker 1: you know, as as people who work in the outdoor
Speaker 1: space but also the media and content space, you know,
Speaker 1: you you realize that if you're writing a story, if
Speaker 1: there's two stories, ones on grizzly bears and ones on
Speaker 1: the female indigo, bunting. You know, like your indigo bunking
Speaker 1: story is, there's been quite a few more clicks on
Speaker 1: the grizzly bears story. I think you just gotta learn
Speaker 1: how to you know, really write really sauce that. But
Speaker 1: but what what we in the science world, we have
Speaker 1: these things called umbrella species, So you can like bend
Speaker 1: and compartmentalize these spaces with a totem species, say a
Speaker 1: polar bear, grizzly bear or whatever. Something that's like attractive,
Speaker 1: it catches the eye, and then you can you can
Speaker 1: weave in all the underlying narratives that exist because that
Speaker 1: realy bear habitat exists, for that grizzly bear population exists.
Speaker 1: So there are ways I think to effectively, in in
Speaker 1: a appropriate way bring the indigo bunting into the narrative
Speaker 1: by saying, hey, it's you know, mountains don't just aren't
Speaker 1: vending machines for elk. You know, mountains actually you know
Speaker 1: our places where waters retained and where vegetation grow and
Speaker 1: where forage and habitat exists, and where elk come from.
Speaker 1: You know, a healthy elk are a function of a
Speaker 1: healthy ecosystem, and that's where the indigo bunting also lives.
Speaker 1: And then it's like, hadn't i'd get you there, folks,
Speaker 1: But I got you there. I got you to the
Speaker 1: bunting from the elk there every can look up the
Speaker 1: indigo bunting three degrees of the indigo buns. Screw you, Kevin,
Speaker 1: You're out now, So the outdoor world, you gotta get
Speaker 1: to the bunting. Hashtag Indigo bunting. Um, yeah, we don't
Speaker 1: have a hashtag for the podcast. Are continually trying to
Speaker 1: find one. I think maybe Indigo bunting. Yeah, totally. It
Speaker 1: might be the one, the Indigo bunting collective that could
Speaker 1: be good. I'd be alive, would be like today's episode,
Speaker 1: Tuesday's episode. Is indigo the real color of the bunding?
Speaker 1: Nobody knows? Or is it a filter on Instagram? That's right,
Speaker 1: it could be purple. We don't know. Um what. The
Speaker 1: other thing that interested me in your perspective is you
Speaker 1: do you feel like hunting or even hunting and the
Speaker 1: outdoor space both call them both call them the people
Speaker 1: that go outside world, hunting, fishing, outdoors whatever. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like they lack leadership from a scientific perspective, like
Speaker 1: there isn't there's leadership from like a I'm a hero,
Speaker 1: I climb a thing or I on a thing. But
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of people that are leading from
Speaker 1: a scientific pulpit. Yeah, you know, um or influencing the
Speaker 1: leading is the wrong term, but you know, whatever proper
Speaker 1: scientific influence on those people. Yeah, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: challenging thing because I think at one point science and
Speaker 1: exploration of science were valued at large in society. I mean,
Speaker 1: back when we had von Humble and we had Darrowin
Speaker 1: to a certain extent um, some of these people were
Speaker 1: out creating, you know, creating the foundation for our scientific understanding,
Speaker 1: and they were getting funded by kings and queens and
Speaker 1: being invited to speak at places that were drawing being.
Speaker 1: You know, they were the most powerful and influential people
Speaker 1: in society there, you know, listening to their research. And
Speaker 1: I think there was that kind of that all around
Speaker 1: the work. And I think there was more trust, you know,
Speaker 1: placed in the in the scientific space and community. And
Speaker 1: I think fast forward two. You know, even Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 1: protecting marapost to grow sixty four um hid the Civil War.
Speaker 1: He protects marapost to growth because he hears its epic.
Speaker 1: You know, there wasn't much science. It was more I've
Speaker 1: seen this place that needs to be saved. Then we
Speaker 1: have John Muir, you know, he comes at it from,
Speaker 1: you know, a religious perspective, but one that I think
Speaker 1: is rooted in reverence for the for the aesthetic, for
Speaker 1: the glaciers, for the natural history. Um. He was like
Speaker 1: a type of environmentalism totally, and and he did do
Speaker 1: he did collect data. He was kind of passionate about
Speaker 1: the glaciers. So I think there was an empirical kind
Speaker 1: of science um driver but it was certainly religious and
Speaker 1: theological as well. UM. So that you know, we fast
Speaker 1: forward and then it becomes you know, there's that that
Speaker 1: religious lens. And then we move into the Teddy Roosevelt time,
Speaker 1: where I think a lot of it was looked at
Speaker 1: the resource. You know, what is there to extract? What
Speaker 1: is there to save from over extraction? UM. Science certainly
Speaker 1: helped inform all of that. You know, I think with
Speaker 1: the dawn of the Force service, science became a bigger role,
Speaker 1: conservation became a bigger role. People started thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: how do we as managers fit into this equation? But
Speaker 1: then today, you know, obviously I think that mindset of
Speaker 1: management stewardship is still pervasive through our federal agencies and
Speaker 1: state agencies as well. But we have such a robust
Speaker 1: outdoor and hunting culture that I believed your point is
Speaker 1: pretty detached from the on the ground scientists and some
Speaker 1: of the key work. And it's not necessarily just the
Speaker 1: outdoor and hunting community's fault. I think the scientific community
Speaker 1: has done a pretty poor job of extending to hand
Speaker 1: and marketers for marketers, and that's not their fault. I mean,
Speaker 1: the currency and science is to create peer reviewed research
Speaker 1: and to create data sets and to be you know,
Speaker 1: there's this kind of like legacy of being insular and
Speaker 1: coming from that space. Having spent most of my adult
Speaker 1: life as a scientist, I remember going to those conferences
Speaker 1: and sitting in on those lectures and those um you know,
Speaker 1: different kind of gatherings of the minds, and it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is rad that we're all on the same page.
Speaker 1: But everybody who's out there in the general public. Number
Speaker 1: one isn't gonna understand we're talking about, isn't. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have access to what we're publishing, and it's not being
Speaker 1: written about or disseminated in a way that's at all digestible.
Speaker 1: So that's partially the scientific communities fault. So I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of this like big disconnect, and I think
Speaker 1: the result is that you have an outdoor industry that's
Speaker 1: largely standing on the pillars of physical accomplishment. I think
Speaker 1: there is some conservations stewardship there, but I think generally
Speaker 1: it's how badass can you be? Um, how extreme can
Speaker 1: you be? And that's great. I mean that's a whole
Speaker 1: different aspect of the narrative. Hunting industry is I think
Speaker 1: a little bit more tapped in because to hunt, you
Speaker 1: need wildlife, and for wildlife to exist, you need an
Speaker 1: ecosystem that's functioning. I mean you could climb a mountain
Speaker 1: a mountain kind of ye. I mean they have to
Speaker 1: be the same. Like, I think we get lost in
Speaker 1: our own decades long conservation story. We get lost in
Speaker 1: the fact that we can look at African and be like, well,
Speaker 1: they value wildlife because they're uh, they're worth money when
Speaker 1: you hunt them. So that's the big argument there. But
Speaker 1: we get lost in our own value system for wildlife.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the same thing we get lost in
Speaker 1: we value these animals because of the opportunities. We have
Speaker 1: reverence for the opportunity to hunt them. That's why we
Speaker 1: value them. We don't necessarily value them within the ecosystem
Speaker 1: or as as a part of a grand landscape. We
Speaker 1: value them for that opportunity. So our value system is
Speaker 1: akin to Africa's. We've just kind of over a hundred
Speaker 1: years or so, really reshaped what that looks like, what
Speaker 1: that value system looks like. Yeah, and I think you
Speaker 1: have maybe And I'm not an expert in Africa and
Speaker 1: be either, I don't know that I am. I'd rather
Speaker 1: avoid the subject up. I always try to like, so
Speaker 1: it's a it's a continent, man, we don't talk about
Speaker 1: North American hunting like let's let's slow down. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: you know, I think you could probably argue that the landscape,
Speaker 1: the social, political, ecological landscape is more dynamic there um,
Speaker 1: which makes it even more challenging for people like us
Speaker 1: who are laying to talk about or like can people say,
Speaker 1: like hunting in Africa. I'm like, do you realize Egypt
Speaker 1: isn't Egypt or South Africa? Yeah, You're like, you don't,
Speaker 1: you don't be like Northwest territories or Mexico. These are confident.
Speaker 1: These are the purest generalization of pure generalizations which happens
Speaker 1: and I think it happens the honey world and the
Speaker 1: anti or non hunting world, like hunting in Africa. Is
Speaker 1: this or that, Let's maybe take it down totally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think you know, even the people like within hunting,
Speaker 1: you know, as an editor at Modern Huntsman, one of
Speaker 1: the real treats has been too focus on this idea
Speaker 1: that that hunters exist on a spectrum, just like politicians,
Speaker 1: just like humans. And there's the best, and there's those
Speaker 1: that could use some work, and there's a lot in
Speaker 1: between who I think are open to being better. And
Speaker 1: it's unfortunate when one person, whether it's a politician or
Speaker 1: your neighbor or a guy who hunts in your in
Speaker 1: your community, does something that's not ideal that paints sheds
Speaker 1: a bad light on the broader collective. Isn't that a
Speaker 1: tough That's a tough concept because I got into this
Speaker 1: podcast thinking that's what I'm going to talk about all
Speaker 1: this time. But then the like just depressing man just
Speaker 1: sucks and it and I always picture like a tug
Speaker 1: of war, you know, we had a bunch of people
Speaker 1: on one side of the rod tugging on that thing.
Speaker 1: You can choose which side you want to be on,
Speaker 1: and that little you know, that little ribbon that's gotta
Speaker 1: go one side or the other. As far as how
Speaker 1: is hunting perceived, I just want to be on the
Speaker 1: side that's pulling towards good And as long as I'm
Speaker 1: over there pulling, I don't really need to be pointing
Speaker 1: out the people on the other side exactly for what
Speaker 1: they're doing. As long as I'm pulling, at least, that's
Speaker 1: my base level for that fight. If I'm pulling towards
Speaker 1: a good I'm okay. If I see an opportunity to
Speaker 1: talk to somebody on the other side and try to
Speaker 1: convince him to come to my side, I'll do it.
Speaker 1: But I don't need to be browbeating every person that
Speaker 1: posts something that I don't like or yeah, and I
Speaker 1: mean it's like when your mom calls you us here
Speaker 1: a day going, You're not gonna sit and spend the
Speaker 1: whole conversation tun or how like shitty your day was?
Speaker 1: Like oh, you know, life's good, you know the baby
Speaker 1: is good, you know whatever, Like it's it's I think
Speaker 1: thinking positively and being drawn to the positive not only
Speaker 1: makes your day better, but just helps you focus on
Speaker 1: where we should be working to move the needle further.
Speaker 1: Because you could spend every conversation you have in the
Speaker 1: hunting world talking about people you do not like or
Speaker 1: in the outdoor space on the same totally. But what's
Speaker 1: the point Because as soon as you start doing that,
Speaker 1: you quit pull them, You quit pulling that rope, and
Speaker 1: you like have to stop the point to the other
Speaker 1: side and you quit. Now you're not doing what you
Speaker 1: set out to do. And to that point, let's just
Speaker 1: keep pulling. Well, I think, you know, to your initial question,
Speaker 1: Like the scientific space, in the scientific world, I think
Speaker 1: is making some great progress. You know, I'm seeing a
Speaker 1: lot of folks in the outdoor recreation space looking towards
Speaker 1: science and conservation stewardship to inform the way that they
Speaker 1: engage with their playgrounds, whether it's a mountain or a crag,
Speaker 1: or a trail or a lake or a river. Um.
