00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything, all right. The first order of business is I need to do a correction. We were talking there day for a long time, long long time on this same program about Ursus arctos okay, or the brown bear, and I was talking about all kinds of stuff I don't know the truth about, and am Dr Jarco wrote in to clarify something to me. He was like, I was saying, how I I don't know where I got this in my head that ursus the old name for grizzlies was ursus horeblus, like horrible bear. But this guy called in and clarified that in fact, it's that's like an example of trinomial nomenclature, where it's ursus arctos horeblus. Ursus arctos hereblas was and is a name for interior brown bears, so like the grizzly bear would be ars arctos horeblus. I thought that they dropped the horeblus because it was like bad pr for the bears. But he says that is not correct. He said No. He had a couple of those gripes of things that I kind of don't really agree with. Oh yeah, he clarified something I also said that I used as an example of trinomial nomenclature would be Ursus arctos arctos. He says, that's perfectly valuable, value valid. But I should have pointed out that that is Ursus arctos arctos is the Eurasian grizzly, not found in North America. And he had a third gripe where he said that, and I this is what I kind of disagree with them about. I was talking about binomial Norman clature, which is like the Lennean system, where you have uh, for instance, Ursus arc toes, which should be like northern bear. He was saying that the second word in that, so if you like Homo sapiens, okay, I used the second word like it was like genus and species, but he said the second part of the epithet, So in Homo sapien, the second part of the epithet refer is just called that's just the species. It's not fair to say that the second part is the species, because the two things make up the thing. So they're Dr Jarco. I'm saying your name right now. Second thing, Uh, do you guys go with seeker Sicka? Because I hear both ways you like I've been corrected. I used to. When I first came here a year ago, I called him Sicca, and I was corrected by some of the locals. Well, I think the locals are think. I don't know if pauses a lot of confusion with the Sitka, the Sitka black tail deer. Yep. But I have a hunting video that Janna shared with me, called by by an outfit called Chesapeake Pursuits or something like that, And those are the first boys I've ever heard say Sica, not sca. Mm hmm. Yourt an opinion about it? The locals, I think say Sica. I say Sicca, did you do? And you're the damn biologists, So I'm probably wrong the locals, I think so because I say Seca to do let's do intros as though dealing as though dealing poker. Um, there's me and then there's yea, hon do no do a big long intro, oh, big long intro. I just don't have to just because yeah, he's no one. I'm Marcia pratings, and I'm the project leader for the Chesapeake Marshaland's National Wildlife Each Complex, which includes Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Eastern Neck, Martin and Susquehanna. We're a significant percentage of all. We're gonna go SICCA right now, I'm going Seek of the whole show. You can stick with sick, stick with yeah, alright, all the same thing. We're not talking about sick of black tails? All right? You know what I'm going with SICKA al right, which is where a significant percentage of all I still can't decide if I want to go with seeker sick of what do you recommend? I'm going I'm going sick. I live here, so I'm going to go with the locals I'm running. I'm running sick of the whole program. Yeah, and you run SKA just out of fairness, it's like to keep it bipartisan. So that refuge complex is where a significant percentage of all the sick of deer living in the United States of America live. That's correct. You probably can't venture a guest though, as to what percentage almost one percent between the refuge and the state land um that represents a pretty big percentage of the public of the public land, there are there are a lot of deer on private land to um. But yeah, the refuge system definitely holds a huge part of the population of the of the total population. Yeah. Um, anything else you want to add about your you want to clarify what? Um? What what falls under your jurisdiction there under your job title? Sure, Well, I'm the refuge manager here at Blackwater, so I oversee basically everything that goes on on the refuge, including our biological program, our visitor services, our maintenance, everything from taking care of the almost two hundred thousand visitors that come visit Blackwater each year to taking care of all of our roads and uh, you name it. So we make two hundred thousand count hunters because you run so you oversee the hunting programs. Yes, correct, and that do you have a number on hunters that visit your Yeah, we have about eighteen hundred individual hunters that apply for permits each year, and they apply for over permits different types of hunts. Yeah, so there's more permits than hunters. Yeah, that's correct. If you look at how our hunting season runs, you can apply for quota hunts non quota hunts different days and so forth, so that's why, and so one hunter might have multiple permits, right, So that's why I distinguished. We've got about eighteen hundred deer hunters, I should say, because we also have waterfowl hunting and turkey hunting on the refuge too, to a lesser degree. So even though you run a permit we'll get into more that we'll get into this a greater detail. But even though you run a permit system there, you don't turn away hunters like anyone that wants to hunt and get a crack at it. Well, we do have it depends we have quota hunts where we only allow so many hunters per unit, so they'll be limited in that respect. In our muzzle loader hunts and our shotgun hunts get pretty full. Archery stays are our trees open yea, and that goes from September eighth, the state opener, until it ends at the end of January. So our tree has been unlimited, all right. So jumping along on our intros, Steve, Steve Kendrot, I'm a wildlife biologist with the USDA, but today I'm joining you just as a avid sick of hunter you're running sick of I'll run sick of today. Yeah. Really, but if we're going to do that, we also have to talk about he has a house in Dorchester County, so yeah, he's you're a whole You're like a resident here, your local Yeah sort of. I don't think the locals ever consider anybody that ain't born here resident. But uh, but yeah, I've been here for since two thousand two. We've been pursuing the elusive secret deer or sick of deer. I bounced back and forth. We're gonna start talking about and bull miners. The locals talk about minnows and turtles. So yeah, there's a whole lexicon of interesting names for critters down this way. I'm with you. Um. And then finally, Brian, I am dear biologist for Maryland Department of Natural Resources. So you're the head chief. You've kind of like these words. You're the main dear biologists. Sure, but Maryland is a small state. So yeah, there's there's we have. There's two two dear biologists that work for the state, myself and and uh George Tempco does urban suburban We have a lot of urban suburban areas in the states. So we have a biologist dedicated to trying to deal with whitetail deer and and there's areas so, but I mainly set mainly you know, UM, analyze harvest data overseas collection to harvest data and biological data, any of the research we're doing. Uh. You know, we've done numerous studies on one sick of deer down here? UM and uh so yeah, are you um, how long have you been doing that for? Um? I have been with d n R for sixteen years, and I was involved with deer research before that through penn State University. Um, so I've been I've been dealing with deer for plus years. What got you wanted to do? Was it deer hunting? They got you wanted to become a biologist? Yeah, I grew up and I'm a Pennsylvania kids, so I grew up deer hunting and and then and then, UM, is it true that you kind of got away from a little bit now that that's all you work on? Um? Yeah, I got away for I escaped from deer for a brief period when I was a fishing wildlife service and then I got sucked back in. I did actually did my master's down here on one stick on white tail, and then I started with the stage or shortly after. So do you still hunt? Yeah? Oh yeah definitely, so not as much as I used to, um, because I'm kind of working when everybody else is hunting. But yeah, now do you here's a quick question for you. Then we'll get into the main matter. Do you ever find? Are you ever? Like, man, I wouldn't have got that buck if it weren't for all my schooling? No? Or does it totally different? Like being a deer biologist and being a dude shooting deer is like two different things, two different tool kids, different thing. Yeah, different things. Yeah, when you you know, when you work with a deer for forty hours a week, it's you know, it's changes things a little bit. So I mean definitely the knowledge helps, no question. The knowledge here that you pick up helps. Um. Yeah, so so you feel that, uh like you feel that being a your experiences as I guess because yeah, you must look at so much like deer sign all the time and just like well like learn to recognize areas that hold a lot of animals and not Yeah, I mean you know that you have that insight. Um. But then also just the access to data, I mean, just the data end up though. Yeah, you just know how to mind it. Yeah, well I don't. I mean you could, yeah, you couldn't mind it and use it. But yeah, um, all right now I'm gonna go back to the beginning. Who okay, why are the deer here? Just to clarify this deer species sick of seka deer aren't if you've never heard of them? Is because they're not even they're not a native. They're not native wildlife, right, they're non natives. And how well do you know the I know that it's not totally knowable because there's some mystery about there there there, where they came from and how they got here? But can you sketch that out? Like why is it that a little corner of Maryland has a huntable population of a deer that no one's ever heard of before? Yeah, it's kind of an interesting story. Um. They the subspecies we have, So you were talking about your brown bears and nomenclature. So the subspecies we have is service Nippon Yukushimi. Um so there, and that's a Japanese subspecies, yakusha. And they came from Yakushima Island off the southern tip of Japan back in the early eighteen hundreds. They were apparently imported from Yakushima Island into Ireland. Not sure what the connection there was or anything, but so the deer we have here didn't come straight from Japan. They they were imported into Ireland. From Ireland, they were gifted to various individuals, probably pretty important people, um yeah, and they ended up in Britain, etcetera. And then at some point in the late eighteen hundreds or actually early nineteen hundreds, Um, apparently there were half dozen maybe um, that were gifted to an individual here in Cambridge, Maryland. Has nothing to do with this story. Not this story. Now, I didn't give him some of these or something like that. Not Theodore Roosevelt. Now he's not involved in this story that I'm aware of. That Clement Henry was a gentleman's name told me that. Did you tell me that I might have that? Dude. I feel like every every non native story from back then is like, yeah, someone gave Teddy six of these or Teddy took six elk and shifted to New Zealand. Right now, not not in this story that I'm aware of. And who was the guy again, Um, Clement Henry was the gentleman here in Cambridge that had him. And was he thinking like was he like, you know what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take these deer and I'm gonna cut him loose out in the marsh. No, he had him in captivity. And I don't think the story is real clear whether as he got too many in captivity he would release them or if he just all at once said hey, I'm getting rid of my dear and I'm gonna stick him out here on James Island, which is the mouth of the little chop tank. Uh see, so he caught it. He thought maybe that did they'd stay on the island. Yeah, I think that was probably the thought, and you know put him out on the island. Um, of course they didn't. You know, we were the let Well the last hundred years basically there's been a slow expansion across southern Dorchester. And is it true that he may be cut looses to as few as two so well he not it could have went further back than that, but yeah, if you so, we had the Smithsonian Institute look at some genetics work and this was back fifteen years ago. Um. But their genetics work and then even some more recent genetics work from University of Delaware UM shows that there is basically no variation in these animals. And so yeah, they probably our population probably started from two individuals, and those individuals may even have been siblings, is the way they have. But no, these animals are doing great, so like a tremendous bottleneck. But then they don't have a problem with nothing. Now if you either over the years, different there's been different studies. They've looked at parasite loads and just you know, general health, and actually they are cleaner and healthier than our