00:00:10 Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Col's Week in Review with Ryan cal Klan. 00:00:18 Speaker 2: Here's Cal. 00:00:21 Speaker 1: All right, everybody, welcome to another episode of Cal's Week in Review. We're continuing our series with our informed, esteemed guest folks who are in the know, are have insights into this big wide world of conservation with me as always as Jordan Ziller's and again you're listening to Cal's. 00:00:43 Speaker 2: Week in Review. 00:00:44 Speaker 1: This week we have former US Fish and Wildlife Service Director Steve Williams. All Right, well, thank you very much for coming on. Steve, What would you mind letting our audience know when you serve for the US Fish and Wildlife Service as director and how you got to that position. 00:01:06 Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, cow. Starting nineteen eighty five, I was a dear biologist in the state of Massachusetts, then moved on to a Pennsylvania Game Commission as the deputy executive director, and then spent seven years after that in Kansas as Secretary of Wildlife and Parks, And that took me up to Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service. That was George W. Bush administration. 00:01:30 Speaker 2: Yeah, so state and federal experience. 00:01:36 Speaker 3: Yes, and then another eighteen years after the Fishing Wildlife Service with the Wildlife Management Institute, which is a non governmental organization arguably the first professional wildlife organization, not agency, but it started nineteen eleven and through to this day, we've worked very us with federal government agencies and state fish and wildlife agencies. So yeah, I've got about thirty eight years experience at the state and federal level, and also you know, with the private. 00:02:12 Speaker 1: NGA, and you're with us here today to help us kind of understand our current rapidly evolving landscape of wildlife management here in the early days of the Trump administration round two, right, and we got in touch with you through. 00:02:41 Speaker 2: The Wildlife Society. 00:02:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been a member of that since nineteen seventy nine, I think seventy eight or seventy nine. 00:02:49 Speaker 2: And what you know. So there's so much to cover here. 00:02:54 Speaker 1: We want to keep this kind of short and concise, but a couple of big bullet points that have rolled out recently. 00:03:02 Speaker 2: I'd love to cover, such. 00:03:04 Speaker 1: As oftentimes I would say, like the rank and file hunters probably if at all, associate the US fishal Life Service with migratory birds like are federally regulated duck stamp associated ducks and geese and the regulation. 00:03:28 Speaker 2: Of those species. 00:03:30 Speaker 1: But I think we should also talk about what relationship is there between the FEDS, US Fish and Wildlife Service and our state agencies. 00:03:43 Speaker 3: That's one of my primary concerns. Cow You're right, absolutely right, that migratory bird management and that's you know, also connects with state fishing wildlife agencies. But at this point, there's two programs that really tie the FEDS and the state agencies and then therefore hunters and anglers together in this country. The first one is run by the Fish and Wildlife Service, and it's the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program. Nineteen thirty seven, Congress passed Pittman Robertson Act, or the Wildlife Restoration Act. The funds that Act uses are from an excise tax on a gun and ammunition manufacturers, So those manufacturers pay an excise tax to the federal government. That tax flows through the Fish and Wildlife Service to each of the state Fish and Wildlife agencies. Same thing on the fish side. That act goes back to nineteen fifty the Dingle Johnson Act. Same idea that manufacturers a fit equipment, tackle and so on. Pay an exercise tax to the federal government that goes through the Fish and Wildlife Service and out to every state Fish and Wildlife agency. Why is it important. It's about one point three billion dollars a year between what hunters and angres pay for their license fees in these sport Fish and Wildlife rerustration funds. That's the lifeblood of all state all fifty state Fish and Wildlife agencies. And the concern that many of us have is, well, there's a number of concerns, but one is the staffing levels that run that program throughout the country. Right now, they're regionally based. There's eight nine regions of the Fish and Wilife Service, and they work closely with their states to make sure that one point three billion dollars is spent on projects that are efficient and effective and you know, have impact, have an outcome, and there's a lot of to keep the integrity of the program going. There's a lot of things states must comply with and the federal government must comply with to make sure those dollars are spent legally and again, efficiently and effectively. It is arguably the engine that drives the greatest conservation successes in the world, and that is the direct tie between Fish and Wildlife Service and State Fish and Wildlife Agency. So as hunter, as a hunter and anger, myself and everybody that hunts and fishes in this country ought to be aware that the lands that state wildlife lands were huntings allowed fishing lands. Some of those were bought with those dollars. The management of those properties, many of those are paid for with those dollars, and research and management of populations are paid for with those dollars. If the states can't effectively receive those dollars and put them on the ground, hunters and anglers are going to see that very quickly. And I'm not sure you know that that folks are aware of it. I understand whether or not, because it's you know, it's a long process of great history. It's one of the best examples of the federal state partnership. 