Speaker 1: And then the hunting space, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: really kind of exciting things is getting a chance to
Speaker 1: work with sitkas and a conservation advisor and helping them
Speaker 1: develop uh, you know, initiatives and kind of repackage content
Speaker 1: and just take a closer look at some of these themes.
Speaker 1: And I've met so many people in Bozeman in the
Speaker 1: broader hunting space that you know, are sending me pure
Speaker 1: view science papers that are solid and they're saying, hey, like,
Speaker 1: this is what we're thinking should inform the way we
Speaker 1: address this issue. And I think that's something that we
Speaker 1: can do more of. And you know, we can look
Speaker 1: to the people who are spending their entire career as
Speaker 1: a field scientist, you know, like we can sit from afar,
Speaker 1: you know, looking at the world through our phone or
Speaker 1: the internet or as a plane flying over. But within
Speaker 1: every county in the country, there's a handful of scientists
Speaker 1: who know that reality better than anybody. How much can
Speaker 1: you learn from that person? Oh my god? Right, how
Speaker 1: much can you learn from the guy who's trapping hogs
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma who's trying to eradicate him and you say, wow,
Speaker 1: hunting hogs is good, and that guy stands up and like, listen,
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for fifteen years and it's not good, right,
Speaker 1: Like WHOA, Okay, totally try to talk to you earlier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that like his experience. You know, the hog situation
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma is very different the Hawgs sitition in California,
Speaker 1: you know, And to say it's this or that, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, like we've talked about already. You know, it's
Speaker 1: so valuable to be like, well, this guy's experience, it's
Speaker 1: his experience, and it's representative of this county or this
Speaker 1: part of the state, and let's focus on that, you know,
Speaker 1: let's tell that story because it's part of the story.
Speaker 1: Here's one of the many. Yeah, there's one of the
Speaker 1: many stories. Um. Yeah, sometimes you go to Texas topping
Speaker 1: a helicopter and shoot a bunch of hogs. That's good.
Speaker 1: It might not always be good. It probably always fun
Speaker 1: for the people in the alicouter um. But that's a
Speaker 1: hard thing, like you know, that visual for somebody who
Speaker 1: isn't relatively informed on the topic. I think there's there's
Speaker 1: that disconnect. And one of my wildlife professors at Berkeley
Speaker 1: when I was an undergraduate um his name is Reginald Barrett.
Speaker 1: He's a professor emeritus. Incredible guy studied under Luna Leopold
Speaker 1: Um and he was hired by the Australian government to
Speaker 1: come out and try to help him figure out how
Speaker 1: to get rid of wild hogs. And they went up
Speaker 1: with um the military and some high pride rifles and
Speaker 1: thought about that gonna be a way to do it,
Speaker 1: and it which wasn't cost effective because bolts are so expensive.
Speaker 1: So I mean there, I think for folks who aren't
Speaker 1: familiar with the hog situation, it is a a robust
Speaker 1: population that has no checks, so there's no balance. And
Speaker 1: death is death, and that's something that takes place. Whether
Speaker 1: you eat a chicken or a piece of kale, or
Speaker 1: you have a cotton shirt, things are dying. How do
Speaker 1: you get that? Because that example, and I always say, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get on a soapbox, but I
Speaker 1: do want to examine that idea because it is an
Speaker 1: important idea. I always don't, I find myself sometimes I
Speaker 1: used to. I don't anymore because of the pulling of
Speaker 1: the rope thing we talked about. I used to drink
Speaker 1: whiskey and go online and fight with fight with vegans.
Speaker 1: What was your handle on Twitter? Oh no, it's just
Speaker 1: my hand. I used to go on to like the
Speaker 1: vegan thing and like just but not argue, but just
Speaker 1: try to talk sent you know, from the Bunting Official.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I'm a bird. I rever trying to
Speaker 1: eat some seeds. Um. I would and I would argue
Speaker 1: with these funs, and I always felt like that was
Speaker 1: the one point that I needed them to understand that, Like,
Speaker 1: you are a part of the cycle of consumption. You
Speaker 1: were designed to consume. That is what we do. We
Speaker 1: are an ant hill like fly over l a one time, mountains, mountains, mountains,
Speaker 1: what's that thing that's humans? Like, that's the one thing
Speaker 1: that always got me. And so how do you, like,
Speaker 1: how do you talk to somebody about that idea? Like, Hey,
Speaker 1: no matter what you do, you're you're doing being a
Speaker 1: vegan or recycling or all these things that you're doing,
Speaker 1: you're doing them for the right reasons. Totally agree with
Speaker 1: you on what you're doing. But you're not off the hook.
Speaker 1: Don't tell me you're off the hook. And don't tell
Speaker 1: me that I'm on the hook, because I kill something
Speaker 1: like how do you get that across somebody who's so
Speaker 1: far down that ideological path? I'm not found. I could
Speaker 1: walk anybody back far enough to get him to really
Speaker 1: other than to maybe take them hunting or something like that.
Speaker 1: Convince him to go hunting. I think you and I
Speaker 1: had a conversation on our first podcast where we kind
Speaker 1: of got to something that I've repeated out loud, which
Speaker 1: I've got a little backlash, and it's it's just like
Speaker 1: you're getting that. I mean, though, if we're talking about
Speaker 1: net impact on an individual level, the worst thing we
Speaker 1: ever did was be born. I mean, human population is
Speaker 1: the number one. It seems like, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: it's a rough thing. It's a it's a hard thing
Speaker 1: to say, you know, but I think you can dissect
Speaker 1: the vegan. You can dissect the rural farmer, or you
Speaker 1: can dissect the inner city. You can dissect the affluent
Speaker 1: and the hunter, the whatever. Everybody has an impact, whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, like the palm oil in your makeup
Speaker 1: or the sterial eating or the cotton shirt you're wearing,
Speaker 1: or the deer you killed, or the car you drive
Speaker 1: and the rubber that's on the wheels. It's gnarmally, I mean,
Speaker 1: everything has an impact. So I think one the people
Speaker 1: on either side of the spectrum isn't really like the focus.
Speaker 1: I like to focus on the middle ground, where there's
Speaker 1: people who have open ears and open mind and are
Speaker 1: are open to the idea of considering something else, and
Speaker 1: with that you kind of avoid the conflict to be
Speaker 1: the either end of the spectrum. And I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of room to say, Okay, well, we are here,
Speaker 1: We're blessed with these resources, with the time, with a voice,
Speaker 1: with a platform. Let's try to do our best, you know,
Speaker 1: Let's try to make the antiprisyne like the epic that
Speaker 1: the world is currently in, a better epic, you know,
Speaker 1: like that hashtag into good bunting. Uh yeah, man, but
Speaker 1: there's hope. I mean, watch the Jane Goodolf film, you know, Jane, Like,
Speaker 1: watch that and tell me that somebody can't be born
Speaker 1: onto this planet and do good, you know, because she's
Speaker 1: somebody who's doing incredible work, inspiring countless young people to
Speaker 1: carry about the natural world. And Jane good On I
Speaker 1: disagree on a lot of shit. She hates hunting, but
Speaker 1: I still I still can respect that mindset because I
Speaker 1: think it's way closer to my mindset than most other
Speaker 1: folks out there. It's like this this extreme caring and
Speaker 1: the other the other point. I think it is important
Speaker 1: to me because a lot of the things we're talking
Speaker 1: about hogs, for example, farrell hawks wherever they may be
Speaker 1: in this in this country, and we put them. Oh really,
Speaker 1: they're delicious and there's a lot of them out We
Speaker 1: put them here, and so we created a problem. We're
Speaker 1: fixing a problem that happens a lot in as you
Speaker 1: well know, and in the in the conservation space and
Speaker 1: in the space that we live. And we're we're fixing
Speaker 1: a problem that we caused, and then lauding are fixing
Speaker 1: the problem that we cause with like a lack of
Speaker 1: perspective of it. What's exactly going on there? Right? Um?
Speaker 1: I think that happens a lot in the environmental world
Speaker 1: and a lot in the hunting consumptive space too. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're like, we killed all the elk? Were we sit there?
Speaker 1: What are they back in? Like ten or ten to
Speaker 1: twelve percent of their native range? Positive? That's close. We
Speaker 1: did that? Yeah, yeah, and we did. We killed them all.
Speaker 1: Not me and you, not are even you know, not
Speaker 1: even our grandparents, grandparents, but we humans were a part
Speaker 1: of that. You know. So what is the thing that
Speaker 1: we are doing right now? At decades from now, folks
Speaker 1: will look back at be like, I can't believe you
Speaker 1: did that? Yeah. I think that's a good point, because,
Speaker 1: you know, I just returned from a week long trip
Speaker 1: in Nevada shooting a film with Phil Baraboo, who had
Speaker 1: made Charge Brandon and Ben Masters, who's legend you know,
Speaker 1: you'll know um. And during that trip and after the trip,
Speaker 1: we've been getting feedback from people saying like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this is a this is a horse problem, this is
Speaker 1: a cattle problem, or this is a Pieta problem or
Speaker 1: an activist problem, and it's a lot of Jule's problems.
Speaker 1: And what I think a lot of folks forget is
Speaker 1: that the today exists because of two hundred years of
Speaker 1: human impact. And horses are here, Yes, they were brought
Speaker 1: to you by the Spanish. There's a legacy of overgrazing,
Speaker 1: there's a legacy of resource extraction, there's a legacy of
Speaker 1: heavy handed use by humans. You compound all of those
Speaker 1: things mining, you know, pioneering, like all of these impacts
Speaker 1: you've had in the natural world, coupled with climate changes, drought, fire,
Speaker 1: all these things that are changing the landscape, and then
Speaker 1: you have today. So for people to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a horse problem, it's like, well, it's kind of
Speaker 1: their problem. They're also just like kind of all the
Speaker 1: animals trying to survive and they're just eating man trying
Speaker 1: to find water. Yeah, and then you know, oh, it's
Speaker 1: a cattle problems, like well, there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are running cattle in a much better way than
Speaker 1: they ran him in eighteen hundreds, so you know, it's
Speaker 1: not really totally their problem. There's like a legacy issue,
Speaker 1: you know, Oh, it's the miner's problems, like well, there
Speaker 1: are regulations in place for mining, and that's something that's
Speaker 1: informed by the way we vote and people vote for
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, oh, well, it's you know, a
Speaker 1: climate problems, like well, a lot of people, a lot
Speaker 1: of the best science in the world would say that,
Speaker 1: like our impacts on Earth are changing the climate. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a historical people problem, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's like you read all those all that molution
Speaker 1: of piece of paper and it's just not conducive to
Speaker 1: the headline. You know. Yeah, ship's complicated. Yeah. I feel
Speaker 1: like every time I waited into a situation that I'm like, damn,
Speaker 1: this is like way complicated. Yeah. That's again why I
Speaker 1: like being able to continue to have conversations and then
Speaker 1: change your mind, and I get called out for change
Speaker 1: in your mind because you know something today that you
Speaker 1: didn't know. Like, we're essentially organisms that are just growing
Speaker 1: and changing and molding all the time. When I had
Speaker 1: a kid, immediately was a different person. To sell all
Speaker 1: your PlayStations, Yeah, well no, he'll get those. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: get a kid, You're like, oh my god, now I'm
Speaker 1: a different person. Right. I didn't do that. I didn't
Speaker 1: like wake up and be like, I'm gonna do this
Speaker 1: different this if you just wake up and you think differently,
Speaker 1: because now there's this thing over here, this human that
Speaker 1: you gotta take care of, You've gotta do things differently.
