1
00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:17,200
Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukleman. This is a production of

2
00:00:17,239 --> 00:00:21,400
Speaker 1: the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where

3
00:00:21,400 --> 00:00:25,759
Speaker 1: we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes

4
00:00:26,040 --> 00:00:30,520
Speaker 1: of the actual bear Grease podcast. Presented by f h

5
00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:35,360
Speaker 1: F Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear

6
00:00:35,600 --> 00:00:38,560
Speaker 1: that's designed to be as rugged as the place. As

7
00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:50,560
Speaker 1: we explore. We got an incredible podcast lined up very

8
00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:53,760
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a very interesting conversation. We're joined today

9
00:00:53,760 --> 00:00:59,400
Speaker 1: by Travis Thompson from Florida and we are going to

10
00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:03,440
Speaker 1: talk about Florida bears, I mean, one of our favor

11
00:01:04,800 --> 00:01:08,039
Speaker 1: no willy nilly and around here like how was your week?

12
00:01:08,120 --> 00:01:10,280
Speaker 1: What have you been doing, Josh, You've been fly fishing.

13
00:01:10,360 --> 00:01:13,640
Speaker 1: Nobody cares about your fly fishing. We are we are

14
00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:15,000
Speaker 1: getting into.

15
00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:17,720
Speaker 2: There are a loyal few that email me and say

16
00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:21,959
Speaker 2: Clay needs to lay off the fly fishing comments and that.

17
00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:22,240
Speaker 3: That could be me.

18
00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:27,399
Speaker 1: I could I have alienated half of our listenership by

19
00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:31,319
Speaker 1: my by my my Adamacy talking about fly.

20
00:01:31,560 --> 00:01:33,280
Speaker 2: And support fly fishing on the.

21
00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:36,360
Speaker 1: Well baron newcom told me we should have Dwayne Hayda

22
00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:38,880
Speaker 1: on this podcast. Wayne had would be an excellent well,

23
00:01:38,959 --> 00:01:42,360
Speaker 1: I would like to extend the formal invitation to Dwayne

24
00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:43,720
Speaker 1: Hayda on the podcast.

25
00:01:43,400 --> 00:01:45,200
Speaker 3: If we can talk about fly Have you noticed there's

26
00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:48,320
Speaker 3: a ven diagram that is a complete overlap of fly

27
00:01:48,440 --> 00:01:51,680
Speaker 3: fishermen and then it just barely shifts in the turkey hunters.

28
00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:54,320
Speaker 3: Is that they're almost I yeah, they're the same people

29
00:01:55,840 --> 00:01:58,520
Speaker 3: that I'm telling you in Florida. They're the same people.

30
00:01:58,640 --> 00:01:59,440
Speaker 1: That's interesting.

31
00:01:59,560 --> 00:02:02,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're consumed with those two practices, and those two

32
00:02:02,160 --> 00:02:02,880
Speaker 3: practices only.

33
00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:06,240
Speaker 1: That is very interesting. I can't I can't, I don't.

34
00:02:06,320 --> 00:02:08,239
Speaker 1: I can't describe it, but I understand it.

35
00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:10,440
Speaker 3: It's like CrossFit, like you go somewhere and that's all

36
00:02:10,480 --> 00:02:12,240
Speaker 3: they could talk about is fly fishing or turkey hunt

37
00:02:12,280 --> 00:02:13,640
Speaker 3: depending on the time of year. Yeah.

38
00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:19,840
Speaker 1: Interesting, So Josh saved the fly fishing small talk. My

39
00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:25,440
Speaker 1: moment is here, man. There was just just to give

40
00:02:25,480 --> 00:02:27,240
Speaker 1: a small introduction of what we're going to spend the

41
00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:30,359
Speaker 1: next hour and a half talking about. Is that last

42
00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:38,320
Speaker 1: week in Florida, the Game Commission approved a Florida bear hunt,

43
00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:40,760
Speaker 1: which we're going to get into all the history, but

44
00:02:40,919 --> 00:02:43,960
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about. This is major, this is significant,

45
00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:49,600
Speaker 1: and Travis was heavily involved in everything that went on

46
00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:53,080
Speaker 1: around that. Now, Travis, tell me who you work for,

47
00:02:53,200 --> 00:02:55,040
Speaker 1: what you do, kind of your history.

48
00:02:55,440 --> 00:02:57,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I got kind of a three throng three prong.

49
00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:02,639
Speaker 3: Who I work for? I run ironically for talking about bears.

50
00:03:02,639 --> 00:03:05,200
Speaker 3: I run the largest waterfowl hunting operation in the state

51
00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:08,120
Speaker 3: of Florida. Oh so I'm a big duck hunter. So

52
00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:10,960
Speaker 3: you're an outfitter. Yeah, well, yeah, we'll call it that

53
00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:12,720
Speaker 3: in Florida. I don't have a lodge or anything like that,

54
00:03:12,760 --> 00:03:15,080
Speaker 3: but most of what we do is by the day stuff.

55
00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:17,360
Speaker 3: And I used to be a fishing guide before I

56
00:03:17,400 --> 00:03:21,840
Speaker 3: got into hunting. More so, I do ducks, alligators, snipe,

57
00:03:22,200 --> 00:03:25,399
Speaker 3: and some hogs. I don't love hog hunting, but that's

58
00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:28,400
Speaker 3: a different story anyway. And then I grew up. I'm

59
00:03:28,400 --> 00:03:30,720
Speaker 3: fifth generation Florida and grew up there hunting fishing my

60
00:03:30,760 --> 00:03:33,240
Speaker 3: whole life. My dad worked for a department environmental protection,

61
00:03:33,800 --> 00:03:36,040
Speaker 3: so I kind of grew up with a dad that

62
00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:39,320
Speaker 3: was carrying a gun around and was a tree hugger,

63
00:03:39,840 --> 00:03:43,000
Speaker 3: so like, very heavy in the conservation space. I have

64
00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:45,760
Speaker 3: a nonprofit in Florida. It's called All Florida where we

65
00:03:45,800 --> 00:03:49,520
Speaker 3: work on issues like this. Anything Nick touches conservation, so

66
00:03:50,120 --> 00:03:54,760
Speaker 3: ag ranching, timber, prescribe fire stuff, water quality, and consumpt

67
00:03:54,800 --> 00:03:57,200
Speaker 3: of use. You know, I heard Ranella say years ago

68
00:03:57,280 --> 00:03:59,960
Speaker 3: on The Stars in the Sky that a conservation is

69
00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:02,320
Speaker 3: as an environmentalist with a gun. Yeah, I'm trying to

70
00:04:02,320 --> 00:04:05,839
Speaker 3: reclaim that in Florida as a conservationists environmentalist with a gun.

71
00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:08,120
Speaker 3: I like that. And then the other thing I do

72
00:04:08,680 --> 00:04:10,600
Speaker 3: kind of my day jobs. I work for a group

73
00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:13,840
Speaker 3: called the International Order Theodore Roosevelt, and we do constitutional

74
00:04:13,880 --> 00:04:16,719
Speaker 3: rights to fish and hunt in states. So I got

75
00:04:16,720 --> 00:04:19,679
Speaker 3: hooked up with those guys a couple of years back,

76
00:04:20,120 --> 00:04:22,359
Speaker 3: and in the state of Florida, we did a constitutional

77
00:04:22,440 --> 00:04:25,039
Speaker 3: right to fish in hunt, which like the bear hunt.

78
00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:26,720
Speaker 3: Everybody said, well, you're never going to get a bear

79
00:04:26,760 --> 00:04:28,559
Speaker 3: hunt again. Everybody said you're never going to get that passed.

80
00:04:28,640 --> 00:04:30,800
Speaker 3: We passed it with sixty seven percent, with a huge

81
00:04:30,800 --> 00:04:34,000
Speaker 3: grassroots movement in the state, and so that was a

82
00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:35,640
Speaker 3: big deal. But that's that's who I am. That's kind

83
00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:38,400
Speaker 3: of how I entered the conversation, is like, I'm passionate

84
00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:42,640
Speaker 3: about keeping Florida wild. Yeah, and I believe hunting fishing

85
00:04:42,839 --> 00:04:45,200
Speaker 3: are two of the most important tools on that landscape

86
00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:45,560
Speaker 3: to do it.

87
00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:49,520
Speaker 1: So Florida, let's start off by describing Florida. I've not

88
00:04:49,560 --> 00:04:52,520
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time there, but but I'm aware

89
00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:59,240
Speaker 1: of kind of culturally, what's what's going on in that

90
00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:02,400
Speaker 1: Florida is one of the fastest growing states in the country.

91
00:05:02,560 --> 00:05:03,039
Speaker 3: Yep, I don't.

92
00:05:03,040 --> 00:05:06,480
Speaker 1: I don't know the exact stats, but but I've heard

93
00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:09,960
Speaker 1: it said that, you know, there's there's a band around

94
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:15,720
Speaker 1: the coast of Florida of development, of massive development, massive cities,

95
00:05:16,040 --> 00:05:21,360
Speaker 1: massive development. But the interior of Florida, essentially, I mean,

96
00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:24,039
Speaker 1: I'm putting stop me and you take over this, But

97
00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:27,240
Speaker 1: I mean, like the interior of Florida is like the

98
00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:29,240
Speaker 1: rural rural America.

99
00:05:29,400 --> 00:05:32,159
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the joke used to be the further south

100
00:05:32,160 --> 00:05:34,240
Speaker 3: you go in Florida, the further north you get. That

101
00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:35,760
Speaker 3: used to be kind of the joke because it was

102
00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:38,839
Speaker 3: so developed, like in Miami or Fort Myers or these places.

103
00:05:39,160 --> 00:05:42,080
Speaker 3: But in reality, Florida is deep south. Like I live

104
00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:44,200
Speaker 3: in Polk County, which is the dead center of the state.

105
00:05:46,040 --> 00:05:48,279
Speaker 3: It's I mean, it's a different terrain, but it's like

106
00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:51,240
Speaker 3: driving out here, right, there's a lot of cattle a

107
00:05:51,279 --> 00:05:53,800
Speaker 3: lot of Florida was the first state with cattle, right,

108
00:05:53,880 --> 00:05:56,240
Speaker 3: so cattle ranching in the United States, originating cattle, and

109
00:05:56,279 --> 00:05:58,360
Speaker 3: I think it's in the top ten now still.

110
00:05:58,120 --> 00:05:59,839
Speaker 1: For huge cattle production.

111
00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:04,599
Speaker 3: Cowboys, real cowboys. We call them cow hunters because Florida

112
00:06:04,640 --> 00:06:08,200
Speaker 3: didn't have fences until the fifties. So cattle you branded

113
00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:10,040
Speaker 3: them and just let them go and then you would

114
00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:12,200
Speaker 3: go round them up and take them sell them. So

115
00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:14,200
Speaker 3: we didn't have fences that so they called them cow hunters.

116
00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:17,360
Speaker 3: You went into this really rough stuff and rooted out

117
00:06:17,400 --> 00:06:21,279
Speaker 3: your cows. Florida's the only state you know, there's a

118
00:06:21,279 --> 00:06:24,880
Speaker 3: conservation easement program called in rcs they have Eastman's Florida

119
00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:26,440
Speaker 3: is the only state where you're allowed grazing on the

120
00:06:26,440 --> 00:06:28,960
Speaker 3: easements because it's such an important tool for keeping our

121
00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:33,360
Speaker 3: state wild. And about Man is probably ten years ago.

122
00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:36,160
Speaker 3: A friend of mine, a gentleman named Carlton Ward. He's

123
00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:38,960
Speaker 3: a National Geographic guy, real big in panther stuff. He

124
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:41,160
Speaker 3: did Path of the Panther. It's on National Geographic. I

125
00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:43,880
Speaker 3: don't know if you'll ever seen that, but and Carlton

126
00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:47,040
Speaker 3: is a hunter, was a hunter, but he's very much

127
00:06:47,040 --> 00:06:51,200
Speaker 3: into environmental stuff. He kind of helped originate or codify

128
00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:53,960
Speaker 3: this idea of a Florida Wildlife Corridor, which was the

129
00:06:54,040 --> 00:06:55,800
Speaker 3: idea that if you took a panther and you stuck

130
00:06:55,839 --> 00:06:57,400
Speaker 3: him in Flamingo at the south end of the state,

131
00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:00,919
Speaker 3: he could walk to the Okefinoki Swamp in Georgia and

132
00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:04,760
Speaker 3: never cross the road, you know, have prey along the way,

133
00:07:04,880 --> 00:07:09,600
Speaker 3: and create this green infrastructure through our state. Florida's got

134
00:07:09,640 --> 00:07:11,960
Speaker 3: the most public lands, I think east of the Mississippi River.

135
00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:14,760
Speaker 3: We have seven million acres six point eight million acres

136
00:07:14,760 --> 00:07:17,560
Speaker 3: of public lands. So we've got a lot of public

137
00:07:17,640 --> 00:07:19,800
Speaker 3: land out there and a lot of that's available to hunt.

138
00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:24,200
Speaker 3: So Carlton and a team and there's an organization called

139
00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:28,080
Speaker 3: the Florida Wildlife Corridor. They went and passed a legislation

140
00:07:28,160 --> 00:07:32,360
Speaker 3: to codify the Florida Wildlife Corridor and create this green infrastructure.

141
00:07:32,760 --> 00:07:35,400
Speaker 3: And the animal they used was not the panther. The

142
00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:38,360
Speaker 3: animal they used was a black bear. They wanted a

143
00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:40,240
Speaker 3: black bear and to show that this black bear could

144
00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:44,640
Speaker 3: go from Big Cypress National Preserve and wander two Okala

145
00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:48,559
Speaker 3: National Forest or Appalachicola National Forest or Osciola National Forest

146
00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:50,920
Speaker 3: and they use that and they kind of created that

147
00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:53,120
Speaker 3: animal as at avatar. And there's days where I'm like, man,

148
00:07:53,480 --> 00:07:55,080
Speaker 3: that's a game species, so we want to make sure

149
00:07:55,080 --> 00:07:58,560
Speaker 3: we talk about it as a game species. But they

150
00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:01,600
Speaker 3: did a really good job of kind of go into ranchers,

151
00:08:02,120 --> 00:08:05,640
Speaker 3: go into private landowners, and then inter working those properties

152
00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:09,160
Speaker 3: with public lands so that we had these corridors for

153
00:08:09,320 --> 00:08:11,560
Speaker 3: animals to traverse. And it's not just bears, it's deer

154
00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:14,880
Speaker 3: and turkeys and quail and go for towardous and everything else.

155
00:08:15,640 --> 00:08:19,080
Speaker 3: And so the black bear has kind of become this

156
00:08:19,200 --> 00:08:23,120
Speaker 3: avatar for protecting what's wild in in Florida, in the

157
00:08:23,120 --> 00:08:25,440
Speaker 3: heartland of Florida, what we would call the heartland of Florida.

158
00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:27,960
Speaker 3: And you talk about the coast being all developed out,

159
00:08:28,040 --> 00:08:30,680
Speaker 3: and we want to grow, like there's there's places that

160
00:08:30,760 --> 00:08:34,560
Speaker 3: need economic development in the state, good development, and there's

161
00:08:34,640 --> 00:08:37,960
Speaker 3: good development and bad development. Right, there's some places that

162
00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:39,160
Speaker 3: need some of that, but we want to grow in

163
00:08:39,160 --> 00:08:43,440
Speaker 3: a way that allows species to thrive and work. A

164
00:08:43,480 --> 00:08:45,960
Speaker 3: friend of mine, he's a new commissioner, but he, Josh

165
00:08:46,040 --> 00:08:48,120
Speaker 3: Kellum said last week, we want to we want to

166
00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:50,840
Speaker 3: make sure conservation and development are able to work together

167
00:08:51,320 --> 00:08:53,480
Speaker 3: so that we have these wild places and wild things

168
00:08:53,480 --> 00:08:55,320
Speaker 3: that are able to exist a long time. So that

169
00:08:55,400 --> 00:08:57,400
Speaker 3: was a roundabout way of answering your question. But I

170
00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:01,000
Speaker 3: think yes, Florida is still real wild. Yes, we got

171
00:09:01,040 --> 00:09:03,320
Speaker 3: the oat trees with the moss growing on them. And

172
00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:06,120
Speaker 3: for us, it's it's cabbage palms. I don't know if

173
00:09:06,160 --> 00:09:08,760
Speaker 3: y'all have seen cabbage palms, but cabbage palms. They're critically

174
00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:10,920
Speaker 3: important to black bears as a forest source.

175
00:09:11,360 --> 00:09:13,760
Speaker 1: But they're eating the leaves of them, the berries they

176
00:09:13,840 --> 00:09:16,120
Speaker 1: get berries and cabbage palms, they love them.

177
00:09:16,600 --> 00:09:19,240
Speaker 3: And uh, we just got force of cabbage palms. You know,

178
00:09:19,320 --> 00:09:22,000
Speaker 3: have thickets of cabbage palms, and it's just a unique

179
00:09:22,240 --> 00:09:25,040
Speaker 3: landscape even to just see like silhouetted it's very different

180
00:09:25,080 --> 00:09:28,040
Speaker 3: than an oak hamick or a pine thicket or something

181
00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:30,439
Speaker 3: that you'd see someplace else. You see these cabbage palms

182
00:09:30,440 --> 00:09:33,319
Speaker 3: with their like pointy leaves and everything. It's it's a

183
00:09:33,360 --> 00:09:36,120
Speaker 3: really unique landscape. It's it's special, man, it's special.

184
00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:41,840
Speaker 1: So this this corridor is it down to the granular

185
00:09:43,440 --> 00:09:47,000
Speaker 1: understanding where they're actually mapping like they could show on

186
00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:51,240
Speaker 1: a map. Oh, like like this property connects to this property,

187
00:09:51,240 --> 00:09:53,080
Speaker 1: which connects to this So it's not just kind of

188
00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:56,800
Speaker 1: like an arbitrary like there's like a like a bike

189
00:09:57,240 --> 00:09:59,640
Speaker 1: not a bike trail, but it's exactly like a map.

190
00:09:59,400 --> 00:10:02,040
Speaker 3: The idea, and so University Florida doctor Tom Hogger at

191
00:10:02,080 --> 00:10:05,400
Speaker 3: University of Florida got involved in it, and the Corridor

192
00:10:05,640 --> 00:10:07,959
Speaker 3: Foundation itself. They've sat down and mapped it all out.

193
00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:10,839
Speaker 3: And so if you were to protect it all it

194
00:10:10,840 --> 00:10:13,400
Speaker 3: would be eighteen million acres protected lands. That's not all

195
00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:18,080
Speaker 3: public lands. That's private conservation easement sold or land put

196
00:10:18,120 --> 00:10:22,240
Speaker 3: into less than fee acquisition or whatever. But today we

197
00:10:22,280 --> 00:10:25,040
Speaker 3: have about ten million protected in it and the rest

198
00:10:25,080 --> 00:10:26,920
Speaker 3: isn't developed yet. So we're trying to figure out ways

199
00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:30,480
Speaker 3: that we can protect it. And Travis a guy that contends.

200
00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:32,920
Speaker 3: You know, I talk about Aldo Leopold's plow cow ax

201
00:10:32,960 --> 00:10:35,560
Speaker 3: match gun. Those are the five tools that are going

202
00:10:35,640 --> 00:10:38,880
Speaker 3: to save wildlife. We don't talk about that gun nearly enough.

203
00:10:39,400 --> 00:10:41,320
Speaker 3: And when we talk about a species like black bear

204
00:10:41,480 --> 00:10:43,840
Speaker 3: or you know, in North Florida, we got timber, heavy timber.

205
00:10:44,520 --> 00:10:47,400
Speaker 3: Those guys run qual hunting operations or turkey hunting operations,

206
00:10:47,440 --> 00:10:50,120
Speaker 3: and that's another revenue stream that's helping off set the

207
00:10:50,160 --> 00:10:51,720
Speaker 3: pressure because the developer is going to come in there

208
00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:54,360
Speaker 3: and offer you x thousand dollars a year to turn

209
00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:56,640
Speaker 3: this into a subdivision or a solar farm or whatever.

210
00:10:57,360 --> 00:10:59,679
Speaker 3: If you can stack some revenue streams on top of

211
00:10:59,720 --> 00:11:02,040
Speaker 3: an e has been and produced something like solar or

212
00:11:02,080 --> 00:11:05,000
Speaker 3: cattle or cross man, we can keep Florida wild for

213
00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:05,640
Speaker 3: a long time.

214
00:11:06,160 --> 00:11:08,520
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in and I'm gonna

215
00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:13,480
Speaker 1: say something that you said some good but but I've

216
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:16,160
Speaker 1: I've kind of said the same thing, but I don't

217
00:11:16,160 --> 00:11:20,360
Speaker 1: hear it enough. And that is and it's essentially encapsulating

218
00:11:20,440 --> 00:11:26,080
Speaker 1: what you just said is that the cultural and economical

219
00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:31,040
Speaker 1: value of hunting in North America will be the thing

220
00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:36,440
Speaker 1: that a massive factor on saving wild places. So and

221
00:11:36,520 --> 00:11:41,439
Speaker 1: in in today's world where where expansion of civilization, roads, concrete,

222
00:11:41,960 --> 00:11:47,520
Speaker 1: urban sprawl, neighborhoods put you know, going out and being built,

223
00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:51,000
Speaker 1: people wanting to have five acres in a house like

224
00:11:51,160 --> 00:11:55,600
Speaker 1: all that sprawl a thing. And and and you know

225
00:11:55,679 --> 00:11:59,040
Speaker 1: how much of the percentage of America's private land, like uh,

226
00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:02,559
Speaker 1: like ninety five percent or something big at least ninety

227
00:12:02,600 --> 00:12:05,719
Speaker 1: percent of America is private land. So if you think

228
00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:08,920
Speaker 1: about wildlife conservation on this macro scale, it's actually the

229
00:12:08,960 --> 00:12:12,920
Speaker 1: private land that's going to be the main thing. Like

230
00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:16,040
Speaker 1: we think about public land and habitat conservation, but private

231
00:12:16,120 --> 00:12:21,920
Speaker 1: land ninety percent of the country. We we when people

232
00:12:21,960 --> 00:12:27,760
Speaker 1: are incentivized to keep their places unfragmented undeveloped because of

233
00:12:27,800 --> 00:12:31,720
Speaker 1: the hunting value of that land, we win. In fifty

234
00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:34,520
Speaker 1: years from now, should the earth persist, they'll be like,

235
00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:38,080
Speaker 1: thank God that there was cultural value of hunting that

236
00:12:38,200 --> 00:12:42,280
Speaker 1: kept some places wild. And I mean it's a it's

237
00:12:42,280 --> 00:12:45,719
Speaker 1: a it's an incredible point that I don't hear enough

238
00:12:45,720 --> 00:12:48,280
Speaker 1: people say, and it resonates with people when when you

239
00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:52,480
Speaker 1: say it, it's like, you know what, hunting is incentivizing

240
00:12:53,600 --> 00:12:56,880
Speaker 1: the keeping places wild because just like if I had

241
00:12:56,920 --> 00:13:00,680
Speaker 1: forty acres right here at Arkansas and right up against town,

242
00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:02,960
Speaker 1: and I could sell it to a developer, or I

243
00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:06,840
Speaker 1: could keep it because my kids valued hunting, my family

244
00:13:06,920 --> 00:13:09,080
Speaker 1: valued hunting, or sell it to a hunter who's going

245
00:13:09,160 --> 00:13:11,520
Speaker 1: to put little food plots on it and cameras all

246
00:13:11,520 --> 00:13:14,520
Speaker 1: over it. And I mean, like that is a win,

247
00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:16,880
Speaker 1: massive win for there to be a blank spot on

248
00:13:16,920 --> 00:13:18,560
Speaker 1: a map like Aldo Leopold would say.

249
00:13:18,920 --> 00:13:21,040
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny. So I mentioned a minute ago

250
00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:23,000
Speaker 3: I worked on the right deficient hunt. And what hooked

251
00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:25,720
Speaker 3: me on that was not that I wanted to protect

252
00:13:25,800 --> 00:13:27,959
Speaker 3: the right efficient hunt, although I do, like I'm a

253
00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:29,959
Speaker 3: hunter angler, like, of course I want to protect the

254
00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:33,960
Speaker 3: right defiicient hunt. But in that we looked at language

255
00:13:33,960 --> 00:13:36,120
Speaker 3: in other states, and there's these magic words you use anyway.

256
00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:37,920
Speaker 3: We looked at language in the state of North Carolina,

257
00:13:38,800 --> 00:13:41,360
Speaker 3: and the Supreme Court in North Carolina determined that those

258
00:13:41,440 --> 00:13:45,200
Speaker 3: rights can't exist in the abstract, which means you have

259
00:13:45,280 --> 00:13:48,280
Speaker 3: to be able to exercise them, which means in a

260
00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:52,480
Speaker 3: state that's feeling development pressure like Florida, putting that in place.

261
00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:54,240
Speaker 3: And I think this is important to put in place

262
00:13:54,240 --> 00:13:56,600
Speaker 3: everywhere before it becomes because I when I talk to

263
00:13:56,600 --> 00:13:58,679
Speaker 3: guys in Montana, they're like, man, you never seen development

264
00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:00,240
Speaker 3: like this. I'm like, dude, come to Floria to let

265
00:14:00,280 --> 00:14:03,160
Speaker 3: me show how the big boys play. But the yeah,

266
00:14:03,640 --> 00:14:06,040
Speaker 3: that right can't exist in the abstract, which means the

267
00:14:06,080 --> 00:14:08,079
Speaker 3: state can't say you got the right to hunt, but

268
00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:11,319
Speaker 3: we're going to eradicate white tailed deer. You have to

269
00:14:11,360 --> 00:14:14,000
Speaker 3: be able to exercise the right, and I think that's

270
00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:16,160
Speaker 3: an important thing. So it folds into the same thing

271
00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:19,880
Speaker 3: your tastes. I think hunting is. I like to say

272
00:14:19,960 --> 00:14:23,600
Speaker 3: hunting is the tool. Maybe not everywhere I know there's

273
00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:25,800
Speaker 3: pockets where it may be timber, or it may be ranching,

274
00:14:25,880 --> 00:14:28,480
Speaker 3: or it may be agriculture. But those tools are going

275
00:14:28,560 --> 00:14:31,080
Speaker 3: to stave off development in this country. Those are the

276
00:14:31,080 --> 00:14:34,000
Speaker 3: tools that are going to We didn't invent that Audo

277
00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:36,680
Speaker 3: did one hundred years ago, and it's gone unchanged in

278
00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:40,160
Speaker 3: that time period. So I'm really passionate about somebody's got

279
00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:43,280
Speaker 3: to speak up and make sure this stuff's protected, because

280
00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:47,760
Speaker 3: otherwise they think nothing about shaving off places where you

281
00:14:47,760 --> 00:14:50,479
Speaker 3: had a hunting lease, or's places where you publicly.

282
00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:55,400
Speaker 1: In this country my age, I'm forty five, that hasn't

283
00:14:55,560 --> 00:14:56,960
Speaker 1: lost a property to development.

284
00:14:57,000 --> 00:14:57,600
Speaker 3: It's exactly right.

285
00:14:57,720 --> 00:15:00,360
Speaker 1: There's not a single one of them that's spent, you know,

286
00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:03,720
Speaker 1: a good chunk of their life being a hunter that

287
00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:07,360
Speaker 1: hasn't lost a property literally to development. I mean, I'm

288
00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:09,400
Speaker 1: thinking of it probably right now that is literally a

289
00:15:09,400 --> 00:15:11,440
Speaker 1: subdivision that I used to hunt.