00:07:25 Speaker 1: Yeah, So when we say, like, well, what does this mean for us? Right, like, how how do these actions affect the end user that the consumer, the customer, the hunter and angler, It's can be everything from access quality habitat. 00:07:47 Speaker 2: To bag limits. 00:07:50 Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, Yeah, one of one of the big topics right now. And I literally just had this conversation yesterday with an uncle of mine, you know, heard something and I had to try to fact check it, and he said, will the inability to conduct the annual Migratory Bird Survey, which is a rumor going around right now that the US Fish and wild Life Service won't have enough funding to conduct, you know, the longest running migratory bird survey in the world, Will that shut down our waterfowl season? And you know, being an armchair expert, I felt qualified to say, well, no, I don't think this is going to stop our hunting season in the near term, but it is going to create a gap in data. And my recollection is you don't have to go all that far back to point to an example and say, Okay, like during the COVID years, the ability to conduct this survey was hindered as well, but we still had hunting seasons. However, going forward, knowing that the state of our migratory birds isn't as good as most people think it is, we could in theory, kind of be eating ourselves out of house and home because we won't have reliable data to set the bag limits in these flyways. 00:09:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, So the concern, as I understand it, is not just the funding concern, although that is one, no doubt, It's also a matter of staffing in personnel. Same things with my concern about staffing levels for the Wildlife and Sport Favorite Restoration program, I have the same concern about when it comes to migratory waterfowl counts surveys. Those surveys require pilots that are extremely experienced, most of them have flown for years and years and years. And with you know, these current efforts to reduce the reduction in forest or riff or layoffs or you know, firings, whatever you want to call them, that may impact the number of qualified pilots that we even be available to fly. So these, you know, you can't cut agencies willy nilly in terms of staffing, not knowing you know who needs to beware and when. And that seems to be a current with respect to the seasons. Yeah, I mean, I don't know at this point. I don't think anybody does. I doubt there'll be any cancelation of the season. However, as you're aware, Cow, those waterfowl surveys have been conducted for years, decades. They cover roots and they're they're counting the number of ponds and the number of ducks, and those two variables, number of ponds and number of ducks play an extremely important role in the fishing Wiler Service and the states coming together in setting seasoned lengths and bag limits. So in the absence of that data, yeah, I mean that they're pardon the pun, but they're kind of flying blind. And if if it is a pilot situation reducing the number of folks that can fly those routes. It's not a one year issue, you know, not anyone can just get up and start flying waterfowl surveys. If they can't conduct them this year, I have would have concerns about the next year, in the year beyond that in terms of, you know, do we actually have qualified people to conduct these surveys, and will Fish and Wildlife Service have the funding to conduct the surveys. That's the issue and the concern of most of us in the profession is we don't know where we're headed as a profession. 00:12:14 Speaker 1: And Steve, just to clarify something here, You're not talking about people who just have the ability to fly a plane. You're talking about some historical institutional knowledge that has to be at minimum kind of passed down to the next pilot in order to make these flights effective. 00:12:41 Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, And many of these survey lines are flown in extremely remote areas Northern Canada, Alaska. It's not like there's an airport, you know, next door. Refueling you know, can occur just on the ground with the pilot and an observer. I mean they're in the remote wilds of Canada, Northern Canada, so it's not like, you know, you just pick anybody off the road. You can fly a you know whatever, each craft Sessna and put them in those kind of conditions. There's a tremendous amount of training. These these folks are highly skilled. If you lose those cadre of pilots, that's you know, I have a concern about where we're going to be next year. In these buyouts of you know, early retirement, deferred retirement, I know that their staff, inefficient wives are taking them, not necessarily because they want