Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome the episode number seven of the un Collective.
Speaker 1: Once again, I've been O'Brien, and today I am joined
Speaker 1: by Charles Post. I don't know what you really say
Speaker 1: about Charles Post other than he's not the normal hunter.
Speaker 1: He's not the normal hunting industry professional. He's a u. C.
Speaker 1: Berkeley training ecologist, storyteller, filmmaker and author, scientist, somebody who
Speaker 1: studies the natural world, who studies animals and understands how
Speaker 1: they work and how we can all better them. But
Speaker 1: he also goes hunting too. He's not he's not a
Speaker 1: complete rookie in the game. He lives in Bozeman, Montana.
Speaker 1: He works with Sitka. He works as a editor for
Speaker 1: the new magazine Modern Huntsman. He's really becoming a pretty
Speaker 1: important voice in the hunting world from his purchase as
Speaker 1: somebody who has a lot of science his knowledge of
Speaker 1: the outside world. So it was a fun conversation with Charles.
Speaker 1: He is enlightened in a lot of ways that I
Speaker 1: am not, So it was fun to talk to him
Speaker 1: about some of his philosophies and how he came up
Speaker 1: about conservation, about conservation history, about the outdoor recreation community,
Speaker 1: and their relationship with hunters, and then it's just about
Speaker 1: how we think about our pursuits going outside. So hopefully
Speaker 1: this is another great conversation that you will enjoy. Is
Speaker 1: a part of this grander scheme of the Hunting collect
Speaker 1: Episode number seven on tap Enjoy, Charles, how's it going good?
Speaker 1: I always like to start this thing out by describing
Speaker 1: where I am, or where we are, or where you are.
Speaker 1: But in this case, I am in sunny Austin, Texas,
Speaker 1: and I imagine you are in less sunny Bozeman. Is
Speaker 1: that right? That's pretty close to it. It's spring actually
Speaker 1: showed up here probably about two weeks ago, so it's sunny.
Speaker 1: It's there's more sun, which is nice. It's been a cold,
Speaker 1: dark winter. Yeah, what what is that? I mean, there
Speaker 1: is barely any winter here. If it's thirty two degrees
Speaker 1: in Austin, they shut the schools down. How you enjoying
Speaker 1: the Montana winter? The Montana Winner has been awesome. I
Speaker 1: really I think I've fallen more in love with the
Speaker 1: season as it kind of marched on. It's that they
Speaker 1: say it's one of the harshest winners in the last
Speaker 1: twenty years, so we've had quite a bit of snow.
Speaker 1: It started really falling in September, and it's snow to
Speaker 1: two or three days ago, so it's definitely still here.
Speaker 1: And everybody who grew up in in Bozeman talks about
Speaker 1: these these false springs. You know, you you pull your
Speaker 1: your shorts and your running shoes out, and then you
Speaker 1: get a few days of sun and you kind of
Speaker 1: get tricked into thinking and is gonna warm up? And
Speaker 1: then it snows again for a week. So I'm trying
Speaker 1: not to uh look too far ahead down the calendar,
Speaker 1: but the few days of sun and forty three weather,
Speaker 1: I've been a really nice reprieve and um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been awesome. You know, I grew up in northern California,
Speaker 1: so I haven't this is my first year living in
Speaker 1: a proper snowy, snowy environment, and uh that was my Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was my next line of thought was you're in
Speaker 1: a coologist that grew up in California and this is
Speaker 1: you're and you're bearing the Montana winter. Yeah it's um,
Speaker 1: it's been different. You know. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I love about California, Northern California in particular, is that
Speaker 1: I can go walk through most of the ecosystems and
Speaker 1: have a pretty good understanding of when I'm looking at,
Speaker 1: you know, the plants and animals and the geology, and
Speaker 1: you know, I just I spent a lot of my
Speaker 1: life out there getting familiar with those places. So it's
Speaker 1: been really fun coming to Montana and not only having
Speaker 1: to you know, learn a whole suite of new plants
Speaker 1: and animals, but also, yeah, I just kind of seeing
Speaker 1: how the seasons progress, and I really I really love
Speaker 1: the really distinct seasons. You know, Fall has a real
Speaker 1: distinct feeling, and winter certainly does, and spring you get
Speaker 1: this kind of incredible proliferation of flowers, which you know,
Speaker 1: mostly new flowers, you know for me, and and then
Speaker 1: summers just you know, a whole different experience because there's
Speaker 1: no ocean, so you know, you're trying to find a
Speaker 1: river a lake to cool offen. Um. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's been it's been wonderful. I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: greatest things about Montana just how much wildlife there is. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. So I've been enjoying that. I was
Speaker 1: reading a little bit about your background and know of
Speaker 1: of your work a good bit and the first thing
Speaker 1: that came to my mind was what was it like
Speaker 1: to study ecology at u C. Berkeley, Because I just
Speaker 1: I've been listening to a lot of different podcasts and
Speaker 1: hearing a lot about how, you know, what the tenor
Speaker 1: is now in these college campuses and how it is
Speaker 1: changed a lot. But but studying what you did at
Speaker 1: the place that you did, I'd just be interested to know,
Speaker 1: as someone who's never been to that area the world's
Speaker 1: like to study what you studied at you see Berkeley, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you see Berkeley is a pretty pretty awesome
Speaker 1: place to to study ecology for a few reasons, and
Speaker 1: one is that the the university was founded as a
Speaker 1: as a land grant university, so you know, some of
Speaker 1: the first kind of areas of focus were grazing and
Speaker 1: forestry and and resource management. So there's definitely a pretty rich,
Speaker 1: pretty much history of of of yeah, that type of research,
Speaker 1: and some really uh celebrated people came out of Berkeley,
Speaker 1: like Joseph Cornell and Luna Leopold out of Leopold's son,
Speaker 1: So it was it was awesome because I was I
Speaker 1: was being by people who had learned from some of
Speaker 1: the kind of forefathers of wildlife, ecology and conservation you
Speaker 1: know today or when I was there, and you know
Speaker 1: the ten I finished undergraduate there in two thousand and fifteen,
Speaker 1: I finished graduate school there. It's changed a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: the barrier has a ton of people, but there's still
Speaker 1: that kind of undercurrent of of conservation, you know, history,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's kind of peppered throughout some of the buildings,
Speaker 1: and uh, some of the old time professors are still there.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was it was perfect for me. You know,
Speaker 1: I grew up just about an hour west of there,
Speaker 1: UM where there's a lot of open space. You know,
Speaker 1: you have the fair Lands National Marine Refuge. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: right off shore, you have Point Raised National Seashore and
Speaker 1: there's all this public land. So it was a nice
Speaker 1: like juxtaposition of of kind of this semi urban campus experience,
Speaker 1: you know, and then a lot of open space nearby UM.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, generally the ecology department there
Speaker 1: is considered one of the top ones in the country,
Speaker 1: especially amongst the public schools. So one of the things
Speaker 1: I loved about it was that I was rubbing shoulders
Speaker 1: with with kids and peers from all over the world. Um.
Speaker 1: And I was exposed to so many different perspectives and topics,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was a really transformative experience because
Speaker 1: you know, you look at the courses that are available
Speaker 1: in any given semester and you could learn about honey
Speaker 1: bees from one of the best honeybee experts, or wildlife
Speaker 1: biology from a you know, really celebrated wildlife biologists, and
Speaker 1: you know, and you could really go down these rabbit holes,
Speaker 1: which is a young kind of hungry student. It's just
Speaker 1: there's nothing better than having options and and feeling like
Speaker 1: if you if you something sparks your curiosity, there's a
Speaker 1: place to go run with it. Um. Yeah. And it
Speaker 1: was you know, it was there that I fell in
Speaker 1: love with science and also realized that that you could
Speaker 1: make a living being a scientist. You know, that's you
Speaker 1: think about like bring your parents to school day when
Speaker 1: you're an elementary school and I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but there were no ecologist dads or moms that that
Speaker 1: came in. Um. So yeah. So it's kind of one
Speaker 1: of those things where you know, I think a college
Speaker 1: or a good mentor a good professor, they kind of
Speaker 1: impress upon you that idea that it is a career.
Speaker 1: And I think what kind of hooked me was a
Speaker 1: certain presentation where this you know, it was it was
Speaker 1: the first day of school and it was a fish
Speaker 1: ecology course and this professor named Stephanie Carlson walked in
Speaker 1: and she was probably in her early thirties at the time,
Speaker 1: and she was just so passionate, so energetic, so just relatable.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes there's there's a there's a better fit
Speaker 1: to being that kind of old seasoned scientists, and there's
Speaker 1: something to be said for those young kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: energetic scientists, and and she was. She was the ladder.
Speaker 1: And she showed us some pictures of her graduate research
Speaker 1: where she was with a bunch of young people in
Speaker 1: Alaska studying salmon, and she explained how you can live
Speaker 1: at research stations and conduct this research, and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of the light bulbon off, and I realized that
Speaker 1: you could actually make a career basically just walking around
Speaker 1: the woods, are you know, any ecosystem with the clipboard
Speaker 1: and binoculars and and study these places and and make
Speaker 1: a living out of it. So I think Berkeley, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that it planted that seed. So yeah, you're a professional
Speaker 1: hunter without any without any weaponry. Yeah, I mean our tools, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a pencil and binoculars and some write in the
Speaker 1: rain notebooks. Um yeah, what are the major like I
Speaker 1: know you go through is many years studying as you
Speaker 1: as you did there, Um, what are the major philosophies
Speaker 1: that you came out of of that with when it
Speaker 1: in regards to wild life and you know, our cohabitation
Speaker 1: and some of the things, you know we talked about
Speaker 1: in the hunting world. Where their philosophies that you carried
Speaker 1: out of there that have that have really stuck with
Speaker 1: you or that that you think people should should know
Speaker 1: from from that time. Yeah, I think you know, as
Speaker 1: an undergrad, I think I kinda fell in love with
Speaker 1: with with science, and then as a graduate student at
Speaker 1: UC Berkeley, working with a lot of the same professors,
Speaker 1: I really developed kind of the the staples for being
Speaker 1: a good scientist. And when you talked about philosophy, one
Speaker 1: of the things that my graduate advisor, her name's Dr
Speaker 1: Mary Power, she impressed, you know, upon the importance of
Speaker 1: collecting notes and making observations and growing up you know,
Speaker 1: surfing and kind of spending time outside at it. It
Speaker 1: kind of added another layer to that experience. Because she
Speaker 1: taught us, and I came to realize that if you
Speaker 1: really want to be a good ecologist, you need to
Speaker 1: master the craft of observing and taking notes and noticing
Speaker 1: trends and then figuring out ways to put numbers to
Speaker 1: those observations so you can use math to predict or
Speaker 1: understand you know more about them. And for a few years,
Speaker 1: as when I was working as a as a field
Speaker 1: scientist and a graduate school, I mean, we're taking notes
Speaker 1: every day throughout the day, and it's something that I
Speaker 1: think is really shaped the way I see the world
Speaker 1: today and shaped a lot of the ways that I
Speaker 1: approach you know, storytelling or different topics and conservation the outdoors,
Speaker 1: because so often people qualify your time outside by miles hiked,
Speaker 1: days spent camping, or you know, distance climbed or speed
Speaker 1: you know over which you covered ground, And in science,
Speaker 1: the metric of success is how well you observes a place,
Speaker 1: how well you understand a place, And I think there's
Speaker 1: just such a huge difference between being a speed hiker
Speaker 1: or you know, climb up a mountain really quickly and
Speaker 1: really knowing that place, knowing the rhythms of the place,
Speaker 1: understanding the patterns and the discrepancies that make a place unique.
Speaker 1: So I think that philosophy is really just to be
Speaker 1: an observer, and I learned that early on, and I
Speaker 1: think that's become kind of a north star of sorts
Speaker 1: as of kind of moved along in time. That's interesting
Speaker 1: that I find that, you know, I don't often go
Speaker 1: outside with the clipboard, um pen or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I wish I did. In fact, a lot
Speaker 1: of times I wish I did, because there's just things
Speaker 1: that you s maybe you don't understand even in the moment,
Speaker 1: that that strike you as odd or strike you is compelling,
Speaker 1: that you may if you're hunting, you may walk right
Speaker 1: past that seen or that that animal, or that you know,
Speaker 1: whatever is happening there that that you would you may
Speaker 1: look further into as in a collegist, but as a
Speaker 1: really anybody going outside or even as a hunter, you
Speaker 1: walk right past because you're tunnel focused on on your
Speaker 1: end goal. Um is there, you know, as you become
Speaker 1: We'll get into a little bit of your your hunting
Speaker 1: life later and how kind of how things have gone recently.
