00:00:09 Speaker 1: From me Theators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. 00:00:13 Speaker 2: This is Col's We Can Review with Ryan cal Callahan. 00:00:17 Speaker 1: Now here's Cal. Hey there, Cal's WEE Can Review fans. Welcome to this week's special drop of the Cows we Can Review podcast where we get to dig a little deeper on you know, the topic du jour, which is the fancy way of saying the next next fire that we got to address with me as always is is Jordan Siller's. Jordan has been researching and writing his butt off and helping out in a million different ways and deserves a ton of credit here. But our special guest is Kip Adams of the National Deer Alliance. Kip is the chief conservation officer for n d A. Kip, thank you so much for joining us. Can you just tell us real briefly for those who aren't familiar, and just so you know, it's a good opportunity because we have a ton of people who write in and say what conservation groups should I join? I always tell them to figure it out for themselves. I'll provide the information. But you're an adult, so you got to you gotta make make the decision ultimately, So we're empowering people the hard way. So, uh, for those unaware, Chief Conservation Officer at National Deer Alliance is going to tell you what areas the NDA focuses on and if those things are interesting to you, you should get involved, and we'll tell you back at the end of the show how exactly to get involved. And then we're going to talk about this topic, which if you recall the first time we talked about this, I was reading it right here on the podcast. I just said, there is no possible way this is true. But it is house built three four six ' two in Oklahoma. The Chronic Wasting Disease Genetic Improvement Act, which by the way, had just passed the full Oklahoma legislature is on Governor Kevin Stitt's desk as of the first of the month here. So we're going to get more into that in depth, I hope. And then but first let's hear about keep your role at NDA, as well as again what area's NDA focuses on. For those who want to learn more, sure well. 00:02:50 Speaker 3: The National Dear Association as a national wildlife conservation organization that specializes in education. Our mission is to ensure the future of wild deer, wildlife, habitat and hunting and the wild deer part of that is very important to us and very critical to the conversation we're having here today. And I'd like to say that nobody fights harder for deer hunters other than we do. We have members all states, all provinces, in several countries in large part because they know we fight for hunters rights and they want the information from an educational standpoint that we're able to share with them. Our big areas that we work in are are certainly the conservation in but you know, we'd like to take information from the academic institutions and what managers have out there and put it into a format that you know, that every hunter can understand. So we teach people about deer, how deer see here, what they eat, how they move through the landscape. We're involved with policy. Most hunters, as you're keenly aware, have no idea how many bills are proposed each year that would be really really bad for hunting and for wildlife if they pass. So we have an advocacy arm to make sure that we're supporting hunter's rates, you know, on good bills and opposing those those bad ones. We do a bunch of teaching. We have a Deer Steward program to to allow people to learn more about deer. We spend a bunch of time teaching people how to enhance habitat for deer. Habitat is where it's at, to make sure that there's enough food and cover for deer and other wildlife species. And we have a big public lands initiative. We're not in a position where we buy more public land, but we are in a position where we can take public land that we already have that's open to hunters and make it better for hunting by enhancing that wildlife habitat and you know, and improving some access and allowing people to be able to access it and hunt it. So the final thing that we get involved with is from this is under our conservation umbrellas from the disease end. And we believe that there is no single issue that has a greater threat to the future of wild deer herds or are hunting opportunities than than chronic waste and disease. And so we spend a bunch of time uh educating hunters about it, working with our state and federal officials, you know, to make sure we have good surveillance programs and in monetoring efforts and uh and being able to support research so that we can learn all we can to help beat this terrible disease. So from those perspectives, you take the educational aspect of what we do, the policy and and the disease end and uh, those three things are what's landed me here. You know, getting to have a good conversation with you today. 