00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything. I'm with Janice podcast horror will tell us. Thank you. Um. Randall Williams, who has been on this, who's down on the show before, an environmental historian. Um, I'd like to accidentally call him Randall Weaver, who is the Ruby Ridge standoff person. But it's in fact Randall Williams does that many Randall's everybody switches to Randy endearing. Yeah, I know one other Randall. He's actually a neighbor. I got a friend named Randy with an eye on the end, and I call her Randall. I wish you don't like, I can't imagine. And Matt Elliott here from who drove up from World Bench made World Headquarters down. And like in Portland property, Oregon City, Oregon City, there's an east and the west side thing in in uh Portland. If you live on the east side, you don't really consider yourself in Portland unless you're actually East Portland. But in eastern Oregon they call everything pretty much West of the Mountains Portland. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So are you like in the redneck part of Portland as a Yeah, that's the redneck parts the industrial area. You guys still drink like Sanka and Folgers and stuff. And it's not like there's still fifty five Starbucks within a mouth from from bench made. Yeah. Um, hey, how we're just talking about hunting spots and stealing people's GPS is in Uh and yan, tell tell what happened? Now you're what happened? Now you're on an airplane and which you ran a new dude who used to live where you live. And uh, I met him through I want to amy names even get in trouble, but I met him through another friend, a colleague of ours, and uh, we're skiing together, and uh it turns out that he was a fishing guy and dabbled in the hunting guiding a little bit and actually knew a friend of mine from Colorado and now lives back east. And I saw this kind of thing like, well, maybe I could get probably a little bit of information out of him, you know, So I just slipped in like a yeah, I'm new here, and you know, what do you know about hunting right here around the ski area? And I mean that just opened up the floodgates. Man, I couldn't. I should just have my iPhone out on record. But because he used to hit all that stuff and moved away to Chicago. Yeah, so we're no, we're just saying, how guys that don't you know you just don't protect your hunting spots as much as as you once did once you move away from an area, Dude in the guide book. In the guide book, I say, I've gotten a lot of hunting spots by talking to people who used to live somewhere that don't anymore because they don't care. And now I'm in the situation where I used to live. You know, I spent a lot of time a decade ago somewhere and I'll tell people now, I'll be like, oh, you know, I haven't been in a decade, but go check it out. And I I knew this dude who was working on you know, on X on X maps. They're in Missoula. So I know a guy who moved to Missoula to work there, And I'm like, hey, man, you know what you ought to do is this is place we used to find bears in the spring. I'm like around May eleven, like between the six and the eleven drive up to this trailhead and you're gonna get out of your car and you're gonna think's ridiculous because it's gonna be a ask load of snow. Never mind the snow. Walk up two miles and there's gonna be a southeast exposure that's gonna have a bald spot on the size of a couple of football fields, and watch that for the day. Because it used to work out. He goes up there one day, comes back, calls, he says, oh, it's too snowy. I'm like, dude, just park, go back, walk up. It doesn't matter what it looks like with the snow. Never mind, the snow goes up there, says there, black bear comes out, misses it, something like that. Spot still is good. So old spots can be good, definitely. Animals don't know how much time went by. I think there's I think they're cyclical too, you know, spots. I think they get popular with guys, they start to get hit hard. Animals maybe move out a little bit, or you get a little nocturnal, and then all of sudd everybody's like, there's a lot sucks, and then you roll in, you know, to you it's like Nirvana because he's rolling. There's nobody there. Yeah, that happens even in the side of the season. You know, it's like people going hit up a spot. They might have drawn a limited entry tag and people are hunting it. That happened us last year. There was just a ton of pressure on this spot and everybody bailed because the elk was shut down. Because the human pressure definitely affects, you know, how vocal the elk are. My buddy felt like there was no elk to be found. We'd drawn the tag sort on his preference points. We said, all right, well, you know, go home. I'll hunt the coast instead, and we we bailed out of there. And then a friend of mine told me later who knew some guys from Roseberg that I'd that I'd run into there and said, oh, you guys are going back to the coast and I have fun shooting your little five point We'll be here chasing these big bulls. And and I talked to my buddy ties Stubblefield actually, and he he told me, yeah, I talked to him that. You know, they elk lit up like two days later. For the last four days of the season, everybody bailed out of there and the pressure got lighter in the elk. Just yeah, I got fired up again. Conversely, I got a friend he's passed away now, but he uh was up in the tobacco or roote mountains and just you know, stumbled onto herd helt on the hillside. And that dude could never get it out of his head. And like when he went out hunting, his elk hunt was the goal and be like nope, not there, go back to this truck. I mean for years he just had it was like you check they're either they're or not out there, and then you know later I was sin I think that just one day someone bumps the milk and they wand up on the hills. I'm taking that approach before. We just can't you can't shake it that you've seen an animal there. Yeah, it was just like it haunted him. Man, it was just he just like the idea of him on that slope. Um. The other day, I had to go down to Kansas to do a I was like given a talk to all the people to teach hunter's ed in Kansas. And I get off the plane and spend about an hour driving behind a dude who's got a thing. Um, I'd rather be shooting Yankees, remember that, which is particularly offensive to me having lived in four northern tier states. Um, But I went to this thing like and and I'm getting to talk to the hunting need instructors. There's Separate hundred up there, and this guy asked me a question about what's my thoughts on eating bullet lead right letting meat? And I go to and we get talking about X rays that they're kind of floating around online where they they'll shoot an animal with a you know, a jacket and lead bullet, and then looking where all the lead winds up in the carcass um because it gets into little fragments, getting the vascular system and wind up being far removed from the wound channel and it hits bone and breaks off and gets sent off in various directions. And he's actually are floating around you look like you look at something that's been hitting the shoulder, and I mean there's bits lead nine ten inches out from there. And when I started looking at those pictures and a friend who's a big anti lead advocate, Um, he's he's a biologist. I'll give him some credit, but big anti led guy he's the one that sent it to me, and he's kind of like disbelief that people are eating his stuff. Other people I know. This is all something we conversed about other people I know, UM say that that the way that is it's inert. Your body doesn't dissolve that led down. He just passed it out. A guy commented how he'd been eating the old guy. He's in his seventies. He's been eating wild game his entire life, sauce. I can't even imagine how many shotgun pellets I've eaten. He went in and asked his doctor to test his lad. He said, they don't even test lead. He may like. He insisted that someone tests has led and he had, you know, like wherever the I feel like he was telling me like high lead is point to something or whatever. And he didn't even have like detectable levels. So he's like, if you're if you're gonna happen, it gonna happen to me. We have this big conversation. So after I give the talk, this old timer comes up to me and uh establishes his credentials in the field of lead