00:00:10 Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. 00:00:14 Speaker 2: This is Col's Week in Review with Ryan cal Kalang. 00:00:18 Speaker 1: Here's Cal. Hey, there're Cal's Week in Review listeners. We have a special drop this week, getting back on some of our interviews that we told you we'd get back on because you love them, and we have one that we've been working on for a really long time. Lucas Cook, who is the CEO of Field and Game. If you haven't heard of that, it's because they're based in Australia. In a way, I heard about them through my friend Natalie Krebs, who's a fantastic writer over there. At was you writing for Outdoor Life for Field and Stream for that article, Lucas? 00:01:03 Speaker 2: That was an Outdoor Life article? 00:01:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So Natalie went over to Australia and she went over to waterfowl hunt. Sounds super awesome, but there was a devious plan afoot by Natalie to expose this really crazy to us freedom love and Americans plot to intimidate harass hunters, law biting hunters who are just going out to enjoy hunting by activists, animal protectionists, or just folks who don't have enough to do and want to pick a fight with somebody who's doing something legal. Now, before we get into that, because I'm gonna have ask you, Lucas, to just explain your organization and your role as CEO. But I need to introduce Jordan Sellers here. As everybody knows by now, Jordan is the backbone of the podcast. He's doing the research and the writing every single week, week in and week out, and he's with us today and he's gonna jump on with some good questions. And Jordan, are you familiar with all of this? Have you got up to speed on? 00:02:28 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:02:28 Speaker 3: I mean because we've we've covered issues. I know, we have a number of listeners who hail from Australia who very helpfully send us kind of what's going on and keep us in the loop. So yeah, we've we've covered these issues a number of times on the podcast, and so I'm very excited to kind of hear it from the horse's mouth. I think Lucas is gonna gonna be able to fill us in very well. 00:02:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, and just recently, it's very timely because just recently we got a couple of articles in our way that outline I think what we're going to hear from Lucas here shortly of legal hunting and where the rights of the hunter and the rights of a non hunter collide. Where, for instance, a person is sitting in a tree stand on private property, a person who wishes to disrupt that hunt is on the other side of the property line. Both have legal access to their individual pieces of property. But that person on the other side of the line is you know, ruining the hunting opportunity the day of the hunter. How do we resolve that situation? It is hunter harassment, But where does the private property rights of the harasser stop? And where do the those hunter harassment laws which are very hard to enforce, where do those actually kick in? And you know, we'll have this conversation of knowing where you're in the right and and what you need to do in order to prove that. And unfortunately, as we'll learn here from from Lucas, there's some you know, it's like, if you've ever taken a first aid class, you don't just learn about saving somebody's life through CPR and first aid. You got to sit through a whole day of how to not get sued. And there's going to be some of that here too. So without further ado, Lucas, who are you, what do you do and who do you represent? 00:04:47 Speaker 2: Thanks keV, Yeah, thanks for having men, thanks to the opportunity to come on and speak to yourself and your listeners. So yeah, my name's Lucas Cook on the CEO of Field and Game Australia, which puts me on in charge of an organization that's represents duck hunters all across Australia. Long and proud history at Field and Game Australia. I took too while, I mean talking to a lot of us allies and friends over there. I think the quickest way I've found of explaining is to say, Field and Game Australia are the closest thing Australia has to a Delta waterfowl. We are founded on very similar foundation as Delta. We're a conservation group. We came into being back in the nineteen fifties when Australia duck hunting or duck habitat was under threat and therefore duck hunting, Field and Game was formed on that similar premise of preserving habitat and preserving hunting through preservation of habitat, long history that we don't need to go into two most detail here, but Field and Game drove the founding of an Australian duck stamp process, conservation money going into coffers that could then be spent on the purchase of public land to create what we have as state game reserves and public hunting reserves all over the state and the country. That's where we came from and that's still largely what we do. Field and Game Australia have muddied the waters a little bit. And then we do also have a third pillar of clay target hunting. We specifically do Australian simulated field clay target shooting that keeps hunters in practice in the off season as well. But yeah, we operate that sporting discipline and represent duck hunters and all hunters across the country as well as being involved in conservation and land management aspects as well. 00:06:31 Speaker 1: A good building block and certainly something that Natalie did over there at Outdoor Life. You should track down that article. It's very good and it's very timely again because we're heading into the real bulk, the meat and potatoes of our waterfowl season here in North America. What does it take to be a legal hunter and on a firearm in Australia. 00:06:59 Speaker 2: So we do have some processes we need to go through. So the firearm license acquisition process in Australia is a little bit more lengthy than what some listeners would be used to, but it's a regulatory framework or process. It's not impossible to have a firearm and you can do it, but there's safety courses and background checks and withholding periods and things that need to happen in the first place just to get a firearms license in the first place. And one of the big parts of that process is there is a requirement in Australia that you have you can demonstrate a genuine need to own a firearm. So we don't have the protected right that we can own a firearm just for the sake of owning a firearm. We actually need to prove that we have a genuine reason to need that firearm. And really importantly, self defense is not seen as a genuine reason in Australia, so you actually have to have a connection to be able to show you're involved in hunting, target sports or an agricultural reason to have a firearm in the first place. So that's certainly where organizations like ours, like Field and Game Australia. So being a member of Field and Game Australia does fulfill the need of you being able to show I have a genuine need to have a firearm because I'm involved in this organization. I hunt those shoot targets, those sorts of things. But that's certainly one of the much more restrictive aspects of that for us. Then as far as becoming a legal hunter, you obviously head into the realms of depending on what you want to hunt, having to to have different licenses that are enable you to hunt on public land or permissions to hunt private land, and also have game licenses for the specific species you're hunting. 