Speaker 1: But have you any advice for any for for hunters
Speaker 1: or folks that might be listening to anybody on how
Speaker 1: to really nail down your observations in the outside world
Speaker 1: and make them connect. Yeah. I mean one of the
Speaker 1: things when I was in grad school, um, I was
Speaker 1: teaching a field biology course for a few years, and
Speaker 1: one of the things that always do with my students.
Speaker 1: Most of them were freshmen or sophomore. A lot of
Speaker 1: them are premed, so they hadn't actually, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: taking an ecology course. This is generally their first time
Speaker 1: really getting out in the field. And what I would
Speaker 1: always do is bring them out into a you know,
Speaker 1: a wild setting or you know, somewhere kind of away
Speaker 1: from traffic, and you know, we'd go on a hike
Speaker 1: or go out to some of the regional parks up
Speaker 1: in the Berkeley Hills, and I would just kind of
Speaker 1: put them out there and say, sit down for fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes and just listen. Just sit against a tree and
Speaker 1: just observe. And it's amazing how much you can glean
Speaker 1: from a place by just actually shutting off the outside
Speaker 1: world and focusing on what you hear and what you
Speaker 1: see and those little subtleties, and to see them come back.
Speaker 1: We'd sit in a circle and everybody kind of share
Speaker 1: their observation. I think when you hear fifteen people's unique
Speaker 1: obs rations about one place, you start to realize how
Speaker 1: much you miss. When you're running through a place or
Speaker 1: just focused on one thing, whether it's your bird watching,
Speaker 1: you're you're looking for sheds, or you're looking for elk,
Speaker 1: you know, you miss so many other little bits and
Speaker 1: pieces that make up the ecosystem. And I think for
Speaker 1: you know, hunters, or you know, anybody listening, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that that maybe they already do.
Speaker 1: But what I would suggest is, you know, go to
Speaker 1: the places that you love and bring a pair of
Speaker 1: binoculars and and really just sit and look for everything
Speaker 1: but elk, or look for everything but dear, and start
Speaker 1: to piece together the kind of missing threads that make
Speaker 1: that place that you love so much and and are
Speaker 1: drawn to, you know, all the more relatable. And you
Speaker 1: know what my advisor told me, Mary Powers, that you know,
Speaker 1: in thirty years of observing a place, you can really
Speaker 1: start to understand how it changes, or how it how
Speaker 1: it moves through time, through the seasons. And you know
Speaker 1: what supports that idea is that if you look at
Speaker 1: all the science papers out there the ones that are
Speaker 1: really informing us about how our planets changing, or how
Speaker 1: a place has changed from development or from some sort
Speaker 1: of policy or management. Are these ten twenty thirty year
Speaker 1: data sets? You know, you're not gonna there's there's no
Speaker 1: science papers out there that are changing the way we
Speaker 1: understand the world with two years of data or three
Speaker 1: years of data. You know, these are ten decade long
Speaker 1: data sets. And when you have that much data, then
Speaker 1: you can really start to see something clearly. And I
Speaker 1: think just applying you know, that simple you know, act
Speaker 1: of observing regularly over time just will help you become
Speaker 1: more familiar with the place and you know, allow you
Speaker 1: to better understand how animals are changing, your trails are changing,
Speaker 1: or have vegetations changing, which might then inform the way
Speaker 1: that you move about the land or or pursue certain animals,
Speaker 1: or or just kind of you know, how you experienced
Speaker 1: that place. Um, you know, and binoculars obviously a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, most hunters have a good pair of binoculars.
Speaker 1: But another thing that I've done, which is super nerdy
Speaker 1: and probably people will laugh at when they hear me
Speaker 1: say this out loud, but I'm totally up for it.
Speaker 1: Um is you know, get like a little zoom mike,
Speaker 1: you know, just like a little recorder, plug in your
Speaker 1: headphones and turn up the volume and go out in
Speaker 1: the woods and just turn up the volume. And you
Speaker 1: can hear so much that you never would have heard
Speaker 1: because our ears just don't pick it up. You know,
Speaker 1: the super high and the super low sounds that our
Speaker 1: ears can't you know, literally are not able to pick up,
Speaker 1: you will hear. And it just adds this incredibly rich
Speaker 1: kind of layer to a place. Um. Yeah, people might
Speaker 1: make fun of you for walking around the forest with
Speaker 1: phones and a little record. Man, you're describing very very
Speaker 1: hippie ideas. Here a circle describe describe what you see
Speaker 1: hold up for a quarter. But I I would be
Speaker 1: totally down for that. And a good example of that
Speaker 1: is sitting in a turkey blind in Florida a couple
Speaker 1: of days ago. Well, we had a couple of rookie
Speaker 1: hunters in there, and um, they kind of wouldn't shut
Speaker 1: up the whole time, and I had to tell him, hey,
Speaker 1: listen and here's what to listen for as a turkey hunter.
Speaker 1: Listen for an owl, listen for a crow, and listen
Speaker 1: for thunder. I mean, these are things that all might
Speaker 1: end in a turkey gobble, and even just that small
Speaker 1: realization to them that if you listen, you might not
Speaker 1: hear a gobble every time, but you might understand what
Speaker 1: what evokes a gobble, or what proceeds one or what
Speaker 1: follows wanted understand what it all means a little bit more,
Speaker 1: or just observing a hen with a lone hen walking
Speaker 1: around a food plot, I can tell you a lot
Speaker 1: about turkeys and their mannerisms. Yeah, you're exactly right, and
Speaker 1: that that was just a bunch of hunters. I wondered
Speaker 1: how much I would know about crow behavior, our behavior
Speaker 1: in the turkey woods if it wasn't for turkeys. But
Speaker 1: I certainly know as much as as anybody would know
Speaker 1: about how that would relate to turkeys. Maybe not the
Speaker 1: entire ecosystem, but but it's a start. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think that's you know, so much of it. There's a
Speaker 1: there's a book that really inspired me called The Great
Speaker 1: Animal Orchestra by a guy named Bernie Krauss, highly recommended,
Speaker 1: and it's all about the ecology of sound and what
Speaker 1: he argues, which I believe, and I think the science
Speaker 1: community at large is is accepting, is that we can
Speaker 1: go do a walk through a forest with a bunch
Speaker 1: of biologists, right and you know, you have a bird
Speaker 1: biologist and a tree biologists, and you know somebody who's
Speaker 1: a specialist on mammals, and we can get our clipboards
Speaker 1: and make our observations and and do our best to
Speaker 1: do a survey of the wildlife and the vegetative community,
Speaker 1: and we'll come back and collect that data. You can
Speaker 1: then go through that same ecosystem with precise audio equipment
Speaker 1: and you will pick up so much more than our
Speaker 1: eyes ever will. So what he presents in this book
Speaker 1: is this idea that for example, a case study he
Speaker 1: uses is that you know, sometimes people will come into
Speaker 1: a forest and say, we're gonna do selective logging. We're
Speaker 1: gonna pull fifteen trees out of this place, and it's
Speaker 1: not going to have any impact, will be supersensitive. We'll
Speaker 1: do it in this way, in that way to ensure
Speaker 1: that you know that the community at large is protected.
Speaker 1: And he has amazing before and after audio data. You know,
Speaker 1: if you look at a an acoustic sonograph and you
Speaker 1: can see all the different calls of all the different birds,
Speaker 1: you can actually visually, there might be no difference. You
Speaker 1: look at that that soundscape, and there's a really distinct difference. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of interesting because you know, eyes only
Speaker 1: tell us so much, but like you're saying, our ears
Speaker 1: are such a big part of that as well. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things you'll never you'll never see,
Speaker 1: but you'll hear. And he points out, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: we should listen more closely, um, if we really hope
Speaker 1: to understand how these ecosystems are changing or how we're
Speaker 1: affecting them. But it's pretty cool book, it's a great point.
Speaker 1: We'll check that out. Um. As you're talking, I was
Speaker 1: just thinking about your point about thirty years of data
Speaker 1: really having a total taring, like a total effect on
Speaker 1: how we think, Like we're not we can't really make
Speaker 1: any decisions or assumptions about how we affect the natural
Speaker 1: world in such a short time. And you think about
Speaker 1: the idea of conservation in America, it's not that old.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's three times thirty maybe, UM, a little
Speaker 1: bit more than that. I mean, at the turn of
Speaker 1: the century we really started to see those id he
Speaker 1: is codifying and becoming a thing. You know, what's your
Speaker 1: idea of of our model conservation and it's relatively young,
Speaker 1: the grand scheme of the natural world, And as an ecologist,
Speaker 1: do you look at the act differently or the plan differently,
Speaker 1: or the way that we have set this all up
Speaker 1: in North America or at least in the States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great question. I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the recurring thoughts to have about the North
Speaker 1: American model and conservation in general, is that we have
Speaker 1: to think about the landscape of conservation and the currency
Speaker 1: of conservation, and for better or for worse, if you're
Speaker 1: a scientist, your currency is publishing a paper, and a
Speaker 1: lot of papers rely on data sets that are collected
Speaker 1: over a PhD or a master's degree, or over a
Speaker 1: ten year which you know, maybe you work for a
Speaker 1: certain department for eight or ten years. Um. So the
Speaker 1: way that we're managing wildlife are oftentimes informed by these
Speaker 1: shorter data sets, which in some cases the best we
Speaker 1: can do. But I think it's important to to just
Speaker 1: keep in mind that if we're looking at a place
Speaker 1: and over the course of ten years, we might be
Speaker 1: missing a lot. And especially now with the way are
Speaker 1: you know, planets changing from development and different kind of
Speaker 1: human and influenced pressures. We can't forget that twenty years
Speaker 1: from now is going to be very different than twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. And instead of thinking about conservation or goals
Speaker 1: and a static sense you know, this is our goal
Speaker 1: and wants to accomplish it, we're good, you know, we
Speaker 1: need to, I think, look at conservation metrics in a
Speaker 1: very plastic way, you know, we need to look at
Speaker 1: them as benchmarks that have a plus or mindus, like
Speaker 1: a standard deviation, right, like the room to wiggle. Because
Speaker 1: the second we wrap our hearts and minds around a
Speaker 1: very static, singular goal, we basically lose sight of the
Speaker 1: fact that ecosystems change in time. They're constantly changing, whether
Speaker 1: it's succession or whether it's humans. You know, like a
Speaker 1: mountain range could be free of jeep roads today and
Speaker 1: in two years there's gonna be a jeep road going
Speaker 1: through it, and that's going to totally change the way
Speaker 1: wildlife move about the land and the way that our
Speaker 1: impact exists or doesn't exist on the land. So I
Speaker 1: think one of the things to consider, you know, when
Speaker 1: we talk about wildlife, we talk about um bag limits
Speaker 1: or or seasons is that ten years from now is
Speaker 1: gonna be very different than today. And I think it's just, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's important to to not only plan ahead and realize
Speaker 1: there's some unknown but also realized that conservation exists on
Speaker 1: a metric of of of good and could be better,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think it's always room to improve
Speaker 1: um and also that conservation. People will talk about conservation
Speaker 1: north America, are conservation in Canada? Are conservation in Africa.
Speaker 1: Conservation exists, in my opinion, on a specific place in
Speaker 1: a specific time, and oftentimes they're not comparable to one another.