by explaining that he was a twenty five years like a munitions guy in the military, and uh, he starts telling me that it's all this whole thing about lead is bs about lead ammo. Okay, did lead ammo um and shot pellets and stuff like that doesn't affect wildlife. Um, it's not soluble in that form, just passes through your system. That it was all the larkey when the steel shot, you know, when the lead the lead shot band for Federal Migratory Waterfall went into play. And he had a point to me. He says, how many times have you opened up a gizzard in your life off a ducker goose and found a pellet in it? And I got thinking about it and it had never happened. And he said, been hunting water found my whole life and never seen a pellet in there. And he pointed out that now you can't use lead. Let me back up clarify that when what year was it the lead band eighty I remember I was already hunting when it went into effect. Um. They they phased it out over the final few years of the eighties, and I think ninety one was the first year when nobody could hunt migratory birds with lead shot. Yeah, so they had ducks and geese pick up um grit for their crop, you know, and uh, they pick up gravel and it goes into crop and they don't have a stomach or not like you think. So when they eat food, what am I trying to send me? Back? Up? Pick up grit for their gizzard goes in their gizzard. So when a when a bird eats, he his food going to his crop. Then from his crop, it goes down to his gizzard and the gizzards just like this muscle that squeezes, and it's full of rocks, and uh, the rocks pulverized the food. They build their digestive system basically by eating grind up whatever they eat, and then they grind up materials eventually gets so ground up that this passed through the bird. That's why I see different times a day, you know, I see grouse or doves or any number of things feeding on the side of the road, just pecking around. There's going to get gravel um waterfowl, the argument goes, and we'll get into the truth of this or not waterfall picks up shot lead shot as grit, and then they would get lead poisoning and it would cause the birds to get lethargic and die. So in the late eighties early nineties, for because waterfalls managed on the federal level, a federal ban on using lead shot went into effect. I remember that happened as a kid, and I remember guys quit, remember like guys quit hunting over the lead issue. And and to clarify, it really raised its head in the mid seventies, like in and with groups demanding an environmental impact statement four UM the federal Waterfowl regulations. And then in seventy six they issued an environmental impact statement that addressed this, and they began to impose restrictions on certain areas and lead shot, and that raised sort of the specter of, you know, it was lead eventually going to go away. And then in the late UM, I think in eight five or eighty six, there was an amended environmental Impact statement that really addressed um, sort of the secondary effects of lead. And that was basically there was a suit that claimed that the environmental impact statement UH that addressed the impact of lead on waterfowl didn't address the impact of eagles eating waterfoul poisoned by lead and so sort of the secondary effects of lead. And so that's what really led to the eventual Okay, leads eventually gonna go away, and then they began to slowly phase it out. They're led Zeppelin, right, Yeah, so by it was done, Yeah, guys got pissed because lead maintains its know, it's heavier, so it maintains its velocity. And when people got done with lead, every went to steal, which is much lighter. Now there's all kinds of other stuff that's really expensive, but people are pissed because crippling loss. Most people anecdotally felt that crippling loss was much higher shooting steal than the lead. Um. It was a controversial move and people felt that the science wasn't there. And this guy was pointing out that not only was the science there, but the birds aren't picking it up anyway. This is just a dude on the street, okay telling me this. So after I had this conversation, I checked in with a couple of biologist friends who were um who weren't of age at that time. Right, So they work on waterfowl want in particular, my friend Brand works on waterfowl now. But you know, he's young, he doesn't he wasn't involved with that at the time, and he just operates and and he substantiates it, but he just operates under the assumption that you know, it was a good move. What do you get. I mean, the reason it's important now or the reason I'm starting to wonder about it now, is because he has so many issues now with guys being worried about humans and justin lead and gave me, did anybody find a study on how much lead you have to ingest for it to be damaging? So I found studies on on birds, you know, how how much lead a bird would have an assystem before they really felt like it was impacting the birds psycho psychological state, and that they talked about birds how they kind of go crazy if they have too much lead. And I don't remember what the actually was, Yeah, like point one or something that it starts to impact, but it has to be like point six for it to really be fatal, you know, something something like Yeah, I remember this guy was saying he had his lead check that was that's why he had his led check to his point too. Yeah, and um, maybe like two, I can't remember what the hell he was saying. It's point six where it really starts dangerous, Like dangerous was at a certain level. Yeah, I mean I looked into some of this, especially with the the recent events in Michigan, sort of the history of of lead poisoning, right, I mean, no, it's it's an often lead it's already been like soluble. Yeah, No, it's a different I mean it's a different case. But just thing about, um, the effects of lead on on the body. I guess I did some background reading and it was sort of interesting that, um, you know, the the the knowledge that lead is toxic to human beings is very old, but it's only sort of in the late twentieth century. That I mean, the idea of acute lead poisoning, um from like high levels of exposure. That that's old knowledge. Um, but the knowledge, but I guess the the recognition that small exposure was also dangerous is much more recent, like in the late twentieth century. Especially to kids. It's like subclinical levels of it. Yeah, they test like my kids, They test my kids for lead all the time. And when people get it, it it winds up being they're getting it from eating paint and they're eating dirt with this bend has a lot of lead in it from from when gasoline was leaded, right, soluble lead, you know, I just want to know, and I don't know because I've heard it from credible sources. Either way, I just want to know if there's ever been a case where fisherman, Now, I spent my whole life a split shot in my mouth, because that's where we store it. Like you're all fishing, you know, you're running three split shot and then you're in another area we should only had one to go in your mouth. Then you're in an area where you wish you had to. You pull one out of your mouth, put it on, clamp it with your teeth and your free line you got off, you know, and you're setting them on and off. It's like I grew up sucking on I've eaten. I don't know how many shotgun pellets, how many lead fragments? Right? Can anyone point to where a person got lead poisoning from any kind of hunting fishing related activities? Also, how documented is it that when birds and I'm not trying to be like, I'm not trying to be contrarying, how documented is that the ducks and geese that have high letter actually getting the lead from shot and not from industrial pollutants? Do you know I think it has to find a different set of experts to Uh, I'm not. I'm not because as far as I can tell, its almost seems like unanswerable. How would you even how would you even be able to observe them, you know, being migratory, actually ingesting, and how they were eating lead versus eating This guy was telling me, Yeah, they got lead poisoning, they got head poisoning from industrial pollutants. Yeah, soluble lead. You know, he's saying they're not getting it from picking up your number six shot. That's what he's claiming to me. He said, you're passing that stuff. The turn to steel isn't the only