00:08:42 Speaker 1: As far as like ease goes, like how long does the process take if you want to get a new hunter onboarded into the field you know, and have them possess a firearm. 00:08:54 Speaker 2: So en be quite lengthy for a brand new person to receive their firearm license. Is using differs a bit state to state, but Victoria at the moment it's around a twelve week process just to get a firearm license application processed. So once you've done all the paperwork, the safety course, you've got your genuine reason. You've got your permission slips to hunt private land, all of those sorts of things when you get out of that in place. Yeah, it's currently it's been as long as six months. It's back in now to they're processing those applications, I think in around twelve to sixteen weeks. But it certainly is. You know, we're telling people now if they want to hunt the next game bird season next March, they really need to have their license applications in now to make sure that they're going to have the time to do that. 00:09:38 Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't just run down to the gas station or wal Mart and be ready to go that day exactly. 00:09:44 Speaker 2: That's right. You can't get a call from a mate to say, hey, do you want to come hunting next week and get everything in order and be able to do that. 00:09:51 Speaker 1: So now you're in the field. Obviously, this historical reference now that we have occurred during opening day of waterfowl season last year or two years ago now. But what you're dealing with is this would be like if hunting and fishing rights became so contentious here in North America, in my point of view, like greatly accelerated a future version like a dystopian version of hunting and fishing is what was kind of painted in Australia, where you get up early, you head out to your public waterfowl spot, and not only are you competing with other hunters for good hunting spots, but you're showing up with the knowledge that there very well could be activists flaring birds like out in the marsh with you, disrupting your hunt. Correct, that's right. 00:10:58 Speaker 2: And I think the the key thing that's been communicated while we've been sort of pursuing what we've been going through down here in Australia and talking to people in the US is there's a certain sense of disbelief when our American hunters hear about this and they look at it and go, oh, that could never happen here. And what we've been communicating is, well, yeah, that's what we thought twenty years ago as well, or ten years ago or five years ago. So what we've seen in Australia is a process where the ideological animal protectionists have been around for a long while, but they've certainly been progressively emboldened and enabled to be more and more disruptive. And so whilst a lot of people go oh, well, that could never happen here. So ten years ago, when they were protesting in the car parks at the water that land, we thought, oh, well, that's all right, they're in the car park, they'll never be in the water. And then and behold, the right to access public life and the right of a citizen to protest was seen by our regulators as just as important for an anti hunter as it is for a hunter. And so progressively, these these anti these protesters have been able to become progressively more and more and more disruptive, until the point where we get to this seemingly this believable position where you can see activists protesters within ten meters of a hunter in the wetland, so standing just outside your decoys bread or even in your decoy spread. The legislation only requires that they stay ten meters away from a hunter, and they can be in the wetland, in the water, flaring birds, waving flags, blowing whistles, all of these crazy things, and protected in doing that by their right to protest. 00:12:48 Speaker 1: What's an average example of this versus an extreme example of this? 00:12:55 Speaker 2: So I should say so the really extreme examples we see are just that they are extreme examples, when you see the crowds of orange vest wearing flag waving protesters in wetlands in Victoria and opening morning, that's maybe taking place in five or six of our wetlands, and there are hundreds of hunterable wetlands all over the state. But the activists are obviously switched on enough that they do that in the most popular hunting places as well, so that the conflict between hunters and activists on opening mornings, it's only happening in a few places, but it's happening in the most densely populated places. We do have the advantage, obviously when there is plenty of water and plenty of wetlands with water and ducks, as we have seen in the last few years, that hunters can spread out. And obviously if the hunters are dispersed enough and not hunting in those popular spaces, it is still well and truly true that you can go out an opening morning and not see a protester. So we do have we do have plenty of opportunities to hunt without being interfered with by these protester groups, but certainly they know in the areas where they frequent, and our National Office for Field and game now now sits on the edge of an eighteen thousand hectare wetland system or network, but it just it also means that network is within an hour or so's drive of two major cities. So it's very hard to hunt anywhere on this eighteen thousand hectare wetland without being interfered with by a protester during that opening morning or those times when they are most active. So there's certainly areas where you can't go out without seeing one, but there are areas where you can still get out and hunt alone as well. 00:14:39 Speaker 3: Just to jump in. Are there similar protests of big game hunters, predator hunters or is this kind of restricted to waterfowl so. 00:14:50 Speaker 2: We have seen we have seen some limited attempts of protesters to interfere with those other hunt types. But again, the nature of waterfowl hunting and the concert and tration of hunters into areas where there are water and birds certainly makes it a lot easier for them to interfere with this type of hunting more so than any other type. Some of our idea hunting that has you know, the requirements for how to come through checkpoints or filter points with their tagged animals and those sorts of things certainly do see some protesting as well, But waterfowl hunting is certainly the one that presents the opportunity for protesters to be the most disruptive. 