00:05:36 Speaker 1: Sounds like a very interesting job and lots lots of good things that happen on that make it a fulfilling one. What uh, what's it? What's the chief conservation officer do? 00:05:48 Speaker 3: I'm a wildlife biologist and so trained in biology, and I oversee our conservation program So all of those different pieces that I just talked about we do. I get my hand a little bit of all of them. So I get to help oversee, you know, the research that we're involved with. I really enjoy the educational programs that we do, so I get to do a fair amount of teaching. I get to help develop our educational programs, you know, whether that be something you know, an in person class or an online class. I get to get to oversee what we do from a public land standpoint, and then get to help our policy folks out as well. So it's nice to have my hand and a bunch of different things like that, particularly given you know how they're all intertwined to affect our you know, our deer and other wildlife species and uh and most notably you know, are hunting opportunities for them. 00:06:41 Speaker 1: So it sounds like you maybe not uniquely positioned, but certainly in a small group of people who are positioned uh in a way to tackle what Jordan has in store for us today, which is uh, this inner resting situation in Oklahoma. And again my perspective on things, my armchair expertise. When I read HB three four six two in the state of Oklahoma, I just I kind of laughed because I thought, there's no way that this is possible. This and Jordan and Kit please jump in here and make sure I'm not totally getting this wrong. But there's an idea, and it's kind of in the name here Chronic Wasting Disease Genetic Improvement Act. There's an idea that through selective breeding of captive white tails, we can genetically improve the herd in captivity. That could then be released onto the landscape, and those genetic improvements, which would be a resistance to chronic wasting disease as an example, would then be distributed through the wild herd. Now, one thing that will come back to is it's specific to Oklahoma, which is another bizarre part of this to me, because once you release it onto the landscape, you have no control where these deer go unless Oklahoma deer are special and they know where the Oklahoma line stops, and they know what a non resident deer smells like, and they don't interact with them. This is something that is bound to go beyond the state of Oklahoma. This idea comes from another livestock industry, the sheep domestic sheep industry. There's a cousin disease called scrape eaes in domestic sheep that the sheep industry has been working on for a really long time. They have found success through finding individual animals with some sort of resistance to this disease and selectively breeding for those traits over decades to strengthen the herd and limit the prevalence of scrapies in domestic sheep. And I say idea because from what I know and I'm dying to get into this with you, Kiap. It's theory versus fact from what I know. So, Jordan, do you want to jump in here again? Great article? Can we breed our way out of CWD? Oklahoma wants to try at the meat eater dot com. You've done a bunch of research here. Do you want to tee us up or help fill in the gaps there? Before we get into it. 00:09:59 Speaker 2: With yeah, I think a couple of things are worth pointing out. The first is that this would be a first a type of this program in the country, So Oklahoma would be the first state to introduce a program like this. Also, right now, the deer breeders can sell deer and move them to high fence operations. Right so, high fence a high fence hunting ranch are the only kind of outfits that they can move their deer to. This bill would allow them to sell deer to anyone. Right so, whether you have a high fence operation or whether you're just you know, a landowner with a couple hundred acres. This this bill would let you ship in deer from one of these facilities that have this gene that is resistant to C deput And I think one one good place to start here for Kit might be to talk a bit about when we say a deer is resistant to CWD, what do we mean by that? Because I think once you start to think about what that actually means, you realize there's a pretty broad range of possibilities that that that statement could mean. So yeah, and I know, and I interviewed Kip for this article, and I asked him this question, and I want this audience also to hear what he has to say on that. 00:11:30 Speaker 1: Awesome. Well let's start there, Kip, please, all right. 00:11:34 Speaker 3: I think that when when people who aren't familiar with this here a CWD resistant gene, that sounds like it means that deer that have this gene can't get the disease, that you know that they're resistant to the disease. And the facts are very clear that that is not true. CWD is one hundred percent fatal to all deer. That they have never identified a deer that would not die from the disease. So, starting right off the back, to claim that oh, yeah, these deer are resistant and they can breed with other deer to make them resistant just simply is not true. Every single one of these deer will still get the disease and still die from it. There is some data to suggest yeah, they may live a little bit longer, you know, in the terms of a few months longer, but even that isn't really clear. But just just to clear the tables right off the bat, all deer