Speaker 1: You know, Texas Conservations is inherently different than Idaho. Idaho
Speaker 1: is different than Alberta. Alberta is different than Kenya. Kenya
Speaker 1: is different than Zibabwe. So you see these headlines or
Speaker 1: some of these kind of you know, kind of far
Speaker 1: reaching assumptions or claims, and I think it just takes
Speaker 1: away from the beauty of science, right like or a
Speaker 1: or a wildlife manager. You know, these people are experts
Speaker 1: in their population, in their park, in their region, and
Speaker 1: they're part of the state um and the realities on
Speaker 1: the ground are all very different. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: think you can have these overarching models of conservation. But
Speaker 1: I think it's really important to consider that, you know,
Speaker 1: Eastern Montana is very different in Western Montana. Um and
Speaker 1: wildlife and conservation succession to be looked at through that
Speaker 1: particular lens. Yeah, I think that's important. And you know,
Speaker 1: in our model conservation, that's what they say states control
Speaker 1: the wildlife and and science controls the quotas and how
Speaker 1: we how we manage those things, which which always made
Speaker 1: a lot of sense to me, and I think inside
Speaker 1: of that model, the federal government plays a pretty good,
Speaker 1: pretty good role, one to to manage the funds that
Speaker 1: come from some of the resources that we put into it,
Speaker 1: but then also to manage our public lands and make
Speaker 1: sure those places are there for everybody, um in a
Speaker 1: way that that we know only they can. So that's
Speaker 1: those are those are good points. Do you imagine the
Speaker 1: term conservation will shift over time? I mean, really a
Speaker 1: good example I think it is probably the wild turkey
Speaker 1: or even the white tailed deer. I mean, the n
Speaker 1: w t F kind of came of age. National Turkey
Speaker 1: Federation came of age to save the turkey and save
Speaker 1: its habitat. And I think we could probably all agree
Speaker 1: that the turkeys fairly saved. They're they're everywhere. Uh, the
Speaker 1: same with the white tailed deer. The white tailed deers
Speaker 1: is needed saving at some point, now probably not so much,
Speaker 1: probably more needs managing the overall sense. Yeah, what do
Speaker 1: you imagine that those those things change over time and
Speaker 1: that maybe at some point in this in this country
Speaker 1: white tail deal will again be um in need of
Speaker 1: of saving or turkeys will be in need of saving,
Speaker 1: but they aren't currently. So how do you manage those
Speaker 1: ideas as they flow through time. It's a great question,
Speaker 1: I mean. And one of the things that you know,
Speaker 1: I think about is that there's never been more white
Speaker 1: tailed deer than there are today. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons for that. Uh. One is a lack of predators.
Speaker 1: One is the fact that are super flexible animal that
Speaker 1: can take advantage of you know, suburban or semi urban environments. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, So I think at white tailed deer and
Speaker 1: I think about the fact that they're kicking out mule
Speaker 1: deer in some systems. So when when do we get
Speaker 1: to a point where managers are forced to recognize that
Speaker 1: white tailed deer might be almost an invasive species where
Speaker 1: they're moving into a historically mule deer ecosystem, kicking them
Speaker 1: out just because we've kind of given them a leg
Speaker 1: up and a chance to do that. Um. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, white tailed deer, we can manage them, can
Speaker 1: serve them. But I think there's a difference between managing
Speaker 1: for a species and managing for the ecosystem. And I
Speaker 1: think conservation hopefully will move more towards managing the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously, these these deer and turkey and elka
Speaker 1: would bring a lot of people out into nature to
Speaker 1: hunt them and pursue them and watch them and photograph them.
Speaker 1: But there's a fine line between managing for one species
Speaker 1: and managing for an ecosystem. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: with you know, we live in a time right now,
Speaker 1: it's the sixth mass extinction, but you know, there animals
Speaker 1: are going extinct a hundred to a thousand times faster
Speaker 1: than they would be naturally without humans, and we're losing
Speaker 1: you know, species across North America. You know, the monarch butterfly,
Speaker 1: you know that's imperiled. There's obviously not a community of
Speaker 1: diehard monarch stewards like there are for folks who are
Speaker 1: passionate about white tailed deer, but maybe that should be
Speaker 1: a metric for white tailed deer habitat. You know, if
Speaker 1: we want a healthy ecosystem to support healthy deer, we
Speaker 1: should be thinking about you know, the fish and the
Speaker 1: waterways and the butterflies and the song birds. And if
Speaker 1: we only manage whitetail deer, they might get to a
Speaker 1: point where they're over graze and repairing corridors, which doesn't
Speaker 1: help songbirds and insects that need those habitats to thrive. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. So I think the initial conservation mindset was like,
Speaker 1: let's save the white tail deer because they're being extirpated.
Speaker 1: Let's you know, save grizzly bearers because they've been extrapated.
Speaker 1: Let's save bighorn cheap because they're, you know, being extrapated.
Speaker 1: And I think today, I think we've done a pretty
Speaker 1: good job of establishing some of those seed populations and
Speaker 1: at least stabilizing some of the strongholds. Um. But the
Speaker 1: kind of animals on the periphrey plants and animals on
Speaker 1: the periphrey that don't have the the you know, Monerich
Speaker 1: Butterfly Foundation or the laz Light Bunting Foundation, you know,
Speaker 1: they need some love too, So I think that more foundations.
Speaker 1: You're telling me we need more foundations wildlife foundations, Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: it would I mean, selfishly, I think it'd be amazing
Speaker 1: if there were little communities of people passionate about, you know,
Speaker 1: all the kind of less charismatic flora and fauna. I mean,
Speaker 1: And there are you know, I mean American kestrals they're
Speaker 1: in decline, and there's I personally know people who are
Speaker 1: totally passionate about American kestrals, building nest box like the boring,
Speaker 1: the boring animal Society of America. Yeah, the boring animals
Speaker 1: to the masses. But you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: I always tell people is that and this, you know,
Speaker 1: I would argue this is this is true. Behind almost
Speaker 1: every species, plant or animal, there is a grad student,
Speaker 1: an undergrad, a scientist, a biologist, somebody out there who's
Speaker 1: dedicated their life and so much of their time to
Speaker 1: the preservation of that organism. Which gives me a lot
Speaker 1: of hope, you know, because when I was in grad school,
Speaker 1: I would go to a seminar, go have lunch with folks,
Speaker 1: and you'd sit down next to a kid who was
Speaker 1: obsessed about this certain species of allergy, and you'd sit
Speaker 1: next to a girl who was obsessed with this certain
Speaker 1: type of alpine flower, and you know, while there might
Speaker 1: not be a foundation for that alpine flower, there's definitely
Speaker 1: somebody who's pouring their heart and soul into that and
Speaker 1: that species preservation, which is a pretty cool thing. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: that that paints a pretty good picture, pretty good tapestry
Speaker 1: of a bunch of people that care about wildlife and
Speaker 1: wanted to thrive and in many different ways. UM. And
Speaker 1: this goes back to I had Shane Mahoney on the
Speaker 1: podcast here a couple of weeks ago, and part of
Speaker 1: our conversation was, you know, what can hunters do better
Speaker 1: too to represent what what they feel? And one of
Speaker 1: his points was, we can better present represent our caring
Speaker 1: for wild life in its totality, the things, the things
Speaker 1: that we don't hunt, the things that we don't we
Speaker 1: don't see ourselves as necessarily stewards of UM. We can
Speaker 1: represent that in a way much to what you're saying
Speaker 1: that makes sense across the board and just says we
Speaker 1: care about nature and not just about the well being
Speaker 1: of the things that we kill and need. UM And
Speaker 1: and at some level worship you know, we worship elk
Speaker 1: and deer and not so much other things. And I
Speaker 1: didn't you even see that in the hunting world. You
Speaker 1: see that um anti hunters or non hunters are okay
Speaker 1: with seeing a duck get shot in the face a
Speaker 1: lot of times, but they're not or a turkey, but
Speaker 1: they're not so okay with watching an elk get shot
Speaker 1: and die. And so you just see kind of everybody
Speaker 1: has their own biases, but hunters, as folks that are
Speaker 1: consumptive users or wildlife, certainly could do better at at
Speaker 1: caring about everything rather than just what we what we
Speaker 1: chase around. Yeah, and I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: two points come to mind, and one is that these
Speaker 1: animals that hunters might identify with, whether it's doc or
Speaker 1: turkey or big horner or elk, those animals exist because
Speaker 1: the ecosystem exists. And the ecosystem exists because the butterflies
Speaker 1: pollinate the plants, and the birds pond at the plants,
Speaker 1: and the Clark's nutcracker disperses the seeds that feed the bear,
Speaker 1: you know, And we can't without if there's not a
Speaker 1: healthy ecosystem that the species that we love and pursue
Speaker 1: won't thrive. So I think it's whether or not we
Speaker 1: really have a personal relationship or affinity to a butterfly
Speaker 1: or you know, to a squirrel that bury a lot
Speaker 1: of acorns that feed a lot of white tail um.
Speaker 1: You know, they grow up into trees and feed the
Speaker 1: forest with Without that squirrel dispersing the acorns, we're not
Speaker 1: going to have healthy oak forests that feed healthy deer populations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's been there's been anti hunters or you know,
Speaker 1: animal rights activists in the past, going all the way
Speaker 1: back into the sixties that say conservation is an idea
Speaker 1: created too you know, pull the wool over everybody's eyes
Speaker 1: for hunters, you know, it's it's a it's a term
Speaker 1: that allows us to to be altruistic in a sense,
Speaker 1: but also we're just doing it for our own personal gain,
Speaker 1: So we're only being we're only saving elk so we
Speaker 1: can kill them um. And a lot of these animal
Speaker 1: rights activity even going back to guys like Joseph would
Speaker 1: kurtsed back in um in the sixties in the in
Speaker 1: the height of the beginning of the hs U s
Speaker 1: talking about animal rights being the way and conservation being
Speaker 1: a lie. And I think that I think that goes
Speaker 1: back to what you're talking about. Yeah, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, the historical historical kind of divide and the
Speaker 1: polarization of that of that narrative I think is you know, oftentimes,
Speaker 1: I think people fail to to to remember that a
Speaker 1: lot of those early Boone and Crockett Club members, Teddy Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: you know, they weren't perfect. You can read their history
Speaker 1: books and there's probably some things that you know, maybe
Speaker 1: they could have done better, but they also they set
Speaker 1: the stage for conservation to succeed, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: he talked about went out to Montana and having trouble
Speaker 1: finding a bison to hunt, you know, and then he
Speaker 1: had obviously one of the biggest influences and conservation you know,
Speaker 1: into the future. And I think there's something to be
Speaker 1: said for people who dedicate their time and energy to wildlife,
Speaker 1: whether they're non hunters, anti hunters, or hunters. You know,
Speaker 1: I think, um, you know, there's one thing to buy
Speaker 1: a hunting license and know that some of that money
Speaker 1: goes into the Pittman Robson you know fund, you know,
Speaker 1: by way of the Act. But there's another thing to
Speaker 1: to do that. But then also to spend your time
Speaker 1: planting trees or or helping restore a right parent ecosystem,
Speaker 1: or you know, doing a Christmas bird count that informs
Speaker 1: the way that we understand songbirds. There's I think there's
Speaker 1: degrees to which we can be conservationists. There's the there's
Speaker 1: the kind of initial entry, uh you know, membership of
Speaker 1: of buying a tag and having some money go into conservation.
Speaker 1: But I think there's there's a lot of other ways
Speaker 1: to to get involved and to have a hand in
Speaker 1: writing the future of America's conservation um. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that non hunters and anti hunters
Speaker 1: maybe don't I haven't been exposed to or haven't thought of,
Speaker 1: is that a lot of hunters, you know, don't enjoy watches.
Speaker 1: Some mean die, you know, Like I grew up hunting
Speaker 1: birds mostly, but I've vivid memories of being sad about
Speaker 1: that and then eating the food and realizing that to
Speaker 1: eat meat, something has to die. And that was a
Speaker 1: choice that I made. And it's not something to take lightly,
Speaker 1: and it's not something that happens with you know, with
Speaker 1: this kind of neglect of of of realizing that you
Speaker 1: know that this is a life and death situation for
Speaker 1: these animals. Um you know, the difference between a white
Speaker 1: tailed deer dying and you know a desert bighorn are
Speaker 1: very different, right. White tail deer are incredibly abundant, very
Speaker 1: much not under threat. You know, there are places where
Speaker 1: desert bighorn are are hanging on and kind of rebounding.