variable. They're like, the unleaded gas has certainly changed, you know, the switched unleaded gas has certainly changed the amount of lead, which which contemporaneous. I remember being in high school and dudes having to go by like dudes. This dude I grew up with, Brian Peterson. He had to go by lead to put as their phasing now leading gas stations. He had to go buy a lead additive to run his old ass car. Huh. So that that was his claim And I'm not posing it like you're supposed to know the answer. But the reason it's significant is I've hundred in areas in California. You can't use lead, right, you can't use lead bullets the condor zone. And it's because they are like those things are getting lead poisoning from eating, carrying from and that is proven science. Well, it's proven that they have. Here's your thing. This guy was telling me, you can't detect when you can tell something has been poisoned, you can tell it's been poisoned by heavy metals. You can't necessarily he was saying, you can't necessarily tell that it's lead has heavy metal poisoning. He blames it on industrial discharge and things like leaded gasoline, industrial discharge and all these other causes. And he's saying, rather than address these causes, people have put their focus that it somehow has to do with lead ammunition. When tuna, right, and other things have some of these those things have high heavy metals or mercury, because are they eating shot? Is someone shooting tunas with? Let you know? It's I don't understand. So I did read about a ban on lead sinkers in Great Britain. Is ridiculous to me, and uh, but but I guess, and and this is just from reading the literature and no real you know, detail knowledge of it, but I guess there was a documented um boom in in this particular Swan population that was effected that led to this band. It was yeah, it was like sure, yeah, like these these particulars, don't they know how to put the split shot on this particular It sounds like they need to have like a like a public service annalysment about crimping it on better. I don't know, um they but they they they when they switched. When they switched, it was like the number of these Swans bumped up by like thirty eight percent or something. That was the statistic that I read. And and yeah, again it was just sort of some background reading. But yeah, but I mean, you know, you know, you could read that a thousand ways. Yeah. I like, I hate listening to myself right now because I sound like the incredulous old geezer who hates change and like acts like expertise, is sup. I sound like like Donald Trump, right, like experts. I don't need experts tell me what I know. You know, I know the sun rises. So there's a difference between not believing everything you read and and not believing things that that you don't agree with. Yeah, I told Yanni a quote one time. Tell the quote I told you, or did you forget? I forgot. Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect. I can't remember who said it. It's good though, it's yeah, So I'm trying. I've always carried around an assumption. For a while, I switched and stop shooting lead bullets, started shooting monolithic bullets, pure copper. People are going in that direction anyway. But for a while I was like, oh, I'll shoot these. It's a little different. You gotta you know, you generally kind of hold a little bit different and makes everything different. I always like bonded bullets, and I'm kind of shooting him again. There Day I got a email from a friend of mine who's a um a biologist, highly educated in the natural sciences, very avid hunter, and sent me a thing about uh Oregonians use of lead, sort of survey about people's relationships with lead ammunition. He was very upset. I'm been hunting with this guy to spring. UM. I'm trying to think. I gotta check my amy because I don't want to show up with lead ami because but I'm hunt with him a spring, but just distraught. These like that, our fellow casadors, for you non Spanish speaking folks that Spanish for hunter are littering the landscape and littering their food with this stuff. And I just don't know if it's like true or not. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what what sort of an effect it has. But when you think about the numbers of um, you know, lad the you know, prior to the steel shot, you think about the number of the amount of lead that was pumped over like pothole lakes and things like that, I mean thousands of tons. Mosquegon's day game area right grew up, you'd go out on an open day and shoot a cull box and shells. I mean it's like raining shot. Yeah, and just what landed in my hat? We've been enough to kill somebody. And each bang is is announcing announcing a night. You know, Uh, there's a whole, there's a whole another component of this issue that's sort of coming light. I was reading a research article about the impacts gun clubs and and studies that they've done on gun clubs. Because environmentalists are now coming after gun clubs, you know, over putting lead into the ground, and this guy right right, well, so this so this, so this study Actually, you know, I think there's things that seem like they're more legitimate and grounded in science and the arguments environmentalists make, and then there's other things that are just irrational and emotional base because they're just really going after whatever issue because of some polarization of their politics or whatever it might be. But this particular study, they were looking at the impacts around the gun club and they found at least as far as the water goes, that that lead doesn't go very far. That type of lead, it can't go very far. So they found that it did impact the top two inches of soil, but nothing nothing else. But so this study, I rn was too so. And and again I think one of the difficulties I have and really forming an opinion about this, other than talking to biologists like you've had the opportunity to do, is it's hard looking around at the internet and hearing these to really discern. And that's something that sounds like the the military person you talked to was getting out a little bit. Also, it's like it's hard to discern how much of this is somebody's like opinion or an emotional opinion, and how much of it is actually grounded in science. And even when you look at scientific articles, it's still they still sort of seem to have oftentimes a bit of an angle. So I guess about But I think that here's kind of where I'm going. Where I'm going on it is. I don't think we're done making mistakes. We all laugh now, Like I'll tell the story recently that my dad had uh got shot in the foot with a shotgun, and he would go to shoe stores to show people the pellets in his foot, and they would X ray your foot in the shoe store, see if your shoe fit right. Okay, So everybody's standing around a shoe store all day long, no protection, X raying people's feet the shoe salesman guy. Right, We now realize that that's not a good idea to be exposed to that level. Okay, So we're not done making these mistakes. We laugh now, like the way they used to. My dad said when he was again my old man was when he was in the army, they put cigarettes in your rations when he was stationed. When he was in World War two. I think he said that three cigarettes and you see you rashing each meal, so we now laugh like ha ha. Can you believe that they didn't know? We're not done making mistakes right I'm in full agreement. We're making them right now, and our kids will be like, can you believe those sons of it is used to X? And it's us right now at this table. So in some way, I'm like, Okay, if there is all the hysteria and some people are sitting around and saying like, yeah, but you can't totally don't really know. You can't totally prove you don't really know. At what point are you being like Big Tobacco, who probably is still arguing that cigarettes are fine, you know, for the NFL, and that concussions don't matter. It's like, at some point, um the tide turns, and you know, I want it. I don't want to like stop doing something because it just works so good and then be down the road like the I who is the lated doctor. But the other hand, I don't want to be like I don't want to be misled led misled. I suppose in the end, you just have to be open to reality when it comes to you. Yeah, right, Yeah, I think this is one of those