Speaker 1: You can't function the way you used to function. And
Speaker 1: so people change all the time, and too, you know
Speaker 1: you should respect that change. And in our environment changes
Speaker 1: because of us, and so you must look at it
Speaker 1: the same way. Like when we invent the flying car,
Speaker 1: I think we might have already been that. You think
Speaker 1: we are invented. You think somebody in California has a
Speaker 1: flying car prototype that that fucking works. Elon Musk surely
Speaker 1: has a flying car. I mean, I am one of
Speaker 1: the biggest NERD advocates out there, and I would bank
Speaker 1: that some nerd has something hidden away. There's some motherfucker
Speaker 1: out there flying around, Like what's that. It's not a
Speaker 1: flying car. I'll tell you that right now. It's or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well there was a really cool I'm not sure it
Speaker 1: was on a Vice or my brother who's like a
Speaker 1: total nerd, showing me this. Um it's this kid. So
Speaker 1: there's like self driving cars, like you know, um Tesla
Speaker 1: has some of the best technology out there. This film,
Speaker 1: I think it's like it's on YouTube. I want to say,
Speaker 1: but this kid, just like some twenty something year old nerd,
Speaker 1: goes in a garage and with like a hundred twenty
Speaker 1: dollars with the computer parts, makes an autonomous vehicle. It's
Speaker 1: like this old civic. It's like a total piece of ship.
Speaker 1: But the thing drives, it learns. So he has this
Speaker 1: like model, this program he's developed where this car is
Speaker 1: learning as he's nudging it through traffic and letting experience
Speaker 1: different types of road conditions. And this correspondent, I want
Speaker 1: to say it for a Vice, it is like holy shit,
Speaker 1: like you feel like you figured it out in your garage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have to imagine somebody's flying a car somewhere, man,
Speaker 1: because the Jetsons was a long time, like twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: wasn't totally. Yeah, they had the jets inside of flying cars,
Speaker 1: so that was why t K. Yeah. My dad's like,
Speaker 1: all right, why two K, we have six cans of soup,
Speaker 1: four water bottles, and some bread. I was like, sick,
Speaker 1: we're gonna live. We're gonna make soup and toast sandwiches,
Speaker 1: dumper in the toast. Yeah, why t K. That was
Speaker 1: the dumbest things. I don't even remember chairing. I was
Speaker 1: just like whatever, fine. I was like, I still can't
Speaker 1: alle on my skateboard. Yeah, man, don't take away my
Speaker 1: my baseball bat, my glove. Yeah. I don't know where
Speaker 1: I was going with any of that, but I will say,
Speaker 1: if anybody knows anybody that has a flying car, I'd
Speaker 1: like to get him on the podcast, just talk about it.
Speaker 1: Mostly for hunting purposes. Yeah, mostly for hunting purpose because
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's quiet. Ye. Addendum, anyone who has a
Speaker 1: quiet flying car solar powered, solar powered, Yeah, no, it
Speaker 1: doesn't affect the environ, but nine recycled wheels, yes, please
Speaker 1: please call in. I know we don't have a car,
Speaker 1: I don't know. We don't have a way to call in,
Speaker 1: but just call in anyway. Um, you think we would
Speaker 1: ever have a call in podcast where like people could
Speaker 1: call in beneficial I think it would be cool, but
Speaker 1: I think you might get some like rogue colors. You know,
Speaker 1: you're like deep, It's like, well, John from South Dakota,
Speaker 1: We're sorry, we're not gonna have high. This is indigo
Speaker 1: bunting and committing suicide not listening to your boring because
Speaker 1: you're boring. Um, back to the regular conversation. Do you
Speaker 1: do you believe that with that middle ground person who
Speaker 1: you're trying to just be like, Look, you impact the world.
Speaker 1: You might not have the mental bandwidth, not that you're
Speaker 1: not a smart person, but you might not just not
Speaker 1: have enough space in your day because you're like you
Speaker 1: had a kid. Care for the human, get the human along,
Speaker 1: make sure that human gets what it needs to live,
Speaker 1: and then also get smarter and better. Um for society.
Speaker 1: You just don't have the time to do all the
Speaker 1: research about all the things and be informed on all
Speaker 1: the things. But here a few things you can do
Speaker 1: to make the world better and understand your impact. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are the things that you can think of. Is
Speaker 1: that too broader question? I know we say like recycled,
Speaker 1: do this, do that, But are there more specific things
Speaker 1: going outside that you'd be like, Man, here's your impact.
Speaker 1: Understand your total impact sucks. You're a part of an
Speaker 1: organism that is eating this earth alive. Um, But here's
Speaker 1: how you can protect the epic, Like, here's how you
Speaker 1: can make it better. Yeah, yeah, you know. I think
Speaker 1: one thing that comes to mind is, uh, college graduation.
Speaker 1: The dialomma comes to DUC Berkeley and gives a talk
Speaker 1: and he sits on his little Uh did you just
Speaker 1: name drop the Dolly past the first Rate Act? Okay,
Speaker 1: the California colleges, And though he's sitting up there and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he says some some really poignant things. One
Speaker 1: of them is that one of the keys that has
Speaker 1: influenced what he perceives the world is to always remain
Speaker 1: the student. The second you identify as the professor and
Speaker 1: you lose the opportunity to learn. And I think that
Speaker 1: translates to the idea of looking at the world and
Speaker 1: looking at the complexities and all this crazy things that
Speaker 1: are happening from a place of curiosity and realizing that
Speaker 1: there are people who are experiencing the world in different ways,
Speaker 1: seeing it through different lens, and that through questions and listening,
Speaker 1: you individually in your backyard, in your community can have
Speaker 1: a better understanding of how you fit into the broader
Speaker 1: global dynamic, but also how you can improve yourself. Maybe
Speaker 1: you're interested in organic farming, maybe you're interested in bow hunting,
Speaker 1: maybe you're interested in flying cars. Like, through your pursuit
Speaker 1: of doing whatever you love the best way possible, you
Speaker 1: can reduce your impact and do what's feasible for you
Speaker 1: financial really physically, given the resources you have or don't have.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody is has a different situation, and I
Speaker 1: think just looking at the complexities of the world by
Speaker 1: saying like how can I improve and what questions can
Speaker 1: I ask to give me a better worldview? I think
Speaker 1: will help. That's a great one. I always be a student.
Speaker 1: That is something I need to go reapply to some
Speaker 1: conversations a couple of weeks. Then after it was so
Speaker 1: funny because after he says that, and you know, everybody's like,
Speaker 1: oh man, that was so impass Yes. So some kid
Speaker 1: raised his hand. It was like the last question and
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, could could you give our class like
Speaker 1: any partying wisdom. And he sits there and he kind
Speaker 1: of does this a little like wiggle and he looks
Speaker 1: at us and starts laughing. He's like, yeah, good luck.
Speaker 1: And I think that's I think that's a a pretty
Speaker 1: solid um bit of advice too, because I think a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of kind of your impact and
Speaker 1: your life experiences comes from having good luck, but also
Speaker 1: been open to the luck that you have. Because a
Speaker 1: lot of people go the world with their eyes closed.
Speaker 1: I think there's so much to be said for going
Speaker 1: through the world with your eyes open, seeing those doors
Speaker 1: that might be presented to you, seeing those people who
Speaker 1: might be there to help you, or to collaborate with you,
Speaker 1: or to corroborate with you. Um. And I think just
Speaker 1: having that openness is huge as well, because it's when
Speaker 1: people will get on that island and they put their
Speaker 1: blinders on and they put their head down and they
Speaker 1: just dig their heels, and it's where you don't get
Speaker 1: a lot of progress. Yeah, that's a good point. Um.
Speaker 1: The Dia Lama hum Man, he's a legend. I always wondered, like,
Speaker 1: does the dialama just like go to Taco bell? Probably
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, i'd like to know. I feel
Speaker 1: like he's just like a normal guy. Yeah. Does he
Speaker 1: have vices? Though? The dollar Alama because that's a smart
Speaker 1: always be a students about it's a smart thing. And
Speaker 1: he's become the Dialama based on all the smart things
Speaker 1: he says. I wonder if he just like I'd love
Speaker 1: a burrito. After that speech just goes down. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Probably I feel like he's just as
Speaker 1: human as anybody else. Probably that's true. Well, it's good.
Speaker 1: I'm glad the dial Aama got in on the conversation today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is that that's the first for the podcast. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I did have Shane Mahoney and he's kind of
Speaker 1: like a bit of a diali Alama, like a Canadian
Speaker 1: dial Alama. Well, right next door to Tibet we have Bhutan,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. It's the kingdom. That's the entire
Speaker 1: kingdom is a wildlife sanctuary, is it? Yeah? Because who
Speaker 1: went over there? Now, Oliver White, there's a big time
Speaker 1: fly fisherman went over fish there for a YETI film,
Speaker 1: I think so with Ben Knight and Travis Romila. I believe.
Speaker 1: So maybe we'll get to know more about that the
Speaker 1: film when it comes out. But um, that's good to know.
Speaker 1: That tell me more you how much you know about
Speaker 1: that place. I know one other thing. Instead of GDP
Speaker 1: Gross Domestic Productivity, they have g d H Gross Domestic happiness.
Speaker 1: That's their metric for success or progress. Wow, alright, let's
Speaker 1: look into that. How do they measure how opinions you feel?
Speaker 1: Probably a simple survey survey monkey or something, so, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's like that thing on Instagram stories where
Speaker 1: you can put the hard eyes at one level. I
Speaker 1: do that sometimes and then you know, it'll make a
Speaker 1: picture of Rachel my fiance, and I'll like swipe to
Speaker 1: the far right because it's like the most and then
Speaker 1: I look at him like, did I think I only
Speaker 1: personally voted on that? Well? Then maybe like you accidentally
Speaker 1: let your finger off too early and it goes it
Speaker 1: goes halfway angel, So I'm just like really, And then
Speaker 1: you get that text, Yeah, you're like halfway hard eyes, asshole,
Speaker 1: fool way hard eyes. Every time that's wrong with you.