290
00:15:11,880 --> 00:15:14,520
Speaker 3: And so instead of demonizing the developers, what we try

291
00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:16,320
Speaker 3: to do is go sit down with them and figure out, like,

292
00:15:16,680 --> 00:15:19,120
Speaker 3: how can we develop better, how can we do redevelopment,

293
00:15:19,200 --> 00:15:21,640
Speaker 3: how can we grow up not out, how can we

294
00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:26,000
Speaker 3: protect wild lands or corridors through developments so that animals.

295
00:15:26,120 --> 00:15:28,040
Speaker 3: Then you got home owners that are able to see wildlife,

296
00:15:28,320 --> 00:15:30,200
Speaker 3: they're able to connect it and care about it, and

297
00:15:30,240 --> 00:15:34,200
Speaker 3: then you're able to continue to for me, touch it

298
00:15:34,240 --> 00:15:35,680
Speaker 3: in a way like I want to touch it and

299
00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:38,360
Speaker 3: need it, but there's people that just want to photograph

300
00:15:38,400 --> 00:15:38,920
Speaker 3: it or whatever.

301
00:15:39,480 --> 00:15:43,280
Speaker 1: So one thing about the philosophy that we're just talking

302
00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:45,520
Speaker 1: about right here that I think we've got to bring

303
00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:50,080
Speaker 1: up just because it's interesting, is that inside the hunting circle,

304
00:15:51,040 --> 00:15:56,560
Speaker 1: people when they hear about cultural value and economic value

305
00:15:56,560 --> 00:16:01,520
Speaker 1: of hunting, that does mean that my forty acres that

306
00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:04,560
Speaker 1: I sell is going to have a higher value than

307
00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:07,760
Speaker 1: it did before because of its that is hunting, And

308
00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:10,880
Speaker 1: somebody's going to buy that, and somebody that can't afford

309
00:16:10,920 --> 00:16:13,800
Speaker 1: to buy that is going to say, well, the rich

310
00:16:13,880 --> 00:16:17,160
Speaker 1: guy's got it and they are are are pricing me

311
00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:21,640
Speaker 1: out of hunting. I mean, it's kind of a because

312
00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:24,400
Speaker 1: that's a narrative you hear inside the hunting circles. Oh,

313
00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:26,840
Speaker 1: we're all being priced out of hunting because it's now

314
00:16:26,880 --> 00:16:30,680
Speaker 1: becoming a rich man's sport. It's becoming like Europe. I

315
00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:35,280
Speaker 1: think that those two worlds kind of you can't have

316
00:16:35,360 --> 00:16:36,880
Speaker 1: one without the other. I mean, when I go down

317
00:16:36,880 --> 00:16:39,880
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River, me and Brent Reeves took a boat

318
00:16:39,920 --> 00:16:41,720
Speaker 1: ten or fifty miles down the Misissippi River a couple

319
00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:46,160
Speaker 1: of years ago. Ninety nine percent of that land is

320
00:16:46,600 --> 00:16:51,960
Speaker 1: owned and in hunting leases or specific properties made for hunting.

321
00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:55,880
Speaker 1: They've kept the riperian zone of that river in pretty

322
00:16:55,920 --> 00:17:01,400
Speaker 1: incredible shape. Really, that land is so valuable. There's no

323
00:17:01,480 --> 00:17:04,160
Speaker 1: way that a common man is going to own that land.

324
00:17:04,920 --> 00:17:09,840
Speaker 1: Incredibly valuable pretty much one hundred percent because of hunting.

325
00:17:10,119 --> 00:17:12,840
Speaker 1: And there's people that would say that was bad. I

326
00:17:12,880 --> 00:17:16,919
Speaker 1: would say, thank god, at least it's protected well. And

327
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:19,600
Speaker 1: maybe twice in my lifetime I'll get to go over

328
00:17:19,600 --> 00:17:22,359
Speaker 1: there and hunt on the Mississippi River and it's still there.

329
00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:23,359
Speaker 1: Do you understand what I'm saying?

330
00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:24,920
Speaker 3: And I think there's another point off of that. And

331
00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:26,280
Speaker 3: we hadn't even got a bears yet, but I think

332
00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:29,479
Speaker 3: there's another point off that, and that is, you know,

333
00:17:29,520 --> 00:17:31,720
Speaker 3: you can talk to the turkey doctors, Chamberlain or lastly

334
00:17:31,840 --> 00:17:34,040
Speaker 3: or call your any of those guys. They'll tell you

335
00:17:34,119 --> 00:17:37,680
Speaker 3: ninety five percent of turkeys are produced on private land.

336
00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:41,119
Speaker 3: But then they spread out. So it's like you and

337
00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:43,479
Speaker 3: I were talking off air where your bears came, they

338
00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:46,640
Speaker 3: were re established narkosas and then they spread it Outright,

339
00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:49,919
Speaker 3: I run a waterfowl hunting operational private land. We do

340
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:52,080
Speaker 3: a lot of work to that land. There's ducks. Don't

341
00:17:52,080 --> 00:17:54,159
Speaker 3: all stay on that private land. They end up on

342
00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:57,000
Speaker 3: the Cokeachobee, they end up on the coast, on public

343
00:17:57,119 --> 00:17:59,360
Speaker 3: land where a lot of people. And so by increasing

344
00:17:59,359 --> 00:18:02,560
Speaker 3: the habitat and ensuring we want the maximum return on

345
00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:05,840
Speaker 3: this land from a from a wildlife value standpoint, whether

346
00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:09,480
Speaker 3: it's white tailed deer, turkeys or ducks or whatever, squirrels, Yeah,

347
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:12,640
Speaker 3: that's going to spill out from there and hopefully spill

348
00:18:12,680 --> 00:18:14,680
Speaker 3: out into areas where the average guy is going to

349
00:18:14,680 --> 00:18:17,080
Speaker 3: be able to do. So. I'm always a big proponent

350
00:18:17,119 --> 00:18:19,399
Speaker 3: of I've heard this around ducks unlimited before. Right, Oh,

351
00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:21,800
Speaker 3: they're just locking up land and doing it for the Yeah,

352
00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:23,280
Speaker 3: but at the end of the day, they're producing more

353
00:18:23,359 --> 00:18:25,960
Speaker 3: ducks and more habitat for wildlife, which is going to

354
00:18:26,040 --> 00:18:28,640
Speaker 3: benefit everybody in the grand scheme. This is not it's

355
00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:31,720
Speaker 3: not just this local population. It's a it's a globe

356
00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:34,600
Speaker 3: or an international or a flyway population or whatever the

357
00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:36,159
Speaker 3: larger population's on is.

358
00:18:36,280 --> 00:18:41,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, all this is so so interesting. So

359
00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:45,159
Speaker 1: let's let's go ahead and get into give me the

360
00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:50,439
Speaker 1: biography of Florida bear hunting, if it just to the

361
00:18:50,440 --> 00:18:54,800
Speaker 1: best of your knowledge. I mean, historically they were hunting bears.

362
00:18:54,800 --> 00:18:57,960
Speaker 1: They're like crazy, yep. And then when did it end?

363
00:18:59,680 --> 00:19:01,840
Speaker 3: It did when I was in high school. So ninety

364
00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:04,280
Speaker 3: four is when they shut the hunt down completely, shut

365
00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:08,200
Speaker 3: it completely, shut it down. And if you went back historically,

366
00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:11,040
Speaker 3: and I'd encourage you, if you really wanted a deep dive,

367
00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:13,680
Speaker 3: FWC has on their website you could do google FWC

368
00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:17,080
Speaker 3: Bear Report. There's a two hundred page document that is

369
00:19:17,240 --> 00:19:19,840
Speaker 3: really good. I mean, it's if you want a history

370
00:19:19,840 --> 00:19:23,280
Speaker 3: of bears in Florida. I mean it goes into the

371
00:19:23,359 --> 00:19:26,680
Speaker 3: way they used to do agriculture because Florida's big in turpentine, okay,

372
00:19:27,160 --> 00:19:29,680
Speaker 3: and so they would burn forest, but they would burn

373
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:33,120
Speaker 3: them too aggressively sometimes, and it basically wiped out the understory,

374
00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:38,240
Speaker 3: which hurt bears on forge. Now we understand burning science

375
00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:41,679
Speaker 3: a lot better, and that's an important tool. So the

376
00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:45,439
Speaker 3: bear population dropped into the fifties, but it seemed like

377
00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:47,960
Speaker 3: it kind of stabilized from the fifties to like the

378
00:19:48,080 --> 00:19:51,919
Speaker 3: eighties or so, and then it dropped again. And so

379
00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:54,879
Speaker 3: in the early nineteen hundreds they guessed, I'm sorry, the

380
00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:59,399
Speaker 3: early nineteen nineties, their speculation population was as low as

381
00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:03,160
Speaker 3: five hundred bear. Okay, wow. So now in white history

382
00:20:03,200 --> 00:20:07,240
Speaker 3: and settled history, prior to that, they guesstimated there were

383
00:20:07,240 --> 00:20:09,920
Speaker 3: eleven thousand bears in the state of Florida, in the

384
00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:13,040
Speaker 3: state of floor like pre European contre pre Hernando de

385
00:20:13,119 --> 00:20:15,280
Speaker 3: Soto or whoever it was that came there first. So

386
00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:17,320
Speaker 3: it was about eleven thousand bears in the state of Florida.

387
00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:21,879
Speaker 1: So the sad vaka who it was, I got his

388
00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:24,800
Speaker 1: book up there. First guy, first European guy had coming

389
00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:28,080
Speaker 1: to Florida. Incredible book two years before Desta. A few

390
00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:30,399
Speaker 1: years yeah, fews before Desota.

391
00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:36,800
Speaker 3: So we closed it down. It stayed untouched until twenty

392
00:20:36,920 --> 00:20:40,359
Speaker 3: fifteen when a hunt was brought back. There were a

393
00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:43,840
Speaker 3: couple of rules made to bear existence, like you could

394
00:20:43,840 --> 00:20:46,240
Speaker 3: shoot a bear to protect livestock. I think was a

395
00:20:46,320 --> 00:20:49,040
Speaker 3: rule that was made arow twenty ten or eleven, but

396
00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:52,680
Speaker 3: largely bears went untouched for whatever. That is twenty one years.

397
00:20:52,760 --> 00:20:55,200
Speaker 1: Only twenty one years, right, and what do we think?

398
00:20:55,280 --> 00:20:58,520
Speaker 1: The population had grown to about twenty fifteen, So.

399
00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:01,560
Speaker 3: The state had science twenty fifteen, they believe the population

400
00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:10,120
Speaker 3: was over four thousand.

401
00:21:11,240 --> 00:21:14,439
Speaker 1: So in in bear management, they typically say that that

402
00:21:14,520 --> 00:21:19,160
Speaker 1: an one hundred population will increase by ten percent per year.

403
00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:24,959
Speaker 1: And so I've done the math and extrapolated out like

404
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:27,720
Speaker 1: if you have four hundred bears, and that this includes

405
00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:32,040
Speaker 1: natural mortality and recruitment ten percent per year. So if

406
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:35,720
Speaker 1: you have four hundred bears year one, year two, help

407
00:21:35,760 --> 00:21:38,320
Speaker 1: me with my math, You're gonna have four hundred and forty.

408
00:21:39,680 --> 00:21:42,440
Speaker 1: The next year you're gonna have You're gonna have four

409
00:21:42,520 --> 00:21:45,879
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty four, four hundred and eighty four, the

410
00:21:45,960 --> 00:21:47,520
Speaker 1: next year you're gonna have.

411
00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:50,800
Speaker 3: Oh, this guy's a math wizard. Impressive.

412
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:56,560
Speaker 1: By the time you get out into decades, like decades,

413
00:21:57,320 --> 00:22:04,080
Speaker 1: you're talking about exponential growth, exponential growth, and typically populations

414
00:22:04,119 --> 00:22:07,840
Speaker 1: that are recovering where a bear has like unlimited or

415
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 1: the habitat is not limiting, like there's not stressed on

416
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:15,240
Speaker 1: the habitat because of other bears, where they'll increase by

417
00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:20,000
Speaker 1: as much as eighteen percent per year. And so basically

418
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:23,080
Speaker 1: a nine hundred population in twenty years can triple in size.

419
00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:26,120
Speaker 3: That's that's pretty much. I mean, So we went from

420
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,040
Speaker 3: a guestimate of five hundred to two thousand bears to

421
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:30,800
Speaker 3: four thousand, right, So yeah.

422
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:34,359
Speaker 1: It went up tenfold. Yeah, I mean about tenfold. Yeah,

423
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:39,000
Speaker 1: five hundred to four thousand, is that right? Yeah, about

424
00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:41,880
Speaker 1: ten eight eight eightfold eightfold eightfold.

425
00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:45,400
Speaker 3: So you got to this bear. We did a bear

426
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:49,400
Speaker 3: hunt in twenty fifteen. Depending on what side of the

427
00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:51,600
Speaker 3: story you are about a bear hunt, it was either

428
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:55,800
Speaker 3: an unmitigated disaster or it was a wild success. Yeah,

429
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:58,240
Speaker 3: I'm sure you know the story. But the background on

430
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 3: that was they issued a number of tags based off

431
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:06,399
Speaker 3: success what they believed a successful harvest would be. So

432
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:08,919
Speaker 3: I don't remember the right number tags, but they had

433
00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:10,680
Speaker 3: a quota of three hundred and twenty bears I think

434
00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:13,679
Speaker 3: that they wanted to take. So they issued let's say

435
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:17,000
Speaker 3: a thousand tags forty eight hours in they'd killed three

436
00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:20,919
Speaker 3: hundred five bears. Wow. So I believe we could all

437
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:22,920
Speaker 3: sit here and say, well, that shows how many bears

438
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 3: there were, yes, how quickly they were harvested, like a

439
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:30,080
Speaker 3: hunt needed to occur. There was so much anti hunting

440
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:35,719
Speaker 3: pressure Florida. Hunters in Florida, and conservation in Florida does

441
00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 3: not look like it does in other places. And I

442
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:39,639
Speaker 3: know it's different in every place from the state, and

443
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 3: everybody'd say that, but man, I'm telling you all, it's

444
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:45,000
Speaker 3: the wild West. So there was so much public pressure,

445
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:48,720
Speaker 3: you know, the polling around acceptance of hunting. And you

446
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:51,440
Speaker 3: look at a bear versus a a white tail deer,

447
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 3: like a bear's way lower on the list than a

448
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 3: white tail deer. Yes, it seemed like every one of

449
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:58,360
Speaker 3: those people had a vocal voice that they were going

450
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 3: to share in that pole. So they came, and the

451
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:04,240
Speaker 3: hunt was intended to come back to the next year,

452
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:04,680
Speaker 3: and it did not.

453
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:08,239
Speaker 1: So let's stop right there a little bit, because that

454
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:12,000
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen hunt was historic in nature. It was just

455
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:15,480
Speaker 1: it was well, it was different in that there was

456
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 1: a lot of publicity about it before it happened, and

457
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:22,400
Speaker 1: a lot of us were talking about it before, and

458
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:26,640
Speaker 1: it was one of these deals where a new bear

459
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:29,199
Speaker 1: hunt was coming on the scene in this population that

460
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:33,639
Speaker 1: was clearly doing really well, and just a couple of

461
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: little nerd out facts. I mean, if they were wanting

462
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 1: to kill three hundred and twenty bears and they felt

463
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:41,919
Speaker 1: like the population was four thousand, that's less than ten percent.

464
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 1: So typically in bear management, if you want to stabilize

465
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 1: the population, which there's a many many, many many places

466
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:51,680
Speaker 1: would love to just stabilize.

467
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:51,880
Speaker 3: Their bear population.

468
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, zero growth, Just let's just keep it where it's at,

469
00:24:55,600 --> 00:25:03,640
Speaker 1: because human conflict is tall tolerable, habitat for bears is tolerable.

470
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: The bears are healthy, and that's what people and it's

471
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 1: it's so, it's so it's such a human problem. But

472
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 1: a population of bears that is not j curving in

473
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: population that's stable is really healthy. I mean, because if

474
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: I'm a mama black bear and I go any direction

475
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: a half mile and I'm in some other bears region

476
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:32,760
Speaker 1: and there's conflict and there's there's big politian it's like

477
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: it's better when there's a there's just the right amount

478
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:38,399
Speaker 1: point being Florida was that three to twenty was probably

479
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: a conservative management number because it was less than ten

480
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 1: percent that they were trying to take out, which probably

481
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:47,879
Speaker 1: they were like, we really ought to kill five hundred bears,

482
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 1: but let's kill three twenty. So I mean it was

483
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 1: a probably a wise move by them to just enter

484
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 1: in and then the quota phils in two days and

485
00:25:57,760 --> 00:25:58,600
Speaker 1: the optics.

486
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:00,919
Speaker 3: I mean, so we had check stations where he had

487
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 3: to take the bears to get checked. The anti hunting

488
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:08,679
Speaker 3: community was out in mass with photographs. Yeah, so there

489
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:11,399
Speaker 3: were photos of a bear under a hundred pounds that

490
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 3: was killed. There were photos of lactating females that were killed.

491
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 3: Like the optics that they then used, and the grassroots

492
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 3: storm that they created on the backside of that made

493
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 3: it to where politically no one wanted to touch bears. Yes,

494
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 3: it became such a third rail to grab. No one

495
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:33,880
Speaker 3: wanted to touch bears, and and in hallways everybody say, man,

496
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 3: we need to have another bear hunt for years after that.

497
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 3: And so it's a funny story. Clay and I we

498
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 3: reconnected the to day, and our previous correspondence was in

499
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:47,160
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen in our text messages and he came on

500
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 3: my podcast. I used to have a podcast in Florida,

501
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 3: and we talked about the twenty nineteen bear plan on

502
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 3: that podcast, and we kind of candidly said, I don't

503
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 3: know if we'll ever see a bear hunt again. We

504
00:26:57,320 --> 00:26:58,160
Speaker 3: don't know if we'll ever hunt.

505
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 1: That was interesting. He told me that today. I wouldn't

506
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 1: have remembered saying that, but that's that's what That's what

507
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 1: I said the other day in a little video I did,

508
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 1: I said I didn't think that it would ever come back,

509
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:12,719
Speaker 1: but I said that in twenty nineteen.

510
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like it was the public sentiment was so bad

511
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 3: that I look, man, I mean it really is, truly.

512
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,160
Speaker 3: People love to talk conservation, but when you talk about

513
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:27,959
Speaker 3: dead animals, Yeah, the charismatic megafauon of thing triggers and

514
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 3: they do not want to talk about bears yep, and

515
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 3: it becomes a major problem. And so that was a tactic.

516
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 3: Now we got to spend the next decade getting through, right,

517
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 3: Like we got to go from twenty fifteen to twenty

518
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 3: twenty five, and we didn't know when this would happen,

519
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 3: but everything from gubernatorial offices to legislators to people that

520
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 3: would fly out and hunt a bear somewhere else, but

521
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:53,959
Speaker 3: they wouldn't talk about it in Florida, and I was like,

522
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 3: we've got to do something different here. And I say, I,

523
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 3: I want to be clear. The hunting commune d in

524
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 3: Florida got this done like that was that was this

525
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 3: was a big push from a lot of different people

526
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 3: and a lot of different groups. The dog hunting community

527
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 3: showed up in mass Wow, that is now Florida. I

528
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 3: grew up doll hunting for deer, right, that was my

529
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 3: that was my back. I've never I've never heard a

530
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 3: bear in my life, but dog hunting for deer was like,

531
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 3: that's how we spent our saturdays at Sundays was deer

532
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:27,640
Speaker 3: camp and we were listening to the dogs run. There's

533
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 3: a strong, uh a hog dog community community in Florida.

534
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:38,479
Speaker 3: So dog hunting in Florida is a part of the cultural,

535
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 3: like it's part of the culture.

536
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: Of long time history of Florida's hunting with dogs.

537
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 3: We call people, there's not a connotation to it. We

538
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:48,440
Speaker 3: call people from Florida crackers. The background on that was

539
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 3: they would crack whips.

540
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 1: They were.

541
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 3: The cow hunters.

542
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 1: I was actually gonna say that the original crackers came

543
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: from Florida because they cow drives.

544
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 3: That was the term was a cracker Florida cracker because

545
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 3: of the whip cracking and the palmettas and you couldn't

546
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 3: see the cows and that's how you got them out.

547
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 3: And that's still something that the cattleman like man to

548
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 3: this day. You go to an event and they they'll

549
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 3: sell whips, have crack whips like it's part of their

550
00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 3: part of their culture. As Similarly, dog hunting in Florida

551
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 3: is part of the culture of if you identify as

552
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 3: a as a Floridian that hunts, like you've got some

553
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 3: kind of dogs. I don't dog hunt anymore, but I've

554
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 3: got a soft spot for dog hunting because it belongs here,

555
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:28,959
Speaker 3: it belongs on this landscape.

556
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 1: And so man, when you when you when you get

557
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 1: into places as thick as Florida, like literally vegetatively thick

558
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: as Florida, people that don't have never been around dogs

559
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: and be like, why would you need a dog to

560
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 1: shoot a deer? Why would you need a dog to

561
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 1: shoot a bear? They've never been to Florida, they've never

562
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: been to South Arkansas that you know. I mean, it's

563
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: a it's a highly functional way to hunt because animals

564
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 1: live in stuff that you literally can't see for the

565
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 1: length of your arm in some places.

566
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 3: Oh am, I right, it's nasty.

567
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 1: It's so you send some dogs in there and you

568
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: get that game moving, and I mean that's the way

569
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: you hunt.

570
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's some stuff you don't want to

571
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 3: go through. I mean, you, I'm in decent shape. You're

572
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 3: three hundred yards in your watch is like are you

573
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 3: working out? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, And it's like, man, congratulations, Yeah,

574
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 3: you just completed your exercise goal for the day and

575
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 3: you've gone you can still see the truck. It's like,

576
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 3: what is happening here? Like it's hard hunting. It's hard

577
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 3: hunting in period. It's just a harsh environment. So we

578
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 3: come out of twenty fifteen, the bear hunt gets or

579
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 3: the bear plan gets released to twenty nineteen. That's when

580
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 3: you and I first talked and constantly. And I'm gonna

581
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 3: give credit to an old gentleman. He runs an organization

582
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 3: called United Waterfowlers of Florida. There's this guy named Newton

583
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 3: Earl Cook, and Newton is I think he's in his eighties.

584
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:54,800
Speaker 3: But every commission meeting we'd have a thing called items

585
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 3: Not on the Agenda and our Commission moves around the state,

586
00:30:57,280 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 3: so Florida to drive from one end to the others,

587
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 3: like sixteen hours from like Pensacola to Key West, and

588
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 3: our Commission meeting moves to make it more convenient for

589
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 3: so it's not always where everybody has to drive. Right.

590
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 3: Newton would show up at every single Commission meeting and

591
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,480
Speaker 3: then his items on on the agenda. He'd say he's

592
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 3: got this old Tennessee voice. He says, it's time for

593
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 3: us to bring back a bear hunt. And he would

594
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 3: he would do this to the point where you almost

595
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 3: rolled drys at some point, but he just stayed on

596
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 3: it and stayed on and stayed on it. And we'd

597
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 3: have conversations in the hallway, and there were a lot

598
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 3: of folks in the Honey community having those conversations. But

599
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 3: we have a conversations all the way of.

600
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: Like, look, what was the guys the old guy's name Newton,

601
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: Earl Cook. Newton Earl Cook. That's a great name, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

602
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 1: Soon we're gonna make a bronze statue in him and

603
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 1: being erected in Florida.

604
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 3: When we just gave him an award at the Commission meeting,

605
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 3: not the most reasonab one before that. But anyway, he'd

606
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 3: bring it up in the public record over and over

607
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 3: and over again. And I didn't want to go dial

608
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 3: on that hill over and over again because you get

609
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 3: death threats and everything else every time you bring it up.

610
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 3: So but we'd start having these conversations off to the

611
00:31:56,840 --> 00:31:58,240
Speaker 3: side of like, what's it gonna take to get a

612
00:31:58,280 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 3: bear hunt back? What's it gonna take to get the

613
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 3: bear hunt back? Can you talk in the hunting community,

614
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 3: especially your guys that have feeders on their property. Man,

615
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 3: it's a mess out there, Like the way that the

616
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 3: ingenuity that's going on to protect your deer feeder from

617
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 3: bears has gotten outlandish to where they're like they're put

618
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 3: hard tops on their can ams and a ladder on

619
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:22,400
Speaker 3: top of that so that they can get to the

620
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 3: winch so they can lower the feeder down to keep

621
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 3: the bear out of it. And I mean, it's just

622
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 3: this ongoing engineering battle between black bears and land.

623
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: And corn feeders.

624
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 3: I mean it's bad. Yeah, I'm sure you've seen it,

625
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 3: but it's yes, it's.

626
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 1: They're destructive on corn feeders, and you almost can't beat

627
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: them unless you've got it, you know, on a wire

628
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: and a pulley system.

629
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 3: But then they had to move the pulleys up because

630
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 3: that's there's one engineer start he figured out how to

631
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 3: break the pulley and it was just like you'd walk

632
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:53,480
Speaker 3: out there and he's like, man, is that you know

633
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 3: you got tree cover and you'd see these feet It's like,

634
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 3: is that a radio tower? And then you walk out

635
00:32:57,440 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 3: from under the trees and it's a feeder that's twenty

636
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 3: five feet up in the air because they've they've just

637
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 3: re engineered at these you.

638
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: Know, I got I gotta interrupt you. This is such

639
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 1: so interesting in some of the research I'm doing for

640
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 1: my book that black bears have been academically documented as

641
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 1: the most curious animal in North America. Really like in

642
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: in in controlled tests where they've been able to test

643
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: animal curiosity, the American black bear is the most curious.

644
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 1: And they tested weasels and raccoons and we call smart yeah,

645
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: polar bears. I don't know that they tested any ungulates

646
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: or something, because they knew that they're not going to

647
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 1: be curious like that. But the cats, uh more than bobcats.

648
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: Like in the way they tested them, it was really interesting.

649
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: They were they were confined animals, and they would put

650
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 1: they would put objects all in the in the space

651
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: and just turn an animal loose and observe them for

652
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 1: hours and watch and document every single thing that they

653
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:12,799
Speaker 1: did with the little trinkets that were in the in

654
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: the place, and the black bear like blew them all out.

655
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:19,800
Speaker 3: Of the water because you just examined everything.

656
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, black bear was like picking up chains and laying

657
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:25,879
Speaker 1: on its back and like playing the chains in the air.

658
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: Point being a black bear will figure out how to

659
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 1: get anything it wants if it's physically possible. Yas Boutell

660
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 1: has told me, he described a scene of watching a

661
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: bear get a beaver carcass that they had hung fifteen

662
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 1: feet in the air and like ten or twelve feet

663
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:53,760
Speaker 1: out from any tree. Like basically, there's this hanging beaver

664
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 1: carcass that's like, let's say it's twelve feet in the air,

665
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 1: I mean just out of a black bear can't jump

666
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: like a mountain lion son, and it's ten feet at

667
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: least from any tree. And basically, he said, he watched

668
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:12,919
Speaker 1: this bear for an hour climb up every tree within reach,

669
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 1: you know, within side just range of that deal the bear,

670
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:21,840
Speaker 1: did you know tried to climb out, and finally the

671
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:25,439
Speaker 1: bear realized that if it grabbed the pulley rope and

672
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:29,320
Speaker 1: walked back and dropped it, that that it would cause

673
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 1: that beaver to move. And before long he had pulled

674
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:35,800
Speaker 1: it so many times and dropped it that the beaver

675
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:38,920
Speaker 1: carcass went to the ground. Took him an hour, and

676
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: basically no other animal in the world would have got

677
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: that beaver carcass.