Speaker 1: And you know, I just shot a film with with
Speaker 1: Ben Masters and Adam Foss. I'm sure you know both
Speaker 1: those guys um on desert bighorn sheep down in Texas.
Speaker 1: Sitka supported it and Texas Parks and Wildlife had a
Speaker 1: big plane it. And it's a film about a bunch
Speaker 1: of people, many of whom probably identify as hunters, spending
Speaker 1: their their time, money and energy getting bighorn sheep back
Speaker 1: onto these mountains that used to support healthy populations and
Speaker 1: don't anymore. And most of them will never have a
Speaker 1: chance to hunt bighorn sheep. But they have the the hat,
Speaker 1: you know, the Wild Cheap Foundation hat, and they they
Speaker 1: are card carrying big horn enthusiasts. But they're not doing
Speaker 1: it to put one on the wall. They're doing it
Speaker 1: because they want to see one hop out of that
Speaker 1: horse trailer. And you know, run up into the mountains
Speaker 1: and and that's it, you know, And I think it's
Speaker 1: an it's an important thing to remind people is that
Speaker 1: it's called hunting, not killing. You know, like there's so
Speaker 1: many days we go hunt and we we just watch,
Speaker 1: you know, most of it might say that when we
Speaker 1: didn't kill something, because I always thought that was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's that mean we suck his hunters. We talk killing
Speaker 1: and we stuck with that. That's an idea that that
Speaker 1: certainly is worth going over because it's it's something that
Speaker 1: it goes to this whole conversation. If you're not killing something,
Speaker 1: did you succeed? And how did you succeed? You know,
Speaker 1: if you've never killed, if you're could you be ah
Speaker 1: a conservationist and a sheep hunter if you've never killed
Speaker 1: one in your entire life and maybe stand to never
Speaker 1: do so, I think you can be absolutely And I
Speaker 1: mean I was talking with with Um, one of the
Speaker 1: biologists down there, and he told me a story about
Speaker 1: a gentleman who who bought the tag to go hunt
Speaker 1: one of these sheep and and never pulled the trigger.
Speaker 1: And that was fine. He just he for whatever reason
Speaker 1: didn't feel right and he just just didn't happen. He
Speaker 1: was happy as can be. You know, he walked off
Speaker 1: that mountain and he had succeeded. You know, he'd gotten
Speaker 1: up there and gotten a chance to have this once
Speaker 1: in a life some opportunity. And I mean I think
Speaker 1: back on my hunting season last year, and I mean
Speaker 1: some of the best moments of my life. We're just
Speaker 1: sitting with my fiancee, uh, you know, watching elk just
Speaker 1: ripped by and looking at her and looking at you know,
Speaker 1: her looking at me, and just this kind of like
Speaker 1: out of body experience, and that was it, you know,
Speaker 1: just basically what I used to do as an ecologist,
Speaker 1: which was go sit in the woods for months and
Speaker 1: years on end and watch animals, which is that's why
Speaker 1: I do it so well. I mean I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: you go back to some of the things that we
Speaker 1: do and hunting to kind of boil down all these
Speaker 1: ideas and make him easy into hashtags or bullet points
Speaker 1: or you know, campaign slogans or whatever they need to
Speaker 1: be for people understand them. And a couple of loads.
Speaker 1: There's one start making the rounds now called conservationist, and
Speaker 1: there's the other one is hunting is conservation Those are
Speaker 1: the two I've seen recently That kind of irked me
Speaker 1: a little bit, and I think maybe just because that
Speaker 1: simplifies makes it simple, like to go hunting is to
Speaker 1: be a conservationist. No, it's not not at all. Um,
Speaker 1: Hunting is hunting and conservation is conservation. Of course, you
Speaker 1: know do you know well know that hunting is a
Speaker 1: tool of conservations in a lot of ways, but they
Speaker 1: aren't one and the same, and to try to draw
Speaker 1: that line just just seems a bit lazy to me
Speaker 1: and oversimplifying what what is complicated. So it's it's nice
Speaker 1: to hear that there are folks, especially in Texas, that
Speaker 1: that are doing those things the right way. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think it's a great point. I mean it's it's just
Speaker 1: like you know, saying that because you pay your taxes,
Speaker 1: your pro highways and pro war and pro bridge restoration
Speaker 1: and reinforcement. Yeah, I mean it's you know, I think
Speaker 1: it's by default you are putting money into that in
Speaker 1: that bucket. But to your point, you know, there's there's definitely,
Speaker 1: and I think the distinction is important because it helps
Speaker 1: people realize that there there is more to do, right,
Speaker 1: Like you can hunt and you can contribute, you know,
Speaker 1: some some funds into conservation by buying your tags and
Speaker 1: in all the taxes that are out there. But there's
Speaker 1: also a rich community of people who are debting, like
Speaker 1: like I said, who are dedicating their time and energy
Speaker 1: into conservation and some of them hunting, some of them don't,
Speaker 1: and that's fine. But the the common passion is just
Speaker 1: for for wildlife and you know, the outdoors, and it's
Speaker 1: something that you know, it's you you point out that
Speaker 1: it's a it's a phenomena that's happening in the hunting world,
Speaker 1: it's also happening in the outdoor world. You know, I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time and a lot of the
Speaker 1: projects and people I engage with are just in the
Speaker 1: kind of traditional outdoor space, and there's you know, I
Speaker 1: have the same kind of feelings that you shared about
Speaker 1: the outdoor world. You know, just because you hike the
Speaker 1: PCT or or went camping in Alaska or you know,
Speaker 1: enjoy bears Ears doesn't mean that you're conservationist or doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you are an informed person. That really can
Speaker 1: add much to the conservation narrative. Besides the fact that
Speaker 1: you hiked there once or camp there twice or you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's just such a difference between hiking in
Speaker 1: the place and and camping in a place or hunting
Speaker 1: in a place and actually understanding the ecological rhythms of
Speaker 1: the place and the threats and the conservation history and
Speaker 1: the constituents, you know, from a social perspective, and all
Speaker 1: in the kind of the ecosystem at large. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's just it's such as conversation gives me. That conversation
Speaker 1: gives me a lot of energy, like even when you're
Speaker 1: hearing you talk about that, because I think just from
Speaker 1: an I D standpoint, I see a lot of hunters
Speaker 1: who who just they're paying attacks right that it's it's
Speaker 1: voluntary by way of going in and purchasing a hunting license.
Speaker 1: But if you want to go hunting, it's involuntary. If
Speaker 1: you want to legally hunt, you have to buy a license,
Speaker 1: right You. You have to purchase unless you borrow from someone.
Speaker 1: You have to purchase a firearm or or archery tackle.
Speaker 1: So at some level it's a requirement that our system
Speaker 1: is set up that you pay this tax into Pittman
Speaker 1: Robertson or into um into the state wildlife agencies. It's
Speaker 1: not voluntary. They don't ask you, when you buy a rifle,
Speaker 1: would you like to pay eleven percent excise tax? Would
Speaker 1: you like to leave that off? Like you, you purchase
Speaker 1: it and you pay it. I think there is in
Speaker 1: hunting more comfortable. There's a more comfortable subset of people
Speaker 1: that are like, yes, I know it costs more money
Speaker 1: to hunt, and I know that that. This is why,
Speaker 1: because it does go into conservation. Um. If you flip
Speaker 1: that over to the outdoor wreck community, I think there's less.
Speaker 1: There's less that because the Outdoor Industry Association fights against
Speaker 1: a backpack tax that would would impose some sort of
Speaker 1: excise tax on on goods sold for climbing or hiking
Speaker 1: or camping or whatever. And uh, I don't know that
Speaker 1: there just isn't a history of that in that world,
Speaker 1: or it just I think there's to your point, more
Speaker 1: people that like to say they're conservation is because it's
Speaker 1: trending and it feels good and it's emotionally satisfying to
Speaker 1: say you're a conservation when they're really not doing anything.
Speaker 1: Have you seen that parallel? I mean, hunters are willing
Speaker 1: to pay, but at some level a lot of them
Speaker 1: don't even know what they're paying, and it seems like
Speaker 1: the outdoor space maybe is a little less willing to
Speaker 1: go down that road, but more willing to talk about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I think I think, without
Speaker 1: saying anything too contentious, you know, I think the outdoor
Speaker 1: industry looks maybe at hunters in a in a light,
Speaker 1: in a certain light, because we're in their eyes. They
Speaker 1: think we're taking something from the outdoors, were taking an
Speaker 1: animal from the outdoors, were harvesting. I think they generally
Speaker 1: this is maybe a gross overstatement, but I think of
Speaker 1: their impacts as benign, so they kind of I think
Speaker 1: maybe there's the stigma of like, oh, we're actually not
Speaker 1: doing anything bad, so therefore we're kind of you know,
Speaker 1: our hands are clean. But you know, you can you
Speaker 1: can look at Yosemite or any of these really heavily
Speaker 1: traffic parks and just the impact on trails and littering
Speaker 1: and just visitation. You know, I mean, maybe we should
Speaker 1: be paying more. Maybe if you're just recreating in some
Speaker 1: of these really highly traffic parks, you should be paying
Speaker 1: more because the net impact on the ecosystem is is
Speaker 1: so tremendous and growing. You know, I think Um, if
Speaker 1: hunters had a choice to pay that tax, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what the answer is, but I would bet a
Speaker 1: lot of people would opt to not pay the conservation. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, is that eleven percent that you mentioned. Um,
Speaker 1: that'd be a nice experiment to do. That would be
Speaker 1: that would be an experiment that I would like to
Speaker 1: see if you because I don't think I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people who know what Pittman Robinson might be,
Speaker 1: but I don't think they know what it really is
Speaker 1: and what it really does, because it's not when you
Speaker 1: buy a hunting license, it's not written on your uh
Speaker 1: in your booklet what where all your money goes? And
Speaker 1: when you purchase a firearm, it's not on your seat
Speaker 1: where that eleven percent exercise tax and how it's levied
Speaker 1: and where it ends up. It's not there's no outward
Speaker 1: education for the hunting community about these things, so a
Speaker 1: lot of folks go go their whole life without ever
Speaker 1: knowing about it. And that's it's a shame in one way,
Speaker 1: but in another way, it's created this disconnection from generational
Speaker 1: disconnect from what's actually happening and what was enacted in
Speaker 1: the thirties. So You're right, I'd be interested to see
Speaker 1: how many hunters would opt to pay that eleven percent
Speaker 1: excise tax or opt to pay that extra tag fees
Speaker 1: that that are going back into the states. I mean,
Speaker 1: i'd be interested in that. I don't know, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, take this step further. You know, I took
Speaker 1: I got my bow hunting license last year, and we
Speaker 1: you know, in Montana, we take a bow hunting specific
Speaker 1: field course, and you know, they have a portion of
Speaker 1: the courses on you know, blood trails, and a portion
Speaker 1: of the courses on being bear safe and pepper spray
Speaker 1: and how to move safely you know in bear country.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think both rifle and archery hunters would
Speaker 1: benefit tremendously from a portion of that course being a
Speaker 1: natural history course, you know. And maybe it's specific to
Speaker 1: the state or the region, but I mean I'd argue
Speaker 1: that's that's a great entry point to have a more informed,
Speaker 1: conservation minded group of hunters, you know, to make that
Speaker 1: part of the education. You know, you're not just hunting
Speaker 1: a particular animal particular speech ease, but you're taking part
Speaker 1: in this activity that you know affects an ecosystem. And
Speaker 1: here's kind of the building blocks to that ecosystem. Um.