00:15:27 Speaker 1: Just to take a step back and kind of paint the picture a little more deeply, But I guess you and hunters in general have to adapt. You have to adapt your hunt plan to avoid popular waterfowl spots because the likelihood of somebody ruining your time and effort is so high, and they are protected by regulations, this right to protest. Why isn't there some help on that regulation side, the law enforcement side that says, okay, this has gone too far. 00:16:09 Speaker 2: That's that's certainly something we've we've been pushing for, and again just in this latest season, so we have seen an improvement in enforcement of the rules that do restrict exactly what the protesters can do. So the the the within the legislation, the easiest thing for the hunting regulator to to enact on these protesters when they are out of line or overstepping this is what we call a banning notice, which is essentially a notice requiring them to leave that wetland and not re enter the wetland again. And we did see in the last twelve months we've sent a dramatic spike in those banning notices being issued to protests that were clearly in that wetland for no other reason other than to disrupt and hinder hunts. But again they've they've very craftily worked around that aspect within the legislation where where that's public, they are a member of the public and therefore they can be on that public land and they have the right to protest, which means that they can where their orange and wave their flags and those sorts of things. But there has been a shift back towards probably doing at least a little bit to protect hunters. But you're dead right go when you say it from a hunter's point of view, you really are planning your hunt in a way that goes, Okay, we know if we go to this swamp, we are almost definitely going to run into protest us at the boat ramp. Have we got our boat that's fast enough to get us out far enough that they won't be able to find us for a while, and we'll get a hunting. Those sorts of things definitely come into it. So there wetlands where hunters just go, Look, if I'm walking out from the shore, I'm just not going to hunt that wetland in the first week of the season because we know there's going to be too many protesters there. It's definitely a thing that plays on the mind of all Victorian duck hunters, Australian duck hunters that they go, ok, before I head out, what am I going to think about? Where am I going to go? We have some good spots. So we have a team from Field and Game Australia right now that are hunting in the Northern Territory and they don't experience the same problems up there because largely because they've got saltwater crocodiles in their waterway, so that keeps the protesters out of the water pretty effectively. But yeah, it's definitely something in the Southern States that affects all hands to go, well, before I head out, where am I going? You know, we see social media and those sorts of things. We certainly see hunters sharing information that protesters have been spotted at this swamp this morning. Don't go there. 00:18:34 Speaker 1: Those sorts of things, which unfortunately is kind of like what you said, right like twenty years ago, you thought, oh, this won't matter, and now you're unfortunately kind of giving them exactly what they want. They want you to stay out of the marsh, and most sane people are going to find a different marsh because that's not what you want to do with you. 00:19:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, if there's hunters hunting opening morning in the geelong of the honorary wetland system that we are situated on right now that I've spoken about, if you're a hunter or you're on that wetland on opening morning, you can pretty well guarantee you doing that as a sort of designated decoy role. If you're like, you're sacrificing your possible opening morning hunt are going We know we're going to go down here. We are going to be harassed, we are going to have to run the gauntlet of protesters. We are going to do that. But why they're bothering me? At least they're not bothering anybody else. And you know, I had the experience this opening morning of talking to several hunters on this wetland that we're taking exactly that approach. So there were five or six hundreds who came in and said, look, probably not going to get a bird, but if you get one bird in front of all of these protesters and during all that process, that bird's worth ten anyway, just to be able to fly the flag and go yep, we ran the gauntlet and we got a bird. And I had that exact experience this year myself. Okay, I managed to go out. We absolutely protests in our decoys the entire hunt, but towards the end, when we were just about to give up, we had one bird that came into our decoy spread at a different angle, and we managed to get one bird and three hunters in the boat. You've never seen three hunters ride back to a boat ramp more triumphant to have one bird in the boat. But yeah, you do. You run that gauntlet and you go, well, we know we're going to be harassed, but somebody has to do it, and you're dead right. For the broader public, it leaves a lot of people going, well, we're just not going to hunt that wetland, which means in some ways the activists have got their what they're what they're aiming for in the first place. Obviously, what they're aiming for is a band altogether, and there's also some pleasure to be taken from a lot of these activists of express they don't actually like being in the swamp so well, at least by by dragging them as far out into the wetland as we can and making them cold and wet and miserable for their entire morning, you get a little bit of revenge on them, perhaps. But yeah, certainly what made me keen to share our ex experiences with people in the US and over there is that exactly what we've sort of spoked about ten twenty years ago. We thought, well, it's a small problem, but it's you know, you just ignore it and it will go away. And it certainly didn't. It's escalated and get worse and worse. Which, Yeah, the more I talk to people in America, the more they say to me, I am that's never going to happen here. And you're like, well, you know, you've got the activists there. They have to what you spoke before, that they have identified that they do have a right to protest, they have a right to access this land that we certainly are going to see. I think the conflict escalate there as people test the boundaries of where to my rights as a hunter, run into your rights as a member of the public to access this land, to be on this land, to exercise the different rights that you have available to you. And I think the sooner you know, the more proactive you can be about dressing those issues. Hopefully you won't need to see the problem escalated as far as it has in Australia before it could be addressed. 00:22:03 Speaker 1: The reality is that economics come into play, right, So if you're a hunter and you go, okay, well now I can't or I don't want to deal with the people at the close spots, I'll just drive farther. A percentage of hunters can do that. But you know, I'll tell you. Like my growing up, the cheapest I ever saw gasoline in the state of Montana was ninety eight cents a gallon and we'd drive one hundred miles one way after school to go fish. We could do that, gas jumps up to four and a half bucks a gallon. You're not doing that, And so by eliminating those wetlands that are closer to the higher population areas, I think a case could be made that they are effectively not ending a bird hunt, but ending a hunter or preventing a hunter from even started, because the economics of making every trip a big adventure just don't work for everybody. 