678
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 2: I mean, think about how many times they just tear

679
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 2: came I mean he can't tear cameras off the trees.

680
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, well, and it's it's then the point

681
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: of all that. People might be like, well, yeah, bears

682
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:58,240
Speaker 1: are notoriously curious, and it just kind of like glaze

683
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 1: over it. Like they tear up your cameras, they to

684
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:02,360
Speaker 1: up your four wheeler seats, they get into your feeders.

685
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 1: That's why bears are successful.

686
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 2: And they're intelligent. They're not just curious.

687
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 1: Well curiosity is it correlates with intelligence? I mean, that's

688
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:14,279
Speaker 1: what we would say. But that's why they're so successful.

689
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 1: That's why they're thriving in Florida because they can eat anything,

690
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 1: and they they are they are generalists. They're the world's

691
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:27,839
Speaker 1: greatest generalist omnivore and they will do anything to get food. Yeah,

692
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:29,880
Speaker 1: it's pretty it's brilliant.

693
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 3: Really, it's funny because bears, and maybe you may know

694
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 3: more about this than I do, but bears seem to

695
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:39,719
Speaker 3: exist in Florida, in the wild bear population and the

696
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 3: urbanized bear population that very much like are different. I

697
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 3: think we spent at the time of that bear report

698
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 3: I've read we'd spent two and a half million dollars

699
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 3: on bear proofing trash cans and municipalities trying to cop

700
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 3: out of garbage because they just My photographer lives, my

701
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 3: videographer photographer that we use a lot. He lives like

702
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:02,280
Speaker 3: I'll say, six streets from the woods, like cross streets,

703
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 3: and it's in a neighborhood and bears are in his yard.

704
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 3: I mean, he can go get a bear photo for

705
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 3: me anytime he wants with the right, like you can

706
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 3: distort the background and take a picture of a bear

707
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 3: because they're always in the front yard eating his mom's plants. Wow,

708
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 3: and yes, those are bears that go back into the

709
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 3: Wikaiva forest, but they're not I mean they're they're not

710
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:21,720
Speaker 3: just coming into the yard on the edge. They're getting

711
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,479
Speaker 3: they're coming six. Yeah, they're actually taking an uber Yeah,

712
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 3: like they're in the neighborhood and they're not like just

713
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 3: on it. You know, it's not a common in the

714
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 3: every lage you're on the edge of. They're swamp behind

715
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 3: you in a panther walks through your backyard, but you

716
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 3: don't see one five streets over unless you've got a

717
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 3: cat that's outside. But the bears are just like they're

718
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 3: happily existing there.

719
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like they have an incredible awareness about them, and

720
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:51,720
Speaker 1: a lot of wildlife does inside of these urban settings,

721
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:53,839
Speaker 1: you know, like deer know that they can they're okay

722
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 1: in your yard. But typically the big predators don't. They

723
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 1: get shine usually aware of I am perfectly safe right here.

724
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:09,799
Speaker 1: And they then they turned to anthropogenic foods big term

725
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 1: from human foods.

726
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 3: I guess in twenty twenty three is when we started

727
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 3: having some serious conversations about, Okay, what would a hunt

728
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:27,799
Speaker 3: look like if it came back, Like what what do

729
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 3: we need to change from the last time we did

730
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:35,880
Speaker 3: a hunt to get it right, And that was presented

731
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 3: in May of this year. So in May that was

732
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:42,879
Speaker 3: brought back to the Commission and my opinion. They got

733
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 3: it right. Now, I want to say something. FWC is

734
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 3: one of the leading agencies Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission,

735
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 3: one of the leading agencies in the country on social science,

736
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:54,319
Speaker 3: and we as hunters, we love to say, man, I

737
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 3: want biological science to drive everything, not social science. But

738
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,800
Speaker 3: the end of the day, that's a factor. Social science

739
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 3: is playing, man, it's playing, and so to ignore it

740
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 3: as a tool in the toolbox, I'm telling you this

741
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:10,279
Speaker 3: is a guy that's going out there and saying, Man,

742
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 3: I don't want to use social science. Like I've said

743
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 3: that on the record at podiums and stuff before. I'm like,

744
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 3: science should drive this, and I'm talking about biology. Social

745
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 3: science is gonna play. They did an incredible job of

746
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 3: meeting with stakeholders and figuring out what the concerns were

747
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:28,240
Speaker 3: with the last hunt and addressing those with this hunt

748
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 3: and so kind of one of the dominant things they

749
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:38,800
Speaker 3: heard was selectivity in sex in harvest. I think in

750
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 3: the last hunt, sixty percent of the bears that were

751
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 3: taking were soals. Okay, And as I mentioned earlier, that

752
00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:48,759
Speaker 3: was a quota that was issued and then you went

753
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 3: out if you didn't kill your bear like you checked in, Like,

754
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 3: if you didn't kill your bear and they called the

755
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:54,719
Speaker 3: hunt off, you didn't get to fill your task. And

756
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 3: that's things. Yes, So what they've brought back is a

757
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:01,840
Speaker 3: hunt that is one hundred and eighty seven hard tacks.

758
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 3: It's either I think it's a hundred and eighty seven.

759
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 3: It's either one eighty six or eighty seven.

760
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 1: Can I stop you because I feel I think we're

761
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: gonna go over it and I'm gonna forget to say it. Sure,

762
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: these quota hunts where the hunt ends at a quota

763
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 1: caught and you insinuated it, but we didn't say it,

764
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 1: it causes people to be highly unselective.

765
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:23,759
Speaker 3: It is selectivity because it is if you kill the

766
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:25,839
Speaker 3: first bear. Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah.

767
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: Oklahoma, Oklahoma. Well, I don't know the details on it.

768
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: Oklahoma had a similar thing where they where they had

769
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 1: a quota and the quota wasn't even being met, but

770
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: the very nature of the quota caused people to be unselective.

771
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure they took the quota off and

772
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 1: they never went over it and people were a lot

773
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 1: more selective. Yeah, if you think the hunt's gonna end tomorrow,

774
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 1: you're gonna shoot the first bearer that you see, and

775
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:53,760
Speaker 1: oftentimes that's the juvenile or female.

776
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:56,239
Speaker 3: Which could force and it's on the hunter, right, the

777
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 3: hunter should be a better hunter. But oftentimes, you know,

778
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:02,399
Speaker 3: we've all done it with a deer or something. You're like, man,

779
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 3: that deer was way bigger when I looked through the

780
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:06,919
Speaker 3: scope than he was when I got up to it. Right.

781
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:12,800
Speaker 3: The so things they addressed they addressed selectivity with that,

782
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:16,400
Speaker 3: that's good. They also address selectivity by allowing bait stations

783
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 3: and and dogs, because you know as well as I

784
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 3: do that both of those things are going to give

785
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 3: you time to say, hey, is that a sal? Hey

786
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 3: does she have cubs with her? How big are the cubs?

787
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 3: Like you can look and study this situation. Yes, and

788
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 3: you're gonna have camera set up on your bait station, yes,

789
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 3: to where you're gonna know the bears that are coming

790
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 3: in and out and be like, oh, that's a sal

791
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 3: but I got a bore over here, like that's that's

792
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 3: what I'm gonna And it allows people, all of us

793
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 3: as hunters, we're in it for everything, right, the meat,

794
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:47,360
Speaker 3: the hide, the fat that like we want to but

795
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:48,800
Speaker 3: the end of the day, we'd like to take the

796
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:50,719
Speaker 3: biggest thing we can or the best thing we can,

797
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 3: and in this case, removing that that urgency allows for

798
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:00,160
Speaker 3: us to have way more selectivity in this hunt. And

799
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,439
Speaker 3: to me, the agency got that exactly right. The anti

800
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 3: hunters will tell you, and I don't. I live in

801
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 3: a world where I have to deal with them. I

802
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 3: will tell you I don't necessarily care what they say.

803
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 3: I do I pay attention to it. The anti hangers

804
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 3: will tell you, well, these are barbaric methods. This, that,

805
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,439
Speaker 3: and the other. These methods are because you guys wanted

806
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:22,399
Speaker 3: better selectivity in the hunt. Yes, it was nothing wrong

807
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 3: with the first hunt, but we've changed it based off

808
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 3: your feedback, and these are the methods that we've allowed

809
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 3: to get into it.

810
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: Right, man, that I can't believe you're saying this with

811
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: such clarity, because I think ten years ago the articulation

812
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: of that idea just wasn't widely known inside of bear hunting.

813
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 1: These these these methods allow hunters to be selective. And

814
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:50,120
Speaker 1: you could say that that is just big talk and

815
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 1: that actually doesn't happen in the field, but it does.

816
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 1: I mean, hound hunters let way more bears go they

817
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 1: than they harvest even in play is where they could.

818
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:05,240
Speaker 1: I mean they're being selective, not everyone. I mean sometimes

819
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 1: you got a kid with you and it's their first bear,

820
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: and you let them shoot a dry sow sometimes. I mean,

821
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 1: I'm not saying juveniles and souths don't get harvested sometimes,

822
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:18,400
Speaker 1: but in general, hound hunters are trying to be selective

823
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:25,040
Speaker 1: for older age class males period baiting bears. The cameras, man,

824
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:29,479
Speaker 1: I am the most selective period when I'm baiting a bear,

825
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: because I know every bear that's coming in there, and

826
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to kill that older age male, and

827
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:38,760
Speaker 1: it becomes a challenge, it becomes it's what makes it

828
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 1: enjoyable and fun to try to kill a big bear

829
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 1: over bait, which is actually quite difficult.

830
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 2: And anybody who says that that hunting bears over bait

831
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 2: is unethical and easy has never baited for bears.

832
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 3: Talk to me about that for a minute. Sure, this

833
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 3: is one of the things old explain fair chase and baiting. Yeah, like,

834
00:43:58,239 --> 00:43:59,640
Speaker 3: can you can you do that? Can you just tell

835
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 3: me that jump in.

836
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: Like to me, when you describe fair chase, you know

837
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 1: you're you're capitalizing on that. Bears natural tendency for hyperphagia

838
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:15,319
Speaker 1: in the fall. I mean you're you're capitalizing on a

839
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:20,319
Speaker 1: biological process inside of that animal to hyper fixate on

840
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 1: a food source, just like they would an acorn flat

841
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:26,000
Speaker 1: or a cabbage palm flat, or berries in the summer,

842
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: or a salmon stream in the Northwest. So you're capitalizing

843
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:31,400
Speaker 1: on something this animal is doing naturally.

844
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 3: Number one.

845
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 1: Number two, if if you have this North American idea

846
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 1: of taking an older age class male, that animal is

847
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:48,440
Speaker 1: incredibly intelligent, intelligent acts completely different than juveniles and females.

848
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 1: And it's very difficult to kill over bait because when

849
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: you're hunting over bait, you have a stationary bait. A

850
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 1: human has got to be within a bow shot distance

851
00:44:58,239 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 1: of that if you're hunting with a bow, which most

852
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:04,839
Speaker 1: baiting six bears is archery hunting. And that big bear

853
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 1: knows he is made a living with his nose, and

854
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 1: he knows when you're there, and he knows when you leave,

855
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 1: and you got to kill him while you're there. You

856
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 1: can't not be there and kill him. And killing a

857
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,799
Speaker 1: large I'm talking like a ten plus year old boar

858
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 1: bear over bait anywhere in the country is as hard

859
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:25,879
Speaker 1: as just about as hard as any big game hunt

860
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:28,720
Speaker 1: you would ever have. And so the hunter that's sitting

861
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: there that kills a big bear, he has let go

862
00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 1: a bunch of animals that came in before it. And

863
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: that's just what people wouldn't understand or see why I.

864
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 3: Would to ask you. As a beer hunting expert, I

865
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 3: can see this, but you.

866
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: Well, you're so you've got to practice a high level

867
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 1: of selection. And basically to me, when I think about

868
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:52,919
Speaker 1: fair chase and ethics and just kind of this big

869
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: North American model, when you understand that baiting or and

870
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:59,800
Speaker 1: we can talk about hounds too, where baiting is a

871
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: cool for selection, it's like that makes it ethical just

872
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 1: in its own sense. If we could even just go

873
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 1: in and extract a mail easily, that would make it

874
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: worth it.

875
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 3: But we can't. But we can't.

876
00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:15,680
Speaker 1: Mails are very hard to get to come into a

877
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 1: bait like that. And so to me, it it completely

878
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 1: fits the idea of of of fair chase three components.

879
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:28,799
Speaker 1: You're you're capitalizing on an animal's natural tendency, just like

880
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 1: it would in the wild. Your your you've got to

881
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:36,919
Speaker 1: be in very close proximity and you cannot hide from bear.

882
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: Everybody in the planet, every white tail hunting of the

883
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,120
Speaker 1: planet that thinks that they can hide from a black

884
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:46,520
Speaker 1: bear over bait using all the different scent control products

885
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:50,720
Speaker 1: has never done it because you cannot. Period A thousand

886
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 1: years from now, they're going to replay this and they're

887
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:57,160
Speaker 1: gonna say that old Hillbuilding was right because technology has

888
00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:00,439
Speaker 1: never become good enough for us to eat a black

889
00:47:00,480 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 1: bear's nose. It is supernatural. When you see a bear's

890
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 1: nose flexing like this in the wind, he literally is

891
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 1: talking to God. Not literally, that's a metaphor.

892
00:47:10,080 --> 00:47:10,760
Speaker 3: He is.

893
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: It is a super it is it's so powerful, it's

894
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 1: almost supernatural.

895
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:15,799
Speaker 3: That's my point, John Well.

896
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:18,799
Speaker 1: And and then and then the third prong of the

897
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:23,240
Speaker 1: fair chase component to me is that it's a powerful

898
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:27,439
Speaker 1: management tool to be selective period done over and out

899
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:28,800
Speaker 1: bear hunting with bait.

900
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:32,200
Speaker 2: Well and and what like what we experienced last year,

901
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 2: you know you can have you can have great bears

902
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 2: coming into your bait because that's what they want. And

903
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:44,400
Speaker 2: then you're playing this this match with nature and just

904
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:49,000
Speaker 2: because you've got all this high fat, delicious bait. As

905
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:50,879
Speaker 2: soon as those acrons start falling.

906
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:55,279
Speaker 1: And they would they would rather eat natural food than

907
00:47:55,320 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: any I mean, they've been built for one point five

908
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 1: million years off eating natural food, and here in the

909
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 1: last you know, one hundred years, we would put out

910
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 1: anthiprogenet food for them, that would that they would be

911
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 1: attracted to. They want to go back to natural food

912
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:13,800
Speaker 1: anywhere in the country.

913
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:17,120
Speaker 3: So it's interesting you say that. So in Florida we're

914
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 3: not allowed we're allowing basic I don't know why we're

915
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 3: calling them bait stations. They're feeders. We're not allowing donuts

916
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:28,560
Speaker 3: or or like we're not allowing it's corn or sort

917
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 3: like it can be like it's natural, it's what it's

918
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:36,480
Speaker 3: what we put in at feed Yeah, it's And so

919
00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:39,000
Speaker 3: this conversation has gotten high. I think it's a bad marketing.

920
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 3: I think the agency did a bad marketing job and

921
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:44,399
Speaker 3: the anti honey community grabbed onto it because we talked

922
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 3: about bait and then they go get pictures of a

923
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:49,239
Speaker 3: grizzly bear eating donuts or something, and it's like, that's

924
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:51,680
Speaker 3: not what we're talking about here. We're talking about trying

925
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 3: to get a bear to come to a corn feeder. Yeah,

926
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 3: and especially in an okaymic, this's got just a huge mast.

927
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:01,320
Speaker 1: Here like well, and and the other thing too is

928
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: that you can get a bear to come to corn

929
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: and grain and all this stuff during the summer very

930
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: easily in the fall, which I would assume the despair

931
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: hound's going to be taking place in what's in December.

932
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 3: So the first year is a three week in December. Okay,

933
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 3: after that it'll extend out.

934
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,920
Speaker 1: But go ahead, well, just just like right now in Arkansas,

935
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:25,239
Speaker 1: you get every bear in the country to come to

936
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:27,880
Speaker 1: a pile of corn. A month from now, when the

937
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 1: acorns start to trickle down, you will have a very

938
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:33,280
Speaker 1: difficult time getting a bear to come to a pilot

939
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: corn at the point being in December. The effectiveness of

940
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:40,880
Speaker 1: using this kind of natural more natural food for a

941
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:42,920
Speaker 1: bear is probably not going to be great.

942
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 3: And that's what That's a harder nuanced conversation to have,

943
00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:49,200
Speaker 3: right That's why I wanted to have it with you.

944
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 3: It's a nuanced conversation that gets missed yea by the

945
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:55,319
Speaker 3: general public. And I'm hoping a lot of them will

946
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:57,719
Speaker 3: watch this and say, oh, well, that makes way more sense.

947
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 3: You're not putting a feeder out there and saying I'm

948
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 3: gonna roll out here about eleven to shoot a bear

949
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 3: by eleven thirty because he's going to be on that

950
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 3: feeder eating.

951
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:06,839
Speaker 1: Well, right, that's what was going and that's probably why

952
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:09,440
Speaker 1: people here as they hear, well, they're tearing down corn feeders.

953
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:12,239
Speaker 1: You can't keep my bears off corn. You know, this

954
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 1: is just gonna be so easy. But in December it's different.

955
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:18,719
Speaker 1: And now I've never been around bears in Florida, it's

956
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:21,720
Speaker 1: possible there's a slight different everywhere they're a little different,

957
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:28,160
Speaker 1: but in general, I guarantee you that getting them to

958
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:30,320
Speaker 1: come to that in December is going to be different

959
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 1: than getting to come to that in August during a

960
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:36,920
Speaker 1: stress period in August, probably when they're mainly hurting people's

961
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:37,800
Speaker 1: feeders and whatnot.

962
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:40,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me just throw this out there for color

963
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:42,920
Speaker 3: has nothing to do with bears, but it talks about Florida.

964
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:46,839
Speaker 3: Our south is on Archery opens in July, does it really?

965
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 3: Because the rut is so early and then we have

966
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:51,719
Speaker 3: zones No that you can't hunt the key here. But

967
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:55,719
Speaker 3: this is like Everglades, like Big Cyprus and south of

968
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 3: seventy It opens in July. Archery opens like this year,

969
00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 3: I think it was July twenty eighth night. So you

970
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 3: want to talk about fun sitting in that in a tree,

971
00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 3: like you'll strip down to your underwear. It's bad out here,

972
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:09,239
Speaker 3: Moisquita is just going, but you.

973
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 2: Just put and then we have fan all over your

974
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 2: whole body and set up their naked.

975
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:15,759
Speaker 3: I am an hour and a half north of that

976
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:19,480
Speaker 3: road and the wa closest to me their rut is

977
00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 3: in February. Wow. So so just the way that landscape

978
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:26,160
Speaker 3: is is so and we have different zones around this.

979
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 3: I think we have five different zones for deer because

980
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 3: they rud at different times and everything. So I think

981
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:33,520
Speaker 3: we will begin to figure that out with bear as

982
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 3: well over time of when they do feed heavier when

983
00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 3: they don't. And I think that's I think our agency

984
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 3: has probably already looked at that, but they'll continue to

985
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:43,760
Speaker 3: look at that and study it as we see hunter success.

986
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 3: So hunter success is a thing when we're talking about

987
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 3: the number of permits they're issue in one hundred and

988
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 3: eighty seven. Have you ever done a sight tag like

989
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:54,880
Speaker 3: a like a like an alligator hunt, like we have

990
00:51:54,920 --> 00:51:57,280
Speaker 3: to put a tag, a hard tag in the gator.

991
00:51:57,600 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 3: You get those two tags if you don't harvest, you

992
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:00,360
Speaker 3: send them back. At the end of the year, you

993
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 3: gotta return them. The bear hunt's gonna be the same.

994
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:05,440
Speaker 3: It's not Siety's tag, but it's it's gonna be the

995
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:07,960
Speaker 3: same kind of way where you're issued a hard tag

996
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:10,440
Speaker 3: and when you take that bear, you've got to report

997
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:13,200
Speaker 3: it immediately. It's no longer checkstations. So we're not gonna

998
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:15,360
Speaker 3: give the antis, you know, this place where you just

999
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:19,000
Speaker 3: set up their cameras and harass hunters and then you've

1000
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 3: got to put that tag into the bear, or if

1001
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:24,360
Speaker 3: you don't harvest, you're gonna return it. So the agency

1002
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:28,520
Speaker 3: set the threshold for harvest. If one hundred percent of

1003
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:31,839
Speaker 3: those tags are females and one hundred percent of them

1004
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:36,920
Speaker 3: are successful, the population will grow zero. It will not decline.

1005
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 3: It'll it'll be at least a zero percent growth zero

1006
00:52:40,760 --> 00:52:42,920
Speaker 3: or greater. Then, so that's not gonna hurt the popular

1007
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:45,759
Speaker 3: There is no mortality that's gonna cause it to go

1008
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 3: down from hunting. Yes, So it's really interesting in the

1009
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:52,359
Speaker 3: court of public opinion, people are like, well, they're doing

1010
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:55,279
Speaker 3: this because we've got too many bears. This isn't really

1011
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:57,719
Speaker 3: gonna change how many bears we have, it's gonna be

1012
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:00,440
Speaker 3: at least the same number of bears. We have, probably

1013
00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:02,719
Speaker 3: a slow growth because you know as well as I do.

1014
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:04,800
Speaker 3: What is the I'm putting you all on the spot.

1015
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:08,680
Speaker 3: What's the average success rate for a bear hunter? Sixty

1016
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:11,839
Speaker 3: forty percent? Like, I don't know than that. That would

1017
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:14,320
Speaker 3: be my guest too. One hundred and eighty seven tags,

1018
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:16,279
Speaker 3: we could do some math real quick. Fifty of them

1019
00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 3: get filled, one hundred of them get filled would be.

1020
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:20,880
Speaker 1: Well, right, if you're talking about in general, like in

1021
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:23,120
Speaker 1: North America, I would say way less than that. In

1022
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 1: a hunt like this this news, I wouldn't be surprised

1023
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:27,399
Speaker 1: if they didn't fill ninety percent of them.

1024
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:29,879
Speaker 3: It may be the first year. Yeah. The other side

1025
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:32,120
Speaker 3: of that is we've put tools in place that are

1026
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:35,879
Speaker 3: given a selectivity. So again that's based on new population growth.

1027
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:39,439
Speaker 3: If you have harvest only soals and one hundred percent success, yeah,

1028
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 3: we know we're not gonna have one hundred percent success,

1029
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 3: and we know given selectivity, right.

1030
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:46,520
Speaker 1: So like you're gonna choose the board worst possible scenario.

1031
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:49,160
Speaker 1: It still doesn't hurt anything, does it change anything?

1032
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:52,000
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I've heard so much pushback about it and

1033
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:53,440
Speaker 3: They're like, how can you support this. I'm like, well,

1034
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:56,319
Speaker 3: this is conservation man. Yeah, absolutely, I've got this sustainable

1035
00:53:56,360 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 3: resource that I can take. And I've said this for

1036
00:53:58,560 --> 00:54:01,800
Speaker 3: I've said this for a long time. In twenty sixteen,

1037
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:03,319
Speaker 3: there were some number of bears we could take that

1038
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:07,360
Speaker 3: did not matter five thirty seventy five. I don't know

1039
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:09,080
Speaker 3: the number. I'm not a scientist, but there were some

1040
00:54:09,160 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 3: number of bears that would have fallen under compensatory mortality

1041
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 3: in the state. Yes, that could have been taken. Continually,

1042
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:18,040
Speaker 3: we fell into a social science trap, a little bit

1043
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 3: of we should not hunt this charismatic megafauna. Now we

1044
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:23,440
Speaker 3: are back to where we have turned on this hunt,

1045
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:26,480
Speaker 3: and this hunt should stay on for forever as long

1046
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 3: as the population is say the population is not going

1047
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:31,280
Speaker 3: to decline because of hunting, yes, but if a disease

1048
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:34,839
Speaker 3: came in or whatever, and we could turn the hunt off.

1049
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:37,320
Speaker 3: But the hunt is now on. We're not going to

1050
00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 3: have to go through this iteration year after year after year.

1051
00:54:40,480 --> 00:54:42,160
Speaker 3: It'll be up to the agency to look at the

1052
00:54:42,239 --> 00:54:45,799
Speaker 3: population and say, well, we had this much success rate

1053
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 3: last year, we had this much harvest rate on boors

1054
00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 3: versus south and we're going to issue three hundred tags

1055
00:54:51,560 --> 00:54:53,239
Speaker 3: this year instead of one hundred and eighty seven, or

1056
00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 3: we're going to issue a hundred tags this year instead

1057
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 3: one hundred and eighty seven. Like the agency's going to

1058
00:54:57,080 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 3: be able to follow adaptive management is what we call it,

1059
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:03,440
Speaker 3: going to use that to set the threshold for how

1060
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:05,239
Speaker 3: many bears can be taken, and then they're gonna have

1061
00:55:05,239 --> 00:55:07,800
Speaker 3: a three month span in the fall. I think it's October, November,

1062
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:12,000
Speaker 3: December that will be open for hunting. So this first year,

1063
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:15,880
Speaker 3: no dogs in year one. I think actually dogs are

1064
00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:18,720
Speaker 3: on until twenty seven because it's kind of a staggered approach.

1065
00:55:20,120 --> 00:55:21,759
Speaker 3: I think you told me this a long time ago.

1066
00:55:21,800 --> 00:55:25,160
Speaker 3: I vaguely remember somebody telling me this long term, to

1067
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 3: hunt bears, you're gonna have to use dogs to have

1068
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:30,319
Speaker 3: any measure of success, right, Like dogs are not sure

1069
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:34,720
Speaker 3: I've said that, but I'm paraphrasing. Maybe, but like, dogs

1070
00:55:34,719 --> 00:55:37,160
Speaker 3: are one of the most effective ways to hunt bears. Yeah,

1071
00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:40,400
Speaker 3: but initially with this bear population, they haven't been hunted,

1072
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 3: so we'll probably have a higher success rate initially for

1073
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:45,840
Speaker 3: a couple of years. Then we're going to need some

1074
00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 3: other tools to move these bears around and run them

1075
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:51,000
Speaker 3: out and have success because you're not going to be

1076
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 3: able to just pop one at your deer feeder. They're

1077
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:54,919
Speaker 3: going to get conditioned pretty quickly.

1078
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:58,480
Speaker 1: They will, they will, they'll they'll they'll learn, they'll adapt,

1079
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:01,400
Speaker 1: and they'll they will get harder to hunt over time.