to, but they think if I don't take this, I may get laid off in a reduction enforced move. As much as maybe thirty percent forty percent of the agency. I mean it's this that agency and wildlife conservation in this country has been built over one hundred years, proven to have success. Uh. You know, there's many laws out there that are again the pr d j AS nineteen thirty seven. Uh, and it's proven that it works, approved by Congress, monitored by Congress through you know, through the years. And then you know, without any real analysis or well any real analysis, to cut the funding for you know, these positions, the refuges, the fisheries programs, and the Fishing Wiligy Service, it just doesn't make sense. I've heard about efforts to consolidate or centralized personnel that are out in the regions across the country, the eight regions of the I'm sorry, the nine regions of the Fishing Oiledge Service, and to bring some of those functions to d C. That one really has me scratched in my head because I understand it. It's counter to what this administration believes and up said about it's important to put these federal people out where their constituents are. This is exactly the opposite. And it's like filling the swamp rather than draining the swamp. 00:15:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, DC is a little fire from the Pacific Flyway, right, yes, sir, and yeah, not to be glib here, but you know, the messaging that we're hearing out of DC is as as you said, it's really just doing what matters for the American people, right and providing those services at the local level and not having the quote unquote kind of like big government approach where they don't consult with the locals and it's just handed down from unseen forces in DZ. So you know, that's the answer that we need, right, is like what does the US ficial Aid life service do for the end consumer? And you know, ideally, if folks are aware of that and they see value in that, then they're going to stick. 00:16:19 Speaker 2: Up for that. 00:16:22 Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think they will cow And I mean, let me, let me just back up a minute. The idea that you should come in and and and take a look at what agencies are doing, how they're spending their money, where they're spending their money. You know, is it effective, is it efficient? I am all for that. I worked for four different state agents or three different state agencies and Innofficial Auto Service, and we were constantly looking for ways to improve efficiency and effectiveness. We did it by evaluating, you know, what was working, what wasn't working, getting rid of things that didn't work. Adding funding where we needed it to make it more effective. That's a common sense, very practical Dare I say a scientific way about improving agency effectiveness and agency programs. Unfortunately, that's not what we're seeing. What we're seeing is as folks go in the dose group go in, they may or may not have any experience, in this case in conservation and making decisions quickly that we're going to have a long term may have a long term impact on a fishing wildlife service and therefore on the state agencies that work closely with the Fishing Wildlife Service, and no state fish and wildlife agencies work directly for hunters, anglers and all the constituents in their state. I'm retired now, but I've spent my whole career working in fishing, wildlife conservation, and my heart breaks for what I see, what's happening and what may happen to again, conservation programs that are and viea of the world. 00:18:11 Speaker 1: You know, Like if we were to jump over to this last round, I think it's the last or the most recent I should say, round of executive orders titled zero based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy that popped out April ninth, and this one if I can read through it properly, and this is giving some faith to the federal government right now. The idea is to summarize regulations that have been amended and added on to for decades now in some cases, to modernize them, make them more easily to digestible, get rid of the extra paper and time it takes to read that paper. And when we talk about historical knowledge, you know that boots on the ground, this is how you make things work. The common sense, level headed part of me is like, well, I know what that's about. Because if you have somebody who's brand new to the job and they read something that says this is the way you're supposed to do this, the older person on the crew goes, yeah, yeah, that's what it says. But this is the way we actually do it, because this way pertains to our actual situation, whereas the paper is like a broad scope that doesn't necessarily pertain to the pertinent on the ground, step by step order of operations, and so like when we dig into any one of these, but you know, we can go back to like the Mining Act of eighteen seventy two, right like eighteen seventy two was a long time ago. In order to make that pertain with some degree of relevance, it's been added on to an amended multiple times throughout history. That one's not the best example, because nobody likes to touch the Mining Act. But how much of a setback, I guess is it for us? What would be the ability for somebody new and out of school who lands in one of these jobs