Speaker 1: We're getting married. I don't love me. Um dial Llama
Speaker 1: will switch so wild horses. Yeah, I'm gonna make the
Speaker 1: transition from the Dali Lama wild horses, wild horse first
Speaker 1: time ever on Earth probably, and we're actually looking at
Speaker 1: some horses that are not wild in your backyard there. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: there's the transition. Bam. Perfect. So you went to Nevada
Speaker 1: correct with that pretty impressive group of filmmakers, um to
Speaker 1: take a look at the wild horse issue and then
Speaker 1: make a make a film on it. What did you find? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think, Um, first of all, like the kind of
Speaker 1: genesis of the project was pretty pretty awesome. You know,
Speaker 1: we had over a dozen different state, local, and federal
Speaker 1: agencies come together and basically proposed the idea of us
Speaker 1: making a film, and it was really I think that
Speaker 1: was set us off on a great trajectory because we
Speaker 1: had so many people from so many organizations, with so
Speaker 1: many interests and stakeholders, with a singular focus on like
Speaker 1: let's let's present the story in an authentic, accurate light
Speaker 1: the film. What we didn't set out to answer all
Speaker 1: the questions. You know, people have spent their entire career
Speaker 1: trying to trying to answer some of these questions that
Speaker 1: are just complicated. But instead of the tension behind the
Speaker 1: film was can you guys go out there can you
Speaker 1: embed yourselves with experts, folks with decades of experience, can
Speaker 1: you learn about their their reality, and can you digest
Speaker 1: those vignettes into an overarching message. What is the state
Speaker 1: of wild horses on public lands in America? And what
Speaker 1: are some of the things we can do to push
Speaker 1: the needle in a path of stewardship of sustainability, Because
Speaker 1: right now the wild horse issue is it's shitty. The
Speaker 1: wild horses aren't winning the ecosystem. Certainly they're not winning. Um.
Speaker 1: We have a pretty divided group of people who are
Speaker 1: quote unquote air quotes four horses and against There's a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the middle who I know are
Speaker 1: eager to learn more. So we kind of came at
Speaker 1: it from that space in the middle, which is like,
Speaker 1: let's just learn as much as we can. Let's present
Speaker 1: what we've learned earned and pose some hopefully provocative questions
Speaker 1: UM that folks can listen to and and explore in
Speaker 1: their own time and through their own means. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: How pervasive is the what's the population of wild horses
Speaker 1: in Nevada? Do they know? They do? You know? Nevada
Speaker 1: has the most wild horses in the country. Um, they're
Speaker 1: wild horses and burrows generally get generally get clumped together. Um,
Speaker 1: there's well over eighty thousand wild horses north America. The
Speaker 1: exact number in Nevada, I'm not I'm not on um,
Speaker 1: but there are fifty five thousand excess wild horses and burros.
Speaker 1: So what what the what the federal government has done
Speaker 1: is they've looked at public lands in America and they've said, Okay,
Speaker 1: given the resources that these public lands offer forage and
Speaker 1: water primarily, we believe that the public lands in America
Speaker 1: can sustain at this point a little over twenty six
Speaker 1: thousand wild horses and burrows. So then you know, they
Speaker 1: send out their researchers and their their crews to do
Speaker 1: surveys and they say, you know, to the best of
Speaker 1: our knowledge, how many wild horses are there? At last count,
Speaker 1: there are fifty more than the landscape can sustain. So
Speaker 1: that might not that's just like a number for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. I think what people sometimes forget, and
Speaker 1: I think what kind of gets missed is that if
Speaker 1: you're a horse that needs to drink, you know, eight
Speaker 1: gallons of water a day, maybe more of it's hotter
Speaker 1: and needs, uh, you know a ton of forage as well.
Speaker 1: The land can only support so many horses. Then you
Speaker 1: have native wildlife, you have cattle, and you have limited water,
Speaker 1: limited forage. UM, it's a complicated situation. The kind of
Speaker 1: the main thing that I think we learned is that
Speaker 1: there's a platform to manage wildlife. We have sage grouse
Speaker 1: biologists who can go and study a meadow system and
Speaker 1: say this meadow system is critical for the stability and
Speaker 1: preservation of this population, and we need to maintain the meadow.
Speaker 1: So we're going we're going to um, We're gonna tell
Speaker 1: the We're gonna suggest that the blm ask the permancy
Speaker 1: the cattle grazer that cat the operator to put his
Speaker 1: cattle on the meadow in late summer when the stage
Speaker 1: grous have been able to use it to rear their chicks,
Speaker 1: when the flowers have been able to bloom, and the
Speaker 1: pollinator has been able to use it, when it's at
Speaker 1: a less sensitive state. And in many cases the operator
Speaker 1: will be like, Okay, I'll put my cattle in in July.
Speaker 1: We'll scratch the edge of the stage grous. Biologists will
Speaker 1: help maintain the ecosystem. We'll run our cattle through there
Speaker 1: because cattle need forward, especially at the end of the summer,
Speaker 1: and that's a win win. There's there's a platform for
Speaker 1: the wildlife managers to work with the federal government and
Speaker 1: state agencies, and there's a platform for cattle operators do
Speaker 1: the same thing. Certainly, there are examples where the wildlife
Speaker 1: are losing for a very variety of reasons. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: historical overgrazing, maybe's strout, maybe it's fire. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a five hundred thousand acre fire in Nevada that's burning
Speaker 1: or worth burning, biggest in the country, destroying safe grouse
Speaker 1: habitat and safe grouse communities. So there's there's a platform there.
Speaker 1: If there are too many deer, too many hogs, too
Speaker 1: many elk, not enough, there is a platform and a
Speaker 1: structure for folks to work together and say, like, here's
Speaker 1: the platform we're working within, let's accomplish this goal or
Speaker 1: work towards this goal. Cattle, there is a structure and
Speaker 1: a platform for operators, permitees, and also um other stakeholders
Speaker 1: to have input in the way cattle are grays in
Speaker 1: public lands. There are certainly operators and cattle that are
Speaker 1: grays in a I would say, a very mindful, sensitive way.
Speaker 1: And there's other situations that I think could use some work.
Speaker 1: Wild Horses they're the wild card. There is some structure,
Speaker 1: but through litigation from in many cases folks whould identifies
Speaker 1: like wild horse activists. Ah, the tools and the blms
Speaker 1: in the National Force Service toolbox have been limited, um
Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons. But nonetheless there's some structure,
Speaker 1: but there are not many available tools and or resources
Speaker 1: to implement change. So a lot of these So for
Speaker 1: those those tools in the toolbox and the people that
Speaker 1: are limiting then on my guess, because this happens in
Speaker 1: a lot of with a lot of different charismatic creatures, predators,
Speaker 1: mostly anti I guess that we would just say animal
Speaker 1: rights activists are saying, don't kill them in this way,
Speaker 1: don't treat him in this way, right, and the biologists like, well,
Speaker 1: if we do this, you know, if we kill him
Speaker 1: out of helicopters, we can save the whole population. Or
Speaker 1: if we do this, do this, and then animal rights
Speaker 1: axes like do not, We're gonna put legislation out there
Speaker 1: too to ban acts. I don't know what those those
Speaker 1: tools are, is that or not even to ban but
Speaker 1: just it's just you know, being sued takes a lot
Speaker 1: of time. Like I was talking to these biologists who
Speaker 1: You'll spend fifteen years working on something, you get sued
Speaker 1: and then it's just everything's paused for like maybe years.
Speaker 1: So it's so litigation is a tool to stall. The
Speaker 1: outcome can be years down the road, but it's been
Speaker 1: an efficient it's been an effective tool to just stall things.
Speaker 1: So what do they specifically do you know what they're
Speaker 1: specifically suing. Yeah, I mean, you know there have been
Speaker 1: lawsuits around roundups being in humane UM A lot of
Speaker 1: times roundups Contemporary roundups include a tv s, four wheelers, helicopters,
Speaker 1: UM getting those getting those overpopulated populations into corrals and
Speaker 1: then they can be transferred to holding facilities for their
Speaker 1: quarantine and given shots and um you know, castrated and
Speaker 1: you know basically prepared for adoption. That can be a
Speaker 1: challenging process for the health and well being of animals.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a stressful thing. UM. There has been
Speaker 1: litigation that has prevented the research on Spain and uterine
Speaker 1: animals UM surgically. Uh, it's been coined as UM in
Speaker 1: humane UM. Right, now one of the things that people
Speaker 1: some people are excited about. It's called PCP, which is
Speaker 1: basically makes a mayor infertile for a little less than
Speaker 1: a year. UM. There's a lot of people who say
Speaker 1: that's the way to do it, the way to to
Speaker 1: stifle the growth of these populations. That's completely naive. Um.
Speaker 1: There are certain small, non representative cases where individuals who
Speaker 1: are familiar with a herd that are herd that doesn't
Speaker 1: freak out from humans, which I've spent quite a bit
Speaker 1: of time like that was not my first time to Nevada,
Speaker 1: that was not definitely not my first time with wild horses.
Speaker 1: To get within the range of a dart gun to
Speaker 1: shoot a mayor, I've never I've maybe in one occasion
Speaker 1: I've been that close to wild horse. So it's just
Speaker 1: not feasible, time intensive, more volunteer. But you gotta get
Speaker 1: them trained, and there's got to be all these checks
Speaker 1: and balances to make sure it's done well, and you
Speaker 1: need to have a protocol, and you need to have
Speaker 1: consistent data collection, and that mayor needs to be identifiable,
Speaker 1: that mayor needs to be darted in the year, that
Speaker 1: mayor won't carry a full but she'll keep continue to
Speaker 1: go into heat and the estres so that mayor will
Speaker 1: be bread and bread and bread, but will never carry
Speaker 1: a full That doesn't sound very fun. So that's so
Speaker 1: there's the PCP, there's a sterilization, there's the roundups, and
Speaker 1: then there are the harsh realities that the holding facilities
Speaker 1: were these animals are rounded up and put to await
Speaker 1: adoption or to await a life and dirt parking lot
Speaker 1: are full. Uh, we're very close to full, so that
Speaker 1: we don't even have capacity to take in more horses.
Speaker 1: We don't have The BLM doesn't have capacity to round
Speaker 1: up more horses because most of their funding is going
Speaker 1: to feeding these horses that are in captivity per horse,
Speaker 1: per per lifetime, and that's to feed them alfalfa and hay.
Speaker 1: And for anybody out there, he's ever looked at the
Speaker 1: amount of water that goes into buy one horse? Get everybody,
Speaker 1: Yeah you have a half acre, and yeah, you can
Speaker 1: do it, buy a horse and see what that costs.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and you know, it costs a lot for
Speaker 1: the government to feed these horses. It costs a lot
Speaker 1: to just holding them. You know, taking on a horse
Speaker 1: project is something that a lot of people don't have
Speaker 1: the time or money to do well. Also, to that point,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're this far along in this story
Speaker 1: and you're not really sure to like, why do I care?
Speaker 1: I'm a hunter guy. Cost who's paying for that? Where's
Speaker 1: that money coming from? And where are the land? What
Speaker 1: are the lands that this is happening on. I think
Speaker 1: that that ties back to totally. I mean, the cost
Speaker 1: of the ecosystem is tremendous. And again, it's not just
Speaker 1: the horse's fault, like there are these historical legacies of
Speaker 1: overgrazing or just humans not being supermindful about the ecosystem's
Speaker 1: health and well being. But the fact of the matter
Speaker 1: is you have places that maybe we're kind of hammered,
Speaker 1: that are just getting hammered by these horses. The horses
Speaker 1: aren't winning, they're eating themselves. At the house at house,
Speaker 1: at home, there's horses. Two horses died this year in
Speaker 1: Arizona because of a lack of water and resources. Um
Speaker 1: so if you love horses, you should you know, that
Speaker 1: should be an alarm bell flat do you uh are
Speaker 1: you talking about? Like, so there's fifties, five thousands. Are
Speaker 1: these populations all were they wild originally. How much of
Speaker 1: this is a native population are they? Is any of them?