native whitetail deer. Does that original island still have some Um, No, that island at that time, the islands, Yeah, actually they still do have that subspecies. But the interesting thing is we probably have more, I'm sure we do. We have more here than what they have over there. Has anyone ever taken one from that island in Japan and one from here and just stood them next to each other to see if there's some visible Because when you just start a population with a small amount, you could have some Yeah, you would have some freaks, right, you could have some unusual animals and then have create. If you look at pictures on the internet, they're identical, you would say. If you looked at one for a picture of one from Yukushi mile and you think you were looking at the Dorchester County sick. So when they first when he first drive him in, were people trying to regulate them? No? Early on, yeah, early on there weren't seasons in bag limits for him, and they weren't very popular, to be honest with you. You know, for as far as a hunted hunted species go UM regulations really started in uh, probably in the eighties, I guess was when with when we started really got aggressive, you know, started recognizing, hey, they may be an issue, they could be a problem, um, and they started to be regulated in that manner to try to not not to get rid of them. You know, we never they kind of found a niche down here. They're not like an invasive species like nutria. UM. So we've never approached at that you with the philosophy that we were going to eradicate them like neutria because they have kind of found niche and they're they're popular, um. But at the same time, we don't want a whole del Marva Peninsula full of secondary either. So you do not want that, No, no, we want to try to keep them here in Dorchester. And but they've they've expanded. They they're like expanding now slowly. Yeah, they have expanded. Uh, you know they're in Delaware now. Um, we've had Delaware has had a couple. What's their take on harvested? They would prefer to keep them out. So it is there is there a line around the known Like Steve you were saying, is if you look at what do you call the peninsula where I know we're on the del Marva Peninsula, explain that just for people to to understand, Well, that's that big chunk of land between the Chestpeake Bay in the Atlantic Ocean, comprised of all of the state of Delaware, the portion of Maryland that's on the eastern shore of the Chesspeake Bay, and then the Virginia portion. So del Marva how peninsula gets and what's the peninsula that has all the deer if you look at it? But does they have a name as a peninsula? Is that just Dorchester County? Yeah, Dorchester County is is uh sits between the chop Tank and the Nanacooke River, so it it sort of forms a peninsula, I guess, but it's not recognized as one. Yeah. And if you're looking at a map and you find if you go to Maryland and then you find Dorchester County, you'll see there's a highway sort of a that that county sort of sits on a peninsula, and there's a highway that kind of cuts the the base of the peninsula diagonally fifty Highway fifty right. And most of these deer live south and west of that highway. Is that correct? Correct? Correct? And it's about how many well, our modeling would put it somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand. That's probably a minimum um. We harvest three thousand a year, so you know, I mean, if you look at a percentage, if you're harvesting of your animals, are side of that put you in that ballpark somewhere between ten and ten and fifteen thousand probably And is there like a has they won't gone and drawn a band like if you say that they're welcome here, because they're not. They're occupying one they're very popular with hunters, and they're occupying a landscape where they're not really coming into direct contact. They use the area differently than white tails. They like to hang out in places of the white tails don't like to hang out. But has anyone ever drawn a line and said that we will have zero tolerance for these deer across this line? Now, we don't approach it from that, from that, you know, to that black and weight of a degree, it's just you know, like I said, we we would like to keep them in in southern Dorchester. You know, they're in there in why Comic Coo, They're in Somerset, a few of them in Somerset. Um, generally they're expanding up our rivers. You know then, whether it's the job Tank or the Nanna Cooke, the Marshy Hope off Banana Cooke. Um, that's how like they're fine in their way into Caroline in some of these areas. Um. So you know, we'll just tweak seasons and bag limits to try to to try to keep that population here, you know, contained in Dorchester as much as we can. But but now there's never been really a hard line drawn. I mean, and do you feel like you guys can can you like open and close the valve pretty reliably by by tweaking hunting seasons. No, we can't. Um, you know, we can do our best, um, but we don't have enough hunters and a lot of the locals down here would disagree with that. But in all honesty, we don't have enough hunters and enough hunting pressure to really regulate this species or port white tails for that matter. Um. Our hunters are saturated. So you know, I mean, what do you mean as far as seasons at bag limits. I mean we're very we're very we're very liberal. Yeah, they have we have it very. We're in the good old days of deer hunting. You know, when you can hunt from September to the end of jam neary Um and we have if your archery hunting white tails down here, you can, we have there's no limit. You can antler lists. You can harvest as many antlerless white tails with archery equipment as you want in a in a year. So you know, our average hunter takes well, I think it's I think it's just two point zero deer now was one point nine deer for a lot of years. But our average hunter takes two point zero deer a year because that's what they can use. And that's you know, they're not going to waste deer and and expend more efforts. So you know, and our hunter numbers are fairly stayable. They've been stay able over the last you know, ten years or so. But but we have half as many hunters is what we have when we peeked back in the seventies. Um and that's not just a Maryland phenomena, you know what I mean, you look at the East. Not so bad in the Midwest or the West, but in the East, I mean, hunter numbers are really seriously declined. And um so as a deer manager kind of concerns you. So there's how many, like if you've if you have half, like half the participation you had in the sevenies, the generation to go, Yeah, how many what what's the do you know? Like how many how many more or less deer do you have now than the seventies. Gosh, we have ten times as many deer. It was way more deer for a person. Yeah, So what were they doing back then? Well, you know a lot of them weren't deer hunters back then. I should I should clarify that, you know, I mean, I mean that's when I'm saying, when I'm saying half as many hunters. That's all hunters, so that's small game, that's waterfowl, that's deer, et cetera. Because and we didn't have as many deer hunters back then because there weren't as many deer obviously. UM. So you know, we may have we probably have more deer hunters now than what we had in the seventies. UM, but it's just because of that shift from small game. You know, we don't have pheasants anymore. Yeah, you probably don't know that history. That's that's for another time. Yeah. You know, well back in back in the sixties seventies, pheasants were really popular, you know, small games species, and they still are in the mid you know, in the Midwest. UM. But a lot of our hunters when when when pheasants went away, they shift, Some of them shifted the deer, some of them probably stopped hunting or just kept hunting waterfowl. UM. So you know, we total numbers, we don't have near the hunter effort that we that we used to have, UM and and and deer hunting days actual number of deer hunting days peaked in the nineties actually UM at about a hundred and I think we had probably a hundred and seventy five thousand days of deer deer hunting effort um, and now we have I think my last estimate was about eighty thousand, So again about about half half as many hundred days going towards deer. But they're killing probably twice as many deer for that half effort. Yea, So are there more sick of deer now than anytime? I'm in sick of deer history? Our models would say yeah, so the last now it bounces around, but but just and just say the last five years. Yes, there's more. Over the last five years, there's there's more secreteer sickredeer than than any common history. That population is increasing, Yeah, I'm going back to say population. So, uh, there is the consensus that they're harder, that it's harder to hunt them, because here's the thing I was reading your report. Harder to hunt them than what harder than hunting white tails because they live so much longer than white hills, right, which leads you to believe that it's like one of them has a That might not mean they're harder to hunt, it's just there's like a less chance that they're gonna die from something like ten year olds are common, right, Yeah, yeah, I don't know if i'd say common. But we've had We've probably had half a dozen that I know, or over twenty um that I've had my hands. The one that we're tagged back in like the late eighties or early nine. You know that you're not going by tooth analysis. Someone knows the year they hung a tag on that thing, so it was already alive when I got tagged. Yeah, we're and some of those were by tooth analysis, but um, but yeah, you know, I mean we've had, we've had them over twenty Again, they're not falling out of trees, but but yeah, it's not uncommon. They're definitely longer lived than white tails. Do you think they're longer lived than white tails? Because you probably can't even you probably can't know this. Absolutely they longer lived in white tails just because they're just they live longer just or is it because of predation is different on them? The other ones can chime in, but I would say predation is different as in, as in their their natural habits just make them a little harder to hunt. They're a little more nocturnal. The habitat they're in is just harder to hunt. You know, you always hear all they're smarter than white tails. I don't think they're smarter than white tails. Um No, they just living twelve foot tall. They live in twelve foot tall their security cover is just provides them an opportunity to escape hunting pressure and they'll turn nocturnal like that. Um yeah, they used they use the ground like how like a cotton til uses a briar pack. Yeah. Yeah, and uh, A lot of people in Maryland use bait as well, and I believe that bait tends to favor nocturnal behaviors as well. So despite the fact that you know, I think it enhances their hunting success, I actually think it contributes to less success. It concentrates the deer. They don't have to move as much. They're not exposed to hunters as they move across the landscape as they would if they had the forge for natural foods. So I think it helps to sort of keep them small home ranges, and that, you know, helps to minimize the pressure on an individual deer. So you do get some that that little lot longer. What I got a question Marsha's bating allowed on the refuge. Baiting is not allowed any of the refuges, and and and no public land, that's correct, no abating on public to private land early. But it's really heavily used that private land, right, Unfortunately it is. And we're like it's like a patchwork quilt of landownerships. So you've got Blackwater, it's a lot of contiguous land. We've got about almost thirty tho acres, but you've got these private landowners, a lot of sick clubs in particular pockmarking the whole refuge as well and cranking out corn yep. So it certainly impacts everything. So how how is it like on the from the refuge side of things, how is it determined by a national wildlife refuge to allow or not allow bait? I mean, is that something that would just is that something that would a decision that would be made in d C that would just apply to all refuges. Is that an individual decision that a refuge can make for itself. Well, that's a great question. Everything that we do as a national wildlife as a national wildlife refuge, all the ends on, is it going to harm or or improve wildlife? Conservation. So that's the first question we have, and we allow what we call the Big Six, which are six priority uses hunting, fishing, wildlife, photography, wildlife observation, ment, education, interpretation. These things are actually in a law called the National Wildlife Refuge Improvement Act of that says we're here for wildlife. That's the purpose. That's why we're dedicated, and we're on the ground. And each refuge will have a little bit different purpose. So, for instance, Blackwater is was formed in ninety three for waterfowl primarily, so that's our primary reason why we're here, and that was kind of in response to the great decimation of waterfowl, right like when when the refuge system started to spring up, it was part of a national effort to recover waterfowl. Yeah, and market, uh, the millinary trade was going on as well, so market hunting in general