issues too that um, you know, there's a tendency I think too if you don't necessarily agree with something, or you're on the other side of the issue, you begin to um misrepresent the intentions of the other side, right, And I think an example, well, I guess, like, um, in a recent podcast, you had a letter from a listener who's talking about the reintroduction of wolves as a um a ploy, right, or that the intance pushed for the wolf reintroduction as a way to disarm America because the wolves would eat all of the game and everyone would be like, well, fucket and sell their guns. Yeah, I mean here's someone else. I mean, or I guess in his mind that they would destroy him in a way like not they could, they sold me, they'd still be in existence. But it was just a way to get to disarm America. And I'm like, you know, the wolf reintroduction was controversial. That seems like a very roundabout way disarming. And I mean that that guy, that guy's you know, he's he's allowed, he's fully entitled to his credit. I gotta give credit. He was saying that his buddy buddy, buddy thinks that, and he was wanting to find a way to articulate to his buddy why that's probably not true. Yeah, no, we won't. So yeah, we won't. We won't pay him into that box. But um, you know that that guy is fully entitled to his to his belief that wolf Ree introduction was a bad idea. But it doesn't change the fact that there were decades of um biological studies and scientific studies that led up to that decision. And there's a documented history of of what the um So you know, if the Clintons were to go back in time and and uh and and create this ploy, I mean, and and the other thing too, I guess is that, um, the initial intention behind certain policies can be subverted by other groups or can be used to further other agendas. That doesn't necessarily mean that that policy was bad from the get go, right, or that it was all part of one conspiracy. So um, yeah, that person could say, um, I don't agree with wolf reintroduction, and I don't think Hillary Clinton has gun friendly right, but he's like, and he's like, but I go to tie those two things to Yeah, yeah, So I mean it's one of those. I think. I think the lead issue is UM is one that that's sort of ah lends itself to that sort of a a polarization, right because as you say, UM, there are groups out there trying to shut down shooting ranges because of this threat UM and and obviously it's there's some debate as to how much of a threat it poses to human health, but they're trying to shut down shooting ranges, and so that is construed then as an attack on larger issues. UM. But I think there are certain things that we have to agree on, and one is that lead can be toxic and it's not good for you, and uh so, yeah, I don't know. I think I think at some point you have to come to an agreement on the fundamentals of a particular issue before you begin. Is I have an enormous cash Like if I was ever get in trouble, they raided in my house, they'd be like huge cashing animal. I'm like, well, you know it looks like that, but let's let's just say he had always practice with your lead animals. What are you gonna do? You still out there? It's really unfortunate in issues almost any issue that people are passionate about that. The polar opposites caused people in the middle to feel like there's no truth. You know, It's like, that's what you're talking about. It's like, you know, people trying to shut down shooting ranges, and so then people are like, oh, people are trying to shut down shooting ranges. Then you know, there's no way that bullets are killing condors, led bullets are killing condors. Like even though there's science, people just sort of throw it all out the window because they feel like, right exactly, I'll point out that the gentleman who I spoke with, uh what alerted me to buyas is he used the term eco fascists. So then I'm like, okay, that's that. That ruins the rhetoric, right. It's like when when someone says me like they're talking about like some aspect of of liberals they don't like, and they go, yeah, the libtards, it just shuts me down. I'm like, you know what, I'd probably like, honestly, I probably would want up agreeing with you on whatever it is you're talking about. But the fact that he just used that term makes it very difficult for me to carry on this conversation because I would hate for another version of you to typify my perspectives as right wing fanatic. You know, It's like I just I can't stand it coming from either direction. Yeah, I can't stand that kind of Yeah, like the eco fascists. I'm like, hey, it might not be it might be a dude who knows a lot about heavy metals, and it's I mean, that's who it is. I mean, and that's who it is, right, It's there. They're scientists out there who have spent their entire professional lives studying these issues and trying to arrive at some conclusion. I mean, they're there, uh, ostensibly performing a public service, right, and so to to sort of paint them into this corner and say they're they have this agenda and they're attempting to wipe out hunting as we know it, it's just not a very One of the things that you run into that also though, is unfortunately the biologists in the end are ultimately the ones making the laws, right, So there are people that may or may not know as much about those issues that don't spend their whole life it's just investing everything and whatever that issue is. Then you've got some Natural Resources committee that spends thirty minutes on something that says, you know, you know whatever, done pound to gather and that's it. And they vote along party lines anyways in some in some respect right now, like both my brothers are a cologists. Okay, they like did biology and went into a cology specifically, you know, and they operate under like what seems to be like a scientific version of the hippocratic oath. I don't know the hypocratic goals, Like doctors take it right and they like pledged to do no harm, to do no harm when they're research yourself, and they research a lot of things, um. Each of the one deals with aquatic invertebrates and fish more and one deals with plant ecosystems more um. But they'll be telling you about something they're looking into cause and effect, causal relationships. Whatever it could be with environmental plutants, could be with one of my brothers right now is working on why answers to why it's hard to get sage brush and other plants too. Come back after when you're doing coal mine remediation, so you do a coal a surface coal mine, and then if you're obligated then to bring the land back to some usable form. They find that it's very difficult to re establish plant communities, certain plant communities, more difficult than if the coal mine would or wouldn't have been there. That's what they like to get it back to the way you left it, right. What if there wasn't What if there wasn't a coal mine and they just went and it was just some other parcel of land that they did something with and now they have to, you know, bring that back. I don't know he's probably able to answer that, but that's what he's working because when they do a coal mine, they you're you're bonding it, right, So you're putting down a chunk of money that's held by a governing agency and it gets given back to you once your remediation is done. So you've done the mind you bring top soil back in re established playing community, and it's supposed to be you know, as good or better. And the regulations used to be less strict. Let's they used to be able to do grass. Okay, it was easy to do that. Um Now in certain areas are like you know, sage brush is something we're losing, Like we're losing acreage of sage brush at an alarming rate. Um. Now, when people do coal mine remediation where you've tore up a community of a shrub community that contains like sage brush, your other things, rab buck brush, and part of your task is like, Okay, after the mining is done, it's gonna go back to a stage brush community. Very difficult to get that to happen. Okay, So he works on that. Another builder of mind works on a lot of issues haven do with a Nadramus fish, so water quality things, climate change issues, and they'll be working on something. I'm like, well, what do you hope happens? Like, what do you hope you find out? They don't think of it that way. The guy that's not my