Speaker 1: Is there a native range known for the wild horse
Speaker 1: or is it all just essentially escaped, kicked their saddle
Speaker 1: off and run for the hills. Yeah, yeah, no, it's
Speaker 1: a great question. Um, horses won't extinct twelve years ago
Speaker 1: around then, back when we lost the American cheetah um
Speaker 1: and other species. So they existed at one point North
Speaker 1: America's history. But they are here because they were introduced
Speaker 1: by humans. So they are in my opinion, and by
Speaker 1: definition I would say feral livestock. Um they have. We
Speaker 1: have the Wild Horse in Borough Treaty Act, which federally
Speaker 1: protects them. Um. So that's I think some of the complicated.
Speaker 1: That adds a level of complexity to the situation. But
Speaker 1: to your point, if you're listening, you're a hunter and
Speaker 1: you're saying, why do I care about wild horses, we
Speaker 1: should care about wild horses because wild horses are on
Speaker 1: virtually all of our public land, and wild horses require
Speaker 1: a lot of food and water. They are competitive. They
Speaker 1: will exclude prong horn from drinking. They will compete with
Speaker 1: other wildlife or forage. A mule deer mule deer won't
Speaker 1: go in the same area that an elk is in.
Speaker 1: I's a bunch of wild horses move into an area
Speaker 1: mule deer. I mean we we spent a week out
Speaker 1: there and didn't see We saw mulder in places where
Speaker 1: no horses. We were filming sage grouse in meadows where
Speaker 1: the sun came up and the stage grousts flew in
Speaker 1: to feed with their chicks. The chicks in the and
Speaker 1: the hens walked in. But I mean we had multiple
Speaker 1: like day old, multiple day old, uh, mule deer just
Speaker 1: bedded down and waste. I mean some of the most
Speaker 1: beautiful country I've ever seen in my life. Or these
Speaker 1: meadow aces in the middle of the stage brush Sea
Speaker 1: and Nevada like like five hours from town, you know,
Speaker 1: and the sun comes up and there's just little mule
Speaker 1: deer popping out. And the reason why that ecosystem is
Speaker 1: the way it is is vibrant and healthy is because
Speaker 1: it's been Uh there's a fence round and so horses
Speaker 1: can't just hammer it because they would. And we went
Speaker 1: to meadows, you know, a few miles away that didn't
Speaker 1: have fences, and we're just basically dirt parking lots. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so we love horses. I think horses of the place.
Speaker 1: I some of my best most memorable wildlife moments are
Speaker 1: sitting out there at water holes in the desert and
Speaker 1: watching two horses come galloping up to I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: They're beautiful animals. You know. My best times in the
Speaker 1: saddle have been on the backs of mustangs. Um. I've
Speaker 1: written Ben's Mustangs from into a bunch of the good horses.
Speaker 1: They sure footed, they work hard, they're you know, pretty smart,
Speaker 1: pretty savvy. Um. I think there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who would say mustanger as good as any other horse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we love horses. Horses are great. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: do you imagine this is a more emotional, more reflective
Speaker 1: of the emotional appeal of like animal lovers versus at
Speaker 1: this point, pragmaticians who are just trying to manage an
Speaker 1: entire ecosystem over hey, saves grass. I know they're not
Speaker 1: so beautiful to you. They are actually, yeah, they're cool.
Speaker 1: They're really cool, but they're not so charismatic to you. Right,
Speaker 1: they're not in movies. But they're important too, and by
Speaker 1: you may not know it, or you might know it.
Speaker 1: But by trying to protect these horses, but by trying
Speaker 1: to overlove these horses like you're loving other things to death. Um,
Speaker 1: that's a problem that that every hunter should understand and
Speaker 1: should be aware of. But I just think this is
Speaker 1: a compelling example of the problems that we will face.
Speaker 1: And from a from a purely monetary standpoint, would I'd
Speaker 1: be wrong to say, like this is akin a bit
Speaker 1: to fire borrowing, where when there's a fire, and in
Speaker 1: the in the most recent omnimous package that was passed
Speaker 1: our government, the spending package, they said you can no
Speaker 1: longer states or federal government can no longer borrow from
Speaker 1: wildlife managers pockets take from their pockets money to to
Speaker 1: fight fires. Because that was happening, it's called fire borrowing.
Speaker 1: Is this similar to that where you'd be like, hey,
Speaker 1: we've got to manage these populations, We're gonna take from
Speaker 1: the coffer of the wildlife state wildlife managers bias would
Speaker 1: take money from their confer and put it into this
Speaker 1: or at least it competes with other priorities, totally competes
Speaker 1: with Elka, Compea or whatever. From a from a purely
Speaker 1: monetary standpoint, absolutely and you know, and and we were
Speaker 1: with biologists. We were with a little hot and cut
Speaker 1: throat trout biologist who is sitting there and saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like I can come to my creak that's
Speaker 1: been hammered by horses and put together a plan to
Speaker 1: restore it, but my hands are tied and that that
Speaker 1: opinion that research will never be employed until there's adequate
Speaker 1: funding to deal with the horse issue. So you have
Speaker 1: you have we have wildlife money that's been put into
Speaker 1: wildlife departments pockets to protect game species, non game species
Speaker 1: and habitat. They can do the best job that they
Speaker 1: could ever dream of. But you have this this tide
Speaker 1: of wild horses that are they're stifling their progress. They're
Speaker 1: they're turning potential habitat for California big horn or muldear
Speaker 1: or prong horn into over grazed deserts. And that's simply
Speaker 1: because there's that disconnect. There's that inability for the federal
Speaker 1: government to address the horse issue, and there's a lack
Speaker 1: of funding that's tied up with feeding horses in captivity
Speaker 1: to actually implement the change. The there's litigation, but there's
Speaker 1: also that that fiscal hurdle so I definitely think you have.
Speaker 1: In weeks we saw this. You have these biologists who
Speaker 1: are so passionate about their species, their non game, their
Speaker 1: game species, and they see what needs to be done
Speaker 1: and they literally can't do it. I mean we had
Speaker 1: I'm not going to name names, but a biologist who
Speaker 1: was the one of the head game biologists for Nevada
Speaker 1: career was spent working with game species UM and some
Speaker 1: of the most beautiful, rugged country in Nevada. He cried
Speaker 1: on interview with us because he was so frustrated and
Speaker 1: embarrassed and disappointed that he would spend his entire professional
Speaker 1: career on a topic that got worse on his watch.
Speaker 1: We interviewed a guy one of the head Horse in
Speaker 1: Burrow program supervisors for the BLM, who spent his entire
Speaker 1: career forty plus years working for the federal government in
Speaker 1: d C and in Nevada working on public lands and
Speaker 1: the wild horse issue. And he sat there and he
Speaker 1: said he was embarrassed and disappointed that on his watch
Speaker 1: the program didn't get better. He did have some positive
Speaker 1: remarks about UM collaborative efforts being developed and communities coming
Speaker 1: together to work towards the common goal, but in terms
Speaker 1: of quantifiable winds, the situation has undeniably gotten worse. So
Speaker 1: I think, like you're saying, it's a it's a money problem.
Speaker 1: You know, we're taking money out of the pockets of
Speaker 1: people doing trying to do the best work they can
Speaker 1: to protect our wildlife, our native ecosystems, um and it's
Speaker 1: just kind of like the ship show of the political system,
Speaker 1: litigation and a lack of resources. And at this point
Speaker 1: adoption rates, everything we're doing to manage wild horses doesn't
Speaker 1: come close to dealing the reproductive rates. Yeah, what is it?
Speaker 1: What's the gestation on a full well? Every every four
Speaker 1: years populations are doubling. Yeah, it's insane. That's insane. Animal.
Speaker 1: I think about like the way that we think of
Speaker 1: and how like our value systems might help correct this
Speaker 1: or make it worse. I don't know, but like when
Speaker 1: we take the gloves off on an animal, for instance,
Speaker 1: for instance, the coyote in Wyoming, they'll pay you fifty
Speaker 1: bucks whack of coyote or hogs we take the gloves off.
Speaker 1: One is hunters. I think most hunters like whoa gloves off, dude?
Speaker 1: Not kill they? And sometimes I feel like that it's
Speaker 1: like it's fun if if it's not, you know, it's
Speaker 1: part of Hey, I can go out and kill ten
Speaker 1: hogs and it doesn't matter how I do it, and
Speaker 1: that's that meets good. The experience is good. Oh man,
Speaker 1: it's shooting practice. Right. We've taken the gloves off those animals.
Speaker 1: I don't know if interviewed somebody in the same position
Speaker 1: as those people that are working on the horse program
Speaker 1: and said, hey, they're taking the gloves off. Doo much
Speaker 1: from a hunting standpoint, he took the gloves off. There's
Speaker 1: coyoties in every state. They live in swamps and planes,
Speaker 1: they live in mountains, they live everywhere. Every ecosystem has
Speaker 1: a chived. So like just taking the gloves off his
Speaker 1: hunters really do anything. And the same with a horse,
Speaker 1: just taking the gloves off and saying like, hey, you're
Speaker 1: in public lange you see a horse crack it shooting
Speaker 1: the head the only I mean, if you want whatever, fine,
Speaker 1: let's take picture of pretty. I know it's crude way
Speaker 1: to say it and probably just structful that animal, but
Speaker 1: you might get a few email Listen, I've never killed
Speaker 1: a horse. I'd probably eat one. I bunting, Uh, I
Speaker 1: just wonder as the toolbox. I mean, they have a
Speaker 1: certain toolbox that's not working. Hunters our tool themselves. So
Speaker 1: I want to or how that could be done. It
Speaker 1: would never be tolerated in this country for people to
Speaker 1: just be walking around killing horses. Well this year, you
Speaker 1: tell me this could be another emails. I'm pretty sure. Um,
Speaker 1: I feel pretty confident saying this out loud, that there
Speaker 1: was a hunting season was opened on a Native American
Speaker 1: reservation this year for a few, maybe one or two
Speaker 1: individual horses. I don't I'm fairly certain that none were harvested,
Speaker 1: but I would have to imagine that decision came about
Speaker 1: out of um desperation, you know, that group of people,
Speaker 1: those land managers, those stakeholders, feeling as though there weren't
Speaker 1: options available aside from hunting. UM on a more general
Speaker 1: from a more general place, you know. The kyote reference
Speaker 1: in the pay reference I think are interesting because kyotes
Speaker 1: were initially like a Southeastern species that have colonized America functionally,
Speaker 1: because we removed a lot of the apex predators that
Speaker 1: kept them in check, and we just created a lot
Speaker 1: of avenues for them to to just like pigeons or
Speaker 1: starlings to kind of follow our dust trails. An adaptive
Speaker 1: critter that that can live where we live, or really
Speaker 1: can live anywhere. Right, Yeah, we gave it an inch,
Speaker 1: they took a mile. Um. A lot of the research
Speaker 1: out there would say now that hunting kyotes actually just
Speaker 1: makes more coyotes, and hunting hogs makes more hogs, educates
Speaker 1: the ones that are there and makes more Right. So
Speaker 1: I think at that point, you know, hunting in those situations,
Speaker 1: I would say, isn't a tool for necessarily management. Maybe
Speaker 1: on a small local level, on a certain ranch or
Speaker 1: a certain area, you might be able to impact the
Speaker 1: long term population, but I think the take needs to
Speaker 1: be pretty high. Horses are different because they're not as fecund,
Speaker 1: or they're not reproducing as rapidly as a kayla or
Speaker 1: a pig, which we now have many babies often. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm on an expert in horse biology, but I would
Speaker 1: probably wager that if that was legal, if that was
Speaker 1: socially acceptable, if the tools were in place and the
Speaker 1: platforms in place to implement hunting never gonna happen but continue,
Speaker 1: it could be effective. Unfortunately, I as somebody who loves horses,
Speaker 1: as somebody who more than anything loves well my family
Speaker 1: and friends, but ecosystems, that's what I live for. I
Speaker 1: don't quite see another option. I think that that the
Speaker 1: situation will only get worse. And I think them we're
Speaker 1: kind of at a point of no return where the
Speaker 1: populations are going at a rate that the tools we
Speaker 1: have can't possibly do enough. Uh. And I think the
Speaker 1: result is that you're going to have more die offs,
Speaker 1: and you're going to have more public land that's degraded,
Speaker 1: and you're going to have more wildlife that are losing
Speaker 1: and more horses that are losing. Uh. And it's just
Speaker 1: kind of a shitty situation. Yea, horses, wild horses, a
Speaker 1: shitty situation. But yeah film, yeah, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think these shitty situations are stressful, stressful. He's sweating right
Speaker 1: out and talking. I'm still looking at these horses right now. Sorry.