for waterfowl, for other types of birds, for thee yeah, the millinary trade in the early nineteen hundreds or people would kill e grits and even hummingbirds and so forth to put them in their hats. Literally. Yeah, we're talking about Roosevelt. If you read back to Roosevelt, you read his earlier writings. I mean he just rails against that industry. And because you used to be able to go out, I mean people would just go out and hunt any bird. You just go out shoot shore birds, herons, and you get your hands on to sell feathers, right exactly. It's kind of people are so familiar with that story about shooting buffalo for hides, right, shooting passenger pigeons for me, But people don't realize the decimation of non game birds and also that waterfall from market hunting for me, but also just the decimation of shore birds for guys for tricking out people's hats. Yep, they have these egret plumage in their hats, all sorts of really fancy hats and those pretty good money. Yeah. You read about guys making like small fortunes on it. Yeah. And and Teddy, the very first refuge that was ever formed was in h three by Teddy Roosevelt by executive order, was Pelican Island Off the floor. That's reading about that, Yeah, because people would just be they were just decimating the egrets and the pelicans and other types of anything out there for feathers in particular. Yeah, I tried to look down on those guys that were doing that too much, because I would have been if if I was alive at that time, I would have been totally involved in that business. Not a dubt my mind, because I don't know that they were really aware. I think people have a hard time conceptualizing like finiteness. Yeah right, so as always the visionaries right like this, the guy that was complaining then would be the same guy that's complaining about something now and people are brushing them off. Is that we're not like done making mistakes, No, not at all. You know, we all act like, oh, you know, it's so silly. And my dad always liked to joke that, um, they would put cigarettes in his sea rations during World War Two, so like every meal, you guy had three cigarettes in it, and then we laugh about it now. But right now we're making right now, we're doing something is equally stupid that our children will laugh about that. We didn't realize how stupid it was, Like we're not you know, we never There's an inexhaustible supply of mistakes people make and then later get hindsight. So at the time, I think Roosevelt was like criticized for how much he griped about it, Yeah, putting an end of the good times. We got a earful yesterday about a guy, Um, we got a earful yesterday by a guy who's uh uh it sounds like very upset about any form of bag limits or regulations ruining people's livelihoods. So yeah, yeah, So everything we do on the refuge, we look at is it going to be compatible with wildlife conservation and is it going to hurt by a diversity? Is it going to hurt the purposes of the refuge in particular? And when you look at baiting, there's a lot of impacts that come from baiting. Besides the fact you're like all the things we we just talked about your impacting those species, you're also going to be what do people do to get their corn out there? They take quads, all sorts of Yeah, they end up ruining the ground. And it's a big impact on the perspective I mean too. I mean just it's it's you got the biological issue of baiting, and you know, and the disease issues that get along with that. But then on public l and you got that whole social issue. I mean, somebody puts bait out and then the next time I gets there before the guy to put the bait out and sets up over You can imagine that. You can imagine that would go. Yeah, when I was growing up there, Yeah, when I was growing up, it was funny because you could at the time it was baiting was wide open, like when I grew up in Michigan for deer. Later they started putting later because the disease issues and the other things. They started putting limits on time when you put it out there. But we used to go down and you could buy this, I'm not joking. We go to Grant, Michigan, and you could fill a pickup truck up with reject carrots, misshaping carrots with like that look like weird anatomical features, you name it, Like carrots that were not like when you go buy a bag of carrots and they're all just like these beautiful straight carrots that that's like one in three. The rest go for jews and pulp and animal fodder. But you could you could fill a truck for five bucks and then you'd go dump it out in the woods. And we even griped about it, but it was like we griped about it because we were aware that it really changed the way dear act pushing them towards being nocturnal, changing their travel patterns. But it was like, if you can't beat them, join them, And that's the philosophy in Maryland today. So we would be like, yeah, it sucks that you can bait. Let's go put the bait out right, Because if I had to do childhood all over again, I would take a different approach and I would just not do it because I feel like, you're not um. I would not do it out of some moral thing. I just feel like I would have learned so much more about animals had you looked at had you been able to go look at like, well where are they naturally? Instead of like where can I make them go? It's just a much more interesting lesson, Like you can learn that like, yes, I learned the really interesting thing that dear love carrots, or you could have learned like what our deer doing when they're not eating on the carrots you stuck out in the work. I call it scouting in the bags in my mind. Yeah, well yeah, and this is coming from a guy that gage like I'm not, like I said, I can hardly can condemn it because it was something I was heavily engaged in from the time I was well and it legally bow hunt at twelve. I was running bait from the time I was twelve at the time I was eighteen. Yeah, and I mean, and it does have its It does have its usefulness. I mean, you know, like I said, we struggle with urban and suburban deer issues all the time. In therese cases where it does give you access to deer that you otherwise may not. You know, if you if you have a refuge of deer, not not national wilde refuge, but just an actual you know, a natural refuge where you can't get to deer hunt them, you know, you might be able to bait and pull some of those deer over to an area where you can so. So it does have some usefulness. But but you know, I wish our hunters, like you said, I mean, we need to get back to some more woodsman ship. This year is a great example. It's a really good acorn year in Maryland. This year, there's acorns everywhere. Deer are gonna be on acorns. They're not going to go to corn. Our hunters are going to continue to sit on corn not see any deer because the deer at the nearest white oak or you know, red oak or black oak or whatever. So success is going to go down. Um, yeah, no doubt. I mean any state in the appellation can show you data that when we have a good mass year, deer kill goes down and that that's why because there's deer on acorns and you know they're not they don't have to move as much for food so well, or even the states that don't have that don't allow baiting still show that draw They even those states show that dropping in the harvest because there's more dispersed. The hunters are not adapting or is that it that the deer actually harder to hunt, Well, they're they're harder to hunt in a way because yeah, they are more scattered and more you know, you can't pattern them as well. Um, but you just have you know, I think we have a generation of hunters that that don't think about natural behavior and natural food sources and you know, and where to spend your time trying to trying to get to there's there's animals. You know, I think there's a lot of biological evidence out there that said we shouldn't be you know that there's really a lot of reasons not debate. I mean, chronic wasting disease is a big one. I mean we have chronic wasting disease in the region, you know, in Maryland. Um So, No, I think there's plenty of biological reasons. That being said. Like I said, there are areas where baiting is useful, and we have always been a baiting steak, like Michigan. Um. And it's not going to go away. No, No, it's not. I think in fifty years it will. Well maybe in fifty years it might. We won't have we won't we won't have any hunters in fifty We've got bigger problems. Yeah, Oh, there's gonna be. There's gonna be. There will be people cranking only at it. I hope, hope were it would be tough and force because it's you know, private land, and how many game wardens would you need to patrol all the private land that we have here? And yeah, but on unenforceable stuff you want, you just wind up getting a lot of you know, I mean, sure you're gonna have you're gonna have some number of people who aren't gonna follow the rules. But a lot of people just follow the rules because of the rule. Yeah, that's true. I don't think it's always like because you've got a club hanging over your head. Yeah, I agree. You know, we've always had that philosophy. You know, you can't you can't. You can't set rigs for the for the dishonest guy or now, because they're going to find a way to around the system, to break the law regardless. So you know, I mean, the vast majority of our hunters will you know, they'll obey whatever we put out there. Like this morning, walking out, we could have shot a deer in the dark with flashlights. Yea, once we've gotten swamp. But it wasn't like, you know, you're not thinking yourself like how that they'll never catch us, right because we're both hunting, you know. Well yeah, but you know, just personal ethics, a lot of us won't shoot a deer in a certain circumstance just because it doesn't match what we think is either fair chase or an ethical harvest or you know what you came here for. You know. Yeah, I'd be easy to walk two steps down from the parking lot and have a deer pop up and shoot it. But that's not kind of why I'm out there. You know, I wanna have to work for it and learn from it. You wanted to happen in a way that you wanted to happen in a way that you laid out. Yeah, you know an interesting thing that Steve's friend we're gonna get back for talk about bear with me, but your friend had an interesting observation. Uh. Steve's friend Matt was saying that his uh wife has some like she likes the only wild meat. But he was joking that there's like a rule that she prefers that if it hadn't looked at him, that it was unaware of his presence. You know, talk about like having like a strict code of how you want things to play out. There's like this idea. But when he said that, it resonated with me because I was like, when I'm telling the hunting story, I always like to point out, as you many other hunters, I'm like, and it never knew I was there, which you think is sort of like a positive right when you're hunting, You like, it's a positive if you I feel like, if you get an animal that didn't know you were present, because it suggests some level of like sneakiness, right, or some level of that you were in its space, that it being unaware of your space. But that puts together this other idea that it's like, um, there was never a relationship between you in the animal where you lock eyes, So it might be like how that might be kind of partially what I feel when I feel that it's so important or so positive to get an animal that didn't know you were there, is because we never established a report. I had an experience once I had perfect stocking conditions, saw a dough bed down in some golden and I managed to stock with him ten yards of that deer, and she never knew I was there, and I had to wait and wait and wait for her to stand up and offer me a shot. And this whole time I could watch her chewing her cut and just completely oblivious to my presence. And when the moment came and she stood up, I pulled back and I flubbed probably one of the easiest shots right over back. And to this day I think it's in my head. I just I couldn't kill that deer after that, having that experience with it, you know, it'd become like your pet. I've had that, having staring through binoculars where you watch buck bed down at nine o'clock in the morning and then you get set up for the shot and you wait it's three pm until the buck finally stands up and you've watched it change position in its bed, you know, groom itself to it's cud, fall over, you know, watch his antlers hit the ground while he's sleeping, get back up, you know, watch all that. And then by the time they're like shooting times, you know it's coming. You're kind of like, maybe he'll get away, you know, now that ever happens when I'm on the trigger, But if I'm like looking for someone else some kind of maybe they'll get away, especially they do something cute like turn around and kind of nibble or groom. Uh no, I don't have that. So back to the refuge do do so hunters that come out to hunt, like on the refugees that primarily that's like people hunting, Yes, big game, Yeah, that's the big species. Yeah, there's white tail too, but like last year we did what three and fifth We harvested three and only seventy seven white tail, So there are some white tails out there. And do people complain about do people complain about the lack of baiting. I haven't