to perform at a reasonable level like what doge wants, right, efficiency for our tax dollar without having that knowledgeable person on the cruise around for a decade already and knows how things work. 00:21:03 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an interesting question. Cal So, let's just think about what's really happening. A lot of the older folks, experienced folks who could retire or are close to retirement, may do that. We're seeing, you know, an increase in retirement and retirement in the service. I mean, people are that can get out. Many of them are getting out. Some of them are getting out because that may open up a slot for someone else to stay in, right but I mean not But and so we're losing some of the older folks with that institutional knowledge you're talking about. And at the same time, reducing the number of positions not just an official Wildays Service, but in the Park Service and all across the way. So if I were coming out of college right now, my opportunity to work for a federal land management agency's way down. You know that the openings will not be there, So you know, I don't know what I'll do. I'll look for another job somewhere else. So it's not just losing the institutional memory, it's also losing the ability to bring young folks in and move them up. The first round of these early retirement and deferred to early retirement and the probationary cuts also affected people in mid level, not just the people that have been there a year or so. If you were promoted, let's say you work for the Fisial Wiolence Service for twenty five years, you get promoted to some position, a higher position. If you got caught in that probationary period, you were out. That doesn't make any sense at all to anybody, I don't think, But that's the that's the kind of way that they're dealing with it. But back to the executive Order, I mean, you're right to be concerned about have people that have that knowledge to really know what it means and to put what it means on the ground. As I read it, and and I just got it earlier today and read it rather quickly, but as I understand what it does is it's well, I'll back up. So Congress passes the law Migratory Bird Act, Danger Species Act, whatever it might be, and then gives the agencies some leeway to develop regulations under the law. So those regulations come, they are developed by agencies, but they come with the direction from Congress. So Congress doesn't get weigh down in the weeds, but they provide the template for the agencies to develop regulations to carry out those laws. Okay, you know, can regulations be improved? Absolutely? I mean I wrote regulations in the past that you know, two three, four years later we got to change. That doesn't work. But now again, as I read it, these regulations for all the acts that were identified in an executive order, those agencies have been instructed to amend those regulations in sunset them in one year, so they have until September to look at the regulations. Add to each of those regulations, and you have to go through the Federal Register, and it's very involved process and say that this regulation sunsets a year from now. So if the first one was done, if play this scenario out, because this is reality. If the Service or whatever agencies you know, starts tomorrow and picks ten regulations, they say these things sunset a year from now, so April whatever we are seventeenth April seventeenth of twenty twenty six, that regulation is null and void unless it's amended and go through the regulator, the regulatory process, which is long involved, expensive, every regulation, not pick out the ones that really need to be you know, improved, modified, what have you. You've got to go through every regulation and every act, every law and one year sunset. I really hate being chicken little, But what administration is going to be around one year from now? We know that answer, So I mean it, if I were in the Service, I'm not sure how I how I would do my job because it just does It doesn't make any sense. Cow. I mean again, there's ways to do this, and and and these folks are smart enough. You know, businesses don't operate like this. They again, they collect information, they analyze that, they make changes, they monitor, there's changes. They then they change, you know, incrementally, this is one hundred year history of conservation in the country, and we're at the precipice of having one hundred years of experience go out the window because of some of these things that are coming out, you know, reduction in people, sun setting regulations again, review, modify, change regulations that they need to be. That's that's a common occurrence and an important occurrence. But to sunset all the regulations in one year, that's unprecedented. That's never happened in the history of this quest. 