job is going to have a hope about what happens, or I don't hope that it's caused by this, or hope that's caused by that. My job is just to try to answer, like what is the issue? Right? Completely ruined the scientists. Yeah, It's like I think there are a lot of people out there working on things who aren't like I know how to get them hunters. Yeah, but they don't. They're like I'm trying to in the best way possible deliver you factual information that policymakers can then you is to twist and turn however they want to get their policy. I don't think that's their whole. Their hope is that I I can tell you this. Yeah, my brother dated a bunch of my He did a bunch of work out at Bristol Bay, stuff having to do with pebble mind. No one asked him like, hey, dude, what do you think about pebble mind? Do you like it or not? He he wouldn't even go near that topic. Yeah, but the persons what lives in what lives in this river? I can tell you what lives in that river. I'm not gonna tell you what I think about pebble minya about damn? Sure tell you that this, this, and this and this is in that river. Do these things, you know, how do they respond to certain impacts. I'll try to spell that out and tell it to you, But I'm not gonna tell you what I think about the mind. It's not my job. My job is to give you information and hope that it gets, you know, use it a sensible way. Yeah, and I think, um, you know, recognizing that it's not to say that, Um, people don't bring their own. But I mean science certainly is shaped by a certain by Like it's a certain type of person that's gonna follow that path and become a biologist, so they probably do. You know. It's it's it's less likely that someone who hates the natural world is going to become an ecologist, right, And so there are certain there are certain larger biases, but um, to recognize those maybe biases or the predisposition of of you know, people like your brother, Um isn't to just throw it all out the window, right, I mean there's a middle ground, and I think that's um. Yeah, it's too too often people say either the science is purely objective or it's purely biased, and I think, like you can recognize that it's it's more complicated than that. Yeah, I would think that, Like you said, like they both got into what they do because they like they grew up hunting fishing, and it introduced them to the natural world. But they always have that perspective and they still hunting fish. You know, you could have they could be sitting next to someone at a desk who grew up because their parents like to hang out at national parks and we're big Sierra Club folks, and they might have a purely antagonistic feeling towards hunting and fishing right that they're like they believe in like passive involvement with the natural world, like we're not out there as players on it um. Fundamentally, they're gonna look at stuff different differently. Doesn't mean when you put your if your biologists, when you put your biologists had on that you don't have to set those things aside and focus on what's factual. But it's probably very difficult to that. I'm sure it is. It is, but I think right along with that, oh if most of the scientists you know, my wife included, like they're they're always open to being proven wrong, like it's okay you know, for their research and stuff that to be done. And even though you said those things, yeah, these things are like you said with the river, like yes, this stuff in this river is doing this, this and this and this. If someone else redid the research and put it in a different way, and you know, had a different control group and disproved it, your brother would be like, oh, yes, you opened my mind and let's move forward, you know. So that's why that's why I has to be given there to that, the fact that they're open to that change. You know, human knowledge is an ongoing process. That's what my old man would get so frustrated with ideas of human evolution or the African diaspora because people be like, oh, you know, they found a new thing to sort of rewrite. See. See, that's why none of this matters because they used to say this. They say that. I'm like, yes, no one ever said, no one ever wrote down the definitive answer that will last all time. Right, It's just you just adding bits of knowledge as you go along, and it's a dynamic changing picture. In my own lifetime, like I just have a personal curiosity about the peopling of the New World. Right, So, who were the first people to show up in New World in North America? When do they get here? How they get here? Right? My understanding of that in my own lifetime has changed dramatically. Still kind of the basic story. But I never fell in love with one explanation. I just kind of follow what people are thinking. Rather than feeling frustrated by the fact that it changes all the time. It just like makes it feel like an engaging process. Yeah, you know, but some people do really fall in love with a version, and they're antagonistic toward a new version, which could be my body the lead guy. Yeah, Well, all of a sudden, you know, read up on this subject. It just really doesn't seem like there's a lot out there. So I think that's kind of nice. This the Oregon stuff that that you are biologist friends share with us. At at least that's current, you know, that's in. They're doing some work on that, you know, so hopefully we'll know more soon. I'm gonna I'm shooting non toxic water. Following the meantime, I'm shooting uh toxic no jacket bullets. Man shoot jacket his bullets. Do you guys make any lead knives that bench, No, we don't. We don't make any. I can't say that we don't that there's not leading in our products. I I don't know, you know, I can speak to that we don't have We don't make toxic We don't intentionally make toxic lead knives. No, you know what you were telling me, this changed subject a little bit. I was asking why Bench may never make why you guys don't do file at knives? Explain that so like, what's up with the knife? So we we have looked at it, and we actually used to have this line called Red Class that everybody hated because it was an import line and they're like, what the you know after you guys doing this, Like, you guys are American, an American made knife company, and that's what makes you great. Right, So we we started did away with that, but those file At knives were always they're kind of coveted people like, oh yeah, Nail's old Red Class file At Knives laying around And we were able to make file At knives then because they were forty five dollars and there seems to be I mean, when we make products the way bench Baid makes products, we make products and we shoot for like maximum performance. Right, So so we're using laser cutters to cut steels because we're using steels are too hard to stamp and and everything that we're shooting for is all to maximize value, like at a high level to the end users. So then we try to figure out how to manufacture it. And because we look at things from a from a value and a performance standpoint, and then figure out the manufacturing the costco way up and with filet knives. They seem to be more of a disposable item, you know, they're like people don't want to pay generally more than seven is a lot. I don't well, I was. I spent a few years in Bristol Bay as a fishing guide and we had lots of filet knives on the flight table, and you know, you're cutting fish and then you just rip them through, not even like with reckless abandoned, pretty much just rip them through a sharpener. And then you get back to file at issh and you're you know, there's guts and parts flying everywhere, and and it's just not a fleet knife. Isn't something that has this like you have an affinity for. It's just like this, Yeah, you feel the same way most people do. And so we have to also be conscientious. So like this is the reason we make them, is for maximum performance, and if people don't want that, they're not willing to pay that price for it, then there's no reason for us to make it because if we do, it's just gonna flop. So no one's gonna buy a two knife. I'm not saying nobody's gonna buy a two but there are a lot more people that would buy other knives that we could make that like some of our other hunting products that they would be interested in. Uh. And so we have we also have you know, like you know, limited capacity in our factory, so we have to focus on the things that we know people are going to really widely adopt or accept. Not that we don't make specialized products. But as a kid and still today, um, you know, as a kid, I played thousands I mean I'm not exactly mean literally thousands of perch and blue gills with those rappola yeah, with a little soft pine handle with like some kind of lacquer on it. Yeah. I still only one five volume rapaula like Filet knives, one of the biggest selling knife still to this day. Period knives. Yeah there, they were next enough, and we'd buy the one that had like a little short, like a six inch blade on it, and it was just like the go to perch knife. I later, when I got married, someone gave me a woost Off I think flay knife, which I didn't like because it's too whippy. You like a little more backbone. And yeah, I've generally flat fish with a eight inch boning knife. You're like those victor knocks. It's almost like a like scoops and it's almost like a disposable kind of knife, you know. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, flayfish at those but I don't know why. Yeah, But then with hunting knives it is true. Like with hunting knives, I'm real particular. But with flame eyes, I don't know, but I always thought maybe because there's no one made a souped up flame knife. Well, all, so you're leaving like your flay knife out on the cleaning table and you know, hosing it off and this and that. I feel like it's a way more utilitarian, you know, when you're done cleaning, fish, spray off the table, push all the knives to the side. People sharpener walk away. Yeah, you don't fetishize like you don't fetishize flame knife. No one ever gives you flynn ie and be like see that that was my grandpa's flat knife, but like that was my grandpa's hunting knife, like damn. And there's there's knife companies that are good at doing that, right, I mean you have to be you have to understand like what are we good at? You know, like like Dexter Russell they make the white handled ones dexter Russell's kind of what I figured so so, but those those are like combined, right, what do you mean combined? Like isn't dexter is dexter Russell and Force? Are they the same company to make the food services? I don't, I don't know. I don't have an answer that they make a very similar problems. Do you make similar products? But the enforceners are black hand. All the dexter Russells are white handed. And food service and guides and guides talk about, oh my boat knife. You know, most most guys in their boat, they'll have like a boat knife. But where's their boat knife go. It's like in the gunnal of their sled, the things sliding back and forth. It's just getting hammered. It's they take terrible care of it. And they will tell you, like, you guys got any Like I just had one of my buddies the other day, Like I need a boat knife. Like I don't really have a boat knife. I've got like d two steals and we've got steels are like I need a knife, I can just throw in my gunnale and you know, when I'm out in Booie Tan and the saltwater. It is just like you know, I do whatever I cut herring and it's like, dude, that that knife, the blade is gonna rust off and like, you know three seconds if you do that. And so they want a knife that cost forty five dollars. It has really high chromium, you know, and and not the and or chrome and doesn't have all the like high carbon in it, because that type of knife just turns to rust when you get it in a corrosive environment. So that's part of it too, right, It's like when they're beating the junk out of the knives to the steels that are generally more hostily that are going to perform better typically have high level levels of carbon in them, and so they don't do well in corrosive environments. Anyways, Why do why is it so hard to make knives that loves salt water? Well, if you're talking about a fixed blade knife, it's it's all to do. And I'm not a metallurgist, but it has everything to do with the chemistry of the of the steel itself, like the chemical makeup. We do actually have a steel that we get uh from an Austrian manufacturer called N six eight that, which is I guess sort of irrelevant what the number is. But N six eight has a has a really high content of the types of materials in the chemical makeup that allow for non corrosive non corrosive properties in the steel. Now, the tradeoff is typically if you drive up the anti corrosive properties in a blade, you will lose edge edge performance. Right, So it stills like yeah, because like stainless like no one ever makes a knife. It's just like is that behaves like stainless steel, right, So our hardest steels are not stainless at all, like we have. You have to code them or you have to put certain finishes on them, and people, I mean, you know, the people have to take care of the blades. Now, we also have semi stainless steels, and we do have like S THIRTV that's in all of these um hunting knives to hunt knives. That particular steel actually has a really great balance between corrosion resistance and edge retension and durability. But it will still I mean, like you can't just like gout an elk, you know, carve up a deer with it, you know, a quarter or something mount and throw it in your pack and not think about it for the next hunting until the next hunting season to pull it out and expect that the blade is not gonna have corroded when you left blood all over it, right, you gotta you still have to take care of it. There are some super steels, like another bowler steel called M three ninety that it's very expensive, but it actually has a really interesting uh there's a really interesting ability in that steel because of the makeup of it to offer both corrosioners instance at a high level and edge performance. So there are some I mean they make custom steels just for cutlery and and even metal manufacturing companies like s thirt V and these hunt knives that is a steel that was specifically designed for cutlery, like color, like home color, any kind of like sports. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that. There's a difference between those two. Right. We think about our products in specialty night and the specialty knife market that typically does not include the culinary market. Most culinary products are going to be relatively low carbon stainless unless you get into the Japanese like sushi knives. Those are I got it. I got a souped up one of those those are awesome. Then my wife always threatened to throw away because an old girlfriend gave it to me, but from Japan. But if you caught a line with that thing, lets you cut a lime or tomato and don't wipe the blade. Yeah, let the blades sit there for ten minutes. It's gonna rusty, it turns the colors, you know. But you can sharpen a thing like nut shaving sharp, I mean easily, you know, And that's like I saw. I think that just having a knife that uh would sharp and easy is the best because I like the sharpen knives, but the met guys like I've caught up five elk with my knife and it never got dull. There's something sept for that. But I'm always worried that guy will never get it sharp again. What happened? What happens to that guy when he doesn't get it sharp? You know enough for it doesn't because there's also something that keeping your edge sharp, It helps your edge stage, so right, so you know that. So what happens to that guy when he's on his sixth elk and he's halfway through it and all of a sudden, the nie not sharp anymore? So there's a I like to keep. You know, STV again offers a really great balance between everything, and you can put an edge on it in the field with a carbide you know, one of those carbide sharpers with a little v V notch jaws and enough to get you through. Uh. But it's it's good to carry like a knife that will do both. You have a really hard most people carry multiple knives. Good to have one with a really strong edge performing edge retention type steel and then maybe one that's a little easier to sharpen in case for some reason lose that or That's what I do is I carry around, like when I'm on a hunt, like a big game hunt, I carry my pack my knife that only touches hide and meat, right Like I don't cut cheese with it, whittle sticks with it, and like that's not your pocket knife. Yeah, it's like it's just that. It's like it's for that. If I don't kill something, it never