heard that yet. I think because it's been that way for a long time, it's just accepted. It's just accepted. Yeah, that it's not that that's just not feasible on public lands for all the reasons that we talked about. And it gives you a different type of hunting experience too. If you want to go out there and look for sign and look for follows and try and find a good trail, try and figure out where are they coming from the marsh to the woods at what time. It's a great experience that you won't get elsewhere. Do you have you ever like figured out success like have you guys looked at have you of you any kind of idea of success rates for the refuge, like like like dear per hunter hour or any dear per day or anything like that. No, we haven't done that. We haven't done that yet. You killed? How tell me how many you killed? Like last year or not? How many? Yea three fifty sick and seventy seven white tail? And how many individuals? Do you have a guess how many individual hunters rolled through the refuge? Yeah? I think we had sevent permits sold for deer waterfall. No, that's just dear. That's just dear. Now do some people buy permits and not show up that year? Yeah? Do some people show up and hunt a whole ton? Yeah? And so this past year we asked on the permit application for the first time, how many how many days on average did you hunt last year? Because we're trying to get a feel for for exactly that. What's your sense of it, like are there? Is it kind of like everything where you feel that there's some people that put in the time and they do real well, and some people that don't. They don't Oh yeah, Is it kind of like a meritocracy? Yeah? I mean yeah. The folks that are willing to get out there put in the time, deal with the mosquitoes. I mean, you know, I was out there on opening day September eight, and it was pretty brutal that first well actually the whole month. When it comes to heat and mosquitoes and things like that, a lot of people aren't out there putting that putting that time in. So if you're willing to put on the chest waiters and get out into the marsh and try and go where other people don't go and figure it out they'll be successful. So what's access like there? So we've got a number of different units. We've got parking lots and roads back there, So it depends. Some of the units are easier to access than others. Some you can park and you can go out into open woods and never need to put on waiters. Others you could be you could be walking quite a bit out in marsh that's really falling apart. So you take one two steps and then you fall through a hole. And what about using canoes and kayaks if people do that? Yeah, for the uh, this year is the second year that we've allowed boat access to certain units. Yep. So, and that's been a little bit controversial as well because the people who are able to walk back to those kind of really good secret spots now all of a sudden they put in an hour walk And yeah, and I went. I was with a friend and on one of the units, and I spent forty five minutes walking back there. And you know, I'm kind of short and it doesn't take much to get into marsh up to my waist and uh, you know, I get into a tripod stand and sit there and rate at light. You know, you see a boat coming up and accessing a different part of the marsh. But that's kind of the game. So it's it's an interesting conundrum because we want to offer access for people, you know, for older people who can't do that. What about taking kids? What have taken other folks. If I didn't have my friend helping me get back to that spot, I probably couldn't have gotten back there either. At least you said there are a lot of places that aren't easy. That's correct, there are. So the boat access is limited to a few areas. We're trying it again this year and we'll see, oh yeah, the lugs you're being able to see if if it creates too much, yeah, tension between hunters or yeah. And actually the bigger trouble that we've been having is people putting in. If you've driven around this area, there's a lot of ditches with water especially it's been kind of dry, very dry until recently, but you could put your kayaker, canoe in a ditch almost anywhere and get to one of these waterways. So that's been an issue with trespassing. And yeah, yeah, people putting not putting in where they're supposed to for the refuge. But putting their boat in in a ditch literally and then going in, so that can cause access issues. And if you guys have rules about where how you want where you want people to park, yep, yep. And but the bigger issues with private landowners. So some folks don't know and they'll just put in and trespass on other people's property. You can get to the refuge through our ramps, but you can also get to the refuge through public um, I mean private areas as well if you have permission. So we don't want to cause problems for other people either. I got you. And then uh back to like like what are the hallmarks? Like? So what are the things that the people who are successful at it? Like? What do they do? I mean, is there a way you can kind of describe the person who finds success trying to? Yeah, I mean Steve's asking because we've been hunting for two days. We don't have any success. Ye were by myself, like I said, I've been trying to. I've been gun hunting for a long time, but I've just started bow hunting and I myself have been trying to get my first sicke as well with my bow. Um, So the thing that that I've talked to the people who have really been successful and they like to help other people be successful too. Is is they put the time. I mean they're looking at aerial maps. They're trying to figure out, Okay, this guy's going to go in the marsh here and then the woods there. There's crops there, So they're looking at the landscape. Um. And then they're going out there and scouting and putting the time in to see where's the sign and so forth. Now, when it comes to public lands, it's always a little bit of a crapshoot because when everybody else goes out there, they're gonna move. The deer patterns are going to move because of the people moving in the woods. That's why early archery is so fun to me anyways, and I think to a lot of people because it's so miserable that no one's out there. That's right in some regards. Yeah, because that first gunshot hasn't gone off. So when muzzle loader opens tomorrow, we're going to see a lot more hunters in the woods. They're gonna hear the shots. That deer are going to go a lot more nocturnal, and they're not going to act as natural as they have been. So I'm going out tonight and hoping I can get my And do you feel that, um, do you feel from what you've seen that that people who are willing to walk and wade out too hard to access areas of that that that's good? That works for people. Yeah, it works for people. But I've also heard the same exact people be very close to a parking lot and get to your deer as well. I think it comes down to experience. You can't nothing and replaced as getting out there and doing it yourself and learning those hard lessons and seeing it. Nothing can replace that, and that's what I've seen amongst the hunters that I respect and know around here, are just a lot tougher because you can't even even when they're not disturbed by the ares, alter season or a firearm seating, you can't pattern them like a white tail. They just they're a little bit more random, you know, white tails, and you can pretty much guarantee they're gonna be on that bean field every night or whatever, whereas sick as are a little harder to pattern. You just you know, you gotta put yourself in that high percentage area. But you got to do it a whole bunch. That's playoff hunt with Steve for the last couple of days. Is I came down like trying to like, you know, I was asking a lot of questions about like very specific landscape, like like oh, trail intersections or and just kind of explain your idea about them, like like how you go about stand selection. Yeah, it's it's like Brian said, I look, I've been disappointed many times sitting over a trail it looks like a cow path and you think, oh, they've got to come here regularly. It's just a matter of time. And it probably is just a matter of time. But a lot of that activity is at night. And so I've found that sitting on trails per se is not a very productive uh technique for shooting deer. But and if you look from an aerial photograph, you'll see there's just a network of trails through the marsh and into the woods. You can see you can see from Google. Yeah, and so it's like a crap shoot whether they're gonna take this trail or that trail. So what I try to do is, like Brian just said, find high percentage areas where deer activity gets funneled down and hopefully that means one is going to come within range. You know, with me shooting traditional archery equipment, it's like twenty yards. So I look for thicker and tighter and heavier cover than probably most people that would be able to shoot a little firs because you don't care about the forty yard. I mean, I love to see the deer. It's fun to watch him and stuff, but it's way out of my range to it might as well be four hundred if it's forty. Um. But you know, looking for those patches where maybe the frag mighties pokes a little further in towards the woods, or it's it next down into a narrower strip. Um, and they'll follow the edge of of those things. Um. They love that switch grass, kind of marshy, wet stuff. They like to have their feet wet. You know, they go on the uplands, but they spend most of their time with their feet wet, waiting around. Yeah. I heard that the first ones I saw. I heard him before I saw him, and it just sounds like stuff running through the water. Yeah, that's normal out there. That's a lot of people was first experience. Can you Steve explained the frag mighty stuff. Oh, frag mighty is is a non native ornamental plant that was introduced I don't even know when, probably early nine dreds, if not soon her uh and it's you know, escape become feral. It establishes very dense monotypic stands that crowds out other native plants. Is it is it a grass or yes? Read and but mine got like twelve feet high. Twelve feet high. It's actually quite beautiful. But does it like a dozen or more stalks per square foot? I'd have to say, oh, yeah, it's almost impenetrable. Certainly you can't get through it without a whole lot of effort. But they just like run around. They're like little muskrats. Man. Oh yeah, the deer do. That's great cover for him. They That's probably why someone lived to be twenty years old. Yes, I was laughing. You have like a non native species utilizing a non native vegetation to great effect. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. And on the refuge, we we try and control fragmighties in certain areas, which is always interesting because some of the hunters would rather us not. They like it. They're yeah, yeah, but we can't control it all. That's how would you like? What do you try? What do you try to do to get rid of it? We use Rodeo Glyphus eight and we spray that and we have a machine called a Marshmaster, which is a pretty cool thing that just goes out and we spray it. Uh. When we had a slug of funding from an outside source, we were able to do some aerial spraying of it a number of years ago, but we can't keep that up. So we control about five acres of frag mighties, which there's a lot more out there. So there's plenty for the for sica and for hunting, but you've got a spot of five acres where you try to keep it native vegetation. Yeah, we have areas that equate to five acres, like our impoundments that we create for waterfowl. We want to keep the frag mighties out of there so that the water fowl can utilize it over the winter and then whenever the marsh. We have this marsh migration that's going on. If you go out on the refuge or anywhere around here, you'll see dying trees kind of transitioning to living trees. And that's where the sea level is rising and the marsh is literally migrating up slope. We're so flat here the marsh can do that, and if it doesn't run into development, it's going to migrate. Like the highest place in this county is eleven ft or something like that something probably it sounds about right. And Steve was saying that just in the time you spent hunting here, you've watched that oh yeah, tree line. Yeah, dramatic changes in the tree lines. And you know some of the places that you saw today when I first started hunting them twelve fifteen years ago, those were had big trees you could put tree stands in. And you know, more than half of those trees have died and the ones that are left are just kind of stunted and whatnot. So another ten years from now that I'll be dead lying on the ground. And the salt water intrusion and yeah, Black Waters lost five thousand acres of marsh to open water since five thousand, really yeah, and we're still losing it today. And everybody who goes out, the muskrat trappers, the hunters, everybody who goes out there, they can see the changes right before your eyes. Five thousand acres from marsh to open water. Yeah, so that's what we have to deal with, and we're trying to help we we want to keep that marsh. You want to keep that high marsh that used to be there in marsh in general, and so as the frag mighties comes in and moves into a lot of these areas