1080
00:56:01,560 --> 00:56:03,279
Speaker 3: And dogs are going to be critical to being able

1081
00:56:03,280 --> 00:56:07,239
Speaker 3: to hunt them. Yes, that's yes. So that's where we're

1082
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:09,239
Speaker 3: at today. It's going to be five dollars for a

1083
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:14,480
Speaker 3: tag to apply and then if you get issue only residents, no,

1084
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 3: it's resident and non resident are it's one hundred dollars

1085
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:19,640
Speaker 3: for resident, three hundred dollars for a non resident if

1086
00:56:19,680 --> 00:56:20,680
Speaker 3: you get if you get drawn.

1087
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:22,520
Speaker 1: Wow, So I could apply for attack.

1088
00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:24,120
Speaker 3: I hope you do.

1089
00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:27,279
Speaker 1: Don't tell them, Josh, edit this out.

1090
00:56:28,600 --> 00:56:30,480
Speaker 3: I love it. Man. And so the anti hunting community do.

1091
00:56:30,560 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 3: Their new movement is they're trying to get everyone to

1092
00:56:32,760 --> 00:56:34,680
Speaker 3: apply for as many tags as they can afford and

1093
00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:37,200
Speaker 3: buy a honey license. Oh. I am thrilled with this.

1094
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:38,759
Speaker 3: Just stef Wire, I'm over the moon.

1095
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:41,080
Speaker 1: Wow, they're going to contribute to this thing.

1096
00:56:41,200 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 3: They're contributing to conservation.

1097
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:45,720
Speaker 1: I've had I had a thought, and I think I'm

1098
00:56:45,960 --> 00:56:49,160
Speaker 1: changing on this and it's not a conscious change, but

1099
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:55,359
Speaker 1: it's my my attitudes towards towards anti hunters and some

1100
00:56:55,440 --> 00:57:00,399
Speaker 1: of the expressed truly ignorance. I don't mean that word drivetory,

1101
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:03,160
Speaker 1: but in the truest nature sense of the nature that

1102
00:57:03,200 --> 00:57:07,120
Speaker 1: the ignorance oftentimes of anti hunting community, just in their

1103
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:11,359
Speaker 1: lack of knowledge of conservation, why we do what we do,

1104
00:57:11,880 --> 00:57:16,880
Speaker 1: hunting culture, historic use practices, you know, has has caused

1105
00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:20,480
Speaker 1: my blood pressure to go up, and I would I

1106
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 1: would probably have been a little more like, I don't

1107
00:57:24,800 --> 00:57:27,560
Speaker 1: care what you think, this is who we are, kind

1108
00:57:27,560 --> 00:57:31,400
Speaker 1: of make it like a tribal identity thing in a way,

1109
00:57:31,680 --> 00:57:34,560
Speaker 1: like just personally, maybe me in the in the claw,

1110
00:57:34,680 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 1: you know, in a in private setting. I really feel

1111
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:43,960
Speaker 1: like the wind is for us as a community to

1112
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:48,960
Speaker 1: become a much much more understanding of people's ignorance, ignorance

1113
00:57:48,960 --> 00:57:52,280
Speaker 1: and be a little more merciful. Most people. There's probably

1114
00:57:52,680 --> 00:57:57,000
Speaker 1: three percent of the anti hunting community that are just jackwagons.

1115
00:57:57,120 --> 00:58:01,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that are that are like not interested in changing,

1116
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:06,080
Speaker 1: not interested in the facts, are just interested in causing trouble.

1117
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:08,960
Speaker 2: They're probably and they're probably ugly too.

1118
00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:15,040
Speaker 1: They're probably ugly, yes, but most of them probably just

1119
00:58:15,120 --> 00:58:20,280
Speaker 1: have never set with somebody that they could make eye

1120
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:23,200
Speaker 1: contact with and they could go, this is a real

1121
00:58:23,280 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 1: human I want to hear their story, and they hear

1122
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:30,280
Speaker 1: about my life and eating bear and my family and

1123
00:58:30,280 --> 00:58:35,480
Speaker 1: me taking my kids and us literally preserving land for

1124
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:38,440
Speaker 1: bear hunting, and when they hear about some of the

1125
00:58:38,480 --> 00:58:42,080
Speaker 1: deep history of bear hunting, and when they hear what me,

1126
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:43,840
Speaker 1: you and I were talking about earlier about the eight

1127
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:47,360
Speaker 1: bear species on planet Earth. They are twice as many

1128
00:58:47,400 --> 00:58:49,840
Speaker 1: American black bears as of all other species combined. This

1129
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:52,680
Speaker 1: is a massive success story. I mean, if I sat

1130
00:58:52,760 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 1: with or you sat with, or anybody of us set

1131
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:58,960
Speaker 1: with somebody, most of those anti hunters would go, you

1132
00:58:59,040 --> 00:59:01,160
Speaker 1: know what, I didn't know that. I mean, most people

1133
00:59:01,200 --> 00:59:03,360
Speaker 1: would probably be a little bit reasonable. And I think

1134
00:59:03,480 --> 00:59:06,880
Speaker 1: that's the play is not because right now in the country,

1135
00:59:06,920 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 1: the political the political atmosphere is to just like be

1136
00:59:12,400 --> 00:59:17,040
Speaker 1: vehemently opposed to your enemies, just smack them in the

1137
00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:20,200
Speaker 1: mouth with this is who we are. I mean, it's

1138
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:23,440
Speaker 1: just all over from both sides and every side, and

1139
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:28,680
Speaker 1: that just doesn't it just creates bigger enemies and I

1140
00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 1: just feel like we need to and that the practical

1141
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:33,280
Speaker 1: solutions and way to do this. It's hard to say,

1142
00:59:33,800 --> 00:59:40,200
Speaker 1: but just like a grassroots tenor change of us being like, hey,

1143
00:59:40,200 --> 00:59:42,480
Speaker 1: we're all on the same team. We want bears on

1144
00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:44,400
Speaker 1: the landscape.

1145
00:59:44,600 --> 00:59:45,040
Speaker 3: And and.

1146
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:50,800
Speaker 1: It's okay. I understand why you might be concerned.

1147
00:59:51,480 --> 00:59:53,680
Speaker 3: You said it earlier in your statement. I think you

1148
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:58,000
Speaker 3: said the word tribal. Yeah, it's demystifying the badge that

1149
00:59:58,040 --> 01:00:01,520
Speaker 3: you wear, right, Like it's easy for me to go

1150
01:00:01,560 --> 01:00:03,800
Speaker 3: outside and say man, meat eater man. But then you

1151
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 3: sit down and talk to Clay or you talk to

1152
01:00:05,120 --> 01:00:07,520
Speaker 3: another you talk to like you get to know these

1153
01:00:07,520 --> 01:00:09,440
Speaker 3: people and it's like, well, wait a second, they're all

1154
01:00:09,480 --> 01:00:11,360
Speaker 3: really good guy, you know, like I'm using it as

1155
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:14,520
Speaker 3: as an avatar for this conversation, but that we see

1156
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:17,080
Speaker 3: that a lot. We hate the Wildlife Agency, but you

1157
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:19,200
Speaker 3: sit down and talk to this scientist or that scientist

1158
01:00:19,280 --> 01:00:22,320
Speaker 3: or whatever, and it's like, man, they really are looking

1159
01:00:22,320 --> 01:00:24,640
Speaker 3: out for our best interest, the wildlife's best interest, to

1160
01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:29,960
Speaker 3: making decisions that are looking at everybody broadly. I have

1161
01:00:30,040 --> 01:00:35,400
Speaker 3: gotten personally docked multiple times over this issue, like address name,

1162
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:38,000
Speaker 3: phone number put on the internet, we pray nothing bad

1163
01:00:38,040 --> 01:00:41,680
Speaker 3: happens to this guy, and then my picture Remember the

1164
01:00:41,960 --> 01:00:44,280
Speaker 3: that actually happened to you? Oh, it's happened multiple Remember

1165
01:00:44,280 --> 01:00:47,040
Speaker 3: the would you rather encounter a man or a bear

1166
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:49,600
Speaker 3: in the wild thing that was kind of going out

1167
01:00:49,640 --> 01:00:51,439
Speaker 3: on the internet. There was like this whole thing where

1168
01:00:51,480 --> 01:00:54,360
Speaker 3: women were like, we'd rather encounter a bear in the

1169
01:00:54,400 --> 01:00:57,760
Speaker 3: wild than a man in the woods. They actually took

1170
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:00,200
Speaker 3: my picture and put it next to a bear and

1171
01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:03,000
Speaker 3: like plastered it everywhere, And there were people coming and say, well,

1172
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:04,400
Speaker 3: if we're going to open a season, we want to

1173
01:01:04,400 --> 01:01:07,480
Speaker 3: open them on this guy, and like they were, it's

1174
01:01:07,520 --> 01:01:09,840
Speaker 3: easy for me to just get defensive over that, right,

1175
01:01:09,880 --> 01:01:12,840
Speaker 3: It's easy for me to there's a handful of people

1176
01:01:13,200 --> 01:01:17,479
Speaker 3: five seven nine that are responsible for that. The vast

1177
01:01:17,480 --> 01:01:20,200
Speaker 3: majority of the people even commenting on it don't understand,

1178
01:01:20,200 --> 01:01:22,080
Speaker 3: don't know the nuance. And if they walked in this room,

1179
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:25,760
Speaker 3: first off, they wouldn't be that aggressive. And second off,

1180
01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:27,160
Speaker 3: if they sat here and talked to me for a minute,

1181
01:01:27,160 --> 01:01:31,760
Speaker 3: they'd realize I care. Just as the presupposition is that

1182
01:01:31,800 --> 01:01:34,640
Speaker 3: I don't want wild Florida to exist, Dude, I want

1183
01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:37,480
Speaker 3: wild Florida exists. Way more than you do. I want

1184
01:01:37,640 --> 01:01:40,680
Speaker 3: black bears everywhere. I want ducks everywhere. I want turkeys

1185
01:01:40,680 --> 01:01:43,640
Speaker 3: to wear our trip over them like I want. I

1186
01:01:43,680 --> 01:01:46,920
Speaker 3: want cabbage palms at oak trees and cows. That's what

1187
01:01:46,960 --> 01:01:50,000
Speaker 3: I want. I don't want concrete jungles. And the way

1188
01:01:50,040 --> 01:01:51,720
Speaker 3: I'm going to do it, I've got a solution to

1189
01:01:51,720 --> 01:01:53,800
Speaker 3: do it that I'm working on right here. I don't

1190
01:01:53,840 --> 01:01:56,240
Speaker 3: know what your plan is other than demonizing me, Like

1191
01:01:56,280 --> 01:01:58,640
Speaker 3: I'm on your team trying to fix this thing. And

1192
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:00,960
Speaker 3: I don't say that in a defense way. I like,

1193
01:02:01,000 --> 01:02:04,080
Speaker 3: I'm pretty cavalier about I'll just sit down with anybody'd

1194
01:02:04,080 --> 01:02:06,280
Speaker 3: have that conversation, which is exactly what you're talking about. Like,

1195
01:02:06,560 --> 01:02:08,880
Speaker 3: let's get to it, man, Yeah, get to us the

1196
01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:09,440
Speaker 3: way through it.

1197
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:24,480
Speaker 1: People are capitalizing on our desire to strike an enemy,

1198
01:02:24,520 --> 01:02:28,960
Speaker 1: and we're letting the five percent get it so riled

1199
01:02:29,040 --> 01:02:33,800
Speaker 1: up that we become we become radicals. Oh yeah, you know,

1200
01:02:33,880 --> 01:02:35,800
Speaker 1: I mean and and and.

1201
01:02:36,720 --> 01:02:38,960
Speaker 3: There's a game theory If you ever get a free time,

1202
01:02:38,960 --> 01:02:40,800
Speaker 3: there's a you can read about game theory stuff. And

1203
01:02:40,800 --> 01:02:42,560
Speaker 3: there's the thing called an Overton window in the middle

1204
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:45,160
Speaker 3: of like a number line, and you're trying to shift

1205
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:48,280
Speaker 3: that overton window your way. And so if you looked

1206
01:02:48,280 --> 01:02:51,000
Speaker 3: at the I'm backwards to the camera. But this is

1207
01:02:51,040 --> 01:02:53,800
Speaker 3: the far right, this is the far left, and and

1208
01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:56,720
Speaker 3: you try to fire up your base, and it pulls

1209
01:02:56,720 --> 01:02:58,320
Speaker 3: people this way because the people in the middle don't

1210
01:02:58,320 --> 01:02:59,880
Speaker 3: have a choice. They're like, well, I've got to v

1211
01:03:00,240 --> 01:03:02,480
Speaker 3: this way or I got to vote that way. And

1212
01:03:02,520 --> 01:03:05,160
Speaker 3: so you don't go to the middle, you go to

1213
01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:07,360
Speaker 3: the edges, okay, and you create this thing called an

1214
01:03:07,360 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 3: over the window that you're trying to shift your way

1215
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:10,200
Speaker 3: on this number line.

1216
01:03:10,560 --> 01:03:12,240
Speaker 1: That's what touches people to be radical.

1217
01:03:12,320 --> 01:03:13,920
Speaker 3: It pushes people to be radical because that's where you're

1218
01:03:13,920 --> 01:03:16,080
Speaker 3: going to raise money, that's where you're gonna raise support,

1219
01:03:16,080 --> 01:03:17,720
Speaker 3: and that's where you're gonna fire up your base.

1220
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:20,600
Speaker 1: But what if radical was just reasonable?

1221
01:03:21,080 --> 01:03:22,880
Speaker 3: And I think that's the conversation that I try to

1222
01:03:22,960 --> 01:03:25,360
Speaker 3: change every day, is like, what if radical didn't exist?

1223
01:03:25,480 --> 01:03:28,720
Speaker 3: What if we just took a common sense approach to conversation,

1224
01:03:28,880 --> 01:03:32,000
Speaker 3: to conservation. You know, what if we I'll go back

1225
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:34,720
Speaker 3: to development in Florida, people say all the time, I'm

1226
01:03:34,720 --> 01:03:37,800
Speaker 3: anti development. You gotta stop, dude. Do you know how

1227
01:03:37,800 --> 01:03:40,000
Speaker 3: many people in Florida make their living off building houses

1228
01:03:40,280 --> 01:03:42,200
Speaker 3: or and then and then you're a fishing guide or

1229
01:03:42,240 --> 01:03:44,560
Speaker 3: a hunting guy, like do you check W two's for

1230
01:03:44,600 --> 01:03:46,640
Speaker 3: people when they get on your boat, like that they

1231
01:03:46,680 --> 01:03:48,520
Speaker 3: work for a fertilizer company, or they work for the

1232
01:03:48,640 --> 01:03:51,720
Speaker 3: like they're all connected to it somehow. Like economic growth

1233
01:03:51,800 --> 01:03:55,720
Speaker 3: is economic growth. I'm not anti development. I'm pro smart growth, Like,

1234
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:58,520
Speaker 3: let's sit down and figure out ways forward that take

1235
01:03:58,560 --> 01:04:01,840
Speaker 3: care of my natural resources in your financial needs or

1236
01:04:01,880 --> 01:04:04,360
Speaker 3: economic needs, your tax base is what's going to grow

1237
01:04:04,360 --> 01:04:08,440
Speaker 3: your economy. I just think we get into these binaries.

1238
01:04:08,680 --> 01:04:11,120
Speaker 3: You have to stop growing, you have to grow at

1239
01:04:11,120 --> 01:04:13,880
Speaker 3: all costs. Dude, most of us are right here at

1240
01:04:13,920 --> 01:04:16,880
Speaker 3: some game. Most it's not binary, right, It's most of

1241
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:19,320
Speaker 3: us sit somewhere here in the middle. And I think

1242
01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:24,040
Speaker 3: there's a whole lot of good conservation that is missed

1243
01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:26,800
Speaker 3: because we spend time in this fight and in this fight,

1244
01:04:27,120 --> 01:04:29,960
Speaker 3: and that's not the fight. The conversations right here in

1245
01:04:29,960 --> 01:04:31,600
Speaker 3: the middle where we can move it forward. And I

1246
01:04:31,640 --> 01:04:35,040
Speaker 3: think this whole thing, I think bears perfect example of that.

1247
01:04:35,120 --> 01:04:39,080
Speaker 3: Because I said earlier, the agency went and addressed these

1248
01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:41,600
Speaker 3: concerns over here were we never want to hunt. But

1249
01:04:41,680 --> 01:04:45,120
Speaker 3: their reasons were because you killed too many sous and

1250
01:04:45,160 --> 01:04:46,600
Speaker 3: he killed them. It was a blood bath. It was

1251
01:04:46,640 --> 01:04:49,680
Speaker 3: too fast, and the hunters could have been over here

1252
01:04:49,760 --> 01:04:52,120
Speaker 3: said well, we did it right the first time. And

1253
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:53,960
Speaker 3: I could make the argument that quote a hunt was

1254
01:04:54,000 --> 01:04:55,840
Speaker 3: handled right the first time. The hunters could get over

1255
01:04:55,840 --> 01:04:56,960
Speaker 3: here and in turn and say, well, we're going to

1256
01:04:57,000 --> 01:04:59,480
Speaker 3: do it this way. By golly, we're not changing with

1257
01:04:59,560 --> 01:05:01,720
Speaker 3: the agency did a really good job, and the sportsman's

1258
01:05:01,720 --> 01:05:03,800
Speaker 3: community did a really good job was coming up with

1259
01:05:03,840 --> 01:05:07,640
Speaker 3: a solution that really did address their concerns. Yes, now

1260
01:05:07,840 --> 01:05:10,320
Speaker 3: they don't want any hunting to take place, we're not

1261
01:05:10,360 --> 01:05:12,800
Speaker 3: going to move there, but they did address their concerns

1262
01:05:12,800 --> 01:05:16,120
Speaker 3: with selectivity, with season and everything else. Man, that's what

1263
01:05:16,200 --> 01:05:18,840
Speaker 3: conservation is supposed to look like. I believe that in

1264
01:05:18,840 --> 01:05:20,760
Speaker 3: my heart that's what conservation is supposed to look like.

1265
01:05:21,160 --> 01:05:24,800
Speaker 3: And now we have the sustainable renewable resource that is

1266
01:05:25,160 --> 01:05:29,200
Speaker 3: a game species. By the way, you you're the best

1267
01:05:29,240 --> 01:05:33,080
Speaker 3: bear guy that I know. Why are bears considered a

1268
01:05:33,120 --> 01:05:35,400
Speaker 3: game species? Can you can you talk about that for me?

1269
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:37,040
Speaker 3: Because that's a question I get all the time.

1270
01:05:37,200 --> 01:05:40,520
Speaker 1: What Lets let me put a pause right there on

1271
01:05:40,560 --> 01:05:43,000
Speaker 1: that question, because I want to say one thing and

1272
01:05:43,040 --> 01:05:46,760
Speaker 1: then I want to go to that right there. If

1273
01:05:47,000 --> 01:05:50,439
Speaker 1: the reason bears are so important is if we can

1274
01:05:50,560 --> 01:05:53,560
Speaker 1: win on bears, we can win on anything.

1275
01:05:53,680 --> 01:05:54,200
Speaker 3: Guard the gate.

1276
01:05:54,320 --> 01:05:58,760
Speaker 1: Is what you've said so to me, and we've said

1277
01:05:58,760 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 1: this for a decade, is that when you look at

1278
01:06:01,200 --> 01:06:05,280
Speaker 1: the whole of North American hunting, if we can protect

1279
01:06:05,400 --> 01:06:08,960
Speaker 1: the thing that's the gate for you know, the lowest

1280
01:06:08,960 --> 01:06:12,960
Speaker 1: hanging fruit, which is always going to be predators, I

1281
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:17,120
Speaker 1: mean everything above it is safe essentially, you know, deer.

1282
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:19,280
Speaker 1: I mean people, people aren't as going to be as

1283
01:06:19,320 --> 01:06:25,760
Speaker 1: concerned about if we're talking about actually legislatively hunting opportunities

1284
01:06:25,760 --> 01:06:28,680
Speaker 1: being taken away. I mean, when I think about bears

1285
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:31,640
Speaker 1: in Florida, it's almost it's almost like the bear being

1286
01:06:31,640 --> 01:06:35,400
Speaker 1: the keystone species biologically, Like if you have bears, then

1287
01:06:36,000 --> 01:06:38,320
Speaker 1: you probably got good turkey habitat, and good deer habitat,

1288
01:06:38,400 --> 01:06:42,960
Speaker 1: and good habitat and good gopher gopher shorts habitat. In

1289
01:06:43,000 --> 01:06:44,880
Speaker 1: a way, if you've got a bear hunt in your state,

1290
01:06:46,000 --> 01:06:47,960
Speaker 1: you probably got a lot of things in order to

1291
01:06:48,320 --> 01:06:53,120
Speaker 1: even legislatively And that's why I've always said that I

1292
01:06:53,160 --> 01:06:58,640
Speaker 1: feel like bear hunting is probably as critical a topic

1293
01:06:58,680 --> 01:07:02,560
Speaker 1: of discussion and interest for us to understand and be

1294
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:05,120
Speaker 1: able to articulate and talk through. Because if you can

1295
01:07:05,160 --> 01:07:08,800
Speaker 1: explain bear hunting to somebody that's starting from zero and

1296
01:07:08,880 --> 01:07:10,680
Speaker 1: get them to go, you know what, I kind of

1297
01:07:10,760 --> 01:07:13,560
Speaker 1: understand why you'd hunt a bear now, man, you have one,

1298
01:07:14,480 --> 01:07:20,520
Speaker 1: You're the hero, And I just think bears are really important.

1299
01:07:21,360 --> 01:07:22,360
Speaker 1: It's critically important.

1300
01:07:22,640 --> 01:07:24,800
Speaker 3: I'm a guy that's never hunted a bear spending a

1301
01:07:24,800 --> 01:07:28,280
Speaker 3: lot of time with bears because of because I think

1302
01:07:28,320 --> 01:07:31,520
Speaker 3: it is. I think it's crucial to saving what matters

1303
01:07:31,520 --> 01:07:33,680
Speaker 3: in my state, yes, And I think it's crucial to

1304
01:07:33,760 --> 01:07:37,439
Speaker 3: saving this tool that matters in my state, yes, right,

1305
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:40,080
Speaker 3: Like it's critical to keeping the wild places wild, but

1306
01:07:40,120 --> 01:07:43,120
Speaker 3: it's also critical to saving hunting, which is going to

1307
01:07:43,160 --> 01:07:44,880
Speaker 3: help keep the wild police as wild. Man.

1308
01:07:44,920 --> 01:07:47,040
Speaker 1: I think it's so cool that you're such an advocate

1309
01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:49,040
Speaker 1: for it, and I love it that you say you've

1310
01:07:49,040 --> 01:07:52,680
Speaker 1: never hunted a bear. I mean, we don't need everybody

1311
01:07:52,720 --> 01:07:55,760
Speaker 1: to go hunt a bear. I mean they can that

1312
01:07:55,760 --> 01:07:58,960
Speaker 1: there's plenty of opportunity to, but it's like people getting

1313
01:07:59,320 --> 01:08:03,640
Speaker 1: involved in something bigger than them themselves. Is important right

1314
01:08:03,680 --> 01:08:05,960
Speaker 1: now in this time, is.

1315
01:08:05,880 --> 01:08:09,840
Speaker 3: It matters a great deal? Your question? Let me ask

1316
01:08:09,880 --> 01:08:12,120
Speaker 3: you again because this is and I'm asking you. I

1317
01:08:12,120 --> 01:08:13,840
Speaker 3: know how to answer this, but I'm asking you. Is

1318
01:08:13,880 --> 01:08:19,599
Speaker 3: the bear hunting experted guy, Yeah, he's the guy. Sister.

1319
01:08:23,360 --> 01:08:26,200
Speaker 3: I get asked all the time, why do we consider

1320
01:08:26,240 --> 01:08:27,120
Speaker 3: bear game species?

1321
01:08:27,160 --> 01:08:27,280
Speaker 2: Now?

1322
01:08:27,280 --> 01:08:29,800
Speaker 3: This is being asked by Florida environmentalist primary and I

1323
01:08:29,920 --> 01:08:31,760
Speaker 3: was like, let me ask Clay.

1324
01:08:31,720 --> 01:08:35,479
Speaker 1: Like, well, I think I think that there's two might

1325
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:38,960
Speaker 1: be two ways to view that. Like in the past,

1326
01:08:39,040 --> 01:08:44,200
Speaker 1: a lot of game agencies managed bears as as a

1327
01:08:44,200 --> 01:08:47,439
Speaker 1: as a vermin, essentially managed them from a as a

1328
01:08:47,479 --> 01:08:51,160
Speaker 1: nuisance species as a nuisance species because they wanted them

1329
01:08:51,160 --> 01:08:54,960
Speaker 1: off the landscape. I mean that's that's actually I mean,

1330
01:08:55,200 --> 01:08:58,519
Speaker 1: just in the last thirty years, I think have all

1331
01:08:58,600 --> 01:09:02,520
Speaker 1: the states now made bear black bears a game species,

1332
01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:06,559
Speaker 1: which game species meaning that what that translates to, it's

1333
01:09:06,560 --> 01:09:09,320
Speaker 1: gonna have a lot more protection, it's gonna have science

1334
01:09:09,360 --> 01:09:13,080
Speaker 1: based studies going into how many are there, how many

1335
01:09:13,080 --> 01:09:15,920
Speaker 1: are taken? Like when an animal comes a game species

1336
01:09:15,960 --> 01:09:18,879
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's getting a lot more attention,

1337
01:09:19,600 --> 01:09:23,320
Speaker 1: a lot more regulation, And it's good now I think

1338
01:09:23,439 --> 01:09:28,680
Speaker 1: what an anti hunter and Florida might The tunnel that

1339
01:09:28,680 --> 01:09:32,120
Speaker 1: their question is coming from is why are we even

1340
01:09:32,240 --> 01:09:35,519
Speaker 1: hunting them? This shouldn't be an animal that we even hunt,

1341
01:09:36,040 --> 01:09:38,040
Speaker 1: so like they're not saying, let's manage it as a

1342
01:09:38,160 --> 01:09:40,320
Speaker 1: vermin or a nuisance animal. Am I right?

1343
01:09:40,360 --> 01:09:41,840
Speaker 3: You know you're exactly right, But I want you to

1344
01:09:41,880 --> 01:09:44,479
Speaker 3: talk about the well bears are the species we do

1345
01:09:44,520 --> 01:09:45,360
Speaker 3: the most with, right.

1346
01:09:45,240 --> 01:09:50,840
Speaker 1: The historic historic practice on this continent is humans on

1347
01:09:50,880 --> 01:09:53,680
Speaker 1: this place have been hunting bears since the since the

1348
01:09:53,720 --> 01:09:58,519
Speaker 1: time they set their feet on this continent, long deep,

1349
01:09:58,840 --> 01:10:03,559
Speaker 1: deep history. Utilization of BlackBerry in this continent. I mean

1350
01:10:04,680 --> 01:10:07,240
Speaker 1: we talk about utilization of wild game, like we kill

1351
01:10:07,240 --> 01:10:08,840
Speaker 1: a deer and we want to eat all the meat

1352
01:10:08,880 --> 01:10:13,160
Speaker 1: and you know, save the horns for a memory.

1353
01:10:13,720 --> 01:10:13,960
Speaker 3: Man.

1354
01:10:14,000 --> 01:10:15,760
Speaker 1: Black bears. We use more of a black bear than

1355
01:10:15,800 --> 01:10:18,840
Speaker 1: any other big game species that we harvest. How many

1356
01:10:18,840 --> 01:10:21,759
Speaker 1: deer hides do you have hanging in your house? Okay,

1357
01:10:22,479 --> 01:10:25,280
Speaker 1: bear hides on a black bear? You eat the meat.