00:23:10 Speaker 2: That's good, right, And as well as the economics, the time factor as well. If you have a great wetland that's holding great numbers of birds and it's a half an hour from work, or it's on your way to work, and you can stop in in the morning and get a quick hunt and get a few birds in the bag and then go on to work or whatever, and you can do that. It's fantastic. It's one of the amazing things about living where we live, and you know, having those options available. But all of a sudden, if you know you're going to bump into three or four protesters and you might not get any birds, the temptations just to go I'll just drive straight past this morning, or yeah, the barrier to entry of new hunters to go why would I even bother putting myself through all that. It's certainly a factor, and it's definitely a barrier to recruitment when hunters have to think, you know, do I want to get into this thing where I might have to deal with these people? Do I just want to go off quietly and go fishing or something instead. 00:24:05 Speaker 1: Yeah, And the recruitment conversation is an interesting one here. You know, we have certain areas where there's higher hundred densities than there ever were, and people don't like the word recruitment. We have certain areas where people aren't showing up anymore and they're not buying their licenses and tags. Since like that that twenty year ago timescale that you keep mentioning, have you seen a drop in you know, registered hunters, registered firearm owners in Australia since twenty years ago. 00:24:43 Speaker 2: We've seen a huge reduction in uh, waterfowl hunters in that timeframe, and one hundred percent that those reductions correlate very directly with both the increased requirements things like quarterfowl identification testing and those sorts of requirements that were bought in as a mandatory requirement for hunters is one thing that dropped it off. And definitely the prevalence of protesters and the frequency with which hunts get interrupted and those sorts of things have certainly driven a lot of people out of water fowl hunting, and not always out of hunting, but it quite regularly into different streams. You might go and hunt a year in the highlands or something instead of running the gauntlet to hunt your water fowl. So we've definitely seen it be a big barrier to recruitment and we kind of look at it and in a lot of ways you say, well, would you rather put up with sitting at a wetland with a whole bunch of other hunters or not have that option available to you at all. Yeah, the the we're definitely seeing declining and recruitment and it's definitely something we're keen to counter and try and get more and more people into waterfowl hunting because it comes into that other thing that you mentioned earlier. Will and we've definitely seen it thrown in our face. It's the risk is that the hunting numbers of hunters get down to a point where it's seen as solow that they go out, Well, you know it's only two percent of the population now that waterfowl, why not just ban it. That's definitely that exact line has made it into the arguments within the Parliament and the government against waterfowl hunting in Victoria in these recent debates we've had. It's definitely something that's thrown at us that it's such a small segment of the population, Now, why don't we just ban it and get rid of it? 00:26:28 Speaker 1: Art of war, divide and conquer. Right, It's we just went through a big election cycle here, not sure if you follow the news, but the political advertising from every candidate, all sides, that comes up every four years. Right, it's like, Okay, you can vote for this, but if you vote for this, you can't have that. And it gets people so fractionalized that they don't understand that had they just gotten together, they could have kept it all or made things better. But they just get the blinders on, and oftentimes we don't realize what we've lost until it's too late. 00:27:14 Speaker 2: Did right, And that's the that's certainly what we've seen is certainly the cautionary retail for us to share is exactly that. That's very much what they did here. They've split off different segments of the community and they've gradually eroded different rights away from people by doing exactly that. Well, you know, the arguments that are such a small segment of the population were definitely being thrown around, and while it was just waterfowl hunters that would have worked, and it very nearly did work. It was only when we managed to get united and pull all hunters into the same bask and okay, we've only got in the state of Victoria, we've got twenty five thousand duck hunters. That number is so in you know, so small that it wasn't going to be a blip on any of the politicians radar. When we added in fifty thousand deer hunters as well, that was still such a small number that it probably wasn't going to work either. When we pulled in four hundred thousand trade unionists who said, you know, as a tradesman, I like my outdoor recreation activities. I might not specifically hunt duck, but I can see now the riding is on the wall that if I allow you to ban duck hunting, you're going to then come for fishing and my water skiing and my boating and my everything else as well. It was really only when we managed to pull in that broader outdoor recreational community and unite them all behind this understanding that if they banned this tiny section, yours might be the next tiny section of the community they come after. That was a really really important part of what we went through here. In Australia to actually ultimately save duck hunting and have it not banned through that parliamentary process. But again, the writings on the wall, they're playing from the same playbook in the US and other places as well. They're looking for those those niche groups that they can exclude that other hunters are going to look and go, well, look that doesn't really affect me directly anyway, so I'll let that go. And next minute the debate becomes, well, look, we've already banned trapping, We've already banned bear hunting, We've already banned cat hunting. Why wouldn't we ban waterfowl hunting as well? It just makes sense, you know, that's their retric that's where where they'll approach it from, and that's why. Yeah, the message we're trying to get out there is important, Like it doesn't matter if what they're trying to ban is a tiny small thing that you will never hunt anyway. We need to be united and we need to all be standing together to stop these bands taking place. 00:29:39 Speaker 1: As Jordan said, you know, we do have a lot of listeners in Australia, and we did get real time updates on the elections in Australia and would you mind going in a little bit more and you'll explain it again a little bit. But you managed and I'm sure a coalition of of hunting, conservation, wildlife groups got together and managed to get this trade union group, who, as you just explained, numbers wise, was a significant piece of the election ballot puzzle to come together and say, hey, this is important to us, don't touch it. Can Can you explain that a little bit more and how you got that to happen. 