where it would have been different species before. So there's certain areas that we target for the Fragmighties control, and the other places we just we let it go. Can you explain high marsh? Yeah, well, high marsh. Well, back in the nineties when the refuge was established, I saw pictures over this weekend of someone who did a history of the refuge where you it used to be the marsh was high enough above the water level you'd have different species of of the cord grass, the salt marsh, hay, etcetera. And the cattle could actually graze it. Well, you would never imagine doing that now because with as the marsh has actually the sea level has risen, water levels have risen. Therefore there's a different it's a low marsh instead, and as more water gets higher and higher, it becomes more broken up. If you look around you'll see marsh. That's just all grass. But if you look in the middle, you'll start to see like poles of water, open wire. That's the marsh just just uh, degrading, falling apart. And that's not you know, what we want to see, but that's indeed what's happening. So we have to deal with it. Things change. What species come out as the winner on that? Uh well, fish, yeah, we've got more fish now, yeah, snakeheads uh yeah, yeah yeah, so we're losing. But you could you could argue that that Sica and freg Mighty's are winners in this because they're they're might as this marsh is migrating up into the woods, the dying woods. It's a different species before freg Mighty's and sicket was different species of of the cord grasses and so forth, three square things like that. So here here's like a probably harder question for you about like managing a refuge and then and then having a species like sick of deer that have a tremendous like hunter interest, Like I would think if you look at the ma and date for the refuge system would not be to provide a habitat to a non native that's correct. So do people float the idea of trying to do an eradication or is there I mean, is there is there just no negative to them? Uh? Certainly we have folks um that question. Oh wait, especially with their deer hunting program. You're managing for sica. That's a non native invasive species that some would argue compete with white tail, whether or not that's true or not. And we argue that well, you know, they felt like, like Brian explained, it's we are managing a resource for hunters that we don't think is having a detrimental effect to the refuge in and of itself. However, we are trying to focus our efforts of harvest on certain areas where they are causing problems. For instance, we plant crops um for waterfowl so that when they get here, when the geek which have started arriving, the migrants, that's there that's supposed to be there for the waterfowl over the winter and the sick in particularly, well, all the deer are really hitting those crops hard. So we try and open up wildlife drive and some of those areas that are closed to hunting specifically so that hunters can go in and hopefully hit those deer harder so that we can have that resource there for waterfowl. So it's a balancing act. Um. So with the with the can you break down the difference between the refuge and the what's the other thing that the stay wildlife management areas? Yeah? But what river is it? Not the Savage but fishing Bay Fishing Bay wildlife management area, So like break down from me what those two things are. Sure, I'll talk about the National Wildlife Refuges are We're federally owned by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and so that was the first refuge, like I mentioned, was Pelican Island back in three. And we're the only lands federally loan owned lands set aside specifically for wildlife and wildlife dependent recreation for people. So like the hunting and fishing that we talked about, we've got five and sixty six around the country, and Blackwater is is one of those. We were established back in ninety three, primarily for waterfowl, but also for other species of wildlife as well. And uh yeah, so we follow federal mandates of the Fishing Wildlife Service UM, which includes allowing visitors and those types of activities that are compatible for wildlife conservation and and the Blackwater Refuge actually shares a border with Fishing Bayishing Bay correct in Fishing Bay State, that's a state wildlife management area. Most of those were purchased with Pittman Robertson funds. A lot of stemmy nuts break wildife management areas are pretty common across the country. So UM Fishing Bay, I think that's our largest. Our largest one is fifty however plus thousand acres or whatever it is UM and they form one contiguous piece of marsh. Though, Yeah, that's more USA. And how many acres total of It's like, how many acres total of public land are there in this area? A good bit. I don't know the percentage. Wise, we're we're a little over twenty nine thousand acres, so that includes Martin the Island and some of our other smaller refuges, but certainly most of it's a black water and uh, Fishing Bays about twenty five Taylor's Island. There's w m A at Taylor's Island. So I mean there's there's a lot of public land in the area. I mean, you know, fifty thousand plus acres easily UM not all contiguous, but yeah, I mean there's softy acres of of of sika deer habitat. Yeah, so it's like water. So it's not a lot of it, good percentage of it right here it yea and how and there's how many deer ten to fifteen thousand? Do you guys feel that? Uh? Do you guys feel that that? It's the thing that people don't really know about. I think the sick of they know about they seem to. But I'll tell you what I mean. I mean nationally, I want my whole life, but I have to come down here. One time, a friend of mine was at some fundraiser auction for Ducks Unlimited, and somehow or another wound up with a snow goose hunt invited me to come along at for like a day and emerdis guy talking about like these like marsh dear, Yeah, sick of deer, marsh dear. And it was kind of in one year and out the other. But I was remember, that was like the first time I've ever had any idea. Yeah, We've been playing in this trip for two years and I've yet to tell somebody, Yeah, We're going to Maryland to hunt seek of deer and have someone go, oh yeah, yeah, I think Remy Warren was the only one. He's got his he's got his finger to the polls man. And I do know that all the locals want to keep it kind of their own little secret. I can imagine, yeahs out of the bag, you know, their perceptionists that were overrun with non residents and come years looking to hunt secret deer. And but the numbers don't bear that out. No, not really they don't. I mean, it's definitely they are well known in the mid Atlantic, so you know, you see a lot of Delaware hunters, you see a lot of Pennsylvania hunters, you see fair number of New Jersey hunters, Virginia hunters. Yeah see, you know, so it's more it's a local mid Atlantic they're well known, um, among the deer hunting community. Um. But once you get outside of that range, and there's been quite a few celebrities that have been here hunting them and have done shows on them. Um, I've done you know, I don't know, I can't even count four or five, six, half a dozen different you know, over the year's different interviews with different hunters that that have come. So it has attracted national you know, at that at that level, but but it's definitely more still a more local type phenomena. So one of the things I could imagine limits it a little bit is they have dinky little antlers. So it's like it's like you gotta have it. But I'm not hacking that because don't really care. I mean it's like you have like a con of sewer's eye to recognize. Yeah, they're not They're not a elk, you know. I mean, if it happened to have some freakish giant antlers, it's just a fact that more people to say. But you're right, so have you tried one? Have you eaten one? Yet? They are so good, they are much tastier. I heard people almost universally like them better than I would say, that's true. Steve had a word to describe whitetail met Could you call it kind of minerally? Yeah, yeah, I've heard that term before. It's it's a slight metallic or livery taste. Is what I prefer these. I prefer the secret dear Yeah, yeah, I mean I love white tail too, but there's something that secret backstrap is just I've never talked to anybody that they would prefer whitea however, So it's just like widely as you know, it's pretty much universal. Yeah, it's good, not just you know, the flavor and then the texture to like I said, are most of the time they're more tender than white tail. It's killing me that I haven't got one. So but yeah, I don't. I want to get back to the antler because I want to be hacking on them. But I mean, you've got some ones that are that are were described to me, Steve. You've killed something that were described to me by not just you, by beings like trophy class. Yeah, the three I showed you just about anybody would would get mounted in there, you know, a trophy. Yeah. And it's like they're like, I'm not dogging on him. I'm just saying it's like a little it's like it's like three three times per antler. And then the main beam is sixteen inches long maybe for a huge one. Sixteen sixty is a really big one. And you're saying that like more like an eight point is like virtually unheard of, very rare. A true eight point is extremely rare. But it's an elkish kind of little antler yeah, yeah, they're really cool, nice eye guards. And and you do get some different configurations sometimes, whether it's generated by injuries or either to the antler when it's growing or to the dear their body when they're growing antlers, but that you know, three by three configuration is your typical mature stag. And you'll get a lot of I call them, uh glorified spikes, these little six pointers that are just little nubbins for eye guards, and and the top points, the splits, we call them. I saw one of those today. Yeah, yeah, year lanes are always spikes, and I've never seen a branched antler yearling. And then at two and a half, they they will be what you just described, one of those little you know, week you might be able to call them the six point, but maybe a four point or whatever. And then it takes two and a half or it takes three and a half and up to start getting into maturity and you know, true six points. Yeah, and then these guys don't have twin fallns either, right, No, just single calf yeah that I've ever seen, um, and that's in the literature all which suggested only they only ever have a single calf. I've had different reports over the years. People said, no, she had twins or whatever, but um, I've only ever seen yeah, single single calf. No, Marshy, I overheard you earlier before we got started. You were saying, you've like you haven't got one with your bull. You've passed up shots. I've passed up several spikes. Why that's just me. I just I just want to let the let the little guys grow, and I wanted to get well. Let me all right, let me talk about the other week. So it was it last week or the week before. It was one of those really hot days and I had a spike under and I had a shot, but it was also you know, it was really hot with the rut, so I kept thinking another a mature stag was gonna possibly come in, or a Hind. I'd rather take a Hind or a mature stag is gonna let the little guy go. So that was just me at that time. Now, if it had been late January, I think I probably had just taken him. But because it was early in the season and the rut was on, that's what I chose to do. How did it come to pass that was under your tree? Like? What hell? I was hunting of friends that was actually under I was actually hunting bait that time. I was. I've been I've hunted bait and I've not hunted bait, and my preference is to not hunt bait my properties that I least, I'm not baiting this year. I did last year to try it out. It's a lot of I'm just not going to do it. I don't just not my preference. However, trying to get my first sick and my first bow kill, um, well, if a friend's gonna ask me, I'm also not going to pass it up. Have you have you been out hunting on the refuge too? Yes? I have, Yes, Yes, you spread it out and tomorrow is gonna be I've never hunted muzzleloader before. Tomorrow is my first day muzzleloader hunting ever. And I'm going on the refuge. Yeah, so you're gonna do the opening day of Muslim I am, And it's it's the quote to day. I'm in the unit that everybody complains about has too many people on it because as a staff person, UM, just treat me like someone else, in fact, treat me worse, you know. So I'm going out there and I'm gonna So you're gonna go out with your bow tonight. I'm going out with my bow tonight onto my my private least, which is not bated, and there's white tail and sick of there um. However, there's there's some nice white tails there too, So I'm going there tonight. I hope, you know, see if I can finally make that happen. And then tomorrow I'm going muscle later. And do you already have do you already have your stand? Like like you already have your stand set up on the refuge. No, I'm using my climbing stand. So I went and scouted. I picked a spot. And since I'm hunting by myself tomorrow and I'm kind of I'm not very big, you know, height wise or anything, I've got to be able to take care of that deer myself. So I