Speaker 1: UM actually want to like watch like finding any morse
Speaker 1: some something up keeping simple, don't watch Dances with Wolves
Speaker 1: or anything. Um. I like the way that you put
Speaker 1: that because I think shitty situations are are just like
Speaker 1: you said, be a student. Understand that there is a
Speaker 1: positive outcome here. Are we able as a society moreover
Speaker 1: two stomach killing a horse to save the horses and
Speaker 1: the elk and the stage your house. Are we willing
Speaker 1: to do that? My best guess is absolutely fucking not.
Speaker 1: No way damn it. Then, But me, if you gave
Speaker 1: it up to me, if if if somebody's came in
Speaker 1: here and say like absolute is um you can make
Speaker 1: the call, I'd be like, go yeah, because I think
Speaker 1: the fail sace of science based biology based tag systems,
Speaker 1: where the wildlife managers can make the proper calls. These
Speaker 1: guys you're talking about, that, the ones that are so
Speaker 1: distressed about the situation, they can be like, yes, I've
Speaker 1: been doing this for twenty years. I'm ready for this now.
Speaker 1: Maybe I wasn't ten years ago, but now I am.
Speaker 1: Let's try it on a limited basis and see and
Speaker 1: if it works and we gotta keep doing it. And
Speaker 1: let me take you over to the parking lot. There's
Speaker 1: a thousand horses bumping around and you know, licking each
Speaker 1: other and starving to death at once a once a month.
Speaker 1: Let me take you over there. People are hitting horses
Speaker 1: on the road. We met multiple people who had lost
Speaker 1: neighbors to horse collisions. We found dead horses, we have
Speaker 1: video footage of horses dying. We had plenty of footage
Speaker 1: of horses that are just covering scars head to toe
Speaker 1: fighting for water. We have footage of wildlife being moved
Speaker 1: off water because hundreds of literally over a thousand horses
Speaker 1: in a day, like a steady stream of bands coming
Speaker 1: into water. Um, I just think of what people might
Speaker 1: not understand. Fifty five thousand horses extra number one, number two,
Speaker 1: That is so many horses, nine thousand wild horses and
Speaker 1: burrows exist to the best of our knowledge on public lands.
Speaker 1: And that's fifty five thousand more than the best scientists
Speaker 1: have determined the landscape can sustain. It's a lot of animals.
Speaker 1: I like our hashtag keep it public. I do like
Speaker 1: that hashtag, But I would also say keep it fucking sustainable.
Speaker 1: And that's my other hashtag. We have a lot of
Speaker 1: good ones. That's one. Can we say keep it sustainable?
Speaker 1: Like it's public? Great, lovely? Now we're all together paying
Speaker 1: for this thing. We're all together, you know, using it
Speaker 1: and helping to manage it. But my god, can we
Speaker 1: just say, biologists tell us how we sustain this, and
Speaker 1: that's what we'll do totally. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: another big thing is just to think about these places ecosystems.
Speaker 1: You know, whether you're an ice climber or a biker,
Speaker 1: or a deer hunter or a waterfowl guy, are different
Speaker 1: passions and interests generally rely on an ecosystem functioning at
Speaker 1: some level. And I think to remind people that, yeah,
Speaker 1: mountains aren't elk vending machines, mountains aren't didn't weren't, you know,
Speaker 1: don't exist just to be climbed. That just because you
Speaker 1: have a bivy and you hype the PCC PCT doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you're benign. You know that we all have these
Speaker 1: things we want to take, whether it's an experience or
Speaker 1: an animal or a photo, those things hinge upon the
Speaker 1: fact that an ecosystem is there, you know, And then
Speaker 1: we can't just look at them as these like disparate
Speaker 1: little kind of things. They all are connected. And I
Speaker 1: think we need to look at science. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of bad science out there. There's a lot of great
Speaker 1: science out there, but we need to look at science
Speaker 1: and look at the options available with that like level head,
Speaker 1: you know, of not getting caught up in emotions because
Speaker 1: sadly we live in a time where emotions do more
Speaker 1: than science. You know, I was listening to a Ted
Speaker 1: talk the other day and this guy said that the
Speaker 1: way we feel about animals will do more to write
Speaker 1: their future than anything will read in a science book.
Speaker 1: And that is scary. That's a great point. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then how do we, as you and I, just as individuals,
Speaker 1: help to with all good conscious like adjust the way
Speaker 1: people think about animals without thinking about that is it's totality, right,
Speaker 1: I mean we our relationships with animals start in such
Speaker 1: a fucked way as children. Yeah, I can't say funding
Speaker 1: then that keep talking about children, sorry kids, but it
Speaker 1: starts in such a weird way. The prism that that
Speaker 1: even me as a parent has created for my son
Speaker 1: such will be so weird to him when he gets
Speaker 1: out in the world and discovers Oh well, that's not
Speaker 1: the way. You might as well have created certain individual
Speaker 1: species as Santa Claus, you've basically told me a lie
Speaker 1: about what they are. Like, you lied to me. They
Speaker 1: don't wear suspenders and go to the market, they eat,
Speaker 1: they're young, Like, why did you lie to me? Why
Speaker 1: of all the things you could have stuffed and put
Speaker 1: in my crib, why didn't you just put like a
Speaker 1: crab in there or something. Why did you put a
Speaker 1: freaking why did you put a bison and a bear
Speaker 1: in there? Like why did you choose that? And we'll
Speaker 1: have to say, huh, that's a good point, man. And
Speaker 1: you know I wrote this the other day that a wildlife,
Speaker 1: a wild space life is not an easy one. You know,
Speaker 1: for folks who have sat out and watched elk in
Speaker 1: the rut, or have watched horses a little watering hole
Speaker 1: or even watch does get after it. I mean it's
Speaker 1: rugged out there, you know. I mean it is. It's
Speaker 1: a game. It's a it's a margin of inches and
Speaker 1: centimeters and and drips of water and leaves and bites
Speaker 1: of food. Um, and it's not Yeah, it's not Disney World.
Speaker 1: It's not Disney lamb. That's what I think. My another thing,
Speaker 1: when my son, my wife's like, hey, we want to
Speaker 1: go to the zoo. I said, I'll let you go
Speaker 1: to the zoo, and not that I control you. We
Speaker 1: want to go to the zoo and our son has
Speaker 1: fun there for now he's not even two yet. That's great,
Speaker 1: feed the goats whatever, but let's watch it when we
Speaker 1: get we get to the point where he understands what
Speaker 1: these animals really are because and that's a good I
Speaker 1: feel like it's a good segue or a good way
Speaker 1: to mash together what wild animals are and what those
Speaker 1: that are living in captivity are. Those animals more accessible
Speaker 1: to us. We've taken away their wildness. That doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: make those animals happier or healthier. It makes them sick. Ah.
Speaker 1: And so this this why not embrace the wild, like
Speaker 1: how wild it is and how complicated it is, and
Speaker 1: how it asks things of us as participants in it.
Speaker 1: That can be difficult, because living in the wild is difficult.
Speaker 1: But you can't take that away from a a lion
Speaker 1: put in the zoo and say it we'll be happy
Speaker 1: now we took away the wild. Nobody will try to
Speaker 1: eat it in there. And that was that I was like,
Speaker 1: fuck you, I would rather be out there trying to
Speaker 1: get eaten by something. Well. And I think you see
Speaker 1: the horses in the holding facility, you know, and you
Speaker 1: see them and it's like, Okay, they're safe, they have water,
Speaker 1: they have food. That life's gotta suck, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: life in the wild isn't much easier. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think if those horses could talk, they'd probably vote
Speaker 1: for an option in the wild. And if the bears
Speaker 1: could talk, they'd be like, stop putting me the stuff, asshole,
Speaker 1: because I'll eat you, and you come up you go
Speaker 1: up here trying to feed me, and then I have
Speaker 1: to eat you because I'm a bear, and then you
Speaker 1: stop it. Well, and it's the idea of of of ambassadors. Really,
Speaker 1: you know, it's something that um, a good friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Chris Burke. Are people maybe listening to know of his
Speaker 1: photographer a really great yeah, great guy. You know, he
Speaker 1: and I were having a conversation about Yosemite and it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: how do we talk about Yosemite? Is it wild? Is
Speaker 1: it wilderness? You know the valley because I know the
Speaker 1: up country is different. Um, but you know, we we
Speaker 1: we came up with this idea that it's kind of
Speaker 1: like the sacrificial lamp, that it's this ambassador for wild
Speaker 1: places that while the average visitor, like myself, maybe we'll
Speaker 1: complain about the traffic and the people and the cement
Speaker 1: paths and you know this and that and the other.
Speaker 1: The beautiful thing about a place like Yosemite is that
Speaker 1: every day, thousands of people go to Yosemite and have
Speaker 1: an epic outdoor experience. They go back to their communities
Speaker 1: across the globe with a new schmark for epic nature,
Speaker 1: and they, in some way, to some degree, I would imagine,
Speaker 1: have some sort of deeper connection with the natural world.
Speaker 1: Just like the bear in the zoo or the horse
Speaker 1: in my backyard. They're kind of ambassadors for these wilder
Speaker 1: things and in the same through the same lens. That's
Speaker 1: what excites me about the hunting space. You know, I
Speaker 1: grew up hunting, I've hunted a little bit. I'm mainly
Speaker 1: a wildlife nerd who eats meat and enjoys going out
Speaker 1: and trying to get some I do think that one
Speaker 1: of the things that's been intriguing to me about the
Speaker 1: hunting space that there are a lot of people out there,
Speaker 1: yourself included, who I think are amazing ambassadors for the
Speaker 1: right story, the story that helps solve the pr crisis
Speaker 1: that I think has been troublesome of the hunting space,
Speaker 1: narratives that challenge all the bs that gets published, the
Speaker 1: worst examples that gets published, and reminding people that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of really good humans out there doing their
Speaker 1: best with open open mine, an open heart, interested in
Speaker 1: asking questions, interested in being compassionate, interested in doing the
Speaker 1: best they can on the land, and just trying to
Speaker 1: go about in the best way. And it's like we're
Speaker 1: better off showing them the best examples of our community
Speaker 1: as opposed to talking ship and saying like, look how
Speaker 1: bad this person is or how they could have done
Speaker 1: that better. And that's something for me that recently came
Speaker 1: up because I got into a situation not long ago
Speaker 1: where I was in a bunch of like in a
Speaker 1: group of people that were all honey industry people, and
Speaker 1: I found us just churning through like oh that guy
Speaker 1: all we all kind of agreed on, you know, the
Speaker 1: judgments we're throw in a too handsome like guy's a nerd, nerd,
Speaker 1: get out, get out of here. But I found myself like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: here's a bunch of people, smart, influential, understand hunting, compassionate,
Speaker 1: good people, but are getting caught up in like just
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it's just an interesting conversation to have
Speaker 1: about people and the rumor like man, I gotta get
Speaker 1: away from that. That's one too. When one of these
Speaker 1: damn lady killed the giraffe stories comes up, and the
Speaker 1: and just like the the gun, the mass shooting comes up.