comes out of my pack. And then I got like a knife in my pocket or knife somewhere, which is my just like you know, my messing around thing. And it's and it's worth mentioning also for our steels because we have such hard steals that can be I mean you can do to elk two deer or whatever with one blade. We also have this really cool program called life Sharp where if somebody, even if they really am honestly that's you can just send it in and and our team that we have this product services team, super expert technicians. It doesn't matter if it's a thirty year old bench made or a brand new one. They'll disassemble the whole thing, make sure they fix everything to the talk more performance, put an edge back on it, and send it back to its free service shipping bench made paces of shipping not I mean not to get it to us, but we'll ship it back and pay the shipping. Yeah. Right now, last I checked the turnaround times running three days. Really yeah, I mean three days in our facility, right, so they're shipping and then shipping. Yeah, you guys just see some messed up stuff rolling through crazy stuff, especially a lot of military knives. I was looking at one yesterday that a guy had. He was it was a navy diver, and he was down cutting rope out of a propeller and somebody turned the engine on and it sucked the knife into the prop and the knife is just I don't know how his hand it wasn't ripped off. I have no idea what the knife is like. It's just been in half. The scales are all blown off of it. And typically what our product services team will do when they get a knife like that, yeah, they'll you'll say, you know, if you can keep the knife, you know, so we have the cool story or whatever, They're just send a new one out, you know. You know the company o R Outdoor Research. Yeah, I was down there one day. I used to have a friend of a friend I was working there, and we were down there monkey around and they got this wall of shame, which is like returns they've had. And one of the things like a guy had a pair of gloves you could tell he had for a million years because they're just like full of holes and worn out. And then he burned them in the fire. So it's like you tell like that they were really messed up. Then he burned him in the fire, and he made a return on him, you know, and these things, Yeah, I just threw in the fire for a while, he said, he said him a new pair. We're just like insane stuff that people try to return you know, they have a wall of shame at at loophole that I was looking at that. They're all swim Portland, so go there sometimes to take returns in or you know, look look around at new products. And uh I was looking at this wall of shame and there's a scope on the wall and it's all blasted and it's got a note with it. They frame that says, let brother in law borrow scope. Brother in law dropped scope and broke it. Never letting brother in law borrowscope again. Going back to school too, Yes, um, who like, who do you guys mainly what's the what's your main clientele? Uh so our main clientele as far are you talking about, like as far as occupation or just as far as people like what are the main dude, Like, do you guys sell more to law enforcement, military, more to just dudes who want a knife to carry around for just general cutting stuff up. I think that people arrive at a certain level of performance expectation and their products that regardless sort of of what walk of life they're in, because we serve as people at all fiery MSS, military, hunters, law enforcement, people that are just general sports cutlery enthusiast collectors. That's the term sports color enthusist collectors, right, magazine. Yeah, well there's a whole industry. There's a whole industry magazine, magazine yep, yep, and Knives Illustrated, and it's a whole industry. We have a whole trade show dedicated to it. It's all custom knife makers. But I guess to answer your question in sort of a roundabout ways, that we make knives for people that want to buy knives that are at the at the peak performance and maximum value that they can get from a manufactured knife, you know, and and we sort of bridge the gap between custom and manufactured. There's a whole like world of garage shop type custom knife makers that make really exquisite products like you know, like those even those uh like you're the the knife that you have, the sushi knife, right, Some of those knives can be thousands and thousands, tens of thousands at dollars that you know, there's a whole world of people who just collect these, but not everybody can afford those, and even the garage custom guys, it takes them. They have three year weight list for some of their products. Well, we're able because our owner originated in the custom knife little bit then found this affinity and knack for manufacturing. He started working with custom knife designers to bring custom knives to a manufactured level at the at the same formans, but then to make it accessible to more of the masses. Yeah you guys. You guys still own about like a family, right, yeah, the diass family. Yeah, who started it out? Started it out? Yeah? And when did they do? When did they start? Uh? The Benchmate was founded in nineteen eighties seven, so the next year is our thirtieth anniversary seven. Yeah, well there was a company before that, so like in around nineteen seventy three, there was another company that made mostly Bally songs or butterfly knife. That's where the butterfly and our logo comes right because our our owner, the less Diasas and and the family ownership less is Filipino and butterfly knives are Filipino knives. And he's like calls himself unemployable, and he's just like he's like he's just an entrepreneur at heart, and he was like, you know, went to a gun and knife show because he loved that stuff. And he's kicking around, he's talking to these custom knife guys and he's like, you guys, can you know, like work out of your garage. You can live anywhere you want. Like, this is the best thing I've ever heard of. It. It's like it's perfect for me. So he started getting into custom knives mostly through that experience and wanting to find something he could do for himself, and he just saw the tremendous value that could be provided by a well made butterfly knife. Nobody made good ones. They were all, you know, like basically cobbled together, and so we always used to buy can we'd make our own nun chucks. What is that word it was? We called them. We always saw their numb nunchucker, right, Yeah, we'd like buy shitty butterfly knives and make nun chucks. That's all. Like. Sometimes we'd spend weeks doing nothing but that. So he worked with custom knife designers to make beautiful, well executed butterfly knives, which actually is a really great design because the two handles prevent the blade from going either direction, and so if you make it with tight tolerances, is a folding knife that basically is as rigid as a fixed blade knife when it's so it's like a stiletto. It's meant for like knife fight. Uh yeah, I mean originally I think originally Butterfly knives had martial arts sort of a martial arts history, like like nunchucks behind him. Yeah, so yes, they'll make you guess we'll make a butterfly We do, really, we do. We have this itselves like crazy, and we used to make yeah, and we used and there are four hundred dollars we used to make. Yeah, I might know a guy the uh we made our Uh it just has a number, so we make it's we make the sixty to the sixty seven and uh. And they're just different blade variants. But who's buying them? Mostly when you get into the Butterfly knives, those are collectors people that are into like like real sort of key niche or niche I should say type culory products. And I'm gonna started carrying one man when someone asked me to cut some topic but ripping thing all around. Some people are just butterfly and I love her too. I mean they just appreciate the design. You can flip around Butterfly Knight. I have never got it a deer with a Butterfly knife but I was just looking at one. I was trying to show it to my wife last night and how I thought it could have been a good hunting knife. And she's like, I don't care what you're talking about right now. Does the classic design have an edge on both sides? Uh? You know what, that's a good question. The one the most classic design I've seen from US is the