00:26:49 Speaker 1: And for the for the listeners here, and this is out of the Executive Order for the Fish and Wildlife Service. This order applies to all regulations issued pursuing to the following statutes and any amendments there too, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of nineteen eighteen, the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act of nineteen thirty four, the Anadramus Fish Conservation Act of nineteen sixty five, the Marine Mammal Protection Act of nineteen seventy two, the Endangered Species Act of nineteen seventy three, the Magnus and Stephens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of nineteen seventy six and the Coastal Barrier Resources Act of nineteen eighty two. 00:27:30 Speaker 2: A lot more going on. 00:27:31 Speaker 1: Here too, I would ask, is, so you take the Marine Mammal Protection Act of nineteen seventy two, and we've seen in certain areas a pretty significant rebound sea lions, seals, sea otters, those types of species that you know to the work in everyday angler and even the creational angler can be a pain in the butt when it comes to nets or even fish on hook and line. Would we I know this is forecasting here, but is there a possibility that we would see something like the Marine Mammal Protection Act in nineteen seventy two amended in a way that would be reflective of changes in those populations in a positive sense? Or is it literally because of the regulatory framework, are we going to be in a position where all of these acts and the regulations pursuant or in so much flux that they're just not essentially going to be in effect. 00:28:49 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a workload issue, I think. Count I don't know how with less staff, considerably less staff, as I understand, how are there going to be able to process all those regulations and there are thousands of them again built time, you know, over time, based on experience, modified, amended, and so on, based on experience. So I think that the overall I answered that just to your question is could this have an impact on hunters and angusy, Yes, absolutely not, just could will It may be positive in some ways, maybe negative in some ways, But that executive order, as I'm sitting here talking to you, I'm thinking about it again, go in surgically and say we have issues with these, with these one hundred regulations, that executive order is lazy. It's inefficient. If you follow what I'm saying. If you've got issues with those, regular dig in, find which ones you have problems with, and work to amend them to whatever ends you want. In a send, you know, it's energy, energy of development. And again I mean I drive a Chevy fifteen hundred Silver Autum and a Chevy Suburban, so I understand the need for energy, oil and gas. But to put out an executive versus okay, you guys again, a reduced staff at the Service and every other federal agency. You've got to look at every one of these laws and the thousands of regulations that go along with it. Sunset every one of them in a year, and then we'll decide what we're going to do that is as inefficient as I can imagine. I mean, I don't know where the Department of Government efficiency falls. I know where they fall down on it, but I would say, you know, they need to do their job and identify what the problems are, not just you know, wholesale blanket over everything, and then leave it up to a federal workforce which is going to be quite less than it is today. It's it's a recipe for disaster. And trying to go through all these regulations and through the regulatory process, I don't I really don't see how it can even happen. I can't imagine how you can possibly practically practically go through that process. And I suspect the folks that help write that executive order have had no experience going through the regulatory process. I'd like to know, you know, who is behind all that, and then ask them, you know, have you ever gone through this process. It's lengthy, it costs money, it takes people, it takes public input. It's not a simple. It's not as simple as they seem to make it. And I think it's because they don't have experience dealing with it. 00:32:07 Speaker 1: You know, all of these are you know, it's it's like forecasting. It's kind of unfair questions here, So I apologize, Steve, but no problem. What is like if it's a disaster in the making, Like what if you could pick one out of that list, Like what is the effect going to be on the hunter and angler here? Like what's the felt effect? And just to kind of throw out where my mind goes, right, is like part of the the value to I would say the American people of like that migratory bird survey, right is knowing how many prairie potholes there are, specifically how many we have left due to habitat destruction. And the fewer there are, the more valuable they are. Right now, a good buddy mine in the in the Pacific Flyway, Central Valley, California, you know, sent me the updated regulations and for the first time in a very long time, you're going to be able to shoot I think it's three pintail this season, and it used to be just one. And boy did those Californians scream like mash cats over the fact that they they can only shoot one pintail because yeah, you see a ton of pintails, but you know one to three is a big shift, and it's you know, it's an either sex regulation. It's not not a drake only. I believe that's correct. And you know what without that survey, if in fact it doesn't go through, Like, how do we really know the effects of that regulation change? And how do we know the value of the quantity and value of the nesting areas those those potholes, those intermittent wetlands that we have left. 00:34:10 Speaker 3: Yeah, we won't. And and the fact that you know, you go from one to three bird limit on pintails. Obviously