Speaker 1: This is a storyline that we've all heard before, right, So,
Speaker 1: so lady kills giraffe, sits in front of draft, takes photo.
Speaker 1: People get mad. That's a storyline we've always discussed. We've
Speaker 1: been there, We've done that. I think this, you think this.
Speaker 1: I ignore. I have to ignore that, like going forward
Speaker 1: in my life, not that I did in the past,
Speaker 1: because as a writer and a journalist, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: that's a great can write a story on that, people
Speaker 1: might click on it. Whoa. Um. But now it's just
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna keep just over here pulling and maybe
Speaker 1: whild horses, although not as compelling as Lady with Giraffe,
Speaker 1: is a better way to spend my time, in a
Speaker 1: more positive way, to pull the rope towards me. Um.
Speaker 1: And maybe if as soon as I start engaging in
Speaker 1: some ridiculous bullshit argument with somebody about a giraffe, and
Speaker 1: you know how it always goes, She's like, hey, she
Speaker 1: should have shot that giraffe, And you're like, well, giraffe,
Speaker 1: that was an old giraffe. Man, But you've never even
Speaker 1: seen it was eight. Look at the strange. It was
Speaker 1: an old giraffe to be like, listen, go away, I'm
Speaker 1: over here learning and experiencing and doing the things that
Speaker 1: are important. You were over there looking at a giraffe
Speaker 1: somebody shot in Africa and getting mad like no, And
Speaker 1: even if you win that argument, or I win that argument,
Speaker 1: or whatever happens, none of us have ever done anything
Speaker 1: to pull the rope right to the right right side.
Speaker 1: And this is just a tug of war taken off.
Speaker 1: That's just taking our time. A giraffe, once they have
Speaker 1: purple tongues, they do. I've seen one. In fact, I
Speaker 1: was in Africa. I saw one, and I was expert Africa.
Speaker 1: I was with my mom and she cried and she
Speaker 1: saw it was a little struck by it, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: let's and then we decided. They were like, well we
Speaker 1: were hunting, not your graft. And the guy goes, well,
Speaker 1: you can shoot a draft you want. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm aware of that that. I like, well, my mom's
Speaker 1: crying about how impactful. See my mom, asshole, he's crying.
Speaker 1: It's my mom. I don't shoot things, Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: shoot things that make my own crime okay, buddy, but
Speaker 1: that's like, well it's seventeen fifty. That's how much it
Speaker 1: costs to kill That name is George. Yeah he's old,
Speaker 1: don't worry. So if you take a picture with him
Speaker 1: head button all the draft eating all the tops of
Speaker 1: the trees. But that, yeah, that those things are just
Speaker 1: I think maybe with wildlife, if you tell yourself, I
Speaker 1: want to understand the entirety of this thing, or at
Speaker 1: least when I get down to a certain species or
Speaker 1: a certain problem, just like wild horses, let me understand
Speaker 1: the entirety of this thing from the perspective of compassion,
Speaker 1: as you said, perspective of leaning on the biologists, leaning
Speaker 1: on the ecologist, leaning on the people that are doing it,
Speaker 1: trusting their opinions and letting them do their work. Like
Speaker 1: all those things come together to be the best thing
Speaker 1: for the animal. Saving all of them is never the
Speaker 1: best thing that I found. Killing all of them is
Speaker 1: never the best thing I found. But there's some weird
Speaker 1: middle ground that we should strive to live in that
Speaker 1: would be helpful. Yeah. And you know one thing that
Speaker 1: I think kind of I guess changed the way I
Speaker 1: thought about some of these wildlife issues was spending time
Speaker 1: in South Texas. So Ben and I went down there
Speaker 1: two years ago and we were staying on a ranch
Speaker 1: kind of near fell furious you've been there, not been
Speaker 1: there right now. There's a lot of fracking out there,
Speaker 1: shell country. Um. And we're staying with friends of friends,
Speaker 1: wonderful family. Uh for listening, Thank you for having us. Um.
Speaker 1: And I was talking to mom, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: this huge spread um, you know, mesquite kind of this
Speaker 1: new country for me and never never been out there before,
Speaker 1: so pretty intrigued. Tons of pigs, tons of deer. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. The family loves to hunt. Uh. They also
Speaker 1: had a lot of fracking going on. And I talked
Speaker 1: to the mom one day, you know, being somebody who
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would have been as
Speaker 1: kind of like a hippie to start with, you know,
Speaker 1: UC Berkeley, ten years, California surfer whatever. UM, call me
Speaker 1: what you will. I'm totally intreated by the middle ground.
Speaker 1: I'm totally intreated by other people's realities. And I asked her,
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, how does like I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about fracking. I've read a bunch of papers about it.
Speaker 1: I like listened to professor's talk about it. I don't
Speaker 1: think about it personally, like you on this land, how
Speaker 1: does it like? What's the deal? How does it make
Speaker 1: you feel? She's like, well, do you look out there,
Speaker 1: that little guesthouse you got to stay in. That was
Speaker 1: my family's homestead. That was their their main house. And
Speaker 1: they scraped living together, running a few cattle, probably oriented, uh,
Speaker 1: never really got ahead. It's tough life. You know, South
Speaker 1: Texas hots rugged. There's not a lot out there. I
Speaker 1: mean there is, but it's it's rough to landscape. So
Speaker 1: she says, okay, so imagine this. You know, you own
Speaker 1: all this land. Somebody knocks and Georant says, We're gonna
Speaker 1: pay you guys this much every month for this many years,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna change your life. And she's saying on
Speaker 1: her famili sement her future and she says yes, And
Speaker 1: everybody has their own opinion. I don't know what I would,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to make an opinion on it,
Speaker 1: but that's what she did with that. It's changed their
Speaker 1: family's life. She's now one of the main people in
Speaker 1: that part of the state that holds uh migratory pollinator
Speaker 1: kind of events where people come out to their ranch
Speaker 1: and they document songbirds and migrating monarchs, and they're constantly
Speaker 1: working to restore the ecosystem to be more friendly to
Speaker 1: migrating pollinators. And she was like this total butterfly nerd
Speaker 1: and totally passionate about it and totally passionate about songbirds
Speaker 1: and creating habitat and managing the wildlife. And she wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to do that if they didn't accept that opportunity.
Speaker 1: You know, one is not better than the other. But
Speaker 1: that's her, somebody's reality, and she is going about her reality,
Speaker 1: and I think a pretty awesome way. You know. It's
Speaker 1: easy to say like, oh man, she's fracking that shitty,
Speaker 1: you know, but she's a good she. I met her.
Speaker 1: She's a great person, and she is using some of
Speaker 1: that financial latitude to do something that needs to be done,
Speaker 1: you know, which is like being mindful of the fact
Speaker 1: that pollinators are in decline, migrating monarchs are in decline.
Speaker 1: And she has a small role in that huge narrative,
Speaker 1: which I think is an important one. Yeah, well, what
Speaker 1: that almost bleeds into like in a strange way, you
Speaker 1: go north to Utah and you look at bears ears,
Speaker 1: and you're like kind of similar to that, Like there's
Speaker 1: a place that's sacred to a lot of people. Sacred
Speaker 1: to one side because of its the glory of the
Speaker 1: way it looks in the in the landscape, and even
Speaker 1: on the native side how they how they view it
Speaker 1: in their culture. But then it's really so the other
Speaker 1: side they be like, we get some money out of
Speaker 1: that thing. We need that stuff. That's there's consumption that
Speaker 1: we have to drive and there's some over there like
Speaker 1: to get it. Um. Same for that lady, I mean,
Speaker 1: you have to have if the government was a person,
Speaker 1: if the government was that lady, the government has to
Speaker 1: make that choice. One side would choose fracking, one side
Speaker 1: would choose you know, butterfly preserve um. Even for the
Speaker 1: government fracking money, you know, national monument costs um and
Speaker 1: there are some so there's both signs of that. And
Speaker 1: it's hard because like how do you how do you
Speaker 1: how do we you know, you and I have our
Speaker 1: own set of ideals and experiences and and uh kind
Speaker 1: of intuitions, like how do you put a value? Like
Speaker 1: how do how It's hard, like how do you judge that?
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, how do you judge the Native
Speaker 1: Alaskan who is advocating for a road to be built
Speaker 1: to there their remote village that goes through Caribou migrant
Speaker 1: myer tree grounds, and they're gallon of milk is gonna
Speaker 1: go from twelve bucks a gallon to three because they
Speaker 1: can drive in the nine hours to Fairbanks. You know,
Speaker 1: like how it's it's tough. I could see it both ways.
Speaker 1: I can see, I can see like the history of
Speaker 1: I can see one way saying we don't need any
Speaker 1: more roads, right, because if you follow that one guy's
Speaker 1: line of thinking, I need a road to make my milk.
Speaker 1: If everybody's milk gets cheaper, our landscapes get destroyed. We
Speaker 1: have flying cars. See call in. I know there's no
Speaker 1: calling away, but right in write me a letter like
Speaker 1: flying car guy, I need you. But do you think
Speaker 1: of flying cars there would be no roads or would
Speaker 1: there be like count floating cones then by flying cones,
Speaker 1: but then they would probably run on the batteries and
Speaker 1: they'd crash in the water and then pollute the water. Right,
Speaker 1: the floating cones to run on some sort of biodiesel
Speaker 1: ship say or something. Anyway, if we said, hey, guy,
Speaker 1: you need cheaper milk. We're gonna do that for you.
Speaker 1: That's your choice. We're gonna we're gonna make that. If
Speaker 1: every guy that needs cheaper milk gets a road, then
Speaker 1: our environment fucking loses. But if every road doesn't get built,
Speaker 1: then the people that rely on that environment lose. So
Speaker 1: shitty situation. Well, so it makes me think about you know,
Speaker 1: Wilson's half first hYP hypothesis. You know, Wilson's probably the
Speaker 1: most famous in my nerdy opinion, extant living conservation biologist.
Speaker 1: He's a Harvard professor emeritus, just total legend. He one
Speaker 1: of his theories is that in order for humanity to
Speaker 1: exist long term, we need to set aside half of
Speaker 1: the planet for wildlife and and ecosystems. He thinks there's
Speaker 1: hope with that mindset. I think it's a pretty awesome idea.
Speaker 1: With that mindset, you know, we'd look at the guy
Speaker 1: who wants cheaper milk, and we look at the other
Speaker 1: dude who wants cheaper milk, and we'd say, what is
Speaker 1: the ecological value and what is the impact the net impact?
Speaker 1: So me personally, and maybe I'll get hate mail for this.