didn't go out until the marsh. And like if I had if I was hunting with buddies, I didn't go to where I would normally go. I had to be smart about it. Where can I go and take care of a deer myself? If I get it well, I think tomorrow you're definitely gonna have to shoot a spike because if you shoot some giant like that as the refuge manager, I know, I know, I know. You have to take a vacation day. Oh yeah, you bet. You can't ect like you're out there doing something else with a muzzleoader. No, no, no, I will be hunting them. So you gotta put in for you gotta put in for vacation, and I gotta put in for the quota and get selected to which you know, Yeah, I'm in the unit that's still open, so just to avoid any feel of yeah, of privileged specially, that's right, that's right. And I was hunting a unit with my with my bow the very first day, and I'll be hunting back there again too. So you've already you've already hunted the refuge with your bowl this year. Yes, the opening around a lot, yes, and you keep hunt until January. Yes, I did last year. Yeah, and that was down at my lease that I was just white tail down there, and then a friend would take me once in a while, first sicker around here, and so I would do that if you could tolerate the cold. January is great tom to hunt. There's not many people out they Yeah, I enjoyed it. I had to. I ended up keep buying more and more stuff because I kept getting colder and cold. So the little inserts, the flips, you got to turn them on through your boots. Yeah. Yeah, I got those fewer mosquitoes. You'll still have mosquitoes in January, you will, you will. So I never heard of the thermo cell till I came here and started hunting, and that's like the you have to have that here, you have to have that. So I'm trying my time, and I think it's gonna happen for you. Yeah, so did you not? So? So? Did you not start hunting until until as a grown up? Yeah, untill about twenty three four or something like that. That was the first time I actually hunted. Something got you. Ye, started off with bird hunting and then moved to deer white tails because I'm from western Pennsylvania, so that's all white tails. Yeah. And now you're working in on the local secret. Yeah. Yeah. And I never thought I'd be able to bow hunt. I just didn't think I could pull enough weight back and just you know, it's a lot of pressure, but I really love it. You've been at it two years now. This is my second season bow hunting you not. No, it's not a problem. You haven't got one yet. No, No, I'm all right. I don't hope I should start feeling sorry for you. But it sounds like you're right on track. No, I've gun hunted up. Yes, you'll kill something this year. Yeah, and last year, Like I said, I did pass up. Well, at the least down in Somerset County. We those of us in it, we have this. We don't shoot anything less than an eight point. So when I had some smaller box, kind of under my stand, I didn't take it because that was kind of the informal rules for secrets. No, for white tails, I'm sorry for white tails. You're not gonna waiting a long time. White tails only. So that's that's that's us. So myself, I'll take a hind or a mature any sort of mature stag. But you asked me again a little bit later, and yeah, maybe I will take a spike. I got one last question. Last night when you were guys were talking another thing I overheard. Were you saying that, like I'm holding this, I'm holding a stag here that Steve killed that's missing the time? Are you saying that someone found that time yeah. So in another deer, yep, a fellow hunter that hunted the same property that I do. I shot a six point that was about the same caliber as that that seven point there and uh to you know, very mature stags, and he got his mounted and he took his taxidermisters or keeping it out. The uh taxidermists found a length of bone that matched up perfectly with what was missing off the tip of that one antler. There. Where is it? Now? He's got it? Yeah, he didn't give it. No, No, it's it's just kind of his trophy. So I didn't want to take. Yeah, it was pretty Yeah, he's got I don't know about that. What do you think about that? They are extremely aggressive. Well, he's a fan of your program. So when he hears that, I don't want to. I don't want brother. Obviously he's got impeccable taste. Well that just uh all right, Brian. You gotten to witness them fighting. Yeah, so it's brutal. Yeah, they're they're they're impressive and like they you can't see the skull that we're holding, but this would all be fat. So they have over an inch of fat on that skull to help protect against you know there's points and all, but they are just brutal. But you know they're there's no question there's a lot that that die every year just from injuries. Yeah, yeah, do you find that. Do you find sheds? You probably can't find the sheds because of the habitat type, right or do you know didn't find them every once in a while. Yeah, you can find him, you can find not in the march, you're not gonna find him. This seems like if they drop out that that, yeah, they're going stuff. You're not gonna Yeah. I did find one and frag once. So I was tracking a deer that i'd hit and really blood trailing him. Yeah, and I looked down and here's this beautiful three point antlers sitting there. They are a little welk, so they do have beauty or appreciate so being a being a little elk, they are a little stigil tusks, So that's cool. Yeah, Brian, is it roar or bugle sound they make? I've always just heard bugle ms will talk about the roar, Yeah, but I think it just kind of spill over from the red deer roar. And they anything that ruts, they just called the roar, but here it's bugling. Yeah. I think we just we just equated without Yeah, and it's a weird, like I don't know if I could exactly explain it. It's um to me. It's more of like a whistle, multi pitch whistle stay in stages. Yeah, And did you hear from a distance? You only hear the whistle, but if you're closer, which we've gotten to be close up a couple of times, you also hear that there's a little bit of a gird at the beginning, and then just a little bit at the end, and then there's another call what'd you call it when you're real close the key ways call it a hehaw. That starts out was a real high pitched kind of e sound, and then it drags off into this ah sounds, so it's like, really nothing else sounds like. It's kind of crazy. Yeah, And what tripped us up as I think that was the first day that we were hunting with you, I think, and we we thought we had heard him. It was the wind was kind of blowing, so it's tough to hear anything at all. But both Steve and I get together and we're like, man, we I think we heard a bugle, but it was like it must have been a guy because it was like three in a row, Like who would be doing that? Right? We go to Steve and he's like, oh, yeah, every time the bugle it's you know, and I've heard now twos, threes and even fours. It seems like, um, do you have that recording? Yeah, yeah, this is one I videoed last season on Blackwater and uh called it in with a cow call. Came across the marsh about two hundred yards and wandered, well, didn't wandered it. It came pretty directly to me and I got within twenty yards, didn't find this challenger that had had called at him, and uh so he let out with the cat I actually had bugled earlier. And then uh he came out of the woods about two hundred fifty yards away and I watched him and he was clearly rolled up. He made about four or five wallows on the back side of this this marsh. They roll around in the mud and get their antlers all dug into the marsh and p on themselves and just in the wallows to break off from the sound real quick. It's uh, it's small. Probably what maybe two square feet. Yeah, probably something like that. And they looked to me, every time I've seen one, it's it's not like it was. They continue to use the same one, right. They look like they could just like randomly stop anywhere and be like, oh, making a new wall, right, Yeah, they will reuse them also, But um, most of the ones I think you see are just one off. That's what it seems like, which is why I don't bother hunting them, you know. I mean, it's nice to have a bunch of around because you know there's a stag there. But I don't set up with my tree stand over a wallow because it's just you can wait forever for him to show up. Once in a while you'll find one that looks like it's probably a sort of communal sort of wallow and it'll be ten ft wide and just shoot up and whatnot. But most of them are just sort of frustration being taken out, I think. But now, Marka, you're telling me you set your stand up over Oh no, I just look for wallows. Look for sign Yeah, a scrape you called it. We were talking about a wallow when you told me, Well, I said, look for sign like trails, and blows and scrapes like for white tail and things like that, but not necessary that you would set up on there, just trying to determine where are they moving through. Oh but yeah, but you told me, and I thought it was in an email you said something about a scrape and that was that was that was for what? That was my my hunt last last week. Yeah, I didn't know that. I was looking for signs um at my lease which has white tails an sica, and the buck that had come in had a scrape. I didn't realize it, but when I watched him actually work the scrape, then I realized, Yeah, yeah, it happened to be near a pond and there was a lot of sign going in and out like it was really it's been really dry, so there was like a lot of dried mud on the vegetation. So I was hoping, yeah, okay, the sick are going to come from the woods to the pond in the evening because it's hot and it's my best chance. I didn't know that there was also a white tail that was making a pretty nice scrape there until I saw excellent stand Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right, let's hear the queue it up m m m m. So that real guttural um sort of start and finish. A lot of people don't hear that if it's not real close to you just say the high pitch whistle part. But most of the commercially available calls that are out there don't really capture that. And you know, I don't think that it's necessary for the deer to respond to it, um, but for my own sort of personal confidence in the call I'm blowing, I just like to to be as authentic as possible, you know. And uh so the one call I've found that actually captures that part is the Nordic Seka and that it's manufactured in Sweden. And uh, it's a pretty neat call. It's a one trick pony. It really only does the the bugle and you could probably do the he hawk kind of sound with it too, if you really practiced at it. But so I always carry standard ELK calls to so I can make the myriad of sounds. But but uh, it's it's pretty exciting when they respond to it. Yeah, I'm hoping I'm gonna blow mine a hundred times tonight. Ryan. Have you guys done it ever? Any research on the vocalizations. No, we have not, but if you if you read the literature, um, you know, what I've read is that seeker or the sicker or the most vocal of the servety. So you know, and and if you spend a lot of time out there, there are I mean, there's six seven different vocalizations you can you can pick up, not just not just the stags, but the hinds with the calves and just the other. If you had to describe the hind calve call like a mu, they almost elk like yeah, yeah, very similar, yeah, very similar. So the other one too. I'm not sure if you've probably heard yet, but they do this really low guttural growl and it almost sounds like they're talking to lugie or something, and it's there's no pitch to it. It's just as when you hear that, you know, it's usually from what I've seen, it's challenges to another stat you know. Yeah, yeah, you don't hear that unless they're within probably fifty semi five yards, unless it's a real still day and just perfect which is a mile in frag mighties. Yeah, um yeah, you know, that makes them a lot of sense. But the thing about let's being new here and in that march, you're hearing so many other noises, I mean, the the heron's you know squawking. You could easily confuse a weird haron squa walk for something that this secret deers making. Yeah, and then what who else is out there making to some really odd I mean, we've heard barred owls and young owls, you know, screech out, they go all over the place with their um there's clapper rails. They don't really sound like sicca, but you know, if you're new to it and you've never heard it before. I remember the first year I hunted him, I heard that they made this you know, bugle sound that I had no idea what it sounded like. So everything I heard out there when I was sitting in a tree stand, what is that one? Is that one? Known? Is that one? And flickers will make a very similar sound to their alarm calls and their muse sometimes. I was just gonna say, my first couple of years of alcohntin, I put at least a dozen stocks on the Western Flicker before I before my mind, you know, learned to dial in that. Then I remember the first time of stag bugle close to me and the hair and my next stood up. I was like, Ah, that's what it sounds like. Yeah, if we still have New Trio, you'd listening to yeah, sitting out the trio all the time. So that was another march sound to cover that when we do the New Trio podcast. Um cool? Anything