will get this disease, and all deer that can get it, and all deer that will die from it. So this is not making deer not susceptible to it. 00:12:32 Speaker 4: And I guess to say, like the testing and the data, how do we get to a point where we can look at a deer and say, well, that one has the gene that's going to make it last longer than the next one. 00:12:53 Speaker 3: Well, their research can predict that at about eighty percent certainty whether deer have this certain trait or the certain you know within their genotype. You know, your genes are different than mine or different from Jordan's. We can do genetic testing with us to see, you know, how similarly we are or how different we are, or how closely we're related. So it's a it's testing like that that they can use to say, oh, okay, what different traits or genes are these deer carrying? They have identified a specific gene that they teut as. Oh yeah, this is what makes deer more resistant to this and more being the key word there, you know. So those are the deer that, yeah, do live a few extra months, and those are the ones that they want to breed with others too, I guess, as a way to try to get around this disease. But that testing is pretty uniform and so they're able to see, you know, the different genetic traits that these animals have. 00:13:53 Speaker 1: Boy, there's so much to cover here. So my gut reaction to this bill, right, because like I kind of covered in my long winded intro, is if you're talking about putting a captive servid out on even private property, which most Oklahoma is private property, but it's a low fence situation, it just becomes public wildlife at that point. So where I get confused, is, I guess the short, short, short question, right is how is it legal? We have an association, a national association of Fish and wildlife agencies. Is there a system in place where all the surrounding states can step in and say, well, you know, this decision goes beyond the borders of Oklahoma and our management styles or our science doesn't support this or agree with this. So that's was my gut reaction is I'm like, Okay, well, there's got to be some mechanism in place that can prevent a state from making a decision of potentially impacting, you know, the very real monetary investments of other states, the budgets, the whole system of wildlife management that again a deer doesn't recognize when it moves from one management region to the next. 00:15:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, in this case, there's not because state oversee, you know, the state owns those are the wildlife you know, our North American model gives the you know, trust that resource to the state. So and every state then is able to write laws or dictate how they will manage that. So there's not federal oversight there. And you know, and so for this case, you know, Oklahoma, this the state wilife agency can choose what they want to do. It's very different from what they do in Texas, very different from what they do in Arkansas, my home state of Pennsylvania, you know, Montana. Everybody tends to be a little different with this. And in this case, if this passes in Oklahoma, then it would be legal to take these captive deer and restock them. And one point we should mention here too, that is, you know, the state wildlife director ultimately has, in theory, you know, the final say, and hey, do these things happen or not. You've covered this many times and you know there's a whole lot of politics that go into decisions made at some of those state agencies. You know, Unfortunately it's not just following the science. Well, this just so happens in Oklahoma right now that you know the legislator's pushing this bill. There's some deer breeders on the legislature. The Board of Commissioners that oversees the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation contains some deer breeders. And the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, which is a fantastics date wildlife agency, is without an executive director. So you know, the person that is highest in that agency, you know that can help thwart this that position is currently vacant, so that you know that definitely has a play here in how this thing may be pasted in Oklahoma. And if so, why they legally could take take these captive deer and put them out and mix them with wild deer. You know even though at some point you're right, they could cross the line into Texas or Arkansas or or anywhere else. 00:17:32 Speaker 2: And one one thing to note as well is I've been talking with some some folks in Oklahoma who are pretty familiar with this issue. Uh there's there's a legislator there named it in my notes here, Representative Kevin Wallace, and he is he's a deer breeder, so he's a legislator who is also owns a deer breeding facility. And Kip was just mentioned that open director position. He actually applied for that position last time there was an opening, and my understanding is he didn't have the I think it requires a bachelor's in wildlife science or something along those lines, and he didn't have that, which is why he didn't didn't get it. There is a concern that if those qualifications are amended, that he then could be installed in that director position, in which case you can imagine how this program would probably move forward. Considering he was also very influential behind this bill. So that's another thing if you live in Oklahoma to be on the lookout. 