Speaker 1: I see the bearsiest thing which is important and has
Speaker 1: the out of value placed. But if we took all
Speaker 1: that inertia that was being put into saving a monument
Speaker 1: that has mining operation and grazing operations and recreation and
Speaker 1: cars and roads and a lot of impact, we took
Speaker 1: all that inertia and applied it towards anwar the Arctic
Speaker 1: National Wildlife Refuge or to the National Oil and Gas
Speaker 1: Refuge Reserve, which is next to Animar, which is the
Speaker 1: largest piece of public land in America. It's the most
Speaker 1: remote that there is a place in that in that
Speaker 1: reserve that is more remote than then certainly Elstone, but
Speaker 1: it's the most remote place in America. We should put
Speaker 1: all of that energy into saving that place because the
Speaker 1: ecological system there is pretty pristine and there's a lot
Speaker 1: to save. So it's easy, I think for folks to
Speaker 1: get drawn into these clickbait wolves. It all funk at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we just seem to be I think. I think
Speaker 1: the move is to be thoughtful to say like, hey, look,
Speaker 1: if we're gonna save something, we can't begin to compare
Speaker 1: bears ears to an war totally different things. What's our
Speaker 1: goal for goal? Saving ecosystems? We've got to save Annir
Speaker 1: for our goals to honor and preserve Native American culture.
Speaker 1: Already that up, already sucked that up. But that's obviously
Speaker 1: something that's a little bit more. And maybe I'm not
Speaker 1: even to say that, but it seems like that's a
Speaker 1: big part of the Bears Ears. Yes, for sure it is. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard to draw the comparison, but way high level,
Speaker 1: the fracking lady in Texas is making some at some
Speaker 1: level of the same decision that our country or government
Speaker 1: is making on that landscape. Do we take the stuff
Speaker 1: out we want and possibly harm this place and profit
Speaker 1: from it as society, or do we leave it? Um,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting one. And so for half Earth, do
Speaker 1: we get to go to the other half and hunt? No,
Speaker 1: we do? Uh VR virtariality. Google with the little goggles
Speaker 1: don't like that. I don't know. I think I think
Speaker 1: that you yeah, I don't know. It remains to be seen,
Speaker 1: But I think the idea of sustainable hunting, sustainable eco tourism.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just like you see these people with
Speaker 1: photos of of the whale sharks. You know, there are
Speaker 1: examples of eco tourism, opportunity to see whale sharks that
Speaker 1: I think have a pretty low impact, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of opportunities, like in the Philippines where they're just
Speaker 1: dumping dried shrimp in the water and there's eighty boats
Speaker 1: and the whale sharks are not kind of stoked. So
Speaker 1: there's good and there's bad examples. And I think just
Speaker 1: back to hunting, you know, like there are more white
Speaker 1: tailed deer in America today than there ever have been.
Speaker 1: To kill a white tailed deer is a if that's
Speaker 1: something that's available to you, and you have the means
Speaker 1: to do it, and you're interested in you eat meat
Speaker 1: that is, you cannot argue the net impact of that harvest,
Speaker 1: and what you would gain from just the cal caloric
Speaker 1: standpoint is far better than definitely ordering meat from getting
Speaker 1: meat from the market, and in some cases buying app
Speaker 1: It's like, if you don't live in California in the fall,
Speaker 1: you're getting apples from Washington shipped from California Chile. If
Speaker 1: it's if it's you know, the winter, I mean think
Speaker 1: about that, you're getting an apple that's grown probably with pesticides,
Speaker 1: on an ecosystem far away, put on a plane flown
Speaker 1: to you some cases wrapped in plastic. You know, I mean,
Speaker 1: and it's all about I think, looking at what's available.
Speaker 1: Like I felt so honored and lucky able to harvest
Speaker 1: that elk, because not only do I have you know,
Speaker 1: well over a hundred pounds of meat, but there's all
Speaker 1: the benefits of realizing that, like I shot that less
Speaker 1: than an hour from my house. It was butchered by
Speaker 1: my fiance's uncle. Ah, it's that animal lives an amazing
Speaker 1: life in public land. It died quickly, and it's kept
Speaker 1: me fed, my friends fed, and it's been this amazing,
Speaker 1: amazing reminder of like how that little unit, which is
Speaker 1: not a national park, not a state park, not a
Speaker 1: national monument. Frankly it looks like nothing from the trail,
Speaker 1: is my favorite piece of public land in America. And
Speaker 1: if that place was going to be destroyed or impacted,
Speaker 1: or if there were some threat, I and probably a
Speaker 1: bunch of other people would be out there. Yeah, you know. Well,
Speaker 1: and honey, I think is like to me the outside world,
Speaker 1: if the outside world was a swimming pool, if you
Speaker 1: go climb, it's like, yeah, sitting up to your waist,
Speaker 1: you're in it. Yeah you're not really in it. I
Speaker 1: really don't like you're in it, honey, is like diving in,
Speaker 1: Like now you're in it. Now you're part of the
Speaker 1: give and take. Now you're part of all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And then you dive in, you're dawn. I want to
Speaker 1: swim deeper, ship, I gotta swim even more deeper now
Speaker 1: I can just I don't even need to breathe anymore.
Speaker 1: This is just the way I am, And I like,
Speaker 1: that's why it's so different for people. If you've never
Speaker 1: dipped your toe in that pool. Diving in seems like
Speaker 1: a long ways away from just like, oh, that's nice.
Speaker 1: And that's why you said, like as as ambassadors for
Speaker 1: the outdoors, place like Yellowstone are important for people to
Speaker 1: be like, well, that's cool, that's an elk, and then
Speaker 1: conversations like this one. Oh man, all right, I could
Speaker 1: kill that elk, but I could still have compassion and
Speaker 1: care for it, and they could be nuanced. M okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I might try that, And then that person goes
Speaker 1: and tries and they they teach that method to their kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe maybe the modern sport hunter just had
Speaker 1: it wrong for the beginning, Like maybe the modern sport
Speaker 1: hunter somewhere in the forties of the fifties fucked it up,
Speaker 1: and there was a hole legacy of my grandfather and
Speaker 1: my father teaching me a way that wasn't sustainable for
Speaker 1: now totally. And I think not their fault, by the way.
Speaker 1: I love you, Dad, and I'm sure there's things that
Speaker 1: we're thinking now that aren't sustainable for the future even then.
Speaker 1: But like somewhere along the way we made a pool
Speaker 1: seemed like it was not you know it was, it
Speaker 1: wasn't very swimmable. We made it seem to the regular
Speaker 1: person who's never been in it. I don't know where
Speaker 1: that happened. Well, I think that's the beauty of like history, right,
Speaker 1: like hindsight. Foresight's a lot less than that, you know,
Speaker 1: And to your point, I think back then, like you
Speaker 1: can't necessarily blame the trappers. My grandfather hunted wolves because
Speaker 1: there was a bounding on him and he was a
Speaker 1: Harvard trained forester. He loved the woods as much as anybody.
Speaker 1: I don't think he would have thought in fifty years
Speaker 1: you would have an environmental situation like we have today.
Speaker 1: There's also I think a point worth making, which is
Speaker 1: that the currency that the hunting community or the outdoor community,
Speaker 1: or the wildlife active you know, advocacy community, the current
Speaker 1: the the outstanding currency I think could be improved. Whether
Speaker 1: it's the outdoor space too. To offer praise around athletic
Speaker 1: feet is worthy, but I think there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of room for stewardship as well. The hunting space, the adventure,
Speaker 1: the hunt is what draws a lot of people into
Speaker 1: that world that gets them to dive in. Often times
Speaker 1: the hunt is take is given a back seat to
Speaker 1: the trophy shot. The trophy shots can be done across
Speaker 1: the spectrum of could have done better and pretty mindful,
Speaker 1: I think. And what excites me about working, you know,
Speaker 1: with working being an editor, modern huntsman, being a conservation
Speaker 1: advisor at SITKA, is that there is an opportunity to
Speaker 1: place value on a new model of currency, to say
Speaker 1: that we as people in the industry, as people in
Speaker 1: your community, as your neighbors, as people who are interested
Speaker 1: in care about the things you're interested in care about,
Speaker 1: we value this type of narrative. We value this type
Speaker 1: of curiosity, this type of hunt, this approach to storytelling.
Speaker 1: And I think through that our kids and our grandkids
Speaker 1: might be able to look back and say, like that
Speaker 1: was pretty cool, you know, they like pushed the needle
Speaker 1: in the cool direction because we have so much knowledge
Speaker 1: and so much so many resources that our grandparents just
Speaker 1: didn't have. Yeah. Yeah, you know in the internet, for one,
Speaker 1: invented it. Yeah, thanks al, you know. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: wouldn't never be to say that it never is foolish
Speaker 1: to think like we're somehow better than them. It's not
Speaker 1: the case. The case is the way the world in
Speaker 1: society has shifted. Maybe the place we started wasn't the
Speaker 1: right place for the shift that happened. Doesn't mean anything
Speaker 1: along that way was done, you know, with ill intent
Speaker 1: or whatever like that. But I do think that's UM
Speaker 1: a huge part of this conversation and and points well made.
Speaker 1: And I think we've we've on an hour and forty
Speaker 1: six minutes. Somewhere. My child is in Bozeman crying eating
Speaker 1: its third kind of ice cream. That's right, he was
Speaker 1: getting pizza. I think that wasn't Yeah, but anyway, UM,
Speaker 1: check out all of sikest conservation projects. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff we're working on. Read Modern Huntsman. Read
Speaker 1: Modern Huntsman. UM watch for these films that are coming
Speaker 1: out on wild horses and also on sheep in Texas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks to you helped us out with that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: did you? Eddie sponsored that? Yeah, all kinds of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can learn more about my nerdy escapades Charles
Speaker 1: Post trails Underscore post on Instagram. I mean it's not
Speaker 1: I mean, for a nerd, you're pretty cool. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Thanks, You're no problem. It's funny because
Speaker 1: I took Rachel. I played I have a film, Sky Immigrations.
Speaker 1: It's done the band world tour and uh wild and
Speaker 1: seeing a few others you know, played at Berkeley, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I got to take her to
Speaker 1: my like and I took I walked her to the
Speaker 1: library's racist study because those are my favorite places, like,
Speaker 1: oh that was my desk. Anyway, don't make fun of me.
Speaker 1: If you shoul listen to this. She was like, well,
Speaker 1: thanks for towards the library. Let's get out of it.
Speaker 1: We are you gonna take me next? The other Ali
Speaker 1: bar cool man? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thanks for having
Speaker 1: stoke for neighbors. We are cups and string or walkie talking. Hey, um,
Speaker 1: breaking news. I'm moving to Bozeman. It's awesome. Don't move here.
Speaker 1: Don't move here. Nobody else. Okay, bye, that's it. That
Speaker 1: is all episode number twenty of the books. So thank
Speaker 1: you to Rachel and Charles having me onto their place
Speaker 1: in Boza, Montana, and to Charles especially for the great conversation.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you will continue to follow Charles look him up
Speaker 1: on Instagram, look at look up. All his media projects
Speaker 1: and film projects, all those are worthy of your time
Speaker 1: if you're a hunter. He's got a perspective of EA
Speaker 1: and he could be a true conservation of bastard and
Speaker 1: true and bad stroop for science based conservation as well.
Speaker 1: Until next time, for episode number twenty one, will be
Speaker 1: joined by Sam Sohol and Jason Matt Singer. Go to
Speaker 1: the Honey Collective dot com. There's articles there in this podcast.
Speaker 1: There all kind of stuff there that you can go.
Speaker 1: Take a look at the last couple of podcasts from
Speaker 1: Ben shed Crazy, Dantha Monte and others. So enjoy those
Speaker 1: and we'll see you next week.