else to add Brian about the vocalization? So cool that. Uh, you know, you gotta give it a fair shot. Don't expect something your first time, or your second, or maybe even your tenth time. But sooner or later they'll respond to it and look every direction. They'll circle behind you, they'll sneak in on you. Sometimes they'll run you over like a bulldozer. It's it can be pretty exciting. Imagine, you know, calling in a seventy pound turkey with antlers. Right. Yeah, we're three haunts in now. I mean we've haunted two mornings, one evening, and twice now. I've heard the footsteps and I believe it to be probably less than sixty yards if I can hear that, and I've yet to see one well either I've seen him in the distance, but I've yet to see the two that make that range. Tea yeah, but I think it's because I'm a bad tree stand hunter, because I haven't like remembered all my old skills about how you had to stand there like a statue. I think I'm out there stretching out all right, cool, all yeh? He got any final uh things you want to add? I like that the wire job you did on this for hand, did you invent that? Probably can't really invent that much when it comes to wires and skulls. Well, there was just something that came up with. I was too cheap to buy anything to do it, and I like, I just like a simple I like, you know, texted Ermys gonna take a picture of this wireing job and we're gonna put it on. We're gonna put it up in the show notes. You're gonna you're gonna This picture is being taken right now. And if you want to see a sweet way to wire up a euro Mount, go what you are It turned out real nice, Go to our show notes. It gives you that flat against the wall hang too, as opposed to a screw which will pop them out. Alright, you have to pick him up and hold him, look at him. Remember the hunt. You can't do that with a big mountain on the wall, you know, some tactile about being able to touch it, and it makes moving easier. Yes, it does. Moving to be like daunting. If you had a text, they everywhere like where am I gonna put my full draft draft? You can haul it around with your helicopter. The del Marvas squirrels I've seen, I've seen say it it's the del Marroo fox squirrel. It's the fox squirrel. And Janny says it lumbers through the forest, lumbers down. I saw my second one today. The first one I saw it is coming down a tree and these, um, what kind of pine is it? La bla bla blah blah blah or damn not native? Right, lob blalls are not native? Yeah, she's that's what is that? What Abernati is trying to get rid of that whole big gripe is is uh, you know they cut down all the long leaf um for pitch and like masting all kinds of things, and then lob lolly came up in its place. But it doesn't have it doesn't support it does doesn't support that understory of like that grassland ecosystem underneath it all kinds of trouble with the quail and whatnot. Yeah, this is all planted in lab lolly blah blahly plantation. We need to have Abernathy on to talk about lob lollies and long leaves. Hopefully we'll be seen in this spring anyhow. Yeah, well, the bark flakes, like when you're climbate, you know, it's just bark coming off everywhere. With this squirrel, I mean it was like an avalanche barks climbing down the tree. You know, I'm like, holy cow, I've never seen that, but the when I saw today, Yeah, he got got to watch him under the standing on the ground. You know how most schools like they sort of hop um, they're always hopping, you know. Three times, this dude was walking like a cat, like he's got a gate to him, you know. Bear. Yeah. Yeah, So my question is, what's it one of the chances that we're gonna get to come here and hunt them someday. Well, they had ees a protection until recently didn't. They were recently downlisted. Yeah, they're they're not a listed species and make the news. Yea, it did. It just depended on what news you're watching. Yeah, but you know, only only two percent of species to get s a listing have ever made it off get delisted because of recovery. They get delisted because it was a mistake and there's like a taxonomical error, or they get delisted because there's a population people weren't aware of. But I think it's like one point seven percent of things that get on come off because of recovery, like an alligator. Guy. Yeah, so just like a big story, right, like the bald eagle. Now wolves in some areas, grizzly bears in some areas. Usually like hear about a D listing, Yeah, but this is a quiet delisting. Yeah, del Marva was excited about it. Yeah, and then uh, I know this is I don't think there's any plans to hunt them. Yeah, there's there's too much habitat loss, it's too small of a substanc population. But it's a fox squirrel, yes, just a big box squirrel. Could you could come here and just hunt gray squirrels and fox squirrels and have the enjoyment of getting to see del Marva. I guess they seem like pretty small gray squirrels from what I've been seeing, I mean, not the big giant del Marva fox. I'm saying, your your general Joe blow. Gray squirrels not like small squirrel hu. I have been looking at him, and I mean not that I wouldn't hunt them happily, but they seem to run a little small, which should be like part of Bergman's rule, right, Bergman's principle that that you're at the sub you're at the southern, you're getting towards your more southerly portion of their range, so they're gonna tend towards a more diminutive form. And I would say squirrel hunting is probably not as culturally big around this area. Is that there's in some other parts of the country you don't hear about people. People aren't as sophisticated down here. I don't know well, and it's I mean, it's it's shifted. You know, it's the dearest king down here, and people don't want squirrel hunters messing up their dear word was. Unfortunately, I've heard that that's the thing, is the squirrel hunters become It's such a shame the squirrel hunt has become such a second class citizen. I have had guys come to me and say that I've had two things happened. I've had friends come and say that they feel bad hunting squirrels during deer season. And I've had squirrel hunters come to me and say, this happened to Murphy. Kevin Murphy, who a guy has gotten down out of his tree stand on public land in the Mannistee National Forest in my home state of you can a guy got down out of his tree stand to accost my friend for having the audacity to be out hunting schools during our treat I would have punched that guy in the face. That's that's a little much. But we do. I would have felt, as I was gonna do, we have to. You know, we have a really long deer season in Maryland, you know, from September to the end of you're on the well. It makes it tough, I mean, you know, for for small game hunters, squirrel hunters and all, because everything, you know, a lot of it is least up for deer hunting and all. And and so that's one of the reasons why we don't have squirrel hunters or small game hunters is because it is because it's all taken up by deer, you know. And and there's been different times where We've been asked to extend deer season even longer in February, and it's like, you know that just that just takes more even more time away from you know, these folks that want to I want to do you know, these other these other hunts. You know, there's there's yeah, there's validity to that because you know, we used to hunt squirrels because squirrel season, well, archery deer open October one, squirrel open September, so you'd pour the coals to the squirrels for two weeks and then you'd pick them back up again when deer season end, so you'd be hunting them, you know, after Christmas. You'd hit them hard until the end of season. And that's like kind of like when you hunted squirrels. Yeah, so but here, you know you have the first you know, you have the first week of September basically because because deer season is into Friday after Labor Day, so you have the first week of September in general, and then like said, you might have a couple of weeks in February, and otherwise you gotta if you're a squirrel hunter or a small game hunter, you gotta share the woods with deer hunters, it's not always real fun. So if you're a deer hunter down here, you're hunting der five months out of the year. You start the Friday after Labor Day and go to January thirty one. Yeah, and then if you have I'm gonna move down here. And then if you want to like hunt some of the urban managed hunts, some of those do go into February, so you could be hunting and you can be like usually it's usually deer season. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but then you can wait for springing turkey hunt. Yeah. I got my first. I went turkey, got my first turkey this year. That was like the greatest thing ever. That was a ton of fun. Telling you what, man, that's that's even more exciting than squirrel hunting. Well, yeah, for sure. So did you have it? Do you have any final thoughts? Marshall myself. Yeah, no, I just say come on over to Blackwater, check it out, come hunt, come visit. You're gonna get all kinds of the hunters mad at you for saying that. Oh I know, but that's okay, m Yeah, they might bump into you. All the public resources we're there. Yeah, you gotta get we gotta get more hunters engaged, and we've got to get people who haven't hunted before get excited about it. And the only way we're going to do that is if we're welcoming to new hunters, and so can people personally. Can people personally call you up and ask you what's up? People do? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I encourage that. Yeah, we have public meetings. I talked to folks who we get ideas and comments. Doesn't mean I can do everything that people suggest, No, I mean of some guys, like if some guys like, hey, man, I'm gonna come down and check out this secret dear thing, there's resources for him him or herd figure it out. Oh yeah, yeah, No, I think it's really important that we get more people to see the benefits of hunting and just getting outdoors in general. So we've got to be welcoming to do it. I've noticed too that you guys have made the hunt unit maps available on Google Earth and downloads, so you can look at it out in your smart That's probably the biggest impedance to new secret hunters is it's an intimidating landscape you get out there, and especially black Water, and that's like the nastiest of the nasty stuff on Fishing Bay and black Water, and that's where most new secret hunters go to. And that's uh, it's you can get lost out there easy, and uh it turns a lot of people off. A lot of people come down try it once and it's like, oh, no, more of that for me to give a sense. I was watching the video where a guy was hunting secret here out of his boat just to give you just like a yeah, like an example, to give you a sense of the landscape. And he was talking about the importance of raising when he leaves his boat, of raising a flag pole. He must not be a big GPS guy. Of raising a flagpole the blaze orange flag on it. Yeah, you can lose your boat so he can read, so he can locate his boat. Yep. Yeah, but don't let that scary off. I mean it's a great it's a great are you said earlier? I mean it's a fishing wildlife mecca. You know, you can multiple species, you can go fishing. I mean you can pack so much and uh, a week's trip or a weekend trip or whatever. I mean, it's really an awesome Yeah. We don't even touched the blue crabs and snakeheads. That's a whole another podcast. So, uh, Brian, you got any concluding thoughts you want to add things you need't get a chance to know. There are a great species or unique species, and it's the only place in the country or probably maybe in the world that you can hunt these guys. And they're probably one of the purer strains around of secret deer. A lot of secret deer have been hybridized. And also it's really a unique opportunity. Um, yeah, have Um, this is my concluder. That's a question. Have I know you guys have some c w D in Maryland. Have c w D positive white tales interfaced? Here's what I'm getting at. Any idea about whether CWD is gonna make the jump? Um can so? No? I mean in Maryland from a geography to standpoint or nowhere close. And we got the whole chich I speak base separating, so c w ds in western Maryland. Um, so, I wouldn't expect necessarily our secret deer to be exposed to c w D from that standpoint. Um, it's very plausible that that that's sick of deer, you know, or susceptible of c w D. No one's talc them together in the pen yet to see what happened, to see if they transmit. Now, well you've done it with monkeys. Yeah, oh yeah, they've done a lot of you know, they've done a lot of testing like that. Um just recently Yeah, yeah, that the word research out of Canada shows that, yeah, macaques, that they were able to infect macax with c w D. I guess kind of like implanting it. Yeah, it was really well, they didn't implant it, but it was really had high aggressive, higher loads than what you would expect like you or I sitting down and eating venison to night for dinner. So but you know that's still you know, you have to look at that and take that into consideration. And the CDC that is, you know, they they looked at it and they actually changed their wording for you know, for for hunters that are hunting in c w D areas and they're a little bit more um strongly, they've