00:30:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think in the Australian context again to kind of flesh out this same picture that we're talking about a little bit. 00:30:37 Speaker 3: So. 00:30:37 Speaker 2: So in Australia, we've we've got the makeup of five states and two territories that make up the Australian land mass. Gradually we've we've had things happen so that you know, the Queensland and Western Australia both banned waterfowl hunting a long time ago, but it's not really any great opportunities to hunt waterfowl in those states anyway, so they banned a recreation season. They decided we're not going to have a regulated season, and hunters kind of struggled and that's okay, nobody hunts there anyway. Australian Capital Territory the same thing. There's nowhere to hunt ducks in that territory. So when they turn around and said we're going to ban duck hunting, it wasn't even a blip because you can't hunt ducks there anyway, so why would we care. And it sort of went through that process where there's three three states in one large territory in Australia that have recreational duck hunting seasons, and it just happened. The real political attack really took off at the end of twenty twenty two when two of those states were in election cycles where it was made as their political promises to the anti hunting political parties that if you put your votes with us this year and we get voted in, will will promise to do a deep diver look in the waterfowl hunting or native game bird hunting. And they were referring to because we do have a stubble quail, we hunt under the same regulations. So I said, if you team up with us politically, we'll investigate this in the next election cycle, will hold inquiries into whether we should be hunting game or not. And that took place in two of those three hunting states, in South Australia and in Victoria. Both of those state political parties announced after those elections in twenty twenty two that okay, now we're going to hold an inquiry into game bird hunting in our states. In South Australia, we were involved in that process, and it became reasonably clear, fairly early in that process that the Parliamentary Inquiry in charge of that inquiry in South Australia were reasonable people, and they were listening to the science and they were listening to the scientists and the data that were saying there's absolutely no reason you can't hunt waterfowl or native game birds in South Australia. It's sustainable, it's well managed, it's well regulated. We're okay. So in South Australia that process was kind of less threatening, but in Victoria especially, it was very much a case that the Elementary Inquirer in Victoria was heavily loaded with anti hunting ideologists and we faced a real risk there. We made all the same arguments, we showed the same science, we showed the data, and it was really where the US connections came in when we were looking for that really good science and data. The North American model has that in spades over anything we have in Australia, and that's where our involvement with delta waterfowl and others came in. That we were reaching out basically to every group that could help us to put that picture together, to show that native game bird hunting is sustainable, it is responsible, and it's enjoyed by lots of perfectly reasonable people. We made that argument scientifically to the committee, but their anti hunting ideology on that committee was such that they ignored the science and they made a recommendation to the Victorian government that native game bird hunting should be banned. Now that was obviously, you know, we were hopeful through that Parliamentary inquiry that the science by itself might be enough to win the day. But when the Parliamentary Inquiry came out and said we've ignored all of that and we're banning it anyway. We're making the recommendation to ban it anyway, that was when the gear shifted and an okay, Now, well, obviously we were doing some stuff politically, but that was really the point we were ok this argument isn't a scientific one anymore. It's purely a political one. Now, how do we pull the political leaders that we need? And that's where it comes in what you're saying. We obviously went well politically. The trade unions have a huge amount of political power because there are a big bunch of blue collar workers who have a fair bit of sway. But I've quoted it before and I'm going to misdo it, but the secretary of one of those large unions has a very good spill that rolls off his tongue very well where he kind of explains as a trade union, the Electricians trade union in Victoria, were average age is thirty five. They're mail in their garage, They've got a full wall, drive, a motorbikeer fishing rod, and probably a gun safe. They are people heavily involved in their outdoor recreation. Blue collar workers. They work hard, but then they also like to get out and enjoy their outdoor spaces and their outdoor pursuits. So that was a group of people that we were very keen to talk to and as we've said, make that point to them that hey, it might be hunting today and that might be okay. But then they're going to come after your jet skis, they're going to come after your motorbikes, they're going to come after your public access to all the spaces where you enjoy all of those other outdoor suits as well. And that was really resoundingly heard by that blue collar voting base where they went, you know what, you're right, we can see that now the riding is on the wall. We've seen it before. Each time they ban one thing, they don't then go okay, we're happy now, they go straight on to trying to ban the next and the next and the next. And so that was the political movement. Then that came out of the trade union's involvement where they got on board and said, yep, we support what you're trying to do when we see we've got to draw this line in the sand somewhere. And it was only in Victoria. It was only through the weight of the political movement putting pressure on the government to say you need to ignore that recommendation and you need to maintain our right to hunt in Victoria that that won that day for us, that we've got that decision from the government to say, well, the Parliamentary inquiry made nine recommendations, the first of which was to ban hunting. They ignored that first recommendation, but they took the rest of their recommendations they made, which increased regulations and restrictions and those sorts of things, all the stuff we can live with. 00:36:29 Speaker 1: But yeah, that political. 00:36:32 Speaker 2: Power to make them say that we won't accept a ban was definitely what was required and what won the day for us in that battle. 