Speaker 1: And just like the outdoor industry, I mean, it's the same.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the the thoughts that comes to
Speaker 1: my mind when I, you know, go to outdoor retailers
Speaker 1: is I walk through these these conference halls filled with
Speaker 1: hundreds of outdoor people, you know, outdoor industry folks, and
Speaker 1: you know, you wonder how many of them could list
Speaker 1: off four bird species that live you know, in the
Speaker 1: in the mountain range they just hiked, you know, or
Speaker 1: or four tree species and not that you need to,
Speaker 1: you know, have a laundry list of the plants and
Speaker 1: animals in your space. But you know, how do we
Speaker 1: I guess the question that I chew on often is
Speaker 1: how do we push the hunting an outdoor industry to
Speaker 1: a place where we start to value that that conservation
Speaker 1: and that natural history kind of element. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not in the currency for the outdoor industry because they're
Speaker 1: more interested in how high the mountain was or how
Speaker 1: difficult the climbing route was. Um. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it's I think that's there in lies the difference
Speaker 1: between somebody who recreates outdoors and you know, my grandfather
Speaker 1: who was a hunter, but he was also a Harvard
Speaker 1: trained forester in Minnesota in the North Woods, and he
Speaker 1: took my dad deer hunting his whole childhood. And my
Speaker 1: dad never shot a deer because he just sat on
Speaker 1: a stump and just basically my grandpa just go walk
Speaker 1: around the woods and then come pick my dad up,
Speaker 1: you know, eight hours later. But oh, it's interesting because
Speaker 1: I always break it down by hunters being consumptive users
Speaker 1: and recreationals being non consumptive. Right, working, we're going out
Speaker 1: in the into the woods and taking something we didn't
Speaker 1: put there, right, And normally folks in the outdoor wreck
Speaker 1: community aren't doing that. They're not going it out and
Speaker 1: taking big chunks of rock home with them, or they're
Speaker 1: not going out and cutting trees down. They're just going
Speaker 1: out and the enjoying that space. And yes they have
Speaker 1: an effect, but um, it's not as a direct effect.
Speaker 1: And I think maybe I'm wrong in the in those
Speaker 1: two descriptions. I mean, who cares if you're killing a
Speaker 1: deer or not? Or who cares where you can or whatever.
Speaker 1: I think what we should probably more judge bies, what
Speaker 1: is your overall effect on on the wild world? In nature,
Speaker 1: and then how do you manage that? You know, what's
Speaker 1: your overall effect campers, what's your overall effect hunters? And
Speaker 1: then how do you manage that effect? And how do
Speaker 1: you contribute to you know, the positive A positive look
Speaker 1: upon that I think is important. And and everybody's consuming
Speaker 1: something in some way and affecting something in some way,
Speaker 1: But um, are both of those groups having the same
Speaker 1: positive effect at the end of the day. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you bring up a great point, you know. I
Speaker 1: think about white deer again, you know, and in a
Speaker 1: lot of places, if you were somebody looking to have
Speaker 1: a positive effect on an ecosystem with an overabundance of
Speaker 1: white tailed deer, one of the best things you could
Speaker 1: do is harvest a white tailed deer. Yeah. Conversely, one
Speaker 1: of the best things you can do if you're hiking
Speaker 1: in Yosemite is to stay on the trail because so
Speaker 1: many people for an Instagram photo or for whatever reason
Speaker 1: are off trail, you know, further marginalizing in sensitive habitat.
Speaker 1: And I think the net gains of harvesting that white
Speaker 1: tailed deer in a place like Texas or staying on trail,
Speaker 1: you know, I think they're very similar in my eyes,
Speaker 1: right like you're you're pushing the needle and towards a
Speaker 1: place of conservation and stewardship and mindfulness, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people, you know, non hunters
Speaker 1: might not think about the benefits of hunting certain animals
Speaker 1: certain populations. And also non hunters might not think about
Speaker 1: the net effect of poaching a campsite next to a
Speaker 1: lake and throwing your you know, your kitchen scraps into
Speaker 1: a high alpine lake because they probably don't realize that
Speaker 1: those high alpine lakes are very biologically poor, Like there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of organisms that break down a piece
Speaker 1: of bread or a or a piece of chicken, so
Speaker 1: it just sits in the lake. They call him a
Speaker 1: liga trophic nutrient poor. You know, if I don't realize
Speaker 1: that's that's a bad thing, or people probably don't realize that,
Speaker 1: you know, going to the bathroom on the side of
Speaker 1: a trail in goat country or sheep countries actually probably
Speaker 1: not the best thing, because those animals come down for
Speaker 1: the salt and they end up disturbing the you know,
Speaker 1: the soil next to these trails, and over time it
Speaker 1: can pounds and it can be actually have pretty dramatic effects.
Speaker 1: Or I can just bring these animals into places where
Speaker 1: potential conflict of humans is greater. Yeah, now that's interesting me.
Speaker 1: I think, you know outdoor rec users and I can't
Speaker 1: say that I go camping a lot or go you know,
Speaker 1: necessarily go hike in a ton in places where I'm
Speaker 1: not hunting. I do, but it's mostly around my house
Speaker 1: here in Texas. You know, I know hunters. There's the
Speaker 1: build in model, right, we pay, we pay, we pay,
Speaker 1: we pay, And that's always how we talk about it.
Speaker 1: Everything's everything costs more because it's it's a more serious activity.
Speaker 1: Is there the same thing in outdoor recreation? Do you
Speaker 1: feel like people are camping or hiking or they're they're
Speaker 1: paying enough um, whether it's a park fee or you know,
Speaker 1: parking lot fee or whatever it might be, there is
Speaker 1: they're the same? That's it's a legitimate question. I don't
Speaker 1: really have a point. I'm just I just I'm not
Speaker 1: as educated in that. Yeah, I mean, I I think
Speaker 1: one of the greatest things that's preventing public land managers,
Speaker 1: whether it's the Force Service, the BLM, or National Park
Speaker 1: Service from accomplishing their conservation goals is funding, and you know,
Speaker 1: every president and the politicians that come with them have
Speaker 1: their pros and cons. But one of the things that's
Speaker 1: been a recurring theme with organizations like the BLM is
Speaker 1: they don't have the funds to do what they need
Speaker 1: to do. So you look at BLM, you know public land,
Speaker 1: and it's you can just camp wherever you want. If
Speaker 1: there's a shortage of resources for the agency to manage
Speaker 1: a public lands well, and it's a financial shortage. But
Speaker 1: yet places like the Eastern Sierra in California, thousands of
Speaker 1: people are camping in every day for free. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's romantic and it sounds great, but they're also having
Speaker 1: to close BLM campgrounds around Zion National Park because they're
Speaker 1: being used to such an extent that the ecosystems being degraded.
Speaker 1: So it just doesn't seem to be the most uh
Speaker 1: responsible approach. You know, let people do something for free
Speaker 1: and then we eventually close it in time because it's
Speaker 1: being destroyed because so many people are using it for free,
Speaker 1: and the agency and the managers tasked with protecting and
Speaker 1: stewarding our natural resources can't do their job because they
Speaker 1: don't have enough money. You know, some of that's obviously
Speaker 1: the just the political kind of landscape and where money
Speaker 1: is moved around. But I think people have so much
Speaker 1: respect and there's were Americans, at least in the outdoor
Speaker 1: and the hunting industry, I think are generally proud of
Speaker 1: their public land and proud of the places we get
Speaker 1: to go play and recreate. But again it's you know,
Speaker 1: as more and more of us fall in love with
Speaker 1: these places, the more stress there is on these places.
Speaker 1: And I would be an advocate for charging more at
Speaker 1: entry fees and and even charging a dollar at BLM,
Speaker 1: you know, campsites. I mean, it adds up um and
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, it's it's it's it makes sense. You know,
Speaker 1: these are not these ecosystems can't manage themselves. And whether
Speaker 1: we want to believe that, you know, wilderness areas are
Speaker 1: completely devoid of of human fingerprints, is just not true,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's it's the way that we're influencing
Speaker 1: the climate or wildfires that some guy might start with
Speaker 1: a cigarette in the side of a highway that burned
Speaker 1: in For our wilderness areas, I mean, even if you're
Speaker 1: thirty miles from a road, which I think is about
Speaker 1: as remote as it gets in the lower forty eight,
Speaker 1: there's still signatures of man all over the place. Oh yeah, UM,
Speaker 1: So I think with that in mind, you know, we
Speaker 1: should be tasked with, you know, kind of an entry
Speaker 1: fee to help protect these places. Yeah, that's one the
Speaker 1: one difference I think where and And I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: like I am, because I do UM live in a
Speaker 1: world where I see a lot of stuff in the
Speaker 1: outdoor community, and then I see a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: in the hunting community and I and I see how
Speaker 1: similar the mindsets are UM, and then I see how
Speaker 1: dissimilarly the outward UM talking points are, and I would
Speaker 1: say like to bring them close together. I think that's
Speaker 1: one thing you can do from an outdoor wreck perspective
Speaker 1: is is be willing to pay more and asked asked
Speaker 1: to pay more. I mean, I think hunters do that
Speaker 1: and a lot of a lot of aspects UM. Asked
Speaker 1: to pay more for your impact and understand and try
Speaker 1: to understand really what it is. And then people willing
Speaker 1: to pay more to go do which I think hunters
Speaker 1: UM are in most respects. And I think for hunters
Speaker 1: the way to get closer to the outdoor wreck space
Speaker 1: is to be a little bit more environmentally conscious and
Speaker 1: be understanding of what we were talking about earlier, the
Speaker 1: totality of the environment and what all of it means together,
Speaker 1: and that hunting is a crucial part, but it's only
Speaker 1: one part um. But I think if you could kind
Speaker 1: of convince both communities that those two things, to shift
Speaker 1: those two ideologies a little bit, you push them together,
Speaker 1: they find that there's not that much of a difference.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think they're really especially from the
Speaker 1: folks that I've talked to. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think recreation has an impact, and I think it's
Speaker 1: important for the community to see that and work towards
Speaker 1: reducing that impact. You know. I think, like we talked
Speaker 1: about earlier, I think hunters should be reminded that just
Speaker 1: because you put money into the bucket in an involuntary
Speaker 1: way doesn't mean you're a conservationist. That there's a lot
Speaker 1: of ways to legitimize that claim, and I think creating
Speaker 1: a framework for the average outdoor recreation person to put
Speaker 1: money in a bucket and also have more opportunities to
Speaker 1: you know, engage with conservation and have that be I mean,
Speaker 1: that's from a personal perspective from somebody who makes films
Speaker 1: as an ecologist, and you know, somebody in both the
Speaker 1: outdoor and hunting industry. You know, I think there seems
Speaker 1: to be more value placed on conservation from a from
Speaker 1: a brand perspective, from a community perspective. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can walk through an outdoor trade show or a hunting
Speaker 1: trade show and and you know, talking about conservation is
Speaker 1: probably not the coolest conversation in the room. You know,
Speaker 1: it's probably the guy who climbed l Cap and the
Speaker 1: guy who had some incredible hunt, you know, some incredible
Speaker 1: successful hunt that's filling up the auditoriums for the different
Speaker 1: seminars or whatever. But you know, I would argue that, yeah,
Speaker 1: to your point, like we hunters and people who recreate
Speaker 1: both need healthy ecosystems to do what they do, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're if you're somebody who goes to
Speaker 1: Yosemite to get a picture, you know, of a waterfall,
Speaker 1: you need snowpack and cold winters to have water filling
Speaker 1: those waterfalls that you know, A globe stewardship is something
Speaker 1: that helps that. You know, Hunters, if you want a
Speaker 1: big bull elk, you need a healthy ecosystem to support
Speaker 1: that bull elk um. So yeah, I think there are
Speaker 1: those kind of historical, preconceived notions that that have maintained
Speaker 1: the divide. And you know my yeah, like I said,
Speaker 1: my kind of mission is to help people realize that
Speaker 1: there's actually a lot of common ground. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: mean there totally is. I mean I've talked to a
Speaker 1: lot of the leaders in the outdoor space, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think maybe they I thought, well, they you know,
Speaker 1: they obviously know I'm a hunter, so maybe they cringe
Speaker 1: and even talking to me, And that's not the case
Speaker 1: at all. Ever, They just you know, they need a
Speaker 1: little bit more knowledge from the angle work coming from
Speaker 1: and vice versa, just a little bit more. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're not that far off. And I think the worst
Speaker 1: thing that could happen is for hunters to be painted
Speaker 1: as people who don't care about the environment, because I
Speaker 1: find that most of the time not to be true.
Speaker 1: Because and and sure you could bring up trophy hunting
Speaker 1: or in some negative connotation and talk about how, um,
Speaker 1: some hunters are hunting for ego or hunting for their
Speaker 1: own personal vanity. Sure that's fine, there surely are some
Speaker 1: people doing that. But there's a lot of campers who litter,
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't paint all campers as litterers, just the
Speaker 1: same as I wouldn't paint all hunters as trophy hunters
Speaker 1: or whatever negative connotation we would we would call it.