1358
01:10:25,960 --> 01:10:29,040
Speaker 1: I would say eighty percent of blackberries. Their hides are

1359
01:10:29,080 --> 01:10:34,759
Speaker 1: tanned when people harvest them, and we render the fat,

1360
01:10:34,800 --> 01:10:38,040
Speaker 1: which is something that's revival. There's a bear fat revival

1361
01:10:38,080 --> 01:10:40,599
Speaker 1: in this country, and guys are starting to harvest fat

1362
01:10:40,640 --> 01:10:45,240
Speaker 1: from their animals and rendered into bear grease, so historic use.

1363
01:10:45,360 --> 01:10:50,760
Speaker 1: Native Americans use bear like crazy. They're incredible table fare.

1364
01:10:51,240 --> 01:10:53,479
Speaker 1: I mean, in the frontier days, people killed deer for

1365
01:10:53,520 --> 01:10:56,559
Speaker 1: their skins and bear for the meat. I mean, it

1366
01:10:56,640 --> 01:11:00,080
Speaker 1: was crazy to think about eating deer. Guys were the

1367
01:11:00,080 --> 01:11:02,960
Speaker 1: the long hunters were shooting deer and leaving the carcasses

1368
01:11:03,000 --> 01:11:06,439
Speaker 1: on the ground and killing bears for food. So essentially,

1369
01:11:06,520 --> 01:11:09,720
Speaker 1: the answer to your question would be they're an incredible

1370
01:11:10,040 --> 01:11:15,400
Speaker 1: animal for eating and for for utilizing for bear fat.

1371
01:11:15,479 --> 01:11:16,800
Speaker 1: I mean, you could go into all the things you

1372
01:11:16,840 --> 01:11:19,080
Speaker 1: do with bear fat. But uh, I mean does that

1373
01:11:19,160 --> 01:11:20,240
Speaker 1: does that answer your question?

1374
01:11:20,240 --> 01:11:22,240
Speaker 3: I think that is the That's what I have said

1375
01:11:22,240 --> 01:11:23,880
Speaker 3: to people, But I'm not a bear hunter, so it

1376
01:11:23,960 --> 01:11:26,360
Speaker 3: rings hollow when I say it. I'm asking you the

1377
01:11:26,360 --> 01:11:29,439
Speaker 3: bear expert, like, this is the animal right I.

1378
01:11:29,439 --> 01:11:32,479
Speaker 1: Mean, is if a white tailed deer is a game animal,

1379
01:11:32,920 --> 01:11:36,080
Speaker 1: manages a game animal because we eat it. A bear

1380
01:11:36,160 --> 01:11:38,400
Speaker 1: is managed as a game animal because it's better than

1381
01:11:38,400 --> 01:11:39,200
Speaker 1: a white tailed.

1382
01:11:38,960 --> 01:11:40,679
Speaker 3: Deer, that's the answer.

1383
01:11:41,000 --> 01:11:44,800
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just true. And and uh, and we've

1384
01:11:44,800 --> 01:11:49,679
Speaker 1: got that that deep historical data that that that says

1385
01:11:49,720 --> 01:11:51,240
Speaker 1: that you know, I love it.

1386
01:11:52,439 --> 01:11:55,200
Speaker 2: Well, I'd eat a bear burger any day over just

1387
01:11:55,200 --> 01:11:56,120
Speaker 2: about any other meat.

1388
01:11:56,200 --> 01:11:57,920
Speaker 1: What did you say. You've had two bear burgers in

1389
01:11:57,960 --> 01:11:58,760
Speaker 1: my house in the last month.

1390
01:11:59,040 --> 01:12:01,439
Speaker 2: They are the best that you can eat.

1391
01:12:02,439 --> 01:12:06,000
Speaker 1: Anybody that I don't know. Three out of ten guys

1392
01:12:06,040 --> 01:12:08,080
Speaker 1: I talked to, go man, I don't like bear meat.

1393
01:12:08,080 --> 01:12:11,439
Speaker 1: I had at once and it was tasted to a man.

1394
01:12:11,920 --> 01:12:13,960
Speaker 1: I have no idea what people are doing if they

1395
01:12:14,040 --> 01:12:17,400
Speaker 1: have any meat that tastes bad delicious. Yeah, I mean,

1396
01:12:18,560 --> 01:12:19,920
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know what to tell them.

1397
01:12:20,040 --> 01:12:21,320
Speaker 1: It's it's really great meat.

1398
01:12:21,560 --> 01:12:23,559
Speaker 3: I've never had a bear burger. I've had a I've

1399
01:12:23,600 --> 01:12:26,519
Speaker 3: had roast. I've had a bunch of roast, but never

1400
01:12:26,520 --> 01:12:27,040
Speaker 3: had a burger.

1401
01:12:27,439 --> 01:12:29,800
Speaker 1: I wish I would have cooked you one if you

1402
01:12:29,840 --> 01:12:30,320
Speaker 1: were here long.

1403
01:12:30,800 --> 01:12:34,360
Speaker 3: Well, we'll have to do Florida. Come to Florida Harvest

1404
01:12:34,439 --> 01:12:34,920
Speaker 3: Bear and then we.

1405
01:12:34,920 --> 01:12:39,120
Speaker 1: Can if I draw one of those tags. But we're

1406
01:12:39,120 --> 01:12:41,519
Speaker 1: not going to tell them that no non residents can't.

1407
01:12:41,600 --> 01:12:44,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's no way that a non resident could

1408
01:12:44,080 --> 01:12:45,599
Speaker 2: ever get a Florida bear tag.

1409
01:12:46,320 --> 01:12:49,760
Speaker 3: Really neat, that was a joke. Really neat thing they're

1410
01:12:49,800 --> 01:12:52,960
Speaker 3: doing too, is they wanted to make sure private lands

1411
01:12:52,960 --> 01:12:54,679
Speaker 3: were in corporated, because obviously you can't have a feeder

1412
01:12:54,680 --> 01:12:57,200
Speaker 3: on public land. We can use dogs on a lot

1413
01:12:57,240 --> 01:12:59,879
Speaker 3: of public land. We have a lot of National Force billowed,

1414
01:13:00,360 --> 01:13:03,720
Speaker 3: but not in this season, in this this first year, right,

1415
01:13:03,920 --> 01:13:06,719
Speaker 3: but not the second one. It'd be twenty seven before

1416
01:13:06,760 --> 01:13:13,519
Speaker 3: dogs were used. Okay, dogs would utilize but we'll see. Oh,

1417
01:13:13,560 --> 01:13:15,720
Speaker 3: so the private landowner will be able to apply for

1418
01:13:15,800 --> 01:13:20,000
Speaker 3: tags and those tags would come out of the whole quota,

1419
01:13:20,479 --> 01:13:23,439
Speaker 3: which you could argue, well, that's less opportunities for me,

1420
01:13:23,720 --> 01:13:25,960
Speaker 3: But I think it's a really good management tool, and.

1421
01:13:25,920 --> 01:13:30,200
Speaker 1: I think landowner isn't it has a better chance of

1422
01:13:30,240 --> 01:13:30,880
Speaker 1: getting the tag.

1423
01:13:31,240 --> 01:13:33,200
Speaker 3: Is that what you're saying? No, But if they apply,

1424
01:13:33,320 --> 01:13:34,960
Speaker 3: they could get those tags taken out of the one

1425
01:13:35,040 --> 01:13:37,799
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty seven. So if you have three thousand

1426
01:13:37,800 --> 01:13:39,760
Speaker 3: acres in North Florida and you got bears all over it,

1427
01:13:40,040 --> 01:13:42,760
Speaker 3: you can apply for the private landowner tags now.

1428
01:13:42,760 --> 01:13:44,160
Speaker 1: But they wouldn't go in the draw.

1429
01:13:44,960 --> 01:13:47,719
Speaker 3: They would have to is it their own draw?

1430
01:13:48,439 --> 01:13:48,479
Speaker 1: No?

1431
01:13:48,680 --> 01:13:51,000
Speaker 3: I think they still have to go through the draw process.

1432
01:13:51,080 --> 01:13:52,640
Speaker 3: But if they got drawn, it would come out of that.

1433
01:13:52,800 --> 01:13:56,000
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm not understanding. I feel like there's

1434
01:13:56,040 --> 01:13:58,520
Speaker 1: something else you're saying. Because if me and a landowner

1435
01:13:58,520 --> 01:14:01,120
Speaker 1: with ten thousand acres put in, I would have the

1436
01:14:01,120 --> 01:14:02,840
Speaker 1: same odds as drawn as him.

1437
01:14:03,160 --> 01:14:04,599
Speaker 3: That's the way I understand it work. But I can

1438
01:14:04,600 --> 01:14:05,680
Speaker 3: get you a clarification on that.

1439
01:14:05,800 --> 01:14:07,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I thought maybe you were saying there

1440
01:14:07,960 --> 01:14:10,000
Speaker 1: with those guys were given a preference.

1441
01:14:10,120 --> 01:14:12,679
Speaker 3: No, they're not giving a preference. They're not giving a preference.

1442
01:14:12,720 --> 01:14:14,320
Speaker 3: But I think what will happen is we'll see that

1443
01:14:14,360 --> 01:14:18,320
Speaker 3: program grow out over the time and so this first

1444
01:14:18,360 --> 01:14:21,120
Speaker 3: year we may see someone in a private landowners take

1445
01:14:21,120 --> 01:14:23,080
Speaker 3: some of those on hundred and eighty seven tacks as

1446
01:14:23,160 --> 01:14:27,360
Speaker 3: through an application process. I would think arguably they're going

1447
01:14:27,400 --> 01:14:29,519
Speaker 3: to have a higher success rate because they got feeders

1448
01:14:29,560 --> 01:14:31,720
Speaker 3: and they've got private land. This man is different. You

1449
01:14:31,720 --> 01:14:33,640
Speaker 3: don't have the romping stamp of people like driving their

1450
01:14:33,720 --> 01:14:36,960
Speaker 3: cheeks and riding horses. But then long term, I think

1451
01:14:37,000 --> 01:14:39,200
Speaker 3: we'll see a private land program.

1452
01:14:39,600 --> 01:14:43,800
Speaker 1: Man, I'm all for it. See anybody that is like man,

1453
01:14:43,880 --> 01:14:46,480
Speaker 1: the private land guys getting any kind of a preference

1454
01:14:46,520 --> 01:14:49,960
Speaker 1: over non private land, I'm not for it. And I

1455
01:14:50,040 --> 01:14:51,240
Speaker 1: don't own big properties.

1456
01:14:51,320 --> 01:14:51,679
Speaker 3: I don't.

1457
01:14:53,000 --> 01:14:56,960
Speaker 1: But if I owned four thousand acres in Florida and

1458
01:14:57,040 --> 01:15:00,360
Speaker 1: I got bear, it's just crawling with bears. Give me

1459
01:15:00,400 --> 01:15:04,439
Speaker 1: an incentive exactly to not gut shoot those bears with

1460
01:15:04,479 --> 01:15:07,000
Speaker 1: a twenty two rifle, which that's very crass and I

1461
01:15:07,000 --> 01:15:07,599
Speaker 1: don't even.

1462
01:15:07,439 --> 01:15:10,479
Speaker 3: Like to say, but it's a shut up, right, Like, Oh.

1463
01:15:10,360 --> 01:15:13,000
Speaker 1: It happens all the time in places where there's no

1464
01:15:13,160 --> 01:15:15,120
Speaker 1: season and there's no outlet for.

1465
01:15:15,800 --> 01:15:18,640
Speaker 3: Management of that species. That's right. And oh, you've got

1466
01:15:18,640 --> 01:15:22,000
Speaker 3: an animal that's destructive. You said he's curious. He's destructive

1467
01:15:22,120 --> 01:15:24,320
Speaker 3: to I don't know that they would take a cap,

1468
01:15:24,400 --> 01:15:26,760
Speaker 3: but I know they take goats and cheap and things

1469
01:15:26,760 --> 01:15:30,479
Speaker 3: like that. Like they will opportunistically take livestock. They'll destroy

1470
01:15:30,680 --> 01:15:33,840
Speaker 3: fences and sheds and barns and like they just we

1471
01:15:33,880 --> 01:15:35,400
Speaker 3: had our first fatality from a bear.

1472
01:15:35,760 --> 01:15:37,479
Speaker 1: I was going to bring that up. Do you think

1473
01:15:37,520 --> 01:15:42,240
Speaker 1: that was part of the what helped push this hunt over?

1474
01:15:42,280 --> 01:15:43,640
Speaker 1: You don't think you had anything they had anything to

1475
01:15:43,640 --> 01:15:44,920
Speaker 1: do with it. Tell me about that fatality.

1476
01:15:44,960 --> 01:15:47,240
Speaker 3: When was it? This was in May so so the

1477
01:15:47,280 --> 01:15:49,320
Speaker 3: commission meeting, I don't remember the dates. May was kind

1478
01:15:49,320 --> 01:15:50,800
Speaker 3: of a blurb. But the commission meeting, it was like

1479
01:15:50,800 --> 01:15:53,280
Speaker 3: two weeks before the FBC Commission meeting, we had we

1480
01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:57,479
Speaker 3: had a guy. He lives in the Everglades and the bear.

1481
01:15:58,840 --> 01:16:01,600
Speaker 3: The details have not been released fully so so the

1482
01:16:01,640 --> 01:16:03,800
Speaker 3: report's not out there yet. But the agency calls it

1483
01:16:03,840 --> 01:16:07,720
Speaker 3: a predatory attack. Wow. So it's a really sad situation.

1484
01:16:08,560 --> 01:16:10,840
Speaker 1: And was it was it in his neighborhood or was

1485
01:16:10,840 --> 01:16:11,519
Speaker 1: it out in the wild.

1486
01:16:11,520 --> 01:16:14,240
Speaker 3: It was he kind of lived remotely, so uh, he

1487
01:16:14,280 --> 01:16:17,400
Speaker 3: lived in like a like a for lack of a

1488
01:16:17,400 --> 01:16:19,640
Speaker 3: better term, I called an in holding, like like he

1489
01:16:19,720 --> 01:16:23,479
Speaker 3: lived in the woods. It killed his dog and it

1490
01:16:23,560 --> 01:16:26,040
Speaker 3: killed him. They and the agency ended up killing three

1491
01:16:26,080 --> 01:16:30,880
Speaker 3: bears in reaction to that, to that attack, and it

1492
01:16:30,960 --> 01:16:33,800
Speaker 3: was it was there. I have heard it is some

1493
01:16:33,840 --> 01:16:36,320
Speaker 3: of the grizzliest stuff that people have ever seen. Wow,

1494
01:16:36,479 --> 01:16:40,760
Speaker 3: like really yeah, unsettling. The photos and the I haven't

1495
01:16:40,800 --> 01:16:42,520
Speaker 3: seen them, but it was unsettling.

1496
01:16:43,479 --> 01:16:48,720
Speaker 1: So black bear, it's pretty it's pretty interesting. On average,

1497
01:16:49,520 --> 01:16:53,080
Speaker 1: like one American gets killed a year by black bear.

1498
01:16:53,320 --> 01:16:57,400
Speaker 3: Really on average, I.

1499
01:16:57,360 --> 01:17:01,479
Speaker 1: Want to say three or four on average get killed

1500
01:17:01,520 --> 01:17:06,000
Speaker 1: by grizzlies, which is super interesting because the grizzly home

1501
01:17:06,360 --> 01:17:11,040
Speaker 1: the range of grizzlies is three percent of what the

1502
01:17:11,280 --> 01:17:17,360
Speaker 1: range of black bears is. On average, reported black bear

1503
01:17:17,400 --> 01:17:22,600
Speaker 1: attacks over the last like sixty years, there's like thirteen

1504
01:17:23,439 --> 01:17:27,880
Speaker 1: documented black bear what they would consider an attack on humans.

1505
01:17:27,880 --> 01:17:33,719
Speaker 1: So and this is general data. One death, thirteen attacks. Wow,

1506
01:17:34,240 --> 01:17:36,559
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff doesn't go reported. Like my friend

1507
01:17:36,600 --> 01:17:40,760
Speaker 1: Moe Shepherd who got charged by salve black bear and

1508
01:17:41,600 --> 01:17:43,920
Speaker 1: punched it in the face with his bow and kicked

1509
01:17:43,920 --> 01:17:46,599
Speaker 1: it in the teeth, and like it didn't hurt him,

1510
01:17:46,760 --> 01:17:48,639
Speaker 1: Like that wasn't considered an attack.

1511
01:17:48,800 --> 01:17:49,560
Speaker 3: It wasn't.

1512
01:17:49,600 --> 01:17:52,920
Speaker 1: It didn't counted like if it's if there's contact, Well

1513
01:17:53,000 --> 01:17:55,439
Speaker 1: there was contact in that one, but point bing. There's

1514
01:17:55,479 --> 01:17:58,720
Speaker 1: a lot more skirmishes that happen, but actual attacks where

1515
01:17:58,760 --> 01:18:03,760
Speaker 1: somebody gets malled. Statistically, the people that get attacked are

1516
01:18:03,760 --> 01:18:07,280
Speaker 1: people that have dogs because they go for the dog. Well,

1517
01:18:08,320 --> 01:18:13,040
Speaker 1: the dog goes for the bear. If you've got a

1518
01:18:13,120 --> 01:18:16,639
Speaker 1: leash dog, it's actually better. But if you have an

1519
01:18:16,720 --> 01:18:21,000
Speaker 1: unleashed dog, like I don't want to say the percentage,

1520
01:18:21,000 --> 01:18:25,840
Speaker 1: but a vast a lot of those thirteen attacks that

1521
01:18:25,880 --> 01:18:29,280
Speaker 1: are going to happen by a dog is running loose.

1522
01:18:29,320 --> 01:18:31,880
Speaker 1: You're just walking down a trail. Your dog sees the

1523
01:18:31,880 --> 01:18:35,640
Speaker 1: bear before you goes in barks at the bear. The

1524
01:18:35,640 --> 01:18:38,759
Speaker 1: bear turns on the dog, and the dog goes, oh crap.

1525
01:18:39,479 --> 01:18:44,200
Speaker 1: The dog runs back to you. The bear follows the

1526
01:18:45,120 --> 01:18:50,080
Speaker 1: dog right back to you and attacks you. Yep, So

1527
01:18:50,720 --> 01:18:54,040
Speaker 1: the the consistent theme inside of attacks is dogs, which

1528
01:18:54,080 --> 01:18:57,040
Speaker 1: people actually usually would think a dog would be protecting

1529
01:18:57,040 --> 01:19:00,360
Speaker 1: them from the bear. Right, But that's why people are

1530
01:19:00,360 --> 01:19:05,080
Speaker 1: getting attacked. And then, but the most deaths are from

1531
01:19:05,160 --> 01:19:10,880
Speaker 1: predatory attacks, usually juvenile males, and they literally are when

1532
01:19:10,920 --> 01:19:14,960
Speaker 1: a bear is stalking people. You know, there's a way

1533
01:19:15,000 --> 01:19:18,160
Speaker 1: that they categorize a predatory attack. It's not like a surprise.

1534
01:19:18,280 --> 01:19:21,880
Speaker 1: It's not a salad defending her cubs. Salad defending her

1535
01:19:21,880 --> 01:19:25,720
Speaker 1: cubs is not gonna kill you. She's just gonna eradicate

1536
01:19:25,760 --> 01:19:28,400
Speaker 1: those you're sure in the threat, in the threat, and

1537
01:19:28,439 --> 01:19:30,000
Speaker 1: as soon as she can get away from it, she's

1538
01:19:30,040 --> 01:19:32,840
Speaker 1: going to So you're gonna get whooped on a little bit,

1539
01:19:33,560 --> 01:19:36,599
Speaker 1: but you very unlikely she's gonna kill you. The one

1540
01:19:36,640 --> 01:19:38,960
Speaker 1: that's gonna kill you is a three year old male

1541
01:19:39,520 --> 01:19:41,280
Speaker 1: that you're walking down a trail and all of a

1542
01:19:41,320 --> 01:19:43,920
Speaker 1: sudden you look back thirty yards and he's following you,

1543
01:19:44,720 --> 01:19:47,760
Speaker 1: just like walking, looking at you, making an eye contact,

1544
01:19:47,840 --> 01:19:51,320
Speaker 1: lowered head, and you start walking faster and he starts

1545
01:19:51,320 --> 01:19:55,200
Speaker 1: walking faster, and I mean that that's a bear that

1546
01:19:55,240 --> 01:20:00,799
Speaker 1: will kill you. And what happens. It's happened several times, uh,

1547
01:20:01,160 --> 01:20:06,120
Speaker 1: where basically a bear starts coming around somebody's house, like

1548
01:20:06,160 --> 01:20:08,559
Speaker 1: an inn holding where they're you know, just like this

1549
01:20:09,160 --> 01:20:11,639
Speaker 1: lone house out in the woods somewhere, and a bear

1550
01:20:11,760 --> 01:20:14,519
Speaker 1: just starts coming around, coming around, getting more more familiar

1551
01:20:14,560 --> 01:20:18,200
Speaker 1: with who's there, what's going on, and pretty soon that

1552
01:20:18,280 --> 01:20:21,759
Speaker 1: bear has killed somebody. There was a story, uh believe

1553
01:20:21,760 --> 01:20:25,000
Speaker 1: in California a couple of years ago, I mean in

1554
01:20:25,400 --> 01:20:28,559
Speaker 1: modern times, in the last decade, where a bear was

1555
01:20:28,600 --> 01:20:30,800
Speaker 1: just coming around this lady's house. She she called it

1556
01:20:30,920 --> 01:20:35,160
Speaker 1: the she she actually called it the big old B

1557
01:20:35,200 --> 01:20:37,840
Speaker 1: A S T A R D. That's what she called it.

1558
01:20:38,800 --> 01:20:42,160
Speaker 1: I don't want to say the word. Uh did I

1559
01:20:42,200 --> 01:20:42,720
Speaker 1: spell it right?

1560
01:20:42,840 --> 01:20:43,000
Speaker 3: Yeah?

1561
01:20:43,080 --> 01:20:44,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, y'all looking at you.

1562
01:20:45,840 --> 01:20:47,920
Speaker 2: We're gonna have a caption on the bottom.

1563
01:20:48,520 --> 01:20:50,880
Speaker 1: She called she called 's what she called it. All

1564
01:20:50,960 --> 01:20:55,000
Speaker 1: her family knew, you know, he's here, the big B word.

1565
01:20:56,120 --> 01:20:58,479
Speaker 1: That's like her broken her window ate that woman in

1566
01:20:58,560 --> 01:21:01,920
Speaker 1: her house. Oh my, yeah, yeah, and.

1567
01:21:03,479 --> 01:21:03,960
Speaker 3: Very rare.

1568
01:21:04,200 --> 01:21:08,200
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you've got a much You shouldn't be

1569
01:21:08,240 --> 01:21:12,160
Speaker 1: afraid of black bears. You really shouldn't, but it does happen.

1570
01:21:12,479 --> 01:21:14,600
Speaker 1: Right anyway, I was going to ask you about that.

1571
01:21:15,439 --> 01:21:18,080
Speaker 2: You give them a name like that, If you give

1572
01:21:18,080 --> 01:21:20,040
Speaker 2: it a name like that, just expect to get attacked.

1573
01:21:20,280 --> 01:21:22,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, be more respectful of your names. Right, that's right.

1574
01:21:32,200 --> 01:21:35,760
Speaker 1: Another dynamic of the black bear situation in America, and

1575
01:21:35,880 --> 01:21:39,120
Speaker 1: it's happening in Florida, is never before in history has

1576
01:21:39,160 --> 01:21:42,200
Speaker 1: there been so much overlap with black bears and humans.

1577
01:21:42,320 --> 01:21:45,479
Speaker 1: Never in history. We've got more black bears today that

1578
01:21:45,520 --> 01:21:50,040
Speaker 1: we've had in the last two hundred years. And what

1579
01:21:50,240 --> 01:21:52,599
Speaker 1: was the American population two hundred years ago, I mean

1580
01:21:52,680 --> 01:21:56,360
Speaker 1: probably like ten million, twenty million, maybe today we've got

1581
01:21:56,400 --> 01:21:59,559
Speaker 1: three in a thirty million. And it's like j curving,

1582
01:22:00,520 --> 01:22:03,479
Speaker 1: you know, the so never before in history. So this

1583
01:22:03,680 --> 01:22:08,479
Speaker 1: idea that you'd think, like the American bear story is

1584
01:22:08,600 --> 01:22:11,679
Speaker 1: kind of this old like Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett deal,

1585
01:22:11,800 --> 01:22:13,760
Speaker 1: you know, those are the guys that you know, had

1586
01:22:13,800 --> 01:22:17,080
Speaker 1: these overlaps with bears. They didn't have nothing compared to

1587
01:22:18,000 --> 01:22:18,799
Speaker 1: what we got today.

1588
01:22:19,360 --> 01:22:20,960
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny you say that too. I want

1589
01:22:21,000 --> 01:22:23,280
Speaker 3: to not to hijack where you're going there, but going

1590
01:22:23,320 --> 01:22:26,840
Speaker 3: back to like the conservation success, like you said, when

1591
01:22:27,000 --> 01:22:31,160
Speaker 3: when vodka got there, De Soto got there, there were

1592
01:22:31,320 --> 01:22:35,200
Speaker 3: probably eleven thousand bears prior to that. Then we went

1593
01:22:35,280 --> 01:22:39,000
Speaker 3: into this massive slump. And now we have twenty two

1594
01:22:39,040 --> 01:22:41,160
Speaker 3: and a half million people in this state, and we

1595
01:22:41,240 --> 01:22:42,400
Speaker 3: got over four thousand bears.

1596
01:22:42,560 --> 01:22:44,519
Speaker 1: You got almost a third of them.

1597
01:22:44,560 --> 01:22:46,599
Speaker 3: We have not half of We're almost back to where

1598
01:22:47,080 --> 01:22:49,639
Speaker 3: like and we've grown and I mean none of what's

1599
01:22:49,680 --> 01:22:52,760
Speaker 3: in Florida existed when they set foot there, right, And

1600
01:22:52,880 --> 01:22:55,200
Speaker 3: we've the species and so we talk about what's wrong

1601
01:22:55,240 --> 01:22:57,519
Speaker 3: in conservation all the time. Leopold talked about the world

1602
01:22:57,560 --> 01:22:59,120
Speaker 3: of wounds that we live in. You see all the

1603
01:22:59,200 --> 01:23:03,559
Speaker 3: problems in reality, that's pretty good, man, Like the species

1604
01:23:03,640 --> 01:23:06,240
Speaker 3: has been restored to such a place that we could

1605
01:23:06,560 --> 01:23:09,599
Speaker 3: take some of them as a sustainable, renewable, yeah resource,

1606
01:23:10,160 --> 01:23:13,240
Speaker 3: and they likely are continuing to grow. We're continuing to

1607
01:23:13,280 --> 01:23:14,400
Speaker 3: study them. Like that's yes.

1608
01:23:14,720 --> 01:23:17,360
Speaker 1: If one hundred years ago you you you said, okay,

1609
01:23:17,439 --> 01:23:19,679
Speaker 1: one day there's gonna be twenty two million people in Florida.