00:18:49 Speaker 1: For how much similarity is there between SCRAPY and CWD. I mean, we're talking about a sheep versus a white tailed deer in this instance, and scrapyes versus CWD. So two totally different biological systems, two totally different diseases, but you know at some level they are connected, right, But is there how strong is that theory that because we can do this with sheep with a kissing cousin disease, we can do it with deer and a kissing cousin disease. 00:19:35 Speaker 3: Well as far as how closely related they are, you know, there's a whole bunch of preon diseases. Scrapey is the preon disease in sheep. CWD is the preon disease a deer b s E. Or the you know, the mad cow, that's the version that's in cattle. Krutchfeld Janko is the human version. So there's a lot of different pren diseases. You know, each one manifests itself a little differently in the different species. But suffice to say, yeah, scrapey and CWD or you know, at least similar. So they're not saying let's try this because they're really really similar. The deer breaders are saying let's try this because we successively you know eradicated scrapie in our sheep population through this genetic breeding, and that part is true. But what they are jumping way ahead of the game to say, oh, yeah, now, let's do this in Oklahoma because they did this over you know, a long period of time in sheep with a lot of research and killing a lot of animals to do so during the studies, and say there was a ten step process to eliminate this in sheep. Comparative right now to what's going on in Oklahoma, they are at most. 00:20:51 Speaker 1: At step three. 00:20:52 Speaker 3: There's a lot of steps to get to the end note to be similar to what they accomplished in scrapee. So, you know, is it possible. Nobody knows yet for sure, because none of those tests have been done and they are nowhere near to the same degree of testing or knowledge of this in CWD that they that they are or that we know about in scrapy. So they are only using that as a comparison because they have identified they did this in scrapey or did this with scrapy and cheap. 00:21:21 Speaker 1: So you know, there's some some obvious benefits here if you're in early on this game of ownership of deer that have this uh more resistant gene and as we covered more as in quotation marks here, and you can build up that herd and be able to you know, distribute individuals or you know, I imagine like bread does to willing buyers. You're you're opening up the market when you can then sell it to not just people who have to be lice and as a captive servand breeder. But I think that kind of hurts the captive breeders as well because then that genetic intellectual property is then out there on the landscape. I guess it's odd to me who wanted who wanted this bill? Like, what was the where was the outcry? Did it come from hunters in the state of Oklahoma. 00:22:28 Speaker 3: No, not at all. And this is all being pushed by deer breeders as a strategy to remain relevant. Deer breeding industry has been declining over the past decade, in large part because of CWD. So this is a strategy buy that industry to continue to try to remain relevant to society. This is one thing they know that they're pushing. They have seen some success with this behind the fence, because yeah, these deer live a little bit longer as they prop them up, you know, before they die. So for people in Oklahoma, hunters are certainly not calling for this. The State Wileife Agency isn't, you know. And what we know about this cow it will not work in the wild. And the reason that I say that is, as we talked about earlier. 00:23:14 Speaker 1: This genetic definitive statement. 00:23:17 Speaker 3: Very definitive because the genetic testing that we know, okay, these deer in captivity that have this trait seem to live a little longer. We can also study, and this has been done, the genetic traits of deer in the wild in Oklahoma and all these other states. And what we know is deer that have this trait in the wild exist at very very low percentages because mother nature weeds them out very quickly. A deer reader can prop these deer up through animal husband techniques and keep them alive behind the fence. Mother nature can be cruel, you know, she has not propping anybody up. So these deer just simply don't survive in the wild enough to make any difference. So whe people say will this work, no, it can't work, and we know it won't because these deer don't survive outside of the fence. 00:24:07 Speaker 1: And you know through past c TOBD conversations, those animals that are carriers of the disease, once they get to a point where they're the pre on levels are high enough to where it's it is transmittable through nose to nose contact mucus, those longer surviving carriers are potentially just spreading more of the disease around. Correct, That's exactly right. 