that's you know, that's a function of water levels and breeding conditions and so on. But how did we get to that? Through science? Through the waterfouse surveys, through building more and more confidence, you know, in the harvest structure, and we learn year to year to year and those things get better. There's ability to predict and increase bag limits and so on season lengths. That's built on again, you know, almost one hundred years of experience doing something and improving upon it, throwing out what does and work? Emphasizing what does work? I mean, that's how you get to a situation where you can go from one to three pin deals with confidence. You know, it's not just the ficial Ology service scientists. It's also state fishing WILFE agency waterfowl biologists who sit down and you know, they're obviously concerned about conservation of those species as well as providing you know, the optimum or maximum of hunting opportunity. If if they go through some migratory bird TREATI ACT for instance, and many others, and those regulations change, it throws, you know, a monkey wrench into the whole process. It could, I mean, it may or may not, but my thinking is it certainly will. And then those acts, there's many of them, address habitat, not just a species, but habitat. So how will UH hunter and angler be impacted by potential changes in those regulations? And again, as the viewing those regulations through the lens of energy development, all right, you know what impedes energy development? I mean that's the way I read it. And I may read it wrong. I freely admit that. But if I may, if I read it right, those regulations will be modified in order to promote encourage energy development that occurs on private land and on public lane that may occur on some of your favorite big game migration corridors. Uh, you know, flyways, winter habitat for big game, summer habitat for big game impact of fisheries. I mean, all those things are in play in terms of reviewing changing regulations within a year or so in order to you know, have the US become energy dominant, which which by the way, we pretty much are right now. 00:37:26 Speaker 1: Okay, so we've we've talked a little bit about the well a lot ultimately about migratory birds and some some season settings and and possible impacts of regulation. What else, as we see kind of a curtail of the ability of US Fish and Wildlife Service to work in a lot of ways. I don't know how else to put it. Where else are we going to get hurt here? As this as the end consumer. 00:37:54 Speaker 3: So there's a lot of land management agencies, you know, for service, park service, fishing, wology or as BLM and so on. But we haven't talked about is US Geological Survey, which is a science based agency that serves a lot of the agencies, particularly in the Department of material But actually, I mean many different agencies in the US Geological Survey they have a biological component, if you will, and I understand again through some sources that have looked at the President's budget request that zero is out all that biological capacity of the US Geological Survey, and within that is the Cooperative Fish and wild Life Research Units, or I'll just call them the cooperative Research Units. I don't know a lot of folks know about them. They've been around since nineteen thirty four. The cooperative research units are the cooperation between a state fish and Wildlife agency, universities, the USGS, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and also the Wildlife Management Institute, which is a private partner in that group. And that I was the president of Wildlife Management Institute. I've been involved with the cooperative research units since my PhD nineteen eighty five or so eighty four, and those age the cooperative research units. There's about forty of them across the country. Again, they're affiliated with the university in the state and state fish and wildlife agencies who have real world questions, real world problems can go to the cooperative research unit bring some funding to the table. The USGS pays only for the staff the researchers in that state and typically there's three or four leaders and assistant leaders in each one of these co op units who have grad students who work on all kinds of different wildlife issues. They have expertise that some of them or many of the state fish and wildlife agencies don't, So they get together with the university with the cooperative research units and conduct research on all kinds of things fisheries, on trustrial mammals. One example probably best known right now is the Migratory Core Big Game Migratory Corridor that was driven primarily through the Wyoming Cooperative Research Unit Matt Kaufman. There. That work probably could never have gotten done by an individual state. They're critical to state fish and wildlife agencies. The demand for additional cooperative research units is out there. There's other states. There's ten or so states that don't have cooperate research units, and many of them, you know, just anxious to get that. So they're the guys that do the research that answers real world questions the state agencies can't do on their own. If they are eliminated, that research ability will will be gone. I mean, there's nobody else that can provide that right now, and it's a cost