1610
01:23:19,720 --> 01:23:21,160
Speaker 1: All these people are gonna have a place to live,

1611
01:23:21,680 --> 01:23:24,400
Speaker 1: All these resources are gonna be extracted. There's gonna be roads.

1612
01:23:24,640 --> 01:23:26,519
Speaker 1: You don't know much about roads two hundred years ago,

1613
01:23:26,560 --> 01:23:28,680
Speaker 1: but there's gonna be pavement on them. Let's pavement, right.

1614
01:23:28,920 --> 01:23:29,040
Speaker 3: Uh.

1615
01:23:29,760 --> 01:23:32,599
Speaker 1: And you would have said, what's gonna happen to the bears.

1616
01:23:33,160 --> 01:23:33,840
Speaker 3: They're gonna be gone.

1617
01:23:34,120 --> 01:23:37,320
Speaker 1: You would think they're gonna be completely gone. And it

1618
01:23:37,479 --> 01:23:41,679
Speaker 1: is still a little bit of a mystery how bears

1619
01:23:41,720 --> 01:23:44,600
Speaker 1: have done so well. I mean, we do know that

1620
01:23:44,880 --> 01:23:53,120
Speaker 1: the magic that populations, I mean, it's it's like white

1621
01:23:53,160 --> 01:23:59,519
Speaker 1: tailed deer, like disturbed landscapes produce more more vegetation, more feed,

1622
01:24:00,040 --> 01:24:04,040
Speaker 1: potentially more cover even at times than undisturbed landscapes. So

1623
01:24:04,360 --> 01:24:06,360
Speaker 1: just like white tailed deer, there there are twice as

1624
01:24:06,400 --> 01:24:08,880
Speaker 1: many white tailed deer today in America as there was

1625
01:24:09,120 --> 01:24:12,439
Speaker 1: pre European settlement. I mean, they say, and I don't

1626
01:24:12,479 --> 01:24:13,400
Speaker 1: know what the new numbers.

1627
01:24:13,200 --> 01:24:16,200
Speaker 3: Are, because they thrive with disturbance ecology.

1628
01:24:15,840 --> 01:24:18,280
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. And they're they're they're animals of the edges,

1629
01:24:18,640 --> 01:24:23,160
Speaker 1: and so we've created exponential amounts of edges compared to

1630
01:24:23,240 --> 01:24:25,519
Speaker 1: what would have been here pre European settlements, so white

1631
01:24:25,520 --> 01:24:27,560
Speaker 1: tailed deer have gone. Bear kind of fit into that

1632
01:24:27,640 --> 01:24:31,320
Speaker 1: same category. They're not quite like deer. They don't cone

1633
01:24:31,360 --> 01:24:34,720
Speaker 1: in on the ecological niches. But disturbance to the landscape

1634
01:24:34,760 --> 01:24:38,960
Speaker 1: has has produced success. And the thing that a bear

1635
01:24:39,040 --> 01:24:41,599
Speaker 1: can do that a deer can't is bears have learned

1636
01:24:41,640 --> 01:24:45,400
Speaker 1: how to use anthrogenic foods to their advantage. So in

1637
01:24:45,479 --> 01:24:48,719
Speaker 1: these urban centers and and even even in rural places

1638
01:24:48,800 --> 01:24:53,040
Speaker 1: like Arkansas, bears are capitalizing on some man made food

1639
01:24:53,120 --> 01:24:57,920
Speaker 1: and agricultural areas. Their man made food is skyrocketing and

1640
01:24:58,120 --> 01:25:00,559
Speaker 1: so it but it's still kind of a history. It's

1641
01:25:00,560 --> 01:25:04,400
Speaker 1: still like, wait a minute, why are bears doing so well?

1642
01:25:04,479 --> 01:25:07,679
Speaker 1: And this is a stat that's in the academic literature

1643
01:25:08,040 --> 01:25:12,679
Speaker 1: and has been for a decade plus, is that every

1644
01:25:13,479 --> 01:25:18,760
Speaker 1: research population of bears in North America is increasing or

1645
01:25:18,880 --> 01:25:26,360
Speaker 1: stable period. I mean, what other population of hunted animals,

1646
01:25:26,880 --> 01:25:28,800
Speaker 1: big game animals could you say that about. I mean,

1647
01:25:28,840 --> 01:25:30,560
Speaker 1: there's plenty of things that are doing well. I'm not

1648
01:25:31,080 --> 01:25:35,519
Speaker 1: but every population study, and the reason they say studied

1649
01:25:35,600 --> 01:25:41,720
Speaker 1: population is because they haven't really studied every population to

1650
01:25:41,840 --> 01:25:45,439
Speaker 1: the extent of others. Because if you have a limited

1651
01:25:45,479 --> 01:25:48,479
Speaker 1: amount of resources in your game agency. And there are

1652
01:25:48,600 --> 01:25:52,599
Speaker 1: bears everywhere, and you got you know, the bob black

1653
01:25:52,720 --> 01:25:56,320
Speaker 1: quail that's about to struggling kick the bucket, like you're

1654
01:25:56,360 --> 01:25:58,240
Speaker 1: putting a lot of energy towards here. They're kind of

1655
01:25:58,320 --> 01:26:01,160
Speaker 1: like this is particularly what I There is a lot

1656
01:26:01,200 --> 01:26:03,240
Speaker 1: of bear research that goes on in Canada, but it's

1657
01:26:03,280 --> 01:26:07,439
Speaker 1: almost like, hey, the bears are fine, let's study caribou.

1658
01:26:07,720 --> 01:26:08,880
Speaker 1: Do you kind of see what I'm saying.

1659
01:26:08,920 --> 01:26:10,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, So like I gotta put your money where you

1660
01:26:10,760 --> 01:26:11,639
Speaker 3: think it's gonna.

1661
01:26:11,640 --> 01:26:14,360
Speaker 1: And and and bears are one of the most research

1662
01:26:14,600 --> 01:26:17,519
Speaker 1: big game animals in North America, if not the most

1663
01:26:17,600 --> 01:26:20,719
Speaker 1: researched animal in North America. I mean, like incredible amount

1664
01:26:20,720 --> 01:26:24,120
Speaker 1: of research. But all that to say they're thriving.

1665
01:26:24,760 --> 01:26:26,720
Speaker 3: You said something else a minute ago too that as

1666
01:26:26,760 --> 01:26:29,120
Speaker 3: you're talking now, reminded me you talked about them being

1667
01:26:29,120 --> 01:26:31,479
Speaker 3: a game species when I asked you that question, and

1668
01:26:31,560 --> 01:26:34,600
Speaker 3: that we fund research. We I've run through this. In

1669
01:26:34,680 --> 01:26:36,800
Speaker 3: Florida a few years back, they wanted to close a

1670
01:26:36,800 --> 01:26:39,400
Speaker 3: fishing pier over pelicans on it, and I said, well,

1671
01:26:39,439 --> 01:26:42,520
Speaker 3: what's our what's our mortality rate on pelicans? What's compenstory.

1672
01:26:42,560 --> 01:26:45,080
Speaker 3: What's additive, Like I'm I'm I'm a I'm a hunter,

1673
01:26:45,360 --> 01:26:47,519
Speaker 3: Like we should know these well, we don't have the

1674
01:26:47,560 --> 01:26:49,680
Speaker 3: money to study them like that because they're not a

1675
01:26:49,720 --> 01:26:52,439
Speaker 3: game species. They're not they're not regulated in that way,

1676
01:26:52,439 --> 01:26:55,600
Speaker 3: they're not managed that way. We're versus game species. We

1677
01:26:55,760 --> 01:26:57,720
Speaker 3: know those details inside and out. Like I can go

1678
01:26:57,760 --> 01:27:00,280
Speaker 3: down the list of ducks and turkeys and yeah, I

1679
01:27:00,280 --> 01:27:02,800
Speaker 3: mean we can get into it on what really is

1680
01:27:02,800 --> 01:27:06,200
Speaker 3: happening with those species. Bear fit into that, and that's

1681
01:27:06,200 --> 01:27:08,599
Speaker 3: where hunters fit into this conversation. Right. We've been paying

1682
01:27:08,640 --> 01:27:10,840
Speaker 3: for that for a long long time and we're going

1683
01:27:10,920 --> 01:27:12,280
Speaker 3: to continue to pay for it. Yeah.

1684
01:27:12,840 --> 01:27:20,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Walk may ride up to last week when

1685
01:27:20,920 --> 01:27:23,040
Speaker 1: this is hot off the press, Walk may ride up

1686
01:27:23,080 --> 01:27:24,960
Speaker 1: to the commission meeting and tell me what happened.

1687
01:27:25,400 --> 01:27:27,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we The commission meeting was in a little

1688
01:27:27,880 --> 01:27:31,160
Speaker 3: town called Havana, Florida. You ever heard of Havana. I've

1689
01:27:31,200 --> 01:27:35,000
Speaker 3: heard of Havana, Cuba. It's not near that. It's about

1690
01:27:35,040 --> 01:27:38,760
Speaker 3: twenty minutes outside of Tallahassee. It is where the one

1691
01:27:38,800 --> 01:27:40,519
Speaker 3: thing f to BC does I've alluded to this early

1692
01:27:40,600 --> 01:27:43,360
Speaker 3: they moved around the state, so that it's not it's

1693
01:27:43,360 --> 01:27:44,840
Speaker 3: not always in Orlando, and you got to go there.

1694
01:27:44,920 --> 01:27:47,919
Speaker 3: It's not always in Tallhassee and you got to go there. Havana.

1695
01:27:48,120 --> 01:27:50,720
Speaker 3: The facility didn't cost taxpayer much because it's the law

1696
01:27:50,800 --> 01:27:53,680
Speaker 3: enforcement training facility, so we had a kind of a

1697
01:27:53,760 --> 01:27:59,080
Speaker 3: cheap facility to use there. We coordinated in advance. A

1698
01:27:59,120 --> 01:28:01,280
Speaker 3: lot of the hunting groups ordated in advance of Hey,

1699
01:28:01,360 --> 01:28:04,120
Speaker 3: we need to make sure we packed this room. I

1700
01:28:04,200 --> 01:28:06,479
Speaker 3: don't love that game because I don't think that should matter.

1701
01:28:06,640 --> 01:28:08,479
Speaker 3: How many people are in attendance in their area should

1702
01:28:08,520 --> 01:28:11,720
Speaker 3: not matter. Science should drive wild like Paulic. But there's

1703
01:28:11,720 --> 01:28:14,800
Speaker 3: a social science game a foot there. And so we

1704
01:28:14,880 --> 01:28:17,519
Speaker 3: showed up in mass Like I mentioned earlier, the dog

1705
01:28:17,600 --> 01:28:20,519
Speaker 3: hunting community. That's obviously a dog hunting stronghold the North

1706
01:28:20,520 --> 01:28:24,320
Speaker 3: Florida world, but we had folks drive from South Florida.

1707
01:28:24,479 --> 01:28:26,400
Speaker 3: I mean there were guys there from around the state.

1708
01:28:27,240 --> 01:28:30,760
Speaker 3: The dog hunters largely wore orange. So when you looked

1709
01:28:30,760 --> 01:28:32,719
Speaker 3: at the room, like, I can send you some pictures,

1710
01:28:32,720 --> 01:28:34,080
Speaker 3: but when you look at the room like, it's just

1711
01:28:34,120 --> 01:28:37,080
Speaker 3: a sea of orange in that room. Wow, Sierra Club

1712
01:28:38,280 --> 01:28:40,880
Speaker 3: bust people in. They had three bus locations around the state.

1713
01:28:40,960 --> 01:28:42,960
Speaker 3: One I think in Daytona, one in Tampa, and one

1714
01:28:43,040 --> 01:28:46,160
Speaker 3: somewhere south, and they bust people to the event to

1715
01:28:46,200 --> 01:28:50,960
Speaker 3: speak in opposition to the to the hunt and staff

1716
01:28:51,000 --> 01:28:53,200
Speaker 3: came up there, gave presentation. It was the same presentation

1717
01:28:53,280 --> 01:28:56,360
Speaker 3: they had in May. And because they bring it, they

1718
01:28:56,400 --> 01:28:58,920
Speaker 3: bring it to May for approval as a draft, and

1719
01:28:59,000 --> 01:29:00,920
Speaker 3: then they give some time for people to kind of

1720
01:29:01,080 --> 01:29:03,240
Speaker 3: and we had one no vote in May who flipped

1721
01:29:03,280 --> 01:29:05,559
Speaker 3: devoted just this time. One commister voted no in May

1722
01:29:05,960 --> 01:29:07,599
Speaker 3: and he flipped and voted yes this time. He didn't

1723
01:29:07,640 --> 01:29:09,400
Speaker 3: understand think it was dogs was one of his concerned

1724
01:29:09,439 --> 01:29:13,560
Speaker 3: dogs in bait. So we got to we got to

1725
01:29:14,320 --> 01:29:16,320
Speaker 3: you know, the staff did the presentation. Then they allow

1726
01:29:16,439 --> 01:29:21,760
Speaker 3: public comment and bye. By rule they say they're going

1727
01:29:21,800 --> 01:29:24,920
Speaker 3: to allow two hours for public comments and you typically

1728
01:29:24,920 --> 01:29:27,240
Speaker 3: get three minutes per person. Well, we had one hundred

1729
01:29:27,280 --> 01:29:29,439
Speaker 3: and seventy people sign up, so what are you gonna do.

1730
01:29:29,800 --> 01:29:32,240
Speaker 3: What they did is they gave every person a minute. See,

1731
01:29:32,360 --> 01:29:34,080
Speaker 3: I mean it's hard, you got to consolidate your three

1732
01:29:34,120 --> 01:29:35,880
Speaker 3: minutes down to a minute, but you get to go

1733
01:29:35,960 --> 01:29:39,320
Speaker 3: up there say your piece. And they made sure every

1734
01:29:39,400 --> 01:29:42,160
Speaker 3: person got to speak in that room. Really. Oh yeah,

1735
01:29:42,160 --> 01:29:45,200
Speaker 3: and I get that recorded. It is, it is, it'd

1736
01:29:45,240 --> 01:29:47,519
Speaker 3: be an interesting thing. It is because I learned some

1737
01:29:47,640 --> 01:29:50,639
Speaker 3: things one minute to speak man. I learned some things there.

1738
01:29:50,760 --> 01:29:52,640
Speaker 3: That you could kill bears just by staring at him.

1739
01:29:53,000 --> 01:29:54,479
Speaker 3: I did not know that that was. That was what

1740
01:29:54,560 --> 01:29:56,160
Speaker 3: one of the anti hunters said. And I was like,

1741
01:29:56,280 --> 01:29:59,679
Speaker 3: in DDE, now don't look at me, like that's dangerous

1742
01:29:59,720 --> 01:30:01,880
Speaker 3: what you doing right now? Like they a lady walked

1743
01:30:01,960 --> 01:30:03,679
Speaker 3: up there and she was determined that you could kill bears.

1744
01:30:03,720 --> 01:30:05,599
Speaker 3: She could scare them to death just by staring at them.

1745
01:30:06,439 --> 01:30:09,720
Speaker 3: We had another woman proposed that we that we hunt

1746
01:30:09,760 --> 01:30:13,160
Speaker 3: white tail deer granted coon out of a tree, right,

1747
01:30:13,320 --> 01:30:17,360
Speaker 3: so who knows? I'm interested in digging into that. Would

1748
01:30:17,360 --> 01:30:19,920
Speaker 3: another person say that we could we should look at

1749
01:30:19,920 --> 01:30:24,400
Speaker 3: a honety white tail deer. We've checked that box already.

1750
01:30:25,840 --> 01:30:30,000
Speaker 3: Another woman offered to give money to the Wildlife Commission

1751
01:30:30,040 --> 01:30:32,920
Speaker 3: directly if they would instead of a bear hunt, fund

1752
01:30:32,960 --> 01:30:36,320
Speaker 3: a python hunt, which you can hunt pythons anytime in Florida.

1753
01:30:36,320 --> 01:30:39,720
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's been massive mass so like there was

1754
01:30:39,800 --> 01:30:40,960
Speaker 1: just like people just didn't know.

1755
01:30:41,120 --> 01:30:44,320
Speaker 3: It was just a detachment from reality. That was fostered

1756
01:30:44,439 --> 01:30:46,280
Speaker 3: in and it's it's the people we were talking about

1757
01:30:46,280 --> 01:30:48,000
Speaker 3: a minute ago. I don't think those people, Like I'm

1758
01:30:48,160 --> 01:30:49,599
Speaker 3: kind of poking fun out, but I don't think those

1759
01:30:49,600 --> 01:30:51,880
Speaker 3: people are probably bad people. If you could sit down

1760
01:30:51,880 --> 01:30:55,200
Speaker 3: and have a conversation and be like the eye lady,

1761
01:30:55,240 --> 01:30:57,040
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how to even start that one, But

1762
01:30:57,160 --> 01:30:59,479
Speaker 3: like the other ones, I'm like, man, we hunt white

1763
01:30:59,479 --> 01:31:01,600
Speaker 3: tail deer. That's a game species that we've hunted for

1764
01:31:02,160 --> 01:31:07,400
Speaker 3: since we've been hunting. Yeah, it's just like a detachment.

1765
01:31:07,479 --> 01:31:08,800
Speaker 3: And so they're picking up on a narrative. And I

1766
01:31:08,880 --> 01:31:11,360
Speaker 3: sat next to a girl. It was from Sierra Club

1767
01:31:11,400 --> 01:31:12,800
Speaker 3: and she said, can I ask you some questions? I

1768
01:31:12,840 --> 01:31:17,439
Speaker 3: said sure, And she said, this is a trophy hunt, right,

1769
01:31:17,439 --> 01:31:19,040
Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, no, it's not a trophy hunt.

1770
01:31:19,080 --> 01:31:22,920
Speaker 3: I said, trophy hunting is like a missed omer. Secondly,

1771
01:31:23,080 --> 01:31:25,280
Speaker 3: no one trophy hunts anything in Florida. Like we have

1772
01:31:25,360 --> 01:31:27,800
Speaker 3: wanting waste balls and everything else. Like, you're not coming

1773
01:31:27,800 --> 01:31:30,479
Speaker 3: here to trophy hunt a deer. You know you're coming

1774
01:31:30,520 --> 01:31:32,559
Speaker 3: here because you want to hunt, you taking the meat

1775
01:31:32,560 --> 01:31:34,040
Speaker 3: and everything else. I was like, this is not a

1776
01:31:34,120 --> 01:31:36,919
Speaker 3: trophy hunt. You could just tell she'd kind of been misled.

1777
01:31:37,800 --> 01:31:40,040
Speaker 3: She had a tender heart for bears. She probably is

1778
01:31:40,120 --> 01:31:41,880
Speaker 3: never going to go hunt. But you know, I don't

1779
01:31:41,880 --> 01:31:43,320
Speaker 3: know if I changed her mind or anything else, but

1780
01:31:43,400 --> 01:31:45,360
Speaker 3: it was it was the conversation you're talking about, right,

1781
01:31:45,960 --> 01:31:47,679
Speaker 3: And I looked around the room and you see people

1782
01:31:47,720 --> 01:31:50,040
Speaker 3: around the room having those conversations where people are sitting

1783
01:31:50,080 --> 01:31:50,320
Speaker 3: next to you.

1784
01:31:50,400 --> 01:31:53,360
Speaker 1: You feel like the guys in Orange did a good

1785
01:31:53,479 --> 01:31:56,200
Speaker 1: job of interacting with the Sierra, and I realized that

1786
01:31:56,360 --> 01:31:58,920
Speaker 1: there was some that didn't didn't Probably.

1787
01:31:59,160 --> 01:32:01,360
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say that this is a Polk County redneck.

1788
01:32:01,920 --> 01:32:04,679
Speaker 3: There is the Pole County redneck, and then the probably

1789
01:32:04,720 --> 01:32:07,680
Speaker 3: the conservationist hunter. That's a little more some of the

1790
01:32:07,800 --> 01:32:11,840
Speaker 3: Pole County redneck types maybe not so much. But I

1791
01:32:12,040 --> 01:32:15,720
Speaker 3: was really proud of how the hunting community showed up

1792
01:32:15,760 --> 01:32:19,280
Speaker 3: and conducted themselves. When you got one minute on a subject,

1793
01:32:19,320 --> 01:32:21,439
Speaker 3: that spend this teased out for this long. Like those

1794
01:32:21,479 --> 01:32:26,040
Speaker 3: commissioners are briefed like they are in Florida. The commissioners

1795
01:32:26,080 --> 01:32:30,880
Speaker 3: are appointed by the governor. They oversee the they vote

1796
01:32:30,920 --> 01:32:33,360
Speaker 3: on the rules. The scientists present the rules, so the

1797
01:32:33,439 --> 01:32:35,479
Speaker 3: science are saying, here, here's what we think the hunt

1798
01:32:35,520 --> 01:32:37,920
Speaker 3: can be. The commission asked questions and dig into it

1799
01:32:37,960 --> 01:32:39,560
Speaker 3: a little bit, but they vote on whether or not

1800
01:32:39,640 --> 01:32:44,200
Speaker 3: we approve this recommendation. So seven of them man to

1801
01:32:44,280 --> 01:32:46,599
Speaker 3: stay engaged that long for three hours, listening to person

1802
01:32:46,600 --> 01:32:47,599
Speaker 3: after person is tough.

1803
01:32:48,000 --> 01:32:48,200
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1804
01:32:49,000 --> 01:32:50,840
Speaker 3: What we did as a honey community is we went

1805
01:32:50,960 --> 01:32:52,960
Speaker 3: to it and everybody did this. We went to our

1806
01:32:53,000 --> 01:32:55,559
Speaker 3: people and said, look, if you're here and you're representing

1807
01:32:55,600 --> 01:32:57,639
Speaker 3: meat eater, you're here and you represent BHA or whatever,

1808
01:32:58,000 --> 01:33:00,760
Speaker 3: sure go up there and fly the flag. But if

1809
01:33:00,760 --> 01:33:02,840
Speaker 3: you got fifteen people here, have the other fourteen of

1810
01:33:02,880 --> 01:33:04,360
Speaker 3: them just stand up and say I wave and support.

1811
01:33:05,160 --> 01:33:08,960
Speaker 3: There's no reason to labor this. Yes. Yes, So the

1812
01:33:08,960 --> 01:33:11,519
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy comments probably became one hundred and

1813
01:33:11,560 --> 01:33:15,120
Speaker 3: twenty people going to a microphone, which also it did

1814
01:33:15,240 --> 01:33:18,040
Speaker 3: force that number that time limit down. That wasn't intentional,

1815
01:33:18,080 --> 01:33:20,280
Speaker 3: but it did force that time limit down because those

1816
01:33:20,280 --> 01:33:24,160
Speaker 3: people all waved in support of this hunt. Really proud

1817
01:33:24,240 --> 01:33:27,280
Speaker 3: of how that was handled, and it was handled in

1818
01:33:27,360 --> 01:33:29,639
Speaker 3: a very organic I don't know everybody in the hunting community.

1819
01:33:30,200 --> 01:33:33,360
Speaker 3: You know, you go to the girls were there from

1820
01:33:33,400 --> 01:33:36,960
Speaker 3: American Daughters Conservations, this group we have down there of women, hunters, fishermen.

1821
01:33:37,800 --> 01:33:40,040
Speaker 3: They showed up in mass They made sure that everybody

1822
01:33:40,080 --> 01:33:42,320
Speaker 3: they talked to they went and said, hey, make sure

1823
01:33:42,360 --> 01:33:43,720
Speaker 3: you wave and support if you don't want to go

1824
01:33:43,760 --> 01:33:45,439
Speaker 3: to the microphone, and so you just stand up where

1825
01:33:45,439 --> 01:33:46,799
Speaker 3: you worry. You didn't even go to the mic and record,

1826
01:33:46,880 --> 01:33:49,800
Speaker 3: like your name's already up there, literally your hands, Hey,

1827
01:33:49,840 --> 01:33:52,120
Speaker 3: I wave and support, sit back down. And that was

1828
01:33:52,200 --> 01:33:54,240
Speaker 3: really well received I think by the Commission because it

1829
01:33:54,280 --> 01:33:55,920
Speaker 3: was respectful of their time. We had a long day.

1830
01:33:55,960 --> 01:33:57,519
Speaker 3: We had a lot of stuff to work on. I mean,

1831
01:33:57,640 --> 01:34:00,920
Speaker 3: there were other conservation issues we had to tackle besides bears.

1832
01:34:01,560 --> 01:34:04,320
Speaker 3: And that the next day, you and I played fone

1833
01:34:04,360 --> 01:34:06,320
Speaker 3: tag because I was I was in and out working

1834
01:34:06,360 --> 01:34:09,720
Speaker 3: on oysters and shrimp and bonefish and stuff that day.

1835
01:34:10,920 --> 01:34:13,040
Speaker 3: The hunting community, that was a high point. I mean,

1836
01:34:13,080 --> 01:34:16,120
Speaker 3: it was a really proud moment for me. Yeah, And

1837
01:34:16,240 --> 01:34:17,800
Speaker 3: it was a really proud moment for me because I

1838
01:34:17,920 --> 01:34:22,120
Speaker 3: look at I look at the broader hunting conservation world.

1839
01:34:23,040 --> 01:34:25,599
Speaker 3: And in the last year, we beat back Prop one

1840
01:34:25,680 --> 01:34:28,599
Speaker 3: twenty seven in Colorado, we beat back this Mike Lee

1841
01:34:28,680 --> 01:34:31,280
Speaker 3: public land sale. We passed the right to fish and

1842
01:34:31,360 --> 01:34:33,479
Speaker 3: hunting in Florida, which no one thought we would do.

1843
01:34:33,920 --> 01:34:35,960
Speaker 3: We just re established a bear hunt in Florida. What

1844
01:34:36,120 --> 01:34:38,000
Speaker 3: was it two years ago? They re established a bear hunt.

1845
01:34:38,080 --> 01:34:40,840
Speaker 3: Louisian like. It's easy for us to sit back and say, man,

1846
01:34:40,880 --> 01:34:44,719
Speaker 3: we are getting our butts whooked, but in fact we're

1847
01:34:44,800 --> 01:34:46,880
Speaker 3: drawing some pretty strong lines in the sand and saying

1848
01:34:46,920 --> 01:34:51,639
Speaker 3: we're reclaiming some of this ground for conservation, not just hunting.

1849
01:34:52,479 --> 01:34:54,439
Speaker 3: I don't talk about hunting as much as I talk

1850
01:34:54,479 --> 01:34:57,400
Speaker 3: about conservation. That's the verb that I use, or the

1851
01:34:57,479 --> 01:34:59,479
Speaker 3: now that I used to describe it, because that's the

1852
01:34:59,600 --> 01:35:02,360
Speaker 3: that's the activity that I care the most about, is

1853
01:35:02,760 --> 01:35:05,360
Speaker 3: conserving wildlife and conserving these things. I just happen to

1854
01:35:05,439 --> 01:35:08,439
Speaker 3: want to do it with shotgun. So really a high

1855
01:35:08,520 --> 01:35:14,280
Speaker 3: water moment. The commissioners, I think they asked good questions

1856
01:35:14,439 --> 01:35:16,760
Speaker 3: about they'll call staff back up at the end and

1857
01:35:16,800 --> 01:35:20,839
Speaker 3: they'll dig in, you know, clarify what dogs mean, clarify

1858
01:35:21,000 --> 01:35:22,920
Speaker 3: and sometimes it's something that maybe even somedd they've heard

1859
01:35:22,920 --> 01:35:25,320
Speaker 3: from an anti hunter and they're like, she doesn't understand

1860
01:35:25,320 --> 01:35:26,920
Speaker 3: it or he doesn't understand it. I want to ask

1861
01:35:26,960 --> 01:35:29,560
Speaker 3: a question to clarify it so that it's on the

1862
01:35:29,640 --> 01:35:32,519
Speaker 3: record as weird. People say, these dogs are going to

1863
01:35:32,560 --> 01:35:34,599
Speaker 3: go in there and attack the bears and kill them.