00:24:40 Speaker 3: And I've been asked where people say, well, hey, like, what's it hurt? You say, it's not going to work, but isn't it worth a chance? And the hitser is again a definitive no, because there's not a practical and a reliable live animal test for the disease. The incubation period in the disease is eighteen to twenty four months on average. And what that means is the vast majority of deer that have CWD don't show any symptoms. You know, you or I can't look at them and tell until they get to the end of that period. Then they start showing symptoms and then they die very rapidly. But up until then, they are shedding infectious materials in urine feces. As you said, direct contact as a social grooming each other, et cetera. So they're spreading these infectious materials that will infect other animals on the landscape. So since we don't have a good live animal test, you know, unfortunately animals are shipped from facility to other facilities on a regular basis, and then this is often how CWD ends up in a new area. Now, I'm not bashing the deer farmers here because they don't want to move an animal that has the disease. That's not their best interest. Certainly another facility doesn't want to bring an animal in that has it. But because there's not a live animal test that's practical and liable, these animals are moved that that do have the disease. So when people say, isn't it worth a chance in the wild, heck no, it's not, because you could be moving animals from these facilities that have the disease into the wild that now are spreading the disease to new areas and they are infecting our wild deer. So if this absolutely, if we thought this had a fifty to fifty chance of working, there's still a lot of reason to not stock these during the wild. But given that we know it's not going to there are huge risks of you know, moving this disease around, so you know that's the biggest danger here. An animal that's had the disease for a while, the test do a pretty good job picking that up. But an animal in the early stages the tests work, you know, they don't work much at all for that So those are the ones that are often missed. So we are going to expose our wild deer to huge risks when when we know it's not going to work. You know, this can't help breed this out in a wild population. 00:27:01 Speaker 1: What we got to hit you kept saying a live animal test, right, which implies that there's a dead animal tast When you're looking to breed animals, swap that genetic material around. The live part is crucial unless you're using artificial insemination, which is a big part of that industry. But where are we on this live animal test. 00:27:33 Speaker 3: There's a there's a lot of work being done on that and that would be a huge gain for for everybody involved with deer. You know, if we had a really good test. So currently the two well, the dead animal tests are they're testing the brain or they're pulling lymph nodes. Once an animal has died to test those those do a good job, you know, identifying yes, the animal had this disease or not. As far as a live animal test, they can get tonsils or they do recto biopses. They don't work real good on elk, better on mule deer, for sure. They definitely work better on white tails than either of the other species. But what happens is hard to get those samples. Deer don't. Deer don't like to give up pieces you know, of their butt or of their their tonsils, and these are the ones they just you know, if the deer is in late stages, yeah, we can detect it through those early stages not much at all. So fortunately there is additional research being done in that testing. And man, I am all for that. I think that so much more research dollars should be put toward live animal tests because that we know the single best way to move this disease is to move a live animal that has it. So if we had a really good live animal test, that that could help us tremendously not move these animals from facility to facility, you know, and continue to spread this disease. 00:28:57 Speaker 1: And are there variance of CWD. And the reason I ask that is if you you have so many variables, like if if captor breeder A through Z has their own independent populations that they're selectively breeding, is there the possibility that they could also be breeding more resistant deer, but deer with other strains of CWD. 00:29:32 Speaker 3: Well, they know that there's at least ten different strains of CWD, all of which are one hundred percent fatal to all deer. So I do know, you know, the CWD strain that's in the Scandinavian countries, is that different or seems to be different than what we have here in North America. After that, you're getting above my knowledge of the different strains part. So so what you're asking, you know, there's certainly some concern whether you know, Okay, we start messing with this, and you know, and now will some of these strains end up making a more resistance strain. You know, that's a lot of talk about something that's already one hundred percent fatal to all deer. So I get. I don't like that conversation because I think it draws away from the real conversation at hand, is, Hey, what do we need to do to protect our animals, you know, and what the hunters and managers really need to know here. I don't care to deal in the nuances of different things when we know, hey, they're still all going to kill every single deer, you know. I think there's better conversations we need to have in better places to spend money to learn more about this disease so that we can better protect our wild deer. 00:30:42 Speaker 1: And gosh, we need hours more to talk about this. So and I keep saying, Alliance, I apologize for that. It's just stuck in my head. National Deer Association. Think of any official statements on the two fellows that ate the deer out of the similar area and got krutskilled. Jacobs. 