effective program. These guys that are the men and women that are unit leaders and assistant unit leaders train hundreds of grad students every year. Those grad students go on, you know, to all kinds of positions. I've been both the student of the cooperative research unit. I've interacted three state fish and wildlife agencies with cooperative research units. They are essential to fish and wildlife conservation in this country. They do their work again, effectively, efficiently, and if the President's budget request goes through as planned, they will cease to exist, leaving a gaping hole again in a history that started back in nineteen thirty four and here we are in twenty twenty five. And you know, there have been adjustments through the years, but total elimination is something I've never heard of. It's unprecedented. 00:42:27 Speaker 1: And that migration corridors are literally buzzword in conservation these days because of that research, right, connectivity migration corridors and honestly, like wildlife overpasses too. 00:42:46 Speaker 3: Yeah, and here's the thing that is even more puzzling. Based on that research, in the first Trump administration, they came out with an executive order secretary order that provided a lot of funding and tremendous work was done. 00:43:06 Speaker 1: Well yeah, right, Ryan Zink right here in Montana, right, he was migration corridor champion. 00:43:11 Speaker 3: Yeah, and he was, and he helped push that through. And a good friend of mine, Casey Stembler, we played a huge role. 00:43:18 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:43:19 Speaker 3: Uh, you know, and and to see that work undone, it boggles my mind. I mean, and in the Trump administration to be fair, in the first round, I mean, the you know, Great America Now Doors Act, the migrant migration corridors, there was a lot of good work done for concertiation. But this just seems like a different animal, a different situation we're dealing with. And you know, we talked about instead of putting folks in the regions to to you know, to deal with those regional issues, collapsing them to d C, some of those functions to d C. It seems to be contrary to some of the success that we, you know, we saw on the first Trump administration. 00:44:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, again, starting with the with local input on the local level exactly, and then finding that that support at the federal level to implement the good ideas coming off. 00:44:20 Speaker 2: From the ground. 00:44:22 Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, what was the executive order, the Migration Quarter executive order that that Casey worked on five five three something. 00:44:33 Speaker 3: Well, now you're putting me on yeah, it was three three three zero five. 00:44:39 Speaker 2: I don't know. 00:44:39 Speaker 1: I have to look at three seven nine, So I don't know, you can. 00:44:45 Speaker 2: I don't know. 00:44:46 Speaker 3: All I know. All I know is it was effective and it really and it's really working well. 00:44:52 Speaker 1: Yeah, I brought money on the ground and just as important, it put a big spotlight on. 00:45:00 Speaker 2: The need and the issue. 00:45:03 Speaker 1: And the need and the issue wouldn't have been there without the research exactly. 00:45:09 Speaker 2: You know, I really hold out. 00:45:11 Speaker 3: I hate to be a total pessimist, and I'm not a chicken little guy. I really hold out a lot of hope that you know, in time and shortly, the administration, you know, hears from folks that you know, are sharing some of the concerns that I have. I know that that Donald Trump Junior in the first Trump administration, you know, got involved in some of these conservation issues and influenced decisions that we're very positive for conservation. You know. I hope that you know, he might be able to I know he can understand. I hope I have some opportunity to provide some influence. I mean, he obviously is is you know a big hunter and angler himself, who's done one of the kinds of things that you and I do, and sees some of the best intentions, you know, end up wrong with unintended consequences. And the speed at which this progress, if you will, is going on is what really concerns me. And you know, I hope at some point, you know, perhaps he could be a major influence in the administration, and I know he can. I'm not sure that he you know, he's aware of all this stuff because it's fast moving and a lot of it's in the weeds, and it takes people with decades of experience to kind of look through and say, Okay, I do understand what they're trying to do, and I'm very supportive of that, but I have concerns about the way it's being done. You know, status quo is you're falling behind if you're sticking with the status quo. But the only way to move forward is if you have a path forward, a well thought out plan with input from everybody. And you know, that's the way to make changes, in my opinion, not you know, just just based on numbers, how many dollars, how many people can we cut and eliminate that's not going to make an effective government. It's much more detailed than that. 00:47:18 Speaker 1: Well, you know, we certainly used to say all the time that I think when we would talk about like the greatest threats, my answer was always apathy. Hunters and anglers are fantastic people. That's certainly who I choose to spend my time with, but often times they don't get motivated until there's a direct threat in their backyard. And I think speed at which this administration is moving the party politics, being so divisive through the campaign process has put people all on their heels a little bit, and we just need to remind them that just as you said, you can say, hey, I love the intention here, but this stuff's really important to me, and we need to use the scalpel, not not the machete approach or however you want to spin it, because you know that there are some very real consequences to losing funding and personnel in some of these areas, for you know, the the hunter and angler. 