00:36:39 Speaker 1: Gosh, that's that. I mean, it's amazing and just hats off to your well done for sticking with it. You know, as you said, you've seen the numbers of participants in hunting, in firearms ownership drop off in the last twenty years, and in any conservation fight issue, there's there's so much fatigue issue fatigue that you know, it's not that much of a wonder when you watch people go, Okay, screw it, I'm going to pick up the fishing rod a little bit more because this other stuff just isn't worth it. And particularly when we talk, when that reason goes out the window, I'm tempted to ask you what the reasoning is for banning hunting, But oftentimes the only reason is because we don't like it. We don't have to know anything about it. We don't need to know the reasons why you do it. All we have to say is we don't like it. 00:37:45 Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and that is that is the any reason. Yeah, again objectively, rather probably not objectively. Sitting through the parliamentary inquiries and the hearings and hearing the evidence presented from the other sides, it was it was very clear to me that they didn't actually have a reason outside of we don't like it, so we wanted banned. One of the other big issues that came up and was talked about, you know, again, they did things like that we were still going to allow the agricultural control of ducks when they become an agricultural pest. You'll still be able to shoot them. That's fine. And this other side is actually saying, oh, that's fine. Well, how does it differ. How is that a different issue in your mind if your problem is that a duck is dying. But even within their own ideology, they didn't actually have an answer to that. And again I think that's because behind their own ideology they're not okay with that. But they're saying, look, we're not going to try and fight that battle. Right now, we're going to ban the recreational season and then we'll ban the agricultural control later. But yeah, it was it was very apparent that that issue fatigue, as you say that, the there definitely was that from within our own community, where there were plenty of people just saying this has been coming for a while. We knew it was coming. Oh well, it's time to hang up the hang up the waiters, and we'll just take on a different pastime as well. So we've definitely seen that and we did see again, we did see a drop in hunters again in the last twelve months of about two thousand less game bird license holders. Now since the regulations, since we've won the battle, if you like, since the regulations have been rewritten, we've seen an uptick again, which we're really encouraged by, and we're driving hard to try and get more and more people now they actually know, look, this is not going to get banned next year. We have secured the future of waterfowl hunting. Let's get new people into it. Let's set our recruitment. It's certainly something we're keen to push hard to get people back into it again. But yeah, that erosion factor that issue. Fatigue was definitely an issue. 00:39:46 Speaker 1: Well yeah, and what you just mentioned there too definitely catches my ear right. It's like, if there's no knowing that the activity is going to be around in the next year or two, are you going to invest in a dog and shotgun and go through the touse and you know, just put in that investment. 00:40:09 Speaker 2: It's it's a huge barrier, yeah, for sure for a new hunter coming in and going, well, yeah, am I going to go through all this, all of this process to just be told I can't hunt next year anyway? And they haven't been. Yeah, that's that's I certainly think that's been part of the problem as far as recruiting. You does into it as you go, Well, you know, I've gone through all the whole process of getting a firearms license, I can I can now just go over there on a friend neighbors property and hunt rabbits all day and I can do that. That's easy enough. I'll just do that instead rather than than like say, invest the time and effort into to all the year. Obviously, I don't need to explain to you how expensive waterfowling can be. We do like our gadgets, and we do like our gear. But yeah, but was certainly a lot of conversations I was having when I was over at the Deal of Waterfowl Expo talking to the tailors, I was sort of trying to explain them, Look, the time is perfect for you to bring product into Australia because people have three or four year old waiters with holes all through them that they haven't replaced because they haven't been sure they were going to need them. They've got old boats, they've got old decoys, they've got old gear that they haven't been replacing because they weren't sure whether they were going to still be able to use it or not. I suspect in twenty twenty five you're going to see lots of shiny new waiters and shiny new boats and shiny new dogs even in lots of our waterfowling spots in Australia. And I, for one, I'm going to be out enjoying seeing that. 00:41:35 Speaker 1: I'm not going to take everybody's time to lead into it. But we had a conversation that these activists can steal your duck if it's a crippled duck, which just blew my mind. Can you explain that a little bit. 00:41:49 Speaker 2: Yes. Again, it's one of the craziest parts of this whole thing. And certainly the ideologists, the activists in the swamps, there are a lot of their reasoning or they're masquerading as why they actually need to be in the water to exercise their right to process. They've certainly doubled down on that by saying, well, we're actually here as wildlife rescuers. So again, within the within the Wildlife Act, there are parts of that legislation that allows somebody if they see an animal that is clearly in distress, that they can I'm using air quotes, so I know I've got my camera off, but the air quotes, they can rescue that duck. And they can legally take a game bird species in a wetland that is an injured or sick or dead bird, and they can go, well, we were in the act of trying to rescue it. That's why we possessed that bird at that time. So yeah, we one hundred percent have seen instances where these people are in the decoys and when a duck is killed outright or wounded and is in the water, these so called rescuers swoop in and grab that bird and make off with it. Now again, two years ago, there were some crazy figures coming out of some of these groups representing that, you know, they were rescuing hundreds of birds and taking them back to these triage tents and laying them out. Now, it came out in the inquiry that some of the main groups responsible for that so called rescue hadn't actually had a duck survive in the last two years. So they called themselves rescuers. But what they're actually doing is just stealing dead ducks. But they were doing that, and they were presenting it back to politicians and they look at all these wounded birds that we rescued, Well, it's not rescued if you're taking them out of the hands of a hunter. It's just stealing people's birds. But within the legislation, yeah, they could do that, and they have done that. Now. Interestingly, again in the twenty twenty four season, the game management actually brought in a process whereby those so called rescue birds were actually being x rayed and confirmed that they had actually been shot, and a