00:31:06 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we saw that. We've worked with the folks, you know, some of the top pre on people in the country. Every country has their own top pre onto research place. In the United States, it's a case Western Reserve University in Ohio. We know the pre on folks there. We consult with them on a regular basis, and so we know, you know, what's being talked about, and there has never been any you know, confirmation that yes, this hunter got it from this. So when we saw that article, you know, we immediately went to the source to find out what happened there. You know, As it turns out that was that information came from a poster at a conference. You know, a grad student put this poster together, I'm sure, having no idea this was going to get construed the way that it did. It has since been you know, looked on trum it. They talked about, Okay, yeah, this guy got CJ D oh and he was a hunter. You know what, they don't even know if they ate venison from CWD positive deer. They just know they were in an area where the disease had been confirmed in the population. You know, but in most places where CWD is it still exists that you know what, one or two percent of these deer, it's very low. So that was a huge air on that journal's part to run that. You know, like if you, you know, as a journalist wrote something like that, you know, you would be you know, disbarred in your area if Jordan did that. So it's pretty crazy what they did. So our stanzas there's still no no evidence at all that this will jump the species barrier to humans. We still say, hey, if you're in an area that has the disease, get that animal tested and you know, don't need it until you get a satisfactory test result, but definitely get it tested so that state agency can learn more about the prevalence rate and the rate of spread. You know, those are the type of things that we need to be able to battle it. And fortunately that's something that hunters can do every day. You know, they can all get engaged in that fight. 00:33:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know we Citizen science is something we love here on the Week in Review. And taking those couple extra steps or making those extra steps not extra but just normal, contributes to the thing that you love doing the reason that you're out there doing it right, So we certainly in support of that. How much are you still hearing the folks, you know, like the people out there who question the concern of CWD in general by saying, well, if a deer can live to six with the disease and we shoot most of our deer at three, what does it matter? 00:33:45 Speaker 3: I think the big argument against that is one, just because it lives to six with the disease. You know, you don't want them having the disease continuing to live because they spread it to other animals. One of the differences between the pre endesas is like, if a cow has mad cow disease, it can't give it to another cow. It can be in a pasture of a thousand other animals, and as long as you don't grind that cow's brain up and feed it to the others, it can't give it to the others. And man, I wish CWD was that way, but it's not. So when a deer has it and it's livid with others, that deer is shedding infectious materials into the environment that then plants can take up and hold the material it binds with the soil. So when other animals come in contact with that deer, then other animals become CWD positive as well. And that's one of the dangers of the disease and allows us to spread so much more rapidly through a deer population than say, you know, b SE did in cattle. So that's why I tell those people it's important because you shouldn't eat that unless you know. And two, we don't want that prevalence rate in that deer here to continue to rise because as of right now we have no way to stop it. The best thing that we can do is maintain it at at very low prevalence rates while science has the time to catch up. 00:35:03 Speaker 1: So that that's the fight. 00:35:04 Speaker 3: That we need to engage in each day. And you know, I firmly believe you know, every single hunter can engage in that. And that's a good place to be. 00:35:13 Speaker 1: Well, that's a great, great place to be. I mean, I think of all the griping and moaning that we do about the big government making our decisions for us, right that's the way that we can contribute and play play our part. So I certainly like like that. Right now in regards to HB three four six two in Oklahoma, it's sitting on the governor's desk right now. Do people in Oklahoma still have a chance to weigh in? Can they at least let their opinion be known? 