Speaker 1: So I I certainly think the outdoor space sometimes it's
Speaker 1: guilty of that, And then I think the hunting space
Speaker 1: is guilty of of thinking, Hey, here's a bunch of
Speaker 1: left leaning greenies that don't don't think the way we
Speaker 1: think was that's not true either. I think there's there's
Speaker 1: less less truth in those two ideas than I think
Speaker 1: either side would want to admit. But it's close man,
Speaker 1: and guys like yourself are key. And then bringing it together, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you bring up a great point. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's people are always drawn to one end of the spectrum, right,
Speaker 1: This group of people is bad, this group of people
Speaker 1: is good. And the way I think about hunting, recreation, politics, anything,
Speaker 1: it's always a spectrum of best and could be better.
Speaker 1: There's always the bad apples that that you know, hold
Speaker 1: up the bottom of the spectrum. But yeah, I'd argue
Speaker 1: there's just as many hunters that could do a better
Speaker 1: job as there are outdoor you know, recreators who could
Speaker 1: do a better job, you know, and I think we
Speaker 1: just see I think we as you know, as people
Speaker 1: you know, with the platform in the industry and with
Speaker 1: peers and friends who have platforms, and we work with
Speaker 1: brands that have platforms, you know. I think if we
Speaker 1: create and and place value and those best examples, those stewards,
Speaker 1: those people who do what they do in a mindful
Speaker 1: way and aren't going about their business trying to propagate
Speaker 1: the divide, but rather do what's right, then I think
Speaker 1: we can move the needle towards that middle ground while
Speaker 1: celebrating people who aren't getting on the horn just to
Speaker 1: point fingers and you know, call people names. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: some of my best friends are hunters who hunt things
Speaker 1: that I might not hunt, but I don't judge them
Speaker 1: on a personal level. That's just it doesn't it's just
Speaker 1: something I'm not interested in doing, you know. I Mean,
Speaker 1: I had a friend the other day asked me if
Speaker 1: I wanted to go bear hunting the spring, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I'll go with you, but I'd probably shreek
Speaker 1: my camera and and that's not you know, that wasn't
Speaker 1: a reflection of me judging that person for wanting to
Speaker 1: go do that. You know, the bears that they were
Speaker 1: talking about hunting are from what I understand, a very
Speaker 1: well managed population that's doing fine. It's just like a
Speaker 1: personal thing and that's not you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: so easy for somebody to say, like, you're a bad
Speaker 1: person for doing this or you do that because you
Speaker 1: hang out with these people. It's like, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: a U. C. Berkeley train, California born ecologists who lives
Speaker 1: in Montana, you know, who is working with the hunting
Speaker 1: brand Sitka on conservation as an advisor. Like, I'm a
Speaker 1: walking contradiction, but I'm not here to judge. I'm just
Speaker 1: here to help people talk about conservation and wildlife and
Speaker 1: ecology because they care about it. And that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that's where a lot of your value
Speaker 1: comes into. Everyone at hunts is we you know, there's
Speaker 1: echo chambers, and there's bubbles that we live in, and
Speaker 1: there's you know, groupthink, and a lot of that happens
Speaker 1: on all sides. Right, you kind of get polarized and
Speaker 1: you get to get to everybody living in a place
Speaker 1: where everybody agrees with the way you think and then
Speaker 1: life becomes easy. And then you push back anybody that
Speaker 1: that starts to eat away at your ideology that you've
Speaker 1: formed with a group of people. You know, when somebody
Speaker 1: like you comes along says I hunt, I'd like to hunt,
Speaker 1: But I'm also a scientist and an ecologist and a biologist,
Speaker 1: and I'm from my study that UC Berkeley, and I'm
Speaker 1: a California native. There's there's a lot in there that
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem to match up. But um, the overarching
Speaker 1: point is that you care, and you care from from
Speaker 1: a pragmatic level, not from from some gend up hashtag
Speaker 1: level that just trying to make people think that you're altruistic.
Speaker 1: You truly, you truly worked that way. So I think
Speaker 1: that's a good example of why all those things can
Speaker 1: come together. Yeah, and it's you know, it's been uh
Speaker 1: since moving to Montana. It's it's, you know, I've I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot. I've I've had to, you know, study
Speaker 1: topics that I hadn't thought a lot about. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of them that keeps popping up because it's so controversial.
Speaker 1: It's like wolves and grizly bears, and there's all these
Speaker 1: perspectives and papers and voices and fears and prejudice is
Speaker 1: you know, the list goes on. And what I keep
Speaker 1: coming back to after talking with biologists who work for
Speaker 1: the state, you know, decades of experience reading science papers,
Speaker 1: reading op eds, emillion people on the West Coast talking
Speaker 1: to locals. It's it all exists on a spectrum. You know,
Speaker 1: There's there's populations that are doing really well that you know,
Speaker 1: populations of bears and wolves that are doing well. There's
Speaker 1: populations of bears and wolves that are predisposed to conflict
Speaker 1: with humans. And there's populations and bears and wolves that
Speaker 1: probably see a few humans a year or in their
Speaker 1: entire life. So again we're talking about you know, you
Speaker 1: see the headlines and it's like wolves in Montana or
Speaker 1: bears and the Greater Yellowstone. I mean, Idaho is very
Speaker 1: different than Wyoming. Wyoming is very different than Montana, and
Speaker 1: all the little pockets where these animals exist are all
Speaker 1: very different. And the individuals. Yeah, you talk to the
Speaker 1: rancher in Idaho who has wolves killing all the elk?
Speaker 1: Can you kill them all? Kill every wolf in the
Speaker 1: lower forty eight And you talked to an area where
Speaker 1: do they barely ever see a wolf, but they know
Speaker 1: they're there and they're not. There's no tangible difference between
Speaker 1: the way they were and the way they are. They
Speaker 1: may have a different opinion, but you know, I hear
Speaker 1: in the hunting circles most times kill all wolves and
Speaker 1: even even coyotes, kill all coyotes. I hear that a
Speaker 1: whole time. I'm not I'm not sure just to pragmatician
Speaker 1: in me allows would allow that. And I'm sure the
Speaker 1: ecologists and you would not allow that type of thinking
Speaker 1: because it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, and the model,
Speaker 1: the Northern American model, doesn't allow that. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: not we're not. America is not pouring money into a
Speaker 1: wholesale extirpatient of these animals. You know, it's not legally
Speaker 1: that can't happen. So for even somebody to say, let's
Speaker 1: kill them all, I mean, that's not possible. So it's
Speaker 1: you know, there's no point even talking about it because
Speaker 1: it's not gonna happen. Well, at the same point, they're like,
Speaker 1: let's protect them all and kill none of them, you know.
Speaker 1: But you know when people talk about protecting all or
Speaker 1: killing all, and and and again, like people will tell
Speaker 1: you whether they love or hate wolves. Is that packs
Speaker 1: are different. You know, there's packs of personalities. Wolves have personalities.
Speaker 1: There are some that are predisposed to certain things and
Speaker 1: some that are predisposed to other things. You know, they're
Speaker 1: just like eagles can be a specialist and eating you know,
Speaker 1: rabbits or fish. You know, same with redtail hawks. Like
Speaker 1: packs and these these different animals and populations have tendencies.
Speaker 1: So I think that's like a great place to start talking.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, cool, Well, when we look at these ecosystems,
Speaker 1: where is the potential for conflict where management might accomplish
Speaker 1: goal A, B and C. You know, if there is
Speaker 1: a place of conflict, like we should look at solutions
Speaker 1: across the spectrum. You know, are there five solutions? What
Speaker 1: are the most pragmatic three? You know, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be this to kill or not to kill, to
Speaker 1: save or not to save, you know. And and also
Speaker 1: if you think about these populations, whether it's elk or
Speaker 1: wolves or song birds, again, we need to think about
Speaker 1: these populations on the order of ten years, fifteen years,
Speaker 1: twenty years. You know, they might be fine and well today,
Speaker 1: increasing your declining today, but there could be a fire
Speaker 1: like there was in yellow Stone in the eighties that
Speaker 1: burned the biggest fire on record. You know, that happens,
Speaker 1: and it changes the ecosystem. It changes the elk population,
Speaker 1: It changes the way predators interact with one another and
Speaker 1: how they prey on you know, pray, animals. Um. So
Speaker 1: it's not just you know, I think people oversimplify wildlife
Speaker 1: management to a detriment. You know, they think it's just
Speaker 1: like you do one thing and you get one kind
Speaker 1: of you know, one effect, you know, But really it's
Speaker 1: you do one thing, twenty things happen, and maybe you
Speaker 1: only can see two of those things and the other
Speaker 1: you know, the others are are muddled and confused by
Speaker 1: all the different variables in an ecosystem, you know, elevation, temperature, rainfall, snow,
Speaker 1: pack uh, you know, whatever it might be. It could
Speaker 1: be a pine beetle infestation that you know, takes the
Speaker 1: pine seeds out of the bears, you know, food availability,
Speaker 1: and that changes the way bears engaged with young elk.
Speaker 1: It's complicated. Does that make it all the more amazing
Speaker 1: to you? That are like the you know, the model
Speaker 1: of conservation wasn't a thing until the eighties. As I
Speaker 1: learned from Shane Mahoney. But does it make it all
Speaker 1: the more amazed at to you that we took this model,
Speaker 1: this idea of how we would interact with animals as hunters,
Speaker 1: applied it across the board, and it generally worked for
Speaker 1: a bunch of different species and a bunch of different areas.
Speaker 1: I mean, is that just generally people caring about wildlife
Speaker 1: across the board is going to always have a good
Speaker 1: effect or is it just just a really good system
Speaker 1: or am I just a am I engaging in group
Speaker 1: think like that? That's so great? But I know that
Speaker 1: across all these you know, wildlife species, there was success. Turkeys, elk, ducks,
Speaker 1: dear so many. They interact with the natural world so
Speaker 1: differently and in such different environments that it's crazy that
Speaker 1: they all kind of improve the way they did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's I think the success that
Speaker 1: the North American model has had in in sense its inception,
Speaker 1: isn't just a reflection of the success from a wildlife perspective.
Speaker 1: The success that that we've had in the United States
Speaker 1: is a reflection of society deciding that they weren't going
Speaker 1: to let pollution continue. They weren't gonna let damns continue.
Speaker 1: They weren't gonna let blind deforestation continue. They weren't gonna
Speaker 1: let d d T continue. You know, I think the
Speaker 1: success of elk, or the success of bighorn sheep, or
Speaker 1: any kind of charismatic megafauna that we use as a
Speaker 1: metric for success in the wildlife space, success is a
Speaker 1: reflection of all the agencies, management agencies working towards a
Speaker 1: goal of protecting and preserving or public lands and these
Speaker 1: natural resources that we rely on, whether it's clean air,
Speaker 1: clean water, healthy forests, healthy wildlife. And I think society
Speaker 1: at large, you know, has decided that we want waterfowl,
Speaker 1: we want song words, we want these different things to exist.