00:48:35 Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm doing the machine that got us here where we are today, the conservation machine. I'm dooing that without careful thought and planning is my greatest concern and you know, not just mine selfishly, but again for my kids, for my grandkids who fish on hunt. I hate to say, you know, ten years down the road to my grandkids, that all the glory days were ten years ago in twenty twenty five, and then things changed. And I'm sorry that you don't have the opportunity, you don't have the habitats. You know, you don't have the science behind wildlife conservation like I did during my career, and that thought is really depressing to me. 00:49:25 Speaker 1: And it is, it is, And I think there's a heck of a lot of hunters and anglers out there that know the very real feeling of pointing to a spot where they caught a big fish or killed a big buck or whatever, and now it's a house or the access has been closed off, right Like, we all have those experiences and have told those stories on occasion, so we know that's real. And I am very confident in the fact that this audience UH is well motivated and they can call and write and advocate for themselves and their pursuits and their their love and appreciation for these landscapes and these animals as well, right So, and I think that can and should go hand in hand with with running our government in a in a good way. 00:50:24 Speaker 3: So yeah, and I and you're right, it's the folks listening to this podcast that can make a difference. 00:50:33 Speaker 1: Uh. 00:50:33 Speaker 3: And I go even further and say they have a responsibility to do that. They've enjoyed so much and future generations deserve to have what we've had are better. So the responsibility relies with all of us right now to say, hey, let's just pause from it, figure out how to do this in the right way, make government more efficient, get rid of waste, fraud, in abuse. But let's do it in a careful plan way, the same way that we've had the conservation successes of today. It hasn't been a hurcy jerky you know, try this, try that. It's been done through a you know, a careful, carefully thought out scientific method, you know, trial error, learn from mistakes, reevaluate what you're doing. And that's how we've got to where we are today. And the folks listen to this, you know, they know their legislative of folks in there where they live, and I would just ask them to reach out and say this stuff is important to me, Please keep an eye on it. You know, and let's don't ruin the future for my kids and my grandkids. Because I've had a great career hunting fishing and it's so important to my quality of life. I just fear for the future. I really do. I mean, I'm sixty eight. Who knows how long I'll be hunting as long as I can, so I'm trying to do what I can do. I've tried to do what I could do af throughout my career. So it's up to everybody else and me and everybody else to affect change the way the way. 00:52:12 Speaker 2: That makes sense, darn right, darn right. 00:52:15 Speaker 3: And Kyle, I'll say, I really appreciate you guys getting this out because a lot of folks don't know how would they know this, you know, without podcasts like yours that really double into the issues. And I hope and I know people will be better informed and they'll make better decisions because of the work you guys do. They're a meat eat or getting a word out and and you know on some stuff that's that's pretty complicated, pretty complex, but we all share the same thing, you know, and that's a better future for hunting and fishing. 00:52:49 Speaker 1: Absolutely well. I appreciate your service there, Steve. This has been Steve Williams with formerly the US Fish and Wildlife Service Director and George W. And I'm gracious enough to hop on and share some experience and thoughts regarding some of the changes that are real and potential that we're seeing today. So thank you very much, Steve, and I think our takeaway as or usual right is, at a minimum, get to know your elected officials as well as their staff call right email and let them know that, hey, this stuff is important to you, and so much so that you need to make sure it's around for the next generation. If you have any questions for Steve Williams, please write into a s k C A L. That's ask heal at the meeteater dot com and we'll either get him back on or we'll ask him and let you know on the podcast. Thanks again, we'll talk to you next week. 00:53:53 Speaker 3: Thank you, Ca, it's been a pleasure. En Aten D

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