00:35:50 Speaker 3: That they certainly can, And actually our director of Policy is going to be meeting with the governor's office to still try to convince them to know, hey, this is a bad idea. So yes, people in Oklahoma still have a chance. They can, you know, let the governor know that they oppose this, that this is not good for for wild deer or the wildlife conservation. So time is of the essence for sure, cow. But but there still is time. 00:36:14 Speaker 1: And then what can folks do to learn more about the National Deer Association and get involved in some of those programs that you mentioned, or or just support the overall association. 00:36:29 Speaker 3: Yeah, if they care about deer, they can go to Deer Association dot com. That's our website. We have all kinds of information there relative to the things that we do, the things that we're involved with, obviously stuff that we talked about here today. They can sign up for for our free weekly newsletter that has this type of information, you know, to keep them abreast of advocacy issues, you know, of of deer research issues, et cetera. So it's it's free, it's easy to do, and uh, you know, if they care about deer, is a great place to be able to go to get the information that they're looking for. 00:37:04 Speaker 1: Darn right. Well, Hey, thank you so much for coming on. It's a tough subject about something that we all love and like we kind of unfortunately preach here. Just because it's happening in that state doesn't mean it's not going to affect your state. If not right now, the next legislative session or the next rule making session or regulation session, So learn about what's happening in Oklahoma. For gosh sakes, if you hunt in that place, you should call and let your opinion be known. If you border the state of Oklahoma and you like to hunt, you should call and let your opinion be known because, like we've talked about, those deer don't know where the state of Oklahoma starts and ends, so that deer under that management guideline could become your management issue. Thank you so much, Kip, National Deer Association. We'll get the link up on the website. You're you're kind of on the hook now to be the be the deer guy. Uh, so we're gonna have to drag you back on here, and we got a lot more to talk about, but thank you so much for your time. And uh, folks, check out the National Deer Association and we'll get the links up on the podcast. But first and foremost, you should call the governor's desk in Oklahoma and let them know your thoughts, concerns, and where you think the health of deer should lie in your state. Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do. 00:38:46 Speaker 2: Uh. 00:38:47 Speaker 1: This just in Phil you'll probably come up with a better sound effect than that. Since this episode was recorded in just a matter of a couple of days, Governor Stitt there in Oklahoma signed the highly controversial Chronic Wasting Disease Genetic Improvement Act. As we talked about it mostly is House Bill three four six ' two. It is now law requires the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry to create a pilot program to quote enhance the genetic durability of deer in Oklahoma against chronic wasting disease man alive. You guys know my opinion on it. I think this is crazy. The science says that it is not sound. And what I'm dying to know cal's wee can review listeners if you can write in. Someone has to have some expertise here. Is there some sort of liability for the State of Oklahoma. Can neighboring states like sue the pants off of these folks because they're gonna release farmed deer which is like widely known to be the source of chronic wasting disease onto the landscape, right, and those deer don't know where Oklahoma starts, stops, ends, begins, et cetera. I think about it this way. I have a chicken with HPAI and I let it go in Montana. It walks across the state line in North Dakota and mingles with chickens in North Dakota. It's got a big old red tag on its ass that says cal that's my responsibility, right, that's my livestock. And that's what captive serviands are in the state of Oklahoma is livestock. Seems real odd, seems real odd. But just like you, if you're listening to the Cows we Can Review podcast, I'm here to learn more, educate me. Please write in to ask c Al. That's an ascal at the Meat Eater dot com. If you live in the state of Oklahoma, you know there's certainly ways to influence how your money is being spent. And you got to stay on top of your public officials and voice your concern and make sure they know that you are very scared of seeing your big old white tail bucks or big old mule to your bucks in the extreme western side of the state. Impacted potentially negatively more than likely negatively by this program. Thanks a bunch. We'll talk to you next week.

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