verified report being done on them and on opening more in one location last year where they reported that they rescued over one hundred birds with the process in place this year that they X rayed every single one of those birds. They only rescued about ten, So there's certainly a big part of that that they were picking up road killed birds and freezing them. They were finding diseased or dead birds and freezing them, and then they were turning up on opening morning and tipping all these birds out of a bag and saying, oh, these are all the birds we rescued today. A very small number of them were being stolen that from under hunters, but many more of them were just purely being misrepresented as they weren't even hunted birds. But again, it's that cross roads that I can see that, Yeah, I can see a trajectory where you're going to need to deal with those sorts of issues where you are as well. Where does where does a wildlife rescuers writes cross over with the hunters and when does that crossover when there's that wounded animal still in the act of being hunted or being rescued. 00:44:59 Speaker 1: With this experience answer that you're living through. What do you think when you and you mentioned this earlier, but when you see on our social media and news channels about the Colorado Mountain lion band, which thankfully we shot down. But what are you what's your gut reaction when you see something like that? 00:45:27 Speaker 2: So that that caught my attention, mostly because I really saw that as as here's a really strong indication that the ideology we've been dealing with four years now has made its way over there. 00:45:40 Speaker 3: It was. 00:45:41 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was written from the same book. That whole band was exactly the same thing. We don't actually have any scientific grounds or any real reason to want to do this, but we don't like hunting, so we're going to try and ban it. And again, following similar veins, when there was actually no scientific reason to do it, they said, well, that's all right. We're just going to take the ideology and will apply it in a political arena and we'll try and have it banned from that aspect. So yeah, I definitely. When I saw it initially, I went, well, this should be a pretty good indication that this ideology is global, and these methods are global, and they are going to try it on everywhere they possibly can. I was obviously extremely encouraged to see Hunters band together the way they did, and see it addressed and see it ultimately fail. But I think again, the messaging out of that is the same. I think they've failed once in one state, but in our need to be even more vigilant to watch every single sub section of hunting and every single place where there's where there's activity is going on, because yeah, if our lived experience has anything to go by, this this is the start, not the finish, of these ideological attacks on hunting. 00:46:51 Speaker 1: Well, it's the reality is everybody evolves, right, So we open our playbook against their open playbook in trying to win just this one vote on this one citizens initiative. That data is going to be used in the next fight in the next state, or the same fight in the same state later on. It's just inevitable. Is we need to get to a place where we can't have the conversation when it's founded in fantasy versus fact. 00:47:28 Speaker 2: I guess. 00:47:30 Speaker 1: Another interesting thing that you brought up, because this is something that is every ten years, this pops up in the US. It drives me crazy because it's just in my opinion, cutting your nose off to spite your face. But you had mentioned like the loss of access to these public hunting areas, and you know we're seeing that same move here again. In the US where politicians are banding together to sue the US government to divast which is a fancy word for sell public land, primarily here in these Western states, which is you know where, like I said, the high hunter density still exists. Are there any lessons from your side of things that we can learn on that fate? 00:48:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's certainly, yeah, certainly, I get a progression. I think of the same thing I think well throughout throughout all of this. I think one of the big advantages you have is that is the science and the years of data collection you've got over there, and you know, the very established conservation organizations that are operational that are preserving this land. But to go on a slight tangent, so in New South Wales is one of our biggest states in Australia. Back in nineteen ninety six, they banned recreational dark hunting. They have a large agricultural sector where there's plenty of opportunity for hunters to hunt under agricultural permits. Their loss of their recreational season. Again, it was one of those things I spoke about earlier that wasn't seen as a big deal because they went, well, look we're still going to have opportunity anyway. But what they saw as a flow on then was they also lost. Now it might need to fact check the numbers, but I think the latest thing is they've lost something like eighty percent of their shallow temporary wetlands. So they'd turned around and took away the public access to those things to hunt. Now, nobody, nobody had the sweat equity or the vested interest in looking after those pieces of land, and so they were gradually sold off to farmers who drained the swamp, plowed it and put it in with wheat or growing or whatever else they were growing. So once that land wasn't useful for hunters, it really wasn't useful to anybody else, and it disappeared. So even our lead water bird signists in Australia say that should be a cautionary tail that actually keeping that hunting access to that land and that vested interest of hunters in preserving that land was a really important part of of the picture. So I think, yeah, with obviously listening to yourself and watching the news over there, these land grabs that are being made by the states to take this public land that's already public land, and somehow they seem to be trying to sell it as they're going to make it more public, but actually the threat will be that that will be sold to somebody whose interest is in an area other than hunting or preserving the habitat required by our native species. And not only will you lose the public land and the access to that land, but you'll also lose the species, so you'll lose the habitat for those hunted animals. So I think you've got to as I can see lots of people, I think you have to fight that and fight it hard because it is a very real risk. Well we might just look at it and go, oh, well, it'll be terrible if we don't have so many places to hunt, But that's okay, because my wet land over there, that's still fine. You've also got to apply the lens of going well, not only will you lose the access to the land, you'll actually also probably lose the habit and therefore your pray species numbers will decline as well. 00:51:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a snake eating itself. Yeah, I mean, you just made some gains regulation wise to ensure more water foul seasons to come, and there's a bunch of folks who are like, well, we just lost our wetlands, so I already sold that shotgun or that boat, and the dog's just fat now exactly. 