Speaker 1: And it's not just one agency saying like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: gonna let's prevent you know, elk from going extinct, and
Speaker 1: let's do that. You know, they're here because all these
Speaker 1: other players have been at the table, putting their time
Speaker 1: and energy into their their little battles. But the the
Speaker 1: end goal, the end victory, is this holistic protection of
Speaker 1: of America, you know. And I mean if you read
Speaker 1: thorows writings about walking the East Coast, he was you know,
Speaker 1: if you read his journal entries. He was talking about
Speaker 1: how disappointed he was to the degree at which the
Speaker 1: East Coast had been degraded. You know, the swans weren't
Speaker 1: as abundant as they were fifty years before. The waterfowl
Speaker 1: weren't as abundant, you know, and that was in the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. So, I mean, we have centuries of of
Speaker 1: moving the needle in the right direction, you know, whether
Speaker 1: that was women deciding they weren't gonna where egert feathers
Speaker 1: in their hats and Teddy Roosevelt carrying their plea and
Speaker 1: protecting shore birds in Florida, you know, way back when.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been all these little initiatives that if
Speaker 1: I think, predisposed these different agencies to succeed. You know,
Speaker 1: it's been a societal thing. You know, things generally succeed
Speaker 1: when the society decides that that's the move. Um, And
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I mean, for better or for worse,
Speaker 1: you know. And maybe I'm not educated enough to make
Speaker 1: a statement like this, but I would argue that the
Speaker 1: ivory situation and the rhino situation, the elephant situation is
Speaker 1: such a challenging one because there are so many people
Speaker 1: pushing the needle in different directions. Yeah, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's uh yeah, So I just think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things. Yeah, you're what you're saying is there's no
Speaker 1: agreed upon value system. There's no yea. Yeah, we all
Speaker 1: care about these elephants. Half the side just wants to
Speaker 1: kill them all for their tasks. The other half wants
Speaker 1: to save him. In this country, d percent people agree
Speaker 1: that elk should always be around. There's never any there's
Speaker 1: no doubt in that exactly. Yeah, and I think you know,
Speaker 1: we can all agree we don't want our rivers burning
Speaker 1: like they did in the fifties or forgot the name
Speaker 1: of the river. But there was that famous example that
Speaker 1: inspired the Clean Water Act. Um, I think the rivers
Speaker 1: in Ohio and it literally caught on fire in the
Speaker 1: United States. Like, wow, we have major rivers in the
Speaker 1: United States that are literally catching on fire. We should
Speaker 1: prevent pollution, you know, we should maintain healthy and clean waterways. Um.
Speaker 1: Obviously pollution is something and there's no way there's no
Speaker 1: in Africa, of course is a continent, not a country.
Speaker 1: But in countries in Africa, there isn't that same idea.
Speaker 1: There isn't that same like all these things are dying,
Speaker 1: it's up to us to save them, just because they
Speaker 1: got other stuff to worry about. The economically struggling um
Speaker 1: there are a lot of it. It's an impoverished nation.
Speaker 1: So they just don't corrupt in a lot of places
Speaker 1: down there. So that's way oversimplifying a very complicated conversation,
Speaker 1: but that is to say, there just isn't There isn't
Speaker 1: the spot like like we've shown the spotlight. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: totally agree, and that, you know, I think I think
Speaker 1: public perception is another thing that that will arises these issues,
Speaker 1: you know. And and two things that come to mind is,
Speaker 1: you know Earth Day people are always saying, let's plant trees.
Speaker 1: There's a great story taking place in Scotland where communities
Speaker 1: are being paid to cut down pine tree plantations that
Speaker 1: were planted to build ships in the nineteen and eighteen
Speaker 1: hundreds because the peat bogs that are that used to
Speaker 1: exist throughout Scotland are better it's equestering carbon than trees.
Speaker 1: So if you actually want to have an effect on climate,
Speaker 1: some of the best things you can do they're cut
Speaker 1: down these pine plantations and return them to peat bogs.
Speaker 1: In America, people say let's plant trees in a lot
Speaker 1: of places. There's more trees than there ever have been.
Speaker 1: And actually our most imperiled ecosystems are stagebrush communities and
Speaker 1: perennial bunch grass communities. So what I tell brands is like,
Speaker 1: don't do a story about planting trees. Go to a
Speaker 1: story about some guy who's planting or some gal who's
Speaker 1: planting bunch grasses and the great Plains. You know, that's
Speaker 1: going to do more for the ecosystem. That's going to
Speaker 1: be more for water retention and and and kind of
Speaker 1: overall health. Then planting a tree in a lot of places. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's happening in all over. Are in politics and culture,
Speaker 1: like everybody to looking for the feel good, simple, easy
Speaker 1: to digest action, right that that's so, so then they
Speaker 1: can call themselves whatever they want to be. You know,
Speaker 1: if I want to be a environmentalist, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: planet tree and hashtag at Earth Day in the alm
Speaker 1: an environmentally. If I'm if I want to be an activist,
Speaker 1: I go and I fill out my basic information into
Speaker 1: an online form that that votes in some kind of
Speaker 1: protest in ah in such a way that a million
Speaker 1: of us have done that simple act. And now I'm
Speaker 1: an activist like that. You know, it's it's not the doing,
Speaker 1: it's the acting, right, Yeah, and in acting in a
Speaker 1: from an informed place, because you know, a story that
Speaker 1: comes to mind as a friend of mine is, uh,
Speaker 1: he's part of a big expedition in in in Africa,
Speaker 1: um in Angola. It's a National Geographic fact expedition to
Speaker 1: protect the Okavango Delta. And it's an incredible story and
Speaker 1: it's incredible what they've accomplished, you know, helping to protect
Speaker 1: this this great watershed. And and he told me about
Speaker 1: coming across some poachers who had killed an elephant. And
Speaker 1: he walked up and was kind of just obviously the
Speaker 1: scene was ah, it was a sad one was troubling
Speaker 1: to see. And I asked him, as said, you know,
Speaker 1: what was that like to come across people doing that?
Speaker 1: And he said their response was, I have to feed
Speaker 1: my family. I have no other option. I realized that
Speaker 1: caringless animal is illegal. I realized it takes eco tours
Speaker 1: and dollars you know, away from the future. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: has all these negative impacts. But you know, I need
Speaker 1: to put food in my kid's bellies. And it's easy
Speaker 1: for somebody from America to make a statement about that.
Speaker 1: And yes, you know, I think we can all agree
Speaker 1: that elephants need to be protected, you know. But I
Speaker 1: think the reason why I bring it up is that
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a complicated thing. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: drivers influencing the reality on the ground, and and those
Speaker 1: drivers very dramatically between countries and probably regions within those countries. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think again, when we talk about wildlife in America,
Speaker 1: you know, the Southeast is very different than Texas, and
Speaker 1: Texas is very different than California, and California is very
Speaker 1: different than Montana. Um So, moving away from those those
Speaker 1: broad assumption assumptions and whether it's painting hunters is bad
Speaker 1: or good, or recreation people in their recreation space is
Speaker 1: bad or good, it's I think it's just best to
Speaker 1: promote the best examples and if there's a complicated issue
Speaker 1: like wolves, to just say it's complicated, and I don't
Speaker 1: need to give you a yes or no. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And anybody, I mean, you think if you're anti this
Speaker 1: or that, like being anti is a very complicated thing.
Speaker 1: That's simple. We've simplified it into like this easy too
Speaker 1: easy to codify, like I'm anti this so already. Really,
Speaker 1: what the funk are you talking about? You? I'm anti milk?
Speaker 1: Like what? You can't just be anti something without having
Speaker 1: thought it through. And I always say that to the
Speaker 1: people that are self proclaimed anti hunters. You say, like, look, man,
Speaker 1: if you if you were impoverished and starving and the
Speaker 1: only way that you could live is to shoot a deer,
Speaker 1: I promise you, I promise you, unless you're an idiot,
Speaker 1: you would shoot that deer all day long and drag
Speaker 1: it off into the bushes and cut it up and
Speaker 1: eat it to survive. You just happen to live in
Speaker 1: a soft version of our human existence, whereas you can
Speaker 1: pick whether you want to eat a piece of lettuce
Speaker 1: or an orange or a piece of meat, because it's
Speaker 1: all in a nice, air conditioned building, in a maze
Speaker 1: that you walk through and pick what you want and
Speaker 1: put it in a in a basket. Like that's the
Speaker 1: only reason that really to me that human to have
Speaker 1: evolved into either vegetarians or it's selective. You're selecting what
Speaker 1: what what you want to eat based on emotionality and
Speaker 1: virtue signaling and all those types of things, and a
Speaker 1: lot of in a lot of cases. Surely there's people
Speaker 1: that eat vegetables only because of health reasons. I'm cool
Speaker 1: with that, but you gotta you gotta remember that there's
Speaker 1: especially in Africa, like you said, there's people that just
Speaker 1: do not have options. They have one option, killed to
Speaker 1: eat or die. That's that's their scenario that they live in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think your point about anti hunters or non
Speaker 1: hunters or whatever, people who are anti something. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I like to bring up
Speaker 1: is you can be a vegan and say that because I,
Speaker 1: you know, shot an elk bow hunting last year, that
Speaker 1: I'm bad or or whatever. You're kind of uh issues
Speaker 1: with that, you know. My response is, Okay, Well, you're
Speaker 1: a vegan and you have a shirt that's probably not organic,
Speaker 1: probably not a cotton drive. A car might be a Prius,
Speaker 1: but you have a really toxic battery in that prius.
Speaker 1: You have petroleum based tires, plastic all over the thing.
Speaker 1: You probably eat strawberries. A lot of strawberries are super heavy,
Speaker 1: require a lot of pesticides. Probably bananas. Those are wrapped
Speaker 1: in plastic um. Generally they fill creeks and rivers in
Speaker 1: Central and South America. If you've been there, you would
Speaker 1: have seen it. They go into the river, they are
Speaker 1: solid by turtles and killed tons of turtles. And you know,
Speaker 1: the list goes on. And I think it's not a
Speaker 1: an attempt to say you're bad. I'm better, But it's
Speaker 1: the worst thing we ever did for the planet was
Speaker 1: when we were born, you know. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: a too many people on Earth situation, and everybody isn't impact.
Speaker 1: Whether you're hunting a deer eating the strawberry, you know
Speaker 1: something is dying because of that. You know, well that's
Speaker 1: something is dying. Part you wake up like we're designed.
Speaker 1: We were designed a certain way to function in this
Speaker 1: in this natural world. Like when you wake up and
Speaker 1: you start to consume things. Immediately you breathe air, you
Speaker 1: blow out carbon like you you're consuming. You're walking around.
Speaker 1: Every footstep you make has an impact, every road you
Speaker 1: drive on, every card you get it and has an impact.
Speaker 1: And there's no way it's some form of of strange
Speaker 1: kind of insanity to think that that you're lessening one
Speaker 1: your chosen version of lessening that impact is more ratualistic
Speaker 1: than than someone else, or somehow that you can you
Speaker 1: find yourself um with no guilt based on your humanity.
Speaker 1: I mean, there isn't. I mean, if you really think
Speaker 1: about it, that that's what humanity would be based on,
Speaker 1: just the guilt of having to live as a consumptive
Speaker 1: being and that's what we are. And so I'm not
Speaker 1: am I guilty about that? Yeah? Yeah, sure at some level.
Speaker 1: But find it's a better way to function if you
Speaker 1: just dive into your consumptive nature trying to figure the
Speaker 1: damn thing out. Because I certainly went from being a
Speaker 1: hunter to really want in the garden to really want
Speaker 1: to have chickens, uh not the other way around. It
Speaker 1: was like, well, hunting is is a great way to
Speaker 1: consume meat? What about what about can I do that
Speaker 1: in the same way with all the other stuff? And
Speaker 1: and I've evolved that way, and I imagine a lot
Speaker 1: of people and maybe a lot of people you know,
Speaker 1: are evolving the opposite way. They garden have chickens and
Speaker 1: realize that hunting might also be akin to what they're
Speaker 1: doing in their backyard. Absolutely, and you know, and I
Speaker 1: think I think the answer there is just that the
Speaker 1: world would be a better place of people are just
Speaker 1: little bit more thoughtful, you know, and really kind of
Speaker 1: like paused and said, Okay, these are the choices I've made.
Speaker 1: This is how I've chose to live my life. Vegan,
Speaker 1: non hunter, hunter, farmer, whatever you wanna do. And I
Speaker 1: think just thinking about those choices and the impacts of
Speaker 1: those choices is where society needs to go because a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't think about them, and that's where
Speaker 1: we get the polarizing, ah, precon preconceived notions. I think
Speaker 1: that's where we propagate divide. I think that's where we
Speaker 1: don't work together. I think that's where we create enemies.
Speaker 1: And I think the key is just saying, Okay, choose
Speaker 1: whatever you want to do, don't impose on other people,
Speaker 1: but just think about why you do what you do
Speaker 1: and how that helps the endgame of of conservation or
Speaker 1: stewardship or or whatever your mission is. And I think
Speaker 1: that's that's just a beautiful part, right that we're having
Speaker 1: this conversation. Is the beautiful part that it is that
Speaker 1: complex and it does. You can talk for a couple
Speaker 1: hours on just one little aspect of it and it
Speaker 1: can all be worthwhile. That there's no way to boil
Speaker 1: this damn thing down. You can't do it. If you're
Speaker 1: trying to do it is an exercise and just insanity.