1864
01:35:35,320 --> 01:35:37,560
Speaker 3: That's not how this works. That's not the intention of

1865
01:35:37,640 --> 01:35:41,400
Speaker 3: dog hunting. People say, because you if you get a

1866
01:35:41,479 --> 01:35:43,160
Speaker 3: permit and you want a dog hunt, you're allowed to

1867
01:35:43,160 --> 01:35:46,160
Speaker 3: bring nine people with you. They believe that all nine

1868
01:35:46,160 --> 01:35:47,600
Speaker 3: people are going to or all ten people are going

1869
01:35:47,640 --> 01:35:50,439
Speaker 3: to shoot at the same time. That's not how it's

1870
01:35:50,479 --> 01:35:52,320
Speaker 3: going to work. Like you heard that over and over

1871
01:35:52,360 --> 01:35:53,800
Speaker 3: again in comments. It's like, this is going to be

1872
01:35:53,840 --> 01:35:57,519
Speaker 3: a firing squad on this bear. No, you guys know this,

1873
01:35:57,680 --> 01:36:00,200
Speaker 3: but like that's and so the commissioners will tease out

1874
01:36:00,240 --> 01:36:02,400
Speaker 3: those questions and asks like so what does this mean?

1875
01:36:02,560 --> 01:36:04,920
Speaker 3: What does that mean? And some of it they really

1876
01:36:04,920 --> 01:36:06,840
Speaker 3: were asking, and some of it they were asking to

1877
01:36:06,960 --> 01:36:13,120
Speaker 3: clarify for the other side. Get done, and Commissioner Gary

1878
01:36:13,160 --> 01:36:15,360
Speaker 3: Lester called for a vote. I think Commissioner Josh Kellum,

1879
01:36:15,360 --> 01:36:18,080
Speaker 3: who's our new commissioner, he seconded it, and they said

1880
01:36:18,240 --> 01:36:21,439
Speaker 3: let's vote, and it passed unanimously. All five of them

1881
01:36:21,479 --> 01:36:21,800
Speaker 3: went for it.

1882
01:36:22,080 --> 01:36:22,639
Speaker 2: That's awesome.

1883
01:36:22,720 --> 01:36:25,639
Speaker 1: So and man, I command the courage of all five

1884
01:36:25,720 --> 01:36:28,439
Speaker 1: of those commissioners in Florida for doing that.

1885
01:36:29,479 --> 01:36:32,040
Speaker 3: You know, it's sad to me that we've gotten to

1886
01:36:32,080 --> 01:36:35,240
Speaker 3: a societal place where these groups, these anti hunting groups

1887
01:36:35,240 --> 01:36:38,040
Speaker 3: have targeted their businesses because this is not their job.

1888
01:36:38,120 --> 01:36:40,559
Speaker 3: They're by vocational right. They don't get paid at all,

1889
01:36:40,920 --> 01:36:45,360
Speaker 3: they get reimbursed for travel. It's a huge job to

1890
01:36:45,400 --> 01:36:48,160
Speaker 3: be are and so ten days a year, eight days

1891
01:36:48,200 --> 01:36:50,040
Speaker 3: a year, they have to sit there and listen to again,

1892
01:36:50,160 --> 01:36:53,320
Speaker 3: not just bears, not the sexy stuff. We spent two

1893
01:36:53,400 --> 01:36:55,320
Speaker 3: hours on oysters the next day at how many we

1894
01:36:55,360 --> 01:36:57,240
Speaker 3: could harvest in a bucket or something like. It's not

1895
01:36:57,439 --> 01:36:59,920
Speaker 3: all the fun sexy stuff I love to eat ois.

1896
01:37:00,240 --> 01:37:03,759
Speaker 3: But they sit there and they participate and they engage

1897
01:37:03,800 --> 01:37:06,280
Speaker 3: well on it, and then we go and demonize them.

1898
01:37:06,720 --> 01:37:09,200
Speaker 3: And there's two sides of that too, right, Like that's

1899
01:37:09,240 --> 01:37:11,439
Speaker 3: another thing out of coming out of this is we

1900
01:37:11,560 --> 01:37:13,120
Speaker 3: left that meeting and I heard people in the honey

1901
01:37:13,160 --> 01:37:14,599
Speaker 3: community say, well, it was only one hundred and eighty

1902
01:37:14,640 --> 01:37:16,320
Speaker 3: seven and it was only these zones, and we need

1903
01:37:16,400 --> 01:37:19,760
Speaker 3: more and there's ten thousand bears, and say, guys, there's

1904
01:37:19,800 --> 01:37:22,400
Speaker 3: a way that this works. And we're working really hard

1905
01:37:22,520 --> 01:37:24,439
Speaker 3: to get as many bear permits as we can in

1906
01:37:24,520 --> 01:37:28,519
Speaker 3: a sustainable way, like just check yourself where you wreck

1907
01:37:28,560 --> 01:37:30,800
Speaker 3: yourself a little bit here, because we really are trying

1908
01:37:30,840 --> 01:37:33,040
Speaker 3: to navigate these things that are hard to get them

1909
01:37:33,120 --> 01:37:35,599
Speaker 3: done so that we can go out there and enjoy

1910
01:37:36,640 --> 01:37:40,960
Speaker 3: the resources that we love and experience. For me, it's

1911
01:37:41,040 --> 01:37:42,800
Speaker 3: never about killing an animal. It's about sitting in a

1912
01:37:42,840 --> 01:37:45,000
Speaker 3: stand and watching the world wake up, or being with

1913
01:37:45,120 --> 01:37:48,000
Speaker 3: my daughter, my son, or whoever you know. It's about

1914
01:37:48,040 --> 01:37:50,720
Speaker 3: the camaraderie. And yeah, I love to hang stuff on

1915
01:37:50,800 --> 01:37:52,320
Speaker 3: the wall and I love to eat the meat, but

1916
01:37:52,400 --> 01:37:54,400
Speaker 3: it's really about the time that I get to spend outdoors,

1917
01:37:54,479 --> 01:37:56,719
Speaker 3: and that's how I enter and exit it. It's carrying

1918
01:37:56,760 --> 01:37:59,200
Speaker 3: a rifle or carrying a shotgun or carrying a fishing ball.

1919
01:37:59,479 --> 01:38:01,000
Speaker 3: That's how I get in and out of it. So

1920
01:38:02,000 --> 01:38:04,360
Speaker 3: it was a watermark moment. I was really proud of

1921
01:38:04,400 --> 01:38:06,200
Speaker 3: those guys for standing strong. But there's people who have

1922
01:38:06,280 --> 01:38:09,479
Speaker 3: targeted their businesses. They are protesting. There's one who owns

1923
01:38:09,479 --> 01:38:11,840
Speaker 3: a car a lot in Tampa, So if you need

1924
01:38:11,880 --> 01:38:13,479
Speaker 3: a car, go to buy one from him, because he

1925
01:38:13,560 --> 01:38:15,519
Speaker 3: owns a car a lot in Tampa and he there's

1926
01:38:15,560 --> 01:38:19,160
Speaker 3: people protesting in front of his business targeting him specifically.

1927
01:38:19,560 --> 01:38:22,320
Speaker 3: And this is a guy that cares deeply about wildlife. Man,

1928
01:38:22,560 --> 01:38:23,559
Speaker 3: did they are.

1929
01:38:23,479 --> 01:38:26,280
Speaker 1: There any other species that people are doing that in Florida?

1930
01:38:26,520 --> 01:38:29,160
Speaker 1: I mean like protesting in the street. They're not worried

1931
01:38:29,200 --> 01:38:31,479
Speaker 1: about oysters, They're not worried about white tailed they're.

1932
01:38:31,400 --> 01:38:34,600
Speaker 3: Just bear bears. We get a lot of protests about developments.

1933
01:38:35,400 --> 01:38:38,400
Speaker 3: People don't have a real good understanding of private property

1934
01:38:38,479 --> 01:38:41,439
Speaker 3: rights and how that works in Florida, So we get

1935
01:38:41,479 --> 01:38:43,400
Speaker 3: a lot of protests about developments. And then we see

1936
01:38:43,400 --> 01:38:45,280
Speaker 3: a lot of protests around manatees.

1937
01:38:46,640 --> 01:38:48,200
Speaker 1: But I mean, nobody's you can't hunt.

1938
01:38:48,080 --> 01:38:53,440
Speaker 3: Manatees, it's not a thing, but it's a water quality manatees.

1939
01:38:54,320 --> 01:38:56,559
Speaker 3: That's a whole other thing. But manatees are a large

1940
01:38:56,600 --> 01:38:59,880
Speaker 3: grazing animal, Like there's a probably a carrying capacity for

1941
01:39:00,000 --> 01:39:02,000
Speaker 3: how many of them can exist in this state. And

1942
01:39:02,080 --> 01:39:03,960
Speaker 3: then we create more water discharges and we feed them

1943
01:39:04,040 --> 01:39:05,640
Speaker 3: let us and we kind of artificially inflate it. And

1944
01:39:05,960 --> 01:39:07,880
Speaker 3: you can get into some ecology of that. But there's

1945
01:39:07,880 --> 01:39:09,680
Speaker 3: a lot of protests about manatees when they die off

1946
01:39:09,720 --> 01:39:12,040
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, But bears are pretty much yet

1947
01:39:12,080 --> 01:39:14,280
Speaker 3: and the same anti honey community. What we've seen them

1948
01:39:14,320 --> 01:39:17,280
Speaker 3: move on now is archery. They've determined that archery is

1949
01:39:17,680 --> 01:39:20,320
Speaker 3: is inhumane and so we should not be allowed to

1950
01:39:20,400 --> 01:39:23,080
Speaker 3: archery hunt anymore. That's their next kind of ill to

1951
01:39:23,160 --> 01:39:25,840
Speaker 3: die on. There's no traction there. We're talking about a

1952
01:39:25,960 --> 01:39:29,120
Speaker 3: very small but very noisy, but very small group of people.

1953
01:39:29,760 --> 01:39:33,040
Speaker 3: And then they've also started dabbling into coyote honeting. They

1954
01:39:33,040 --> 01:39:35,360
Speaker 3: don't want. They don't want coyote honey. I don't know why.

1955
01:39:36,760 --> 01:39:39,240
Speaker 3: Coyote's pretty sustainable resource. We got plenty of them, and

1956
01:39:41,080 --> 01:39:43,880
Speaker 3: I'm not huge coyote hunter, but I've killed plenty of them.

1957
01:39:44,320 --> 01:39:47,439
Speaker 3: From a predator management standpoint for turkeys or whatever. It

1958
01:39:47,560 --> 01:39:47,880
Speaker 3: was a win.

1959
01:39:57,280 --> 01:40:00,920
Speaker 1: Should we expect more turbulence? Was there any thing legally

1960
01:40:00,960 --> 01:40:03,240
Speaker 1: about this hunt that sets it in perpetuity for a

1961
01:40:03,280 --> 01:40:03,960
Speaker 1: period of time.

1962
01:40:04,240 --> 01:40:06,240
Speaker 3: Nope, So it does not need to come back to

1963
01:40:06,280 --> 01:40:06,799
Speaker 3: the commission.

1964
01:40:06,960 --> 01:40:10,080
Speaker 1: But I mean, are they gonna last time in fifteen

1965
01:40:10,120 --> 01:40:12,200
Speaker 1: when we had a hunt, it was shut down the

1966
01:40:12,280 --> 01:40:15,320
Speaker 1: next year because of public opinion and all the stuff

1967
01:40:15,320 --> 01:40:18,160
Speaker 1: that happened after the hunt. Do you I don't think

1968
01:40:18,360 --> 01:40:20,400
Speaker 1: that to happen again. Are we kind of over it?

1969
01:40:20,840 --> 01:40:24,599
Speaker 3: You're asking Travis's opinion, I'd say I think we're going

1970
01:40:24,680 --> 01:40:28,240
Speaker 3: to be fine moving forward. Okay, I do think. Okay,

1971
01:40:28,320 --> 01:40:30,120
Speaker 3: so they do, and you know more about this than

1972
01:40:30,160 --> 01:40:32,439
Speaker 3: I do, but they do bear Den studies on a

1973
01:40:32,760 --> 01:40:35,800
Speaker 3: on a generational cycle, right something to this effect, so

1974
01:40:35,880 --> 01:40:38,760
Speaker 3: that every ten years they'll have new updated data. So

1975
01:40:38,880 --> 01:40:42,000
Speaker 3: twenty twenty nine is when they'll have the latest real

1976
01:40:42,120 --> 01:40:46,240
Speaker 3: population estimate for the state. We know that there's at

1977
01:40:46,280 --> 01:40:48,720
Speaker 3: least four thousand bears in Florida, and we also know

1978
01:40:48,880 --> 01:40:51,439
Speaker 3: that no matter what, this hunt's not going to change

1979
01:40:51,479 --> 01:40:54,200
Speaker 3: that population, right right, Like this goes back to what

1980
01:40:54,280 --> 01:40:57,120
Speaker 3: I said real early it could be five, could be

1981
01:40:57,200 --> 01:40:59,160
Speaker 3: twenty five, or you remember when they re established ELK

1982
01:40:59,200 --> 01:41:02,920
Speaker 3: in Tennessee, or they allowed seven to be taken, like

1983
01:41:03,640 --> 01:41:05,400
Speaker 3: it could be like that. The one hundred and eighty

1984
01:41:05,439 --> 01:41:09,439
Speaker 3: seven is such a it's a rounding error like it

1985
01:41:09,560 --> 01:41:14,559
Speaker 3: is nothing. So we're gonna see bear populations continue to thrive,

1986
01:41:15,680 --> 01:41:18,000
Speaker 3: and over time we're going to get better and better

1987
01:41:18,160 --> 01:41:20,280
Speaker 3: data to go with that because we don't not have data.

1988
01:41:20,320 --> 01:41:22,640
Speaker 3: We've got hair corral data and things like that. We

1989
01:41:22,760 --> 01:41:27,000
Speaker 3: know in different they call them BMus Bear Management units.

1990
01:41:27,240 --> 01:41:30,559
Speaker 3: In different BMus we know like some level of how

1991
01:41:30,600 --> 01:41:32,960
Speaker 3: many bears are using a particular fence line or whatever,

1992
01:41:34,479 --> 01:41:36,280
Speaker 3: so we know that that population is going to continue

1993
01:41:36,320 --> 01:41:38,280
Speaker 3: to grow. We know that the hunt is going to

1994
01:41:38,320 --> 01:41:40,640
Speaker 3: be very different from how it was last time, just

1995
01:41:40,680 --> 01:41:43,439
Speaker 3: from the removal of check stations, doing digital check in,

1996
01:41:44,240 --> 01:41:48,840
Speaker 3: doing the hard tag, allowing for selectivity, not forcing everybody

1997
01:41:48,840 --> 01:41:50,960
Speaker 3: to hunt all at once. We know that those factors,

1998
01:41:51,000 --> 01:41:52,640
Speaker 3: there's so many have changed. It's going to look very

1999
01:41:52,640 --> 01:41:56,240
Speaker 3: different coming out of it. And then we do know

2000
01:41:56,439 --> 01:41:59,360
Speaker 3: too that a lawsuit has already been filed by the

2001
01:41:59,400 --> 01:42:03,280
Speaker 3: anti honeting world, but it got dismissed out right in

2002
01:42:03,320 --> 01:42:06,120
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, like they were sued at twenty fifteen for

2003
01:42:06,160 --> 01:42:09,920
Speaker 3: the hunt and the case was dismissed. So I don't

2004
01:42:09,920 --> 01:42:11,640
Speaker 3: want to be flipping about anything because you never know

2005
01:42:11,680 --> 01:42:13,439
Speaker 3: what's going to happen on any given day. But I

2006
01:42:13,560 --> 01:42:16,080
Speaker 3: just don't see any merit to that suit. Like FBC

2007
01:42:16,240 --> 01:42:19,400
Speaker 3: is a not to get too far in the policy weeds,

2008
01:42:19,439 --> 01:42:22,280
Speaker 3: but in most states you have a legislatively created body,

2009
01:42:23,000 --> 01:42:27,479
Speaker 3: a statutorily created body, where I think Arkansas is actually

2010
01:42:27,479 --> 01:42:32,040
Speaker 3: constitutionally as well. In Florida, FWBC was created by the constitution,

2011
01:42:32,600 --> 01:42:35,160
Speaker 3: so they're almost like a de facto fourth You got

2012
01:42:35,200 --> 01:42:39,400
Speaker 3: the executive, legislative, judicial, and a conservation branch. Now is

2013
01:42:39,439 --> 01:42:42,000
Speaker 3: the crossover with the governor appointees and stuff. Sure there is,

2014
01:42:42,240 --> 01:42:45,439
Speaker 3: And the legislature controls their budget, so they can force

2015
01:42:45,560 --> 01:42:48,320
Speaker 3: them budgetarily to do certain things. But the end of

2016
01:42:48,360 --> 01:42:51,160
Speaker 3: the day, FBC is an isolated body that's able to

2017
01:42:51,240 --> 01:42:54,840
Speaker 3: kind of make their own determinations on this stuff. I

2018
01:42:54,880 --> 01:42:57,720
Speaker 3: don't see how you win a lawsuit because they're constitutionally

2019
01:42:57,720 --> 01:43:01,360
Speaker 3: in powered to manage fish and wildlife. Like if you

2020
01:43:01,439 --> 01:43:04,680
Speaker 3: sue and say they breach their duty, well, their constitutional

2021
01:43:04,760 --> 01:43:07,040
Speaker 3: duties to manage fish and wildlife, and it's a pretty

2022
01:43:07,040 --> 01:43:08,840
Speaker 3: broad purview it's given to them. I just don't I

2023
01:43:08,920 --> 01:43:09,439
Speaker 3: don't see that.

2024
01:43:10,360 --> 01:43:11,000
Speaker 2: Holy merit.

2025
01:43:11,320 --> 01:43:13,040
Speaker 3: Maybe you get the right judge and the right jurisdiction,

2026
01:43:13,160 --> 01:43:13,920
Speaker 3: but I just don't see that.

2027
01:43:14,880 --> 01:43:17,120
Speaker 1: You know, when you when we talk about I think

2028
01:43:17,240 --> 01:43:20,160
Speaker 1: I think the the narrative, the way that we speak

2029
01:43:20,240 --> 01:43:25,519
Speaker 1: about hunting is important, and oftentimes you hear like there's

2030
01:43:25,520 --> 01:43:27,840
Speaker 1: a bear population in Florida, there's a new bear hunt.

2031
01:43:27,960 --> 01:43:33,720
Speaker 1: There's an expanding population, we're hunting them to control the population.

2032
01:43:34,200 --> 01:43:37,799
Speaker 1: Like that's what people will say, But that's that's actually

2033
01:43:37,880 --> 01:43:40,760
Speaker 1: not true because because the amount of bears that we're

2034
01:43:40,800 --> 01:43:45,280
Speaker 1: taking out of Florida is basically going to be ecologically inconsequential,

2035
01:43:45,439 --> 01:43:50,240
Speaker 1: it's insignificant. So what it comes down to really the

2036
01:43:52,560 --> 01:43:56,400
Speaker 1: what people like us that love wildlife and love wild

2037
01:43:56,439 --> 01:43:59,719
Speaker 1: places and love to eat wild game, what we believe

2038
01:43:59,880 --> 01:44:03,719
Speaker 1: is that, I mean, the philosophy is that a hunter

2039
01:44:04,520 --> 01:44:09,240
Speaker 1: should be able to take from the surplus of a

2040
01:44:09,479 --> 01:44:14,040
Speaker 1: of a healthy population of animals and use that resource

2041
01:44:14,360 --> 01:44:19,240
Speaker 1: from traditional use practice. I'm an American, I'm a eighth

2042
01:44:19,479 --> 01:44:23,560
Speaker 1: ninth generation American. My family has been hunting for a

2043
01:44:23,640 --> 01:44:25,800
Speaker 1: long time. I mean that, you know, there's all these

2044
01:44:25,880 --> 01:44:28,840
Speaker 1: reasons why it's like you ought to be able to

2045
01:44:28,920 --> 01:44:31,800
Speaker 1: hunt if it's not hurting anything. I mean, that's kind

2046
01:44:31,840 --> 01:44:36,240
Speaker 1: of the philosophy. And that is absolutely the doctrine is like, hey,

2047
01:44:36,479 --> 01:44:38,200
Speaker 1: if I can go out in my backyard and kill

2048
01:44:38,240 --> 01:44:40,519
Speaker 1: a couple of deer and feed my family and it's

2049
01:44:40,600 --> 01:44:43,880
Speaker 1: actually not hurting the population, I have the right to

2050
01:44:44,040 --> 01:44:47,320
Speaker 1: do that. And and and that's what we're saying. Even

2051
01:44:47,400 --> 01:44:50,040
Speaker 1: with bears, they're a game animal, they're they're an animal

2052
01:44:50,080 --> 01:44:53,120
Speaker 1: that we eat. Animal that we utilize heavily a animal

2053
01:44:53,160 --> 01:44:56,000
Speaker 1: that we have all this historic documentation on this continent.

2054
01:44:56,320 --> 01:44:58,559
Speaker 1: Since we got here, we've been hunting bears. They're still here.

2055
01:44:58,960 --> 01:45:03,080
Speaker 1: They're they're they're they're able to withstand human honting when

2056
01:45:03,120 --> 01:45:06,000
Speaker 1: it's done in the right way, which clearly this is

2057
01:45:06,320 --> 01:45:10,519
Speaker 1: a way that that is being done. So so could

2058
01:45:10,800 --> 01:45:13,560
Speaker 1: could the volume be turned up, Could the throttle be

2059
01:45:13,880 --> 01:45:18,719
Speaker 1: turned up to where the hunt actually did manage population numbers?

2060
01:45:18,880 --> 01:45:21,320
Speaker 1: It could, and in many states it does.

2061
01:45:21,520 --> 01:45:21,680
Speaker 3: Yep.

2062
01:45:22,040 --> 01:45:24,920
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's lots of states where thousands of

2063
01:45:25,000 --> 01:45:28,280
Speaker 1: bears are being killed and they're they're they're they're taken

2064
01:45:28,320 --> 01:45:30,760
Speaker 1: them out of the population because that populations are that

2065
01:45:31,000 --> 01:45:35,000
Speaker 1: big that you can't take a token one hundred and

2066
01:45:35,000 --> 01:45:38,720
Speaker 1: eighty seven bearers out of Wisconsin and expect the population

2067
01:45:38,880 --> 01:45:42,519
Speaker 1: to remain stable. I mean they're killing I want to say,

2068
01:45:42,560 --> 01:45:45,320
Speaker 1: in some of those those those states, they're killing four

2069
01:45:45,400 --> 01:45:49,240
Speaker 1: thousand bears a year. In Arkansas we're taking about five

2070
01:45:49,360 --> 01:45:55,600
Speaker 1: hundred bears, uh, which is not very many. Really a

2071
01:45:55,680 --> 01:45:59,120
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of Appalachian states they harvest a

2072
01:45:59,200 --> 01:46:02,920
Speaker 1: lot of bears. But point being, I think it's important

2073
01:46:02,960 --> 01:46:05,000
Speaker 1: that we be honest. I hear Rannelli's say this, and

2074
01:46:05,400 --> 01:46:09,240
Speaker 1: it's I like it. He's like, we shouldn't say things

2075
01:46:09,280 --> 01:46:13,519
Speaker 1: that aren't true, that make us that created a false narrative.

2076
01:46:14,120 --> 01:46:17,719
Speaker 1: I mean, could we make the Florida bear hunt actually

2077
01:46:18,000 --> 01:46:22,680
Speaker 1: affect the population? You absolutely could, you know, But this

2078
01:46:22,920 --> 01:46:23,280
Speaker 1: is not that.

2079
01:46:23,720 --> 01:46:26,000
Speaker 3: This is not even that, And it's not to say

2080
01:46:26,080 --> 01:46:28,959
Speaker 3: that they never because if you look at the BMU distribution,

2081
01:46:29,880 --> 01:46:32,960
Speaker 3: there are BMus that have way more bears and BMus

2082
01:46:32,960 --> 01:46:35,720
Speaker 3: that have way less bears. You want those BMus with

2083
01:46:35,720 --> 01:46:38,439
Speaker 3: way less bears to continue to grow their population, while

2084
01:46:38,479 --> 01:46:39,880
Speaker 3: you want to manage it in some of these others.

2085
01:46:39,920 --> 01:46:42,840
Speaker 3: But I also think over time, we will begin to

2086
01:46:42,880 --> 01:46:46,400
Speaker 3: apply more data to this and say, hey, we've got

2087
01:46:46,439 --> 01:46:49,360
Speaker 3: more human bear conflicts in this BMU, or we're seeing

2088
01:46:49,439 --> 01:46:53,280
Speaker 3: more interactions negatively in that BMU, Like we'll begin to

2089
01:46:53,360 --> 01:46:56,600
Speaker 3: distribute the hunt differently to maybe address this. Maybe we

2090
01:46:56,680 --> 01:46:58,880
Speaker 3: do want this this BMU to always be at a

2091
01:46:58,960 --> 01:47:02,400
Speaker 3: thousand bears or whatever the thing is. And the other

2092
01:47:02,479 --> 01:47:04,000
Speaker 3: thing that I heard you say that kind of stuck

2093
01:47:04,000 --> 01:47:06,720
Speaker 3: would be something I say all the time. This is

2094
01:47:06,840 --> 01:47:09,479
Speaker 3: truly and I can't stress this enough. I've said it

2095
01:47:09,720 --> 01:47:12,439
Speaker 3: a couple of times, but this is truly conservation. Like

2096
01:47:12,520 --> 01:47:15,559
Speaker 3: I say, conservation is seeking the proper use of a resource.

2097
01:47:16,080 --> 01:47:19,479
Speaker 3: It's utilizing a resource correctly. We are about to utilize

2098
01:47:19,479 --> 01:47:21,680
Speaker 3: a resource correctly that we haven't tapped into for a

2099
01:47:21,760 --> 01:47:24,160
Speaker 3: long time for various reasons. And now I like to

2100
01:47:24,200 --> 01:47:27,240
Speaker 3: say preservation is for delicious JEMs and jellies. That's nothing

2101
01:47:27,280 --> 01:47:29,320
Speaker 3: to do with conservation. Give me a tool that we

2102
01:47:29,439 --> 01:47:32,040
Speaker 3: use in certain situations, but by and large, conservation is

2103
01:47:32,040 --> 01:47:35,040
Speaker 3: seeking how to use it correctly. That's everything we've talked

2104
01:47:35,040 --> 01:47:38,479
Speaker 3: about here today, and that's everything we're talking about in general.