00:51:28 Speaker 2: And then and then you know you're going to get hitting several more years with oh, well there's there's less hunters, so we might as well just ban it anyway now, haven't we. So it's a pretty progressive slide into oblivion if we're allowed to continue to happen. So that's why I think it's super important with get that message out there, with what yourself and others are doing around just pointing out that these public land grabs that are happening over there are bad for everybody. 00:51:55 Speaker 1: I one good thing that's going to come out of this conversation, as I was feeling pretty bad about letting the girlfriend know in as nice a way as possible that I'm going hunting again this weekend. According to her, I've been hunting a lot, but I'm gonna tell her about our conversation and let her know that there's a real reason that I need to be hunting as much as possible because it's not guaranteed. 00:52:22 Speaker 2: Absolutely yep, every every tag sold, every ticket sold, every ticket, in attendance box, every every way that any hunter can can flag that they've been out, they've been active, they've been contributing is super important. 00:52:38 Speaker 1: And lucas, what what's the future look like? What what if folks listening want to weigh in and help is there a specific way to do so that's that's most helpful any anything like that. 00:52:54 Speaker 2: But there's yeah, there's there's a couple of ways anybody who's listening to this that that wants to help out or wants to learn more about Field and Game Australia jump online, find our website Field and Game Australia dot com dot au, look us up. There's ways you can join. We've got a Friends of f GA option where people can go in and you can get yourself a subscription to our digital magazine and other updates and where we keep you all posted on what's going on. We also do have a conservation trust, a registered public charity in Australia called the Wetland Environmental Task Force Trust. There's links to that on the web page as well. So if anybody wants to contribute directly into the conservation efforts that we're doing, that options there as well. So yeah, we'll accept anybody who wants to jump in and keep an eye on us and support us that way. They absolutely can. I think I'd like to think now that we've opened up some of these relationships with different organizations, you'll hopefully see and hear a little bit of us being involved with Ducts Unlimited and Elder and other organizations over there. We're very keen to keep the international lines of communication that have been opened in the last couple of years wide open and keep communicating backwards and forwards. And I think, yeah, that's certainly something that I'm passionate to do it. It is as much as hunting gets all the way down to the local guy at his local backyard hunting ground, it's also a global issue I think that we all have to band together on. And yeah, if a couple of Australian bloke's coming over to a Delta waterfowl and meeting the people we met and having the conversations we had is anything to go by, We've got a lot more in common then people might think. So I think it's important to us to keep sharing those commonalities, keep talking about why we love hunting and why we do it, and yeah, While we might not necessarily be interested in recruiting more people down onto our local duckt spond at opening morning, we should be trying hard to recruit people into the community that enjoy hunting and enjoy gain food. And certainly the more people we have that can stand up to this ideology of you must ban everything, the better. So we're pretty keen to keep talking and keep having the conversations, and we'll have them with anybody who wants to reach out to us as well. 00:55:08 Speaker 1: That's great, we'll make sure to get that information out there. I do want to ask you one more question, because you are from the land down Under, we have a lot in common for sure, but there's bound to be some difference as what is the the Australian way to cook a duck. 00:55:27 Speaker 2: That's that's pretty debatable as well, to tell you the truth. One of the things, as I myself from a reasonably recent convert to duck hunting co and the ways that you can cook a duck, you know, like the old proverbial way to skin a cat, there are lots and lots of ways to cook ducks as well, but they, you know, the classic ways are probably again pretty similar over a campfire in a duck camp somewhere, but it be it in a slow cookers set up, or be it direct poles, or on a grill or on a barbecue, all of those ways. I don't think there's a bad way to cook a duck. There's certainly badly cooked ducks, but I haven't come across a bad way to cook a duck yet. Cow I love it. 00:56:15 Speaker 1: I love it well. It sounds like we need to do some duck hunting together. I just I finally got all my dog ripped her chest open in the first three hours of our pheasant season, so now she's she's back and ready to retrieve. So yeah, next time you get over here, better better look us up. 00:56:34 Speaker 2: Super super keene. I just to share that one more thing that's actually that I say. I'm a recently a recent convert to duck hunting, so I got into it back to front. So I got a dog that was just the dog. I think everybody that's ever had a dog understands when you say the first German short haired pointer that I got was was the dog that would just retrieve and retrieve and retrieve all day. So then I had to buy a shotgun to train the dog, and I thought, well, now I've got the dog in the shotgun, I better get into this game bird hunting business. So so yeah, love my hunting, love my hunting over dogs, and definitely came to do some of it over there with you when we get a chance. 00:57:14 Speaker 1: Heck yeah, heck yeah. 00:57:15 Speaker 2: Kin to have you pretty keen to have you come down sometime cal and try and negotiate the saltwater crocodile environment as well. Mind, you see what it's all about hunting now, magpie geese over crocodiles. 00:57:26 Speaker 1: Don't threaten me with a good time. That sounds great, sounds great, Jordan, You got any closing thoughts here? 00:57:36 Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess I feel like. One of the themes and something that comes up over and over again in this conversation is just how important it is for everyone who loves the outdoors to stick together. We saw that that's what helped with the Mountain Lion band in Colorado. That sounds like is what did the trick over in Australia. And not only you know, within our country, is within our states, but internationally right, because the anti hunting coalition is global, and so the pro hunting coalition should be global as well, so appreciate so much, Lucas. 00:58:12 Speaker 1: You're you're coming on well sad Yeah, thank you so much, Lucas, thank you, thanks a lot. 00:58:19 Speaker 3: M m hm hm

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