more strongly worded it now that you should really consider getting your dear tested if you're if you're hunting in a c w D area. That's what I've done the last couple of years. Man, when I've hunted c w D area. It's just it's it's the problem is it's hard because there's not a lot of areas to get that testing done. Um, So we need to make some improvements there, um for for hunters, you know, to be able to do that. But back to your original question there, you know, our our sick of deer or a little welk um. They're in the serve you know, service family, So I'm sure they're probably susceptible c w D. I wouldn't see why they why they wouldn't you know? You are white tailed dear mule deer ls you know, falor deer about the only ones that come to mind that I don't think, you know, they've been able to to get c w D into falor dear. Yeah. So, but so that's an interesting question you asked, though, Steve, because it made me think of something that I have a question for you, Brian. Recently, you know, this is the time of your e h D and the tongue starts hitting deer and and people are finding a lot of dead white tails this time of year, and increasingly I'm seeing guys on the internet forums referring to oh it's either cf C w D or e h D, and they're talking about us to ensure populations, and people are starting to sling the term around like it's it's commonplace and whatnot. And I wonder if the Department's doing any outreach to sort of combat that perception that yeah, we you know, let hemorrhagic disease, blue tongue. Sure you know that, right. Well, we're in the midst of a pretty good outbreak right here in Dorchester and Caroline and Talbot. So yeah, but it's kind of like, I mean, I don't mean, but that's not as scary. No, no, no, it's not your right because there's not a human because it's like a thing that happens. But a lot of our hunters, but a lot of our her hunters, I don't think use them. Interchange. Yeah, I use them and don't realize that there are two separate diseases. Um. So yeah, I mean, yeah, we've we've done press releases about h D and yeah, but i'd be like saying your body like I don't know, he's got the flu or cancer. Yeah, It's like, yeah, it's just like the two different things. It's completely different, you know. I mean, I mean completely different magnitude. Um, a lot of hunters probably feel h D is more of a threat than c w D because screws up the hunt. Yeah, screws up the hunt. Yeah, you know, I mean we probably you know, we we we've got there's a couple of areas over here where we've we've probably had a pretty good you know hit on the deer population. Now they'll bounce back in a year or two, five years to be back to having not even five years. Yeah. So but but yeah, so I was a concern from that standpoint. Um, but but from a human standpoint, c w D is definitely the you know, the one we have to watch. I'm gonna be more concerned about. So stuff keeps me up. What's a big hit for e h D? Like a really big hit would be fifty of the popular that was seventy year or something. Uh, Well, you know what, if you're in a and if you're in a naive state, like a deer population that's never seen it before, you probably could get you know, over fifty. But here in the East where we've had you know, we've had h D since the seventies, I think, or now it's probably might even been before that they found in New Jersey and fifty five identified or identified it, Yeah, and fifty five and described it scientifically. It might have always it could have been there before that, right, but not too much longer there because we were reintroducing deer and thirties and forties, so it wouldn't have been too much before that. Well. Anyways, long story is a big hit around here. Yeah, would be a big hit. And that's the term. Naive state would be a state where naive the first time of population, the population that hasn't had it before. Yeah, like Ontario this year, because I've been to some naive states. Yeah, but not for not for HD, like Ontario had their first had their first HD cases here Connecticut. They're in the news right now. They have HD right now. So it's there's light at the end of the tunnel, slowly moving moving. Have we gone over HD before? We've never done. Is it possible to give us like a two to five minute yeah, HD or e H D episodic and this can you include how people call and blue tongue is Well, they're two separate, they're two different things. I mean, yeah, they're two different strains. Yeah, there's actually yeah, no, No, they're actually different. There's different strains of of h D m r agics disease, and some of them are e h D and some of them are blue tongue. And then within within there's there's different different strains. So like here in Maryland, we're in an outbreak right now, so we'll try to get our hands on samples. We send them to Georgia to the Southeast Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study. They do the testing for us, and we have e h D two and e h D six. We're working on our deer right now. It's a virus and it's spread by noseums, gnats, midges, whatever you wanna call them, co coiled days um and nothing you can do about it. You know, it's no threat the humans um, but when it gets into a deer population, I mean you know, it can kill a significant number a number of the animals. And like we were just talking about, if it's a if it's a population that's been exposed to h D over the year, they're more resistance, so you won't see us significant of an impact. But as this disease or virus moves north and gets into into these populations that have never been exposed. It can it can hit them pretty hard, um, you know, and then up mortality. Um. And that's why you see it in the news Michigan a couple of years ago, it was it was big news in Michigan for when it where my brother Matt lives in eastern Montana, they got swept. Yeah. So it's starting to you know, it's it's really starting to radiate out. You know, here in the East, we haven't seen any detrimental, long term issue, you know, issues with it. I mean that what's the spacing on epidemics about it seems like every five to seven years we get a big outbreak. Now we'll have deaths every year, you know, it'll spring up every year. Um, but it seems like every five, six, seven years we get a pretty big out Does it correlate with a big population, Well, that would be part of it, you know, because there's that certain there's that certain proportion of the population that is resistant and that proportion that's not resistant. As it builds up, that gets up to a certain point and then you'll see a bigger outbreak. Um. So so that that plays into it. Um. There's also theories that weather plays into it. UM, it seems like possibly if it's a drought, if it's a mild winter, any drought summer or a dry summer. UM. The thought is that you have reduced areas with water UM and also probably increased breeding. Maybe areas for these for these gnats might congregate dear more around the water that's available, so you know, you might have a worse year for for HD. UM. There's some theories out there that maybe we're starting to see it further north based on maybe some changes in wind patterns. Maybe some of these maybe some of these gnats are actually physically being transported to new areas, you know, where they haven't been before. So there's a lot we still don't know UM, And there's a lot of research going on. UM. But it is it's a it's been around, like I said, I mean, it was identified in New Jersey and fifty five I think. So it's nothing to you know, really get worked up about. But but it happens, you know, it happens every year. So what are the symptoms and how does the killer dere so want to ask, what's death look like? So it is pretty vicious. I mean, it's very fast acting. UM. If it's a deer that that's not resistant to it UM. It literally breaks down cells and breaks down blood vessels UM, and the deer hemorrhages to death. Um or or you know, or you know causes fluid on the lungs and basically drowns. UM causes a real high fever. So a lot of times we'll get a you know, we'll get a call, hey there's three deer fluting in my pond, or you know, some somebody may be fishing on a nanniocoke and found two or three. Yeah. Yeah, it drives into water so um. But it actually it's you know, it's hamorrhagic disease. So I mean it acts on them real quick. Um. There is a certain proportion that survives that you know, if if they get it UM. And an easy way to tell if it's a deal that that that had HD and survived is you know, if you're writing and you kill a deer, if the hooves are all sloughing off because of arrests hoof growth, I guess, And then if they survive it, then when the who's start growing again, um, it's sloughs off, so their their hooves will look pretty pretty rough. Yeah, so you know, the water thing explains something that happened to me once years ago when the Lower Yellowstone had an outbreak. I was at the tax therm was there in Miles City, and his shot was just full of bucks that he was doing euro Mountain on giants. Yeah, And I was like, what the hell all these bucks doing here? And he's like, man, these are all things farmers are pulling out of the river, is that right? And no one knew the bucks like this, Like I didn't know. I you know, I spent a lot of time knocking around there, like a whole class of bucks. He just didn't know existing down in those willow you know, down like the willow choke bottoms and stuff. But yeah, he said, he said, every farmer in town is bringing them all these bucks. He's buckheads dragging about these giants. You know a lot of times, you know, we'll hear all. It hits bucks harder, and I don't I think if you looked into the data that you're just you just see that buck first, you know, And I think that's what your mind perceives. But I think it's an equal opportunity virus. I think it's probably you know, it's probably hitting any of them, but this this area as well gets uh, this part of the river gets bad ice dams. They had ice dams so bad in the forties that they had to take a like a full on bomber. It took an Air Force bomber and dropped ordinance to break up an ice dam that was gonna flood mild City. They then levied some parts of the town off to protect it from overflow from ice dams. But a couple of years ago big ice dam formed up and flooded all the lowlands. Eventually the ice dam breaks up, and we're down in there, uh, fish and calfish and one around looking for turkeys and whatnot in the spring, and there's fish hundreds of yards away from the river, just like laying out in fields and out in like cottonwood groves, just fish every where. My boy says, yeah, they get up in there when the ice dam forms and they're swimming all over hell. And then I think when it busts that drains also fast, just leaves the fish and so it just be like catfish and carpet suckers scattered. That's yeah, all over in the woods everywhere. It looks like it was like rain and fish, so death and miles city. Um, the last thing was blue tongue. Do we get to what I was? Yeah, just it. It causes a blood flow issue and oxygen deprivation. So a lot of times you'll the tongue will turn blue. But only the one form causes or do they both cause blue tongue? They both, as far as I know, they both can cause. Yeah, the blue tongue issue. A lot of you'll see stars in the mouth. Um, that's another sign that it was a deer that at each Is it in life or death that it gets a blue tongue? Um, I think it's very as it happens so fast. I think it's right there at that you know, the deer could still be alive. Um so, but it, like I said, it, it acts pretty quick on them, um than four probably hours forty eight hours. They go from probably alive too dead that fast? Do you guys? So, do you guys even bother going in and youthanizing sick? Dear that it happens so quick that very most of the times when we get a report, it's a deer that that was that's already dead or the you know, the land owner says Yeah, I was watching it was sick and then now it's dead. So you know, it happens, It happens pretty quick. They're not clinical for for a long time c w D chronic wasting disease, you know, I mean they can carry that, yeah, very slow acting, but hdn hit some pretty quick. Yeah. So yeah, it sounds like if you are going to catch when, I'll go with the h D. Yeah, sick of deer. Just just a little note one that as far as we never sick of deer, do not get HD or a blue tongue. Now, back when I was doing my my graduate work, I had a bunch of deer radio collared not too far from here, and we had an HD outbreak and it killed I forget what percentage, but it killed. It killed quite a few of my radio collared white tails, and never touched one of my sick of deer, so that I had of callers really not saying it's impossible, but but just based on on what we've seen, we've never had a report of one. We've never been able to test one. And like I said, none of my radio collared animals ever, I never got it, So wow, man, Yeah, maybe someday My kill would be like, what's the white tail. I don't think. I don't. I just know about sex, all right, guys, Well, thanks so much man uh for coming up. Thank you. It's exciting. I think people will be really interested in this, and the people from here will be real mad we talked about this at such length. Yeah, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you m