2105
01:47:38,560 --> 01:47:40,280
Speaker 3: That's everything you talk about on every episode. You do

2106
01:47:40,479 --> 01:47:42,519
Speaker 3: right ultimately, like you can get into the weeds, the

2107
01:47:42,600 --> 01:47:45,519
Speaker 3: nuts and bolts of Turkey Juton or duck hunt or whatever,

2108
01:47:45,640 --> 01:47:48,640
Speaker 3: but the end of the day, I want to make

2109
01:47:48,680 --> 01:47:52,320
Speaker 3: sure that this resource is long term, sustainably able to

2110
01:47:52,360 --> 01:47:55,960
Speaker 3: be used. And I'm really proud of wear Florida landed

2111
01:47:56,000 --> 01:47:57,840
Speaker 3: on this, and I'm really proud of everybody that worked

2112
01:47:57,840 --> 01:48:00,920
Speaker 3: on it because it is a I don't think people

2113
01:48:01,000 --> 01:48:04,639
Speaker 3: outside the bear world understand how big of a movement

2114
01:48:04,720 --> 01:48:05,960
Speaker 3: this was to get this done.

2115
01:48:06,240 --> 01:48:10,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, man, that's so cool. You said something there

2116
01:48:10,439 --> 01:48:13,240
Speaker 1: we hadn't talked about. And I've got a data point

2117
01:48:13,400 --> 01:48:19,000
Speaker 1: on bear human conflict. I remember in the last year

2118
01:48:20,200 --> 01:48:25,560
Speaker 1: reading that there was and I'm going to say a

2119
01:48:25,680 --> 01:48:28,559
Speaker 1: number and at for about six months. I could quote

2120
01:48:28,560 --> 01:48:31,000
Speaker 1: the exact number. I've forgotten the exact number, but I'm

2121
01:48:31,040 --> 01:48:35,120
Speaker 1: going to quote a number. Five thousand, nine hundred and

2122
01:48:35,320 --> 01:48:40,200
Speaker 1: sixty six bear calls the state of Florida received in

2123
01:48:42,680 --> 01:48:46,240
Speaker 1: baar nuisance complaints in a single year. Wow, like in

2124
01:48:46,800 --> 01:48:50,080
Speaker 1: twenty three, yeah, or twenty two back, but it was

2125
01:48:50,400 --> 01:48:52,759
Speaker 1: somewhere in the fifty nine hundred range.

2126
01:48:52,920 --> 01:48:53,120
Speaker 3: Wow.

2127
01:48:53,280 --> 01:48:56,040
Speaker 1: And I did the math on it, and that's one

2128
01:48:56,240 --> 01:49:02,320
Speaker 1: bear call for every fifteen minutes of a working day.

2129
01:49:02,840 --> 01:49:03,120
Speaker 3: Wow.

2130
01:49:03,760 --> 01:49:08,600
Speaker 1: And basically the state of Florida. And I don't I

2131
01:49:08,680 --> 01:49:11,120
Speaker 1: don't know that all those calls go into the same place,

2132
01:49:11,200 --> 01:49:14,960
Speaker 1: but theoretically they would, they would, They could hire one

2133
01:49:15,080 --> 01:49:19,120
Speaker 1: person that as a full time All they did every

2134
01:49:19,240 --> 01:49:22,519
Speaker 1: day for a forty hour work week, from the time

2135
01:49:22,600 --> 01:49:25,000
Speaker 1: they got there to the time they left, was field

2136
01:49:25,680 --> 01:49:28,160
Speaker 1: calls of people saying, A bears in my trash can,

2137
01:49:28,280 --> 01:49:31,360
Speaker 1: A bears eating my flowers, A bear killed chase my dog,

2138
01:49:31,920 --> 01:49:35,960
Speaker 1: A bear did this or that. I mean in Arkansas,

2139
01:49:36,120 --> 01:49:39,799
Speaker 1: I want to say we're getting like under two hundred

2140
01:49:40,120 --> 01:49:47,960
Speaker 1: conuisance bear calls a year. Wow, Florida pushing six thousand. Yeah,

2141
01:49:51,040 --> 01:49:52,840
Speaker 1: it has to do with the population. There's twenty two

2142
01:49:52,840 --> 01:49:56,040
Speaker 1: million people there. Yeah, people, right, and there's that much,

2143
01:49:56,160 --> 01:49:59,759
Speaker 1: that many roads, that many people, A burgeoning bear population.

2144
01:50:00,280 --> 01:50:03,320
Speaker 1: I bet there's I bet they're right on there's more

2145
01:50:03,400 --> 01:50:07,360
Speaker 1: than four thousand bears if you were waging I bet

2146
01:50:07,439 --> 01:50:07,840
Speaker 1: it's more.

2147
01:50:08,560 --> 01:50:12,560
Speaker 3: I read. I read in the twenty nineteen report we

2148
01:50:12,720 --> 01:50:16,120
Speaker 3: euthanize forty a year. Okay, so one percent of the

2149
01:50:16,160 --> 01:50:19,880
Speaker 3: population we kill a year, just as nuisance bears. And

2150
01:50:20,200 --> 01:50:21,080
Speaker 3: that's on average.

2151
01:50:21,360 --> 01:50:23,720
Speaker 1: I bet, I bet there's I bet there's a lot

2152
01:50:23,800 --> 01:50:27,160
Speaker 1: more than that. And what I learned I've just seen

2153
01:50:27,240 --> 01:50:30,200
Speaker 1: this with bear bare numbers is that the agencies are

2154
01:50:30,240 --> 01:50:34,439
Speaker 1: usually pretty conservative on bearers, conservative very so they're there

2155
01:50:35,040 --> 01:50:37,640
Speaker 1: if they say there's four thousand, there's probably more than that,

2156
01:50:37,840 --> 01:50:41,840
Speaker 1: but if they don't have the actual data, Like so,

2157
01:50:41,960 --> 01:50:46,360
Speaker 1: the way that they're doing bear population studies today is yeah,

2158
01:50:46,360 --> 01:50:49,920
Speaker 1: they're using bear bears, hair snares Josh to put up

2159
01:50:49,960 --> 01:50:54,559
Speaker 1: a bait station, put barbed wire up about twenty inches

2160
01:50:55,000 --> 01:50:58,080
Speaker 1: or however long, put it around so a bear has

2161
01:50:58,120 --> 01:51:01,320
Speaker 1: either step over it or crawl under it, and there's

2162
01:51:01,400 --> 01:51:04,200
Speaker 1: barbed wire and it catches hair. And basically they do

2163
01:51:05,200 --> 01:51:09,960
Speaker 1: they'll take like a grid of habitat let's say ten

2164
01:51:10,040 --> 01:51:15,200
Speaker 1: square miles, and they'll put five bear hair snare traps

2165
01:51:15,240 --> 01:51:19,320
Speaker 1: in that ten square miles. They will take all the

2166
01:51:19,439 --> 01:51:25,880
Speaker 1: hair samples genetically analyze it to understand exactly how many

2167
01:51:26,120 --> 01:51:29,439
Speaker 1: individual bears came to those traps in that ten square miles.

2168
01:51:30,520 --> 01:51:34,360
Speaker 1: Then they will analyze the habitat in that ten square miles.

2169
01:51:34,439 --> 01:51:36,800
Speaker 1: This is a generalization of how they do this. And

2170
01:51:36,880 --> 01:51:42,639
Speaker 1: they'll say, well, we have a thousand other ten square

2171
01:51:42,720 --> 01:51:46,040
Speaker 1: mile blocks that the habitat is similar, and we know

2172
01:51:46,200 --> 01:51:50,160
Speaker 1: there's bears there. We're going to extrapolate it. And they

2173
01:51:50,240 --> 01:51:54,599
Speaker 1: do this like checkerboarded across the bear habitat and they go, well,

2174
01:51:55,479 --> 01:51:58,760
Speaker 1: in this ten square block ten square miles, we've got

2175
01:51:58,880 --> 01:52:02,040
Speaker 1: seventeen bears, We've got this many soals and this many cubs.

2176
01:52:02,720 --> 01:52:06,840
Speaker 1: And then the block twenty seven miles away has the

2177
01:52:06,960 --> 01:52:09,800
Speaker 1: same numbers, and they go every block in between there

2178
01:52:09,840 --> 01:52:13,000
Speaker 1: probably has the same. Basically, they get a really good.

2179
01:52:13,120 --> 01:52:13,840
Speaker 3: Look at.

2180
01:52:15,320 --> 01:52:18,720
Speaker 1: How bad you know, population dynamics of bears. Yes, that's

2181
01:52:18,760 --> 01:52:21,160
Speaker 1: how they do it now. Used two they were doing

2182
01:52:21,400 --> 01:52:26,679
Speaker 1: like they were using hunter harvest, not necessarily in Florida,

2183
01:52:26,680 --> 01:52:29,720
Speaker 1: but another place they were using hunter harvest numbers. I

2184
01:52:29,880 --> 01:52:33,160
Speaker 1: told the story, Well they covered it on the Medior podcast,

2185
01:52:33,200 --> 01:52:38,040
Speaker 1: but in California for years they used hunter harvest numbers

2186
01:52:38,479 --> 01:52:42,680
Speaker 1: to decide the population. Basically, they were like, whatever the

2187
01:52:42,760 --> 01:52:47,680
Speaker 1: hunters kill, we've probably got x number more bears than that,

2188
01:52:47,920 --> 01:52:50,000
Speaker 1: and so as long as we're killing two thousand bears

2189
01:52:50,040 --> 01:52:53,320
Speaker 1: a year, we probably got twenty thousand bears and we're okay.

2190
01:52:53,920 --> 01:53:00,320
Speaker 1: Well then they they gutted the management practices of Californias bait.

2191
01:53:00,600 --> 01:53:02,559
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so all you could do is like.

2192
01:53:02,680 --> 01:53:05,800
Speaker 1: Spotting stock bears, which is very difficult. And so they

2193
01:53:05,880 --> 01:53:09,760
Speaker 1: started killing like a thousand bears a year in California.

2194
01:53:10,000 --> 01:53:13,160
Speaker 1: And then the anti hunting community, god bless them, they

2195
01:53:13,200 --> 01:53:17,639
Speaker 1: were like, the bears are in crisis because we tell

2196
01:53:17,680 --> 01:53:19,479
Speaker 1: our numbers of bears about how many bears are killing,

2197
01:53:19,520 --> 01:53:21,599
Speaker 1: they're not killing very many. Oh, we got to shut

2198
01:53:21,680 --> 01:53:24,080
Speaker 1: the whole hunt down. Yeah, this is not a joke.

2199
01:53:24,160 --> 01:53:27,200
Speaker 1: This happened and then the game and fish is like,

2200
01:53:27,680 --> 01:53:30,559
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this is not true. This is crazy.

2201
01:53:30,560 --> 01:53:31,960
Speaker 1: We got to do a real study. They do a

2202
01:53:32,000 --> 01:53:34,600
Speaker 1: hair they do a modern hair, simple study, and they

2203
01:53:34,680 --> 01:53:38,800
Speaker 1: find out that there's between sixty and eighty thousand bears

2204
01:53:38,840 --> 01:53:45,479
Speaker 1: in California. I mean, it's a wild story, but uh

2205
01:53:45,720 --> 01:53:49,240
Speaker 1: but yeah, just it'll be interesting to see the numbers

2206
01:53:49,280 --> 01:53:49,719
Speaker 1: in Florida.

2207
01:53:49,840 --> 01:53:51,799
Speaker 3: It'll be really interesting to see the numbers in Florida.

2208
01:53:51,880 --> 01:53:54,840
Speaker 3: And I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm a Florida boy through

2209
01:53:54,880 --> 01:53:59,000
Speaker 3: and through. So I think, Man, I think our wildlife

2210
01:53:59,040 --> 01:54:03,040
Speaker 3: agency is top notch and I really trust them implicitly.

2211
01:54:03,200 --> 01:54:06,640
Speaker 3: Like bears weren't under We have a we have an

2212
01:54:06,760 --> 01:54:09,160
Speaker 3: HGM Hunting and Game Management Division, and then we have

2213
01:54:09,400 --> 01:54:11,960
Speaker 3: Habitat and Species Conservation, which is not honting. That's all

2214
01:54:12,120 --> 01:54:16,160
Speaker 3: non game and lands. Bears were under HSC and now

2215
01:54:16,240 --> 01:54:19,800
Speaker 3: it's becoming a it's going back under hunting. So but

2216
01:54:19,920 --> 01:54:23,280
Speaker 3: that HSC division, like that team has just they're incredible,

2217
01:54:23,439 --> 01:54:25,800
Speaker 3: Like I trust them implicitly with the science that they

2218
01:54:25,880 --> 01:54:29,760
Speaker 3: produced and the science that will continue to produce, They're

2219
01:54:29,800 --> 01:54:32,839
Speaker 3: going to get it right. And there's nobody in Florida

2220
01:54:32,920 --> 01:54:37,680
Speaker 3: that's affiliated with this, that that wants to see bear

2221
01:54:37,840 --> 01:54:40,600
Speaker 3: numbers decline at this point, like we want to see

2222
01:54:40,640 --> 01:54:43,880
Speaker 3: them survive and thrive. This is a win, dude, this

2223
01:54:44,000 --> 01:54:47,560
Speaker 3: is where we want to be. Yeah, so I'm I'm

2224
01:54:47,600 --> 01:54:48,680
Speaker 3: over the moon where we're at.

2225
01:54:50,400 --> 01:54:52,440
Speaker 1: I think it's the longest burgers we were had.

2226
01:54:52,760 --> 01:54:53,040
Speaker 3: I think.

2227
01:54:53,120 --> 01:54:57,040
Speaker 1: So we've been talking for two hours. No, that's been

2228
01:54:58,040 --> 01:54:58,880
Speaker 1: I've loved Memphis.

2229
01:54:58,920 --> 01:54:59,960
Speaker 2: Everything about this is moment.

2230
01:55:00,600 --> 01:55:04,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, this this is really really great. Well, man,

2231
01:55:05,880 --> 01:55:07,720
Speaker 1: is there anything we've not covered you want to cover?

2232
01:55:08,040 --> 01:55:09,840
Speaker 3: No? I think I think we can we How can

2233
01:55:09,880 --> 01:55:10,320
Speaker 3: we help you?

2234
01:55:10,400 --> 01:55:10,640
Speaker 1: Guys?

2235
01:55:10,720 --> 01:55:10,760
Speaker 3: Like?

2236
01:55:10,840 --> 01:55:13,600
Speaker 1: Who should we? What? Is there a call to action

2237
01:55:13,800 --> 01:55:15,720
Speaker 1: for for us outside of Florida?

2238
01:55:15,960 --> 01:55:17,120
Speaker 3: Not not right now, there's not.

2239
01:55:17,280 --> 01:55:19,080
Speaker 2: I mean we send anybody a thank you card.

2240
01:55:19,960 --> 01:55:22,840
Speaker 3: The Honey community writ large like whoever, whoever it is

2241
01:55:22,920 --> 01:55:25,600
Speaker 3: you love in the Honey community that I don't I

2242
01:55:25,680 --> 01:55:28,480
Speaker 3: don't care what group it is. They all like showed

2243
01:55:28,560 --> 01:55:29,440
Speaker 3: up and showed out on this.

2244
01:55:30,280 --> 01:55:33,280
Speaker 1: I would I would like to when I think about

2245
01:55:33,640 --> 01:55:37,440
Speaker 1: a hunt and in these hunters who I considered my brothers,

2246
01:55:38,280 --> 01:55:40,680
Speaker 1: going out and going to harvest one hundred and eighty

2247
01:55:40,680 --> 01:55:41,200
Speaker 1: seven bears.

2248
01:55:41,320 --> 01:55:41,720
Speaker 3: This fall.

2249
01:55:42,600 --> 01:55:46,240
Speaker 1: Man, I I just want I just hope everybody's just

2250
01:55:46,880 --> 01:55:50,080
Speaker 1: like the culture is just on their best behavior.

2251
01:55:50,200 --> 01:55:52,160
Speaker 3: Do your best yea, yeah, you know your best.

2252
01:55:52,520 --> 01:55:55,760
Speaker 1: And and I think I think that as as a

2253
01:55:56,200 --> 01:55:59,280
Speaker 1: hunting culture and as a as a as kind of

2254
01:55:59,360 --> 01:56:04,200
Speaker 1: a tribe, that we can we can ask that of people,

2255
01:56:05,000 --> 01:56:07,680
Speaker 1: and and I and and you know specifics would be like,

2256
01:56:08,280 --> 01:56:11,040
Speaker 1: you know, be tasteful and respectful on social media when

2257
01:56:11,080 --> 01:56:15,600
Speaker 1: you're posting these pictures. And in in somebody listened to

2258
01:56:15,680 --> 01:56:19,200
Speaker 1: this podcast, maybe maybe they learned something. I learned something.

2259
01:56:19,640 --> 01:56:23,120
Speaker 1: But man, for for for us to be able to

2260
01:56:23,760 --> 01:56:25,200
Speaker 1: for a hunter to kill a bear and him to

2261
01:56:25,240 --> 01:56:28,800
Speaker 1: actually understand bear management, understand a little bit about bears,

2262
01:56:29,320 --> 01:56:31,560
Speaker 1: understand some of the things we've talked about today goes

2263
01:56:31,600 --> 01:56:34,560
Speaker 1: a long ways. Like even in a social media post,

2264
01:56:35,240 --> 01:56:36,880
Speaker 1: to be like, man, I got this bear, and and

2265
01:56:37,120 --> 01:56:39,840
Speaker 1: and I love posting pictures on social media.

2266
01:56:39,880 --> 01:56:40,000
Speaker 2: I do.

2267
01:56:40,200 --> 01:56:42,400
Speaker 1: There's been times when we'd be like, don't put any

2268
01:56:42,480 --> 01:56:45,480
Speaker 1: gripping grins on man, I still do. No, we own

2269
01:56:45,560 --> 01:56:49,240
Speaker 1: what we do, and but but to to be able

2270
01:56:49,280 --> 01:56:52,680
Speaker 1: to to have the words, to be able to articulate

2271
01:56:52,800 --> 01:56:55,240
Speaker 1: the philosophy of why we do what we do with

2272
01:56:55,360 --> 01:56:59,360
Speaker 1: the tenor of respect to that animal, to wild places

2273
01:56:59,440 --> 01:57:03,520
Speaker 1: to conserve, and even inside in a set in a

2274
01:57:03,680 --> 01:57:09,680
Speaker 1: tone that would be sympathetic to someone who wouldn't understand. Now,

2275
01:57:09,720 --> 01:57:11,800
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying you know, change who you are.

2276
01:57:11,920 --> 01:57:14,920
Speaker 1: It's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, we can't

2277
01:57:14,960 --> 01:57:17,840
Speaker 1: be mad at somebody for not knowing. We can't be

2278
01:57:18,000 --> 01:57:21,280
Speaker 1: mad at somebody. And I'm speaking to myself, Yeah, I can't.

2279
01:57:21,360 --> 01:57:24,080
Speaker 1: I can't be upset with that person because they just

2280
01:57:24,160 --> 01:57:24,520
Speaker 1: don't know.

2281
01:57:26,520 --> 01:57:30,120
Speaker 3: It is critical how we handle this. Florida hunters, how

2282
01:57:30,200 --> 01:57:32,240
Speaker 3: they handle this, or out of state hunters if they come,

2283
01:57:32,960 --> 01:57:37,040
Speaker 3: how we how we present this will determine what future

2284
01:57:37,120 --> 01:57:43,120
Speaker 3: rhetoric looks like. Right, and hunting is not the mainstream

2285
01:57:43,240 --> 01:57:46,040
Speaker 3: thing it once was. You guys immediator have talked about

2286
01:57:46,080 --> 01:57:48,040
Speaker 3: this for a long time, but it's not the mainstream.

2287
01:57:48,080 --> 01:57:50,320
Speaker 3: I mean again, I'll refer back to stars in the Sky.

2288
01:57:50,320 --> 01:57:52,800
Speaker 3: I think Riddella said that in the fifties, like four

2289
01:57:52,880 --> 01:57:54,640
Speaker 3: percent of America hunted, or it was, it was a

2290
01:57:54,720 --> 01:57:57,280
Speaker 3: high number. In Florida, we got twenty two andred million

2291
01:57:57,320 --> 01:57:59,800
Speaker 3: people in two hundred and fifty thousand Honting mices. I mean,

2292
01:57:59,840 --> 01:58:03,480
Speaker 3: that's a fingernail on that state, which is why the

2293
01:58:03,560 --> 01:58:05,120
Speaker 3: right to fish and hunt was so important to us

2294
01:58:05,160 --> 01:58:08,400
Speaker 3: to protect that. But that's just a backstop, like how

2295
01:58:08,520 --> 01:58:12,200
Speaker 3: we conduct ourselves, how we behave in this world. And

2296
01:58:12,320 --> 01:58:14,120
Speaker 3: again I'm not saying I'm saying the same thing you are.

2297
01:58:14,120 --> 01:58:16,520
Speaker 3: I'm not saying you don't post a dead animal. I'm

2298
01:58:16,520 --> 01:58:18,400
Speaker 3: not saying you don't. But the way you talk about

2299
01:58:18,440 --> 01:58:19,960
Speaker 3: it and the way you post it, the way you

2300
01:58:20,040 --> 01:58:24,400
Speaker 3: present it, I'll say, selfishly makes my job way harder

2301
01:58:25,080 --> 01:58:27,280
Speaker 3: to go into rooms and try to move needles on

2302
01:58:27,440 --> 01:58:31,800
Speaker 3: getting things like this reopened. Man, it could be a

2303
01:58:31,840 --> 01:58:34,680
Speaker 3: tremendous help. And and again the honey community has handled

2304
01:58:34,720 --> 01:58:37,720
Speaker 3: themselves beautifully through this entire process, Like they've done it.

2305
01:58:38,480 --> 01:58:40,400
Speaker 3: If I'd have asked for them to do it, if

2306
01:58:40,440 --> 01:58:42,040
Speaker 3: I could have just gone to everyone, I'm gon said

2307
01:58:42,120 --> 01:58:43,280
Speaker 3: hit this out, wants you to do it, this is

2308
01:58:43,320 --> 01:58:46,600
Speaker 3: how they would have done it. So I'm really proud

2309
01:58:46,640 --> 01:58:49,680
Speaker 3: of where we are. We continue that going. There's no

2310
01:58:49,800 --> 01:58:51,720
Speaker 3: telling what else we can get done, and not just

2311
01:58:51,800 --> 01:58:54,680
Speaker 3: in Florida, but but Nashally. I think there's a whole

2312
01:58:54,680 --> 01:58:58,240
Speaker 3: lot of stuff we can get done. That is hunting,

2313
01:58:58,440 --> 01:59:01,440
Speaker 3: pro hunting, but pro concert. That's gonna it's gonna help

2314
01:59:01,560 --> 01:59:02,680
Speaker 3: keep this stuff that we care about.

2315
01:59:02,680 --> 01:59:05,800
Speaker 1: While Yeah, well Travis, thank you so much for coming.

2316
01:59:06,200 --> 01:59:08,680
Speaker 1: Travis had like three when do we talk Friday?

2317
01:59:09,560 --> 01:59:12,240
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, Thursday, Friday, Thursday, it was it was maybe

2318
01:59:12,320 --> 01:59:13,520
Speaker 3: Thursday afternoon.

2319
01:59:13,560 --> 01:59:16,920
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Travis came here and just like super short notice.

2320
01:59:16,960 --> 01:59:18,760
Speaker 1: So thanks a ton man, Thanks for all your work.

2321
01:59:18,880 --> 01:59:19,200
Speaker 3: For real.

2322
01:59:19,640 --> 01:59:21,200
Speaker 1: I know you guys probably don't get a lot of

2323
01:59:21,200 --> 01:59:24,280
Speaker 1: pats on the back, but you should. I mean, often

2324
01:59:24,760 --> 01:59:27,080
Speaker 1: the thank yous goes to people that didn't have anything

2325
01:59:27,120 --> 01:59:29,680
Speaker 1: to do with it, like people that you know are

2326
01:59:30,040 --> 01:59:34,120
Speaker 1: are I just think about I had nothing to do

2327
01:59:34,240 --> 01:59:34,400
Speaker 1: with this.

2328
01:59:34,800 --> 01:59:37,640
Speaker 3: Well this this has something to do with it, and

2329
01:59:37,720 --> 01:59:39,520
Speaker 3: we appreciate it. But there, like I said, there was

2330
01:59:39,640 --> 01:59:42,800
Speaker 3: nobody that didn't. It's like you look at a football team.

2331
01:59:42,800 --> 01:59:45,840
Speaker 3: I'll watch sports football team. He pay praise a wide receiver,

2332
01:59:45,920 --> 01:59:48,840
Speaker 3: the quarterback, running back, whatever. That guy's not snapping the

2333
01:59:48,840 --> 01:59:50,760
Speaker 3: ball in the middle, or that right guards not holding

2334
01:59:50,800 --> 01:59:54,800
Speaker 3: the blindman off like nothing's happening. The defense didn't come

2335
01:59:54,840 --> 01:59:57,720
Speaker 3: out there and play special team like it takes a

2336
01:59:57,880 --> 02:00:00,160
Speaker 3: complete team to get this stuff done. Everything that we

2337
02:00:00,240 --> 02:00:02,360
Speaker 3: get done, it takes a complete team, so every everybody

2338
02:00:02,360 --> 02:00:03,880
Speaker 3: gets to play a part, and it's it's just an

2339
02:00:03,880 --> 02:00:04,760
Speaker 3: honor to be on that team.

2340
02:00:04,880 --> 02:00:08,240
Speaker 1: What's the name of your your organization all Florida. So

2341
02:00:08,320 --> 02:00:11,080
Speaker 1: it's A L L F L A dot O. That's

2342
02:00:11,280 --> 02:00:13,200
Speaker 1: your that's just your organization US.

2343
02:00:13,280 --> 02:00:16,600
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And but then you work for International Order

2344
02:00:16,600 --> 02:00:20,240
Speaker 3: of Theodore Roosevelt. Okay, so that's t DASH Roosevelt dot org.

2345
02:00:20,320 --> 02:00:23,240
Speaker 3: I believe, is there, Carol. So those are great organizations

2346
02:00:23,280 --> 02:00:26,200
Speaker 3: that that I'm really proud of. And in Florida, there's

2347
02:00:26,280 --> 02:00:27,880
Speaker 3: not a room that we're not in when it comes

2348
02:00:27,880 --> 02:00:31,280
Speaker 3: to hunting, fishing, conservation stuff like like we are. We

2349
02:00:31,360 --> 02:00:34,000
Speaker 3: have somebody in just about every room that's that's incredible.

2350
02:00:34,160 --> 02:00:36,240
Speaker 3: So we're we're really proud of that and we love

2351
02:00:36,440 --> 02:00:38,400
Speaker 3: we love that place. So hopefully you guys will come

2352
02:00:38,400 --> 02:00:44,080
Speaker 3: down here. Man, I bear Turkey, really dear to my heart,

2353
02:00:44,120 --> 02:00:46,440
Speaker 3: come hunted duck. But we can figure it out.

2354
02:00:46,680 --> 02:00:51,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, we appreciated, man, Josh, come down there, fly fishing brother.

2355
02:00:53,360 --> 02:00:55,760
Speaker 1: Ah Well, I'm in thank you all for having me

2356
02:00:55,880 --> 02:00:57,640
Speaker 1: keep the wild place as wild because that's where the

2357
02:00:57,680 --> 02:00:59,920
Speaker 1: bears Living. We need a big corridor right through floor.

2358
02:01:00,840 --> 02:01:01,240
Speaker 3: That's right