Speaker 1: There's no way. I mean, as you said, there's how
Speaker 1: many ecosystems in Bozeman, Montana are working right now to
Speaker 1: create that environment and have it thrived. You couldn't list
Speaker 1: them all, all the different species that are that are
Speaker 1: out there cohabitating and working with us in some way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think the hunting that you know has been
Speaker 1: has been really eye opening. A lot of people that
Speaker 1: I grew up with and and you know, considering my
Speaker 1: close circle don't hunt. You know, I was probably the
Speaker 1: only kid in my high school that hunted growing up.
Speaker 1: And to bring my fiancee, you know, she's an artist
Speaker 1: named Rachel Pole. She she did grew up in hunting family,
Speaker 1: and we went. She came with me almost every day
Speaker 1: of this fall, and I think she realized not only
Speaker 1: what hunting is about, that it's that it's this really challenging,
Speaker 1: exciting immersion and an ecosystem, but that sometimes some years
Speaker 1: you succeed. And to see her honor grow for these
Speaker 1: meals we're sharing with our friends and family, and to
Speaker 1: see her developed that interest in going out this fall
Speaker 1: and hunting it's a is a really exciting things. It's
Speaker 1: it's a similar reverence that you get when you grow strawberries.
Speaker 1: Strawberries are hard to grow, especially out of a greenhouse,
Speaker 1: and I have been an avid gardener for a lot
Speaker 1: of my adult life in the years that you have
Speaker 1: a good strawberry plant, I mean, you eat those strawberries
Speaker 1: with such reverence, you know, when you share them with
Speaker 1: your friends, You're like, only have four and you can
Speaker 1: have one of them. And I just want you to
Speaker 1: know that I for the last week, I've been out
Speaker 1: with my headlamp peeling slugs off my strawberry plant to
Speaker 1: make the dirt. I want to kick you and the ships. Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's just it's one of my proudest
Speaker 1: moments last or two years ago, was I had the
Speaker 1: strawberry plant and friends would come over and like, Okay,
Speaker 1: don't touch that one. Don't touch that one. You can
Speaker 1: have this little one, you know, And it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of like you go on this hunter you you know,
Speaker 1: or you grow flowers in your garden, gives your mom
Speaker 1: and it's just it's such a different thing when you
Speaker 1: know what's gone into into that, you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: food or a gift or just an experience, and it's
Speaker 1: it's probably the richest part of my life is just
Speaker 1: that relationships with the land. I talked about that in
Speaker 1: the earlier podcast about where my wife specifically, I feel
Speaker 1: like I've perfected the way to cook an elk back
Speaker 1: strap or a whatever. I had this, like it took
Speaker 1: me years decade to get it to the point where
Speaker 1: I know how to do it. I like it every time,
Speaker 1: and I would go home and I'd be working late
Speaker 1: and my wife would cook up in elk steak and
Speaker 1: you know, the baby would be run around and should
Speaker 1: forget to pull it out on time, and it'd be
Speaker 1: like ten degrees uh internal temperature warmer than I would
Speaker 1: have cooked it. And I and I find myself being
Speaker 1: a bit of an asshole about that. Come on, Hannah,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Get it together? And then I think, well,
Speaker 1: what do you Why are you so upset? And that's
Speaker 1: the reason why, because it's like this thing is important
Speaker 1: to me, it's reverent to me, and it's made me
Speaker 1: a little bit of a dick about my back scraps.
Speaker 1: And Imi even I had that conversation like She's like,
Speaker 1: what is wrong with you. I said, well, look, man,
Speaker 1: I can't go. I can't go and get this again.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be six or eight months before I even
Speaker 1: have the opportunity, and that even then it's not guaranteed.
Speaker 1: And uh, I think she understands it a little bit
Speaker 1: more now. She loves the cook game. She loves the
Speaker 1: cook game. She doesn't hunt, she doesn't have the same
Speaker 1: She loves it for the flavor and for the experience
Speaker 1: of knowing me and knowing how it died. But she
Speaker 1: doesn't have the same reverence I have for because she
Speaker 1: doesn't never experience the hardship of going to get it.
Speaker 1: And I think it's that it's that reverence and that
Speaker 1: that deep connection you have the animal that that I
Speaker 1: see in scientists and stewards and people you know across
Speaker 1: the board who identify with the natural world. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the earliest things that inspire me as a
Speaker 1: young person was fishing with my grandmother, you know, avid fisher,
Speaker 1: woman Burder, really amazing lady. And this is in San
Speaker 1: Francisco Bay where there's a lot of leopard sharks, and
Speaker 1: we're out fishing on this pier and this guy is
Speaker 1: catching leopard sharks and cutting their fins off and throwing
Speaker 1: them back in the water. And my grandmother, who is
Speaker 1: probably fifty five or sixty at the time, he kept
Speaker 1: this guy catches a leopard shark, probably a four ft
Speaker 1: leoperd shark, and my grandmother walks over. The guy gets
Speaker 1: in his face, grabs a shark out of his hands,
Speaker 1: throw it, throws it back in the water, and starts
Speaker 1: giving him an earful on respecting, you know, these animals
Speaker 1: and respecting wildlife. And my brother and I were really little,
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget seeing her do that. And I
Speaker 1: think it's that it's that realization that if we don't
Speaker 1: speak up for these animals in these places and think
Speaker 1: about that backstrap and that force that supported that elk
Speaker 1: as as our obligation to speak on their behalf, then
Speaker 1: by default they'll just slip away because these places don't
Speaker 1: have voices. Animals don't have voices of their own, so
Speaker 1: they need people like us to be out there making
Speaker 1: sure that they don't, you know, slip away. You know,
Speaker 1: I want my kids to hunt where I grew up hunting,
Speaker 1: and I know that if something was going to threaten
Speaker 1: that place, I would, you know, i'd be there, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way.
Speaker 1: Two hunters agreeing on animal rights? What the hell kind
Speaker 1: of podcast? What are we talking that that? As you're
Speaker 1: talking there, I was just thinking about that too, as
Speaker 1: I getting these conversations. Then you try to shape them
Speaker 1: in a way, but they go how they go. UM,
Speaker 1: And I've had more conversations doing this podcast about animal
Speaker 1: rights on a hunting podcast, then I can can think
Speaker 1: I maybe have ever had UM in any any conversation
Speaker 1: or any community I've had. So that's one of the
Speaker 1: cool things about this UM and about what you're doing,
Speaker 1: is that it's bringing to light that maybe animal rights
Speaker 1: activists and hunters are aren't all that different, or maybe
Speaker 1: that at some level of damn same thing. UM and
Speaker 1: a lot of people. So it's beautiful man. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you, And I think you know
Speaker 1: one of the things that I love about the hunting
Speaker 1: industry is that by default people are are are stoked
Speaker 1: on wildlife, which is something that I miss in the
Speaker 1: outdoor recreation space because just because you're in that space
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you love animals. So I feel I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm yeah, I feel like I'm meeting a lot
Speaker 1: of people, especially in Bozeman, that are you know, uh,
Speaker 1: they're just like wildlife nerds that go about it in
Speaker 1: different ways. And I love that and I and it,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it. It brings up this point
Speaker 1: that I try to share with people, which is that
Speaker 1: you can see a picture of a a person holding
Speaker 1: a steelhead trout, a wild steelhead. I would argue that
Speaker 1: has more of an impact on the ecosystem than killing
Speaker 1: a white tailed deer. But we just have this affinity,
Speaker 1: this connection with the ant the eyes of deer, and
Speaker 1: society treats them one way. But a steelhead trout, which
Speaker 1: might come from an imperiled population that's in decline, that
Speaker 1: has trying so hard to just live, and you drag
Speaker 1: it out of the water, it gives up, which which
Speaker 1: means it's almost dying. And if you look at the
Speaker 1: physiology of catching and release, there is an impact, whether
Speaker 1: you'd like to believe it or not. UM, talk to
Speaker 1: any fish biologist about the effects of catching release on lipids.
Speaker 1: You know, I practice catching and release a lot. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody's perfect, but there's impact there. UM. And it's all
Speaker 1: about just you know, realizing we're in it for the
Speaker 1: same reasons fishermen fish. They care about waterways, they care
Speaker 1: about fish, they care about those ecosystems we hunt. We
Speaker 1: care about these animals and these ecosystems, and people who
Speaker 1: hike care about the same thing too. And and I
Speaker 1: appreciate you, and I appreciate this podcast, and I appreciate
Speaker 1: you know what you're excited to talk about because it's
Speaker 1: an indication that there's there's so much common ground, and
Speaker 1: there's so much room for progress, and there's so much
Speaker 1: a collaborative energy out there that I think it's just
Speaker 1: waiting to be tapped into. Yeah, I agree, And b
Speaker 1: I have a very, um, I don't know how to
Speaker 1: say it, a very combative relationship with catching release. So
Speaker 1: you're now for bringing that up. You're not my favorite
Speaker 1: guest because I live in a world where the grip
Speaker 1: and grim photo is like this negative thing. But the
Speaker 1: grip and the catching grip photo or the whatever the
Speaker 1: fishing catching release fishing folks do, is this like the
Speaker 1: celebrated thing that's okay? And I have not yet been
Speaker 1: able to figure out how one can wrap their mind
Speaker 1: around catching release fishing being a okay and hunting being negative,
Speaker 1: but um, I think that's probably a whole another podcast,
Speaker 1: and we're about we're about at a time, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to. I don't want to get in trouble
Speaker 1: with any of my fishing buddies because I do love it,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad to come and grab a fly rod
Speaker 1: and come to Montana and do it. But I gotta
Speaker 1: I got a few problems with you people, and will
Speaker 1: cover that next time. Yeah, I agree. I think that's
Speaker 1: a that's a whole another whole another conversation. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I appreciate all the all the good questions, and um yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe we can sit down and continue some of them
Speaker 1: down the road and go for a fish ourselves. Absolutely, man,
Speaker 1: I'm all down for that. I hope to see you
Speaker 1: before too long in Bozeman as soon as he gets
Speaker 1: hot down here in Texas. I'm going north for for something,
Speaker 1: probably fishing, So we'll get together and have that conversation
Speaker 1: while we're trying to catch tra out. Sounds good, Bring
Speaker 1: a bring some headphones and a recorder. Yeah, professional, That's
Speaker 1: that's how I'm gonna title this Wildlife Nerd Charles post,
Speaker 1: Thanks man, Happy. That sounds that sounds perfect. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: it Episode number seven in the books. Thank you to
Speaker 1: Charles post great conversation. I think, among other things I
Speaker 1: learned from Charles, just we can't stereotype people we see
Speaker 1: on the street. We can't stereotype people we see in
Speaker 1: a hunting camp. They're starting to be people like Charles
Speaker 1: who don't look the part, or don't have the history
Speaker 1: of the part, who are in our world and their
Speaker 1: voices are important, and I think Charles might be the
Speaker 1: best example of that right now. He's got unique perspectives
Speaker 1: both in science and cohabitation in the natural world, in
Speaker 1: ecology and biology, and has been trained by some people
Speaker 1: who have never hunted themselves, So I think that gives
Speaker 1: me a unique perspective on what we do. And the
Speaker 1: uniqueness of his respective is really where it's valuable. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if uniqueness is a word or not, but
Speaker 1: that's what he is. So thanks for tuning in. Episode
Speaker 1: number seven is done. I'm done four now We're gonna
Speaker 1: see you next week with another great guest. Until then,
Speaker 1: go to the Hunting Collective dot com for articles, videos,
Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff. The other six episodes we've
Speaker 1: done before This featuring Steve Ronella, Ryan Callahan, John Dudley,
Speaker 1: Shane Mahoney, Aubrey Marcus, and more. Check us out on iTunes,
Speaker 1: give us a review, please subscribe to tell your friends
Speaker 1: to do the same. We're also on Stitcher who We're
Speaker 1: working on some other platforms. So until the next time,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. We'll talk soon, mister wo