blades called the Weehawk, And no, it's a single edge. But we also have these crazy blades called cris blades that look wavy and they're sharpen on both sides. What I will tell you is that if you're like the master of the butterfly knife, then it's kind of like faux Paul almost to use a single side that you use a double side. Yeah. Yeah. And there's dudes they are throwing them up and catching them behind their back, and that's like, Yeah, next time I come to see you, I'm expecting this from you. When I send you a butterfly. They got a pocket clip? Uh? Some, some do usually not. Usually they do not have a pocket clip. They'll come with it with like a sheath. You gotta be quicker on the draw than you know out of your pocket. I had no idea, So in the bench made catalog. Yeah, it's in the bench made catalog. We've got to we actually have to two sort of separate families of butterfly or ballet song knives. One that is more technologically advanced materials wise, it has like some stacked handles and some other things, and then one that's more classic with with like a machine stainless handles. Yeah. So how long have you guys had the how many years has been you've had the like an actual hunting focus line and knives. Though since we've had an actual, like core hunting line, it's only been three years. We we've spent a lot of time, I should I should also say there's a caveat with that. We've almost always had hunting knives in the line, and we spent a lot of time trying different approaches to that great that were perfectly applicable to hunting or yeah, or even like knives called the Burden Trout knife for I mean like like actual hunting knives. But the Hunt series is our first ever like fully vested knife series, like a full line of knives specifically applied to hunting. So when you have like the steep country I'm actually holding you one of these right now. How did it come to be that? Uh? How did like? Why? I know how to ask this? It's all over magazines, best this, best that? Is that? Like honest that? Or do you submit to those kind of things? You mean like great New Year? Best in the bastard tore it up so field. I feel like every magazine you opened up had that knife. And we do very little paid print advertising. And I love saying this because hopefully it's will mean a lot of the print advertisers won't call me and solicit my business. But I somehow doubt that that's true. We do. We do a very little print advertising. Most of what we invest our money in is back into product technology. So typically it's kind of like a biologist. I this is not always true, but like with a biologist, you have to like come from a place of factual science or you're not able anymore. For for people they're doing gear reviews. If you're letting advertising bias your gear reviews, people eventually will see that and you will no longer be credible at reviewing equipment right, and and then you'll lose everything. So usually with a magazine, there is no connection at least as what they tell you. If I would like tried to call an advertiser and say, hey, you're advertising a gerber knife, your your you gave a good review to a gerber knife, and I just placed a full page ad and that month's issue. That's bs you know, they would say, you know, we don't even talk to those people. The editorial people are totally different from the advertising department, and they do that because otherwise the publication loses credibility. And do you think that's true? Because I feel like I can just point in every single magazine, not always, not always, but like like Field and Stream Best of the Best, we don't advertise in Field and Stream, never have or and we won Best of the Best three three times, and I think three times in the last five years. And that's not because it's not because we're paying for advertising. That's not what they call advertorial. So there's also advertorial right where you're paying for the editorial. That's cool knife. I think it says a lot about you two and the product that the sheath seems well fought out and it seems solid. We've spent a lot of time on that in the last few years. We the sheath has been an afterthought for us because we mostly were a folding knife company, ballet songs and things, so there was a learning curve. Over the last ten years we started to get more into fixed blades to understand, like in a fixed blade, the sheath is as it's as important as the as the knife itself. Kind of knife you got, Randall, Well, I got a bench made. Now what do you have before that? Uh? You know, I I have like a just a sorry to say, I have like a little gerber pocket folder that I'll carry, um and you don't kill anything anyway. Yeah, well, then I have to have one. I have to have one tucked away in the pack and that just as the rope and cheese knife. Yeah, but no, it's I mean, I uh yeah, I adopted sort of the and and now I have one of the other like the razor's edge or whatever it is. But I like the like the outdoor edge. Yeah, I like that goes in and yeah, and it's got more of a curved more of a traditional radius than the have a lot for caping and stuff like that. I like that. But yeah, I mean, i'm i'm i'm I sort of got into the replaceable blades because I never I never got good at sharpening my own. Yeah, growing up, like for t happen, I spent a lot of times sharpening. Yeah. I mean there's a lot of said for replaceable. Once one thing a guy said to me that weighed at me a little bit later on was he's like he's talking about just like disposable culture. Yeah, And at first I dismissed it, but all I'm like, god, you know there is like he's like, whatever happen is like having a thing that you just have and you learn how to take care and like the whole world is memories associated. Yeah, that was kind of knife, and that's that's sort of how I felt about the the havevalon. I don't think I'm ever gonna look at the havelon and say, like a lot of good memories with this thing, you know, because my dad, my dad used to have this joke read say like he had this old hatchet, like yeah, my great grandfather's hatchet. It's had just had three new heads and uhuh, four new handles. So now explain what you're in talent for randal Um. I'm here for the like we're in Seattle, Randalls in Seattle, doesn't live here, Lisa Montana. Yeah. So I'm here for the American Society for Environmental History, the sh National Conference. Do you present anything? Nope, UM, here to listen. I'm just here to listen and to meet people, shake hands, UM, and uh, listen to papers and what you wind up putting some papers in a magazine. I mean, that's that's the idea is hopefully I can solicit some I work as an editor, um, and so I'm I'm looking for UM scholars out there that are doing interesting research and try to solicit some manuscript submissions that hopefully we can publish paying top dollar. Uh. No, it's more of a charity thing, some good exposure. Yeah. I mean, give me a for instance of something you're gonna go watch, like a presentation. Um. You know, there's actually one panel that I'm sort of interested in. And I don't know that it's necessarily for UM. It's it's more for personal interests and professional interests, because I don't know that would really publish any of these. But there there's a panel on uh sort of the the imposition of trapping regulations on UM Indigenous communities in in Canada. And yeah, yeah, so so there are a couple, uh, and I'm not gonna really absolutely skim to the program a couple of times and just try to get an idea of what panels I want to stay it on. But there's a couple of papers about UM yeah, sort of the changing politics and regulation of trapping UM in I think like BC and so yeah, and and there's imposition is being like the effects of those regulations on them. UM. I don't I don't really know. All I've seen is like the titles of the papers UM, but they're the sort of looking at UM how this affects I would imagine And here I'm sort of just speculating, but UM, you know this is ah, these are practices and behaviors and cultures that have existed for a very very long time. And uh, the the way that they they resisted or adapted UM. The imposition you know of of various regulations on these practices, I don't know. Yeah. So there's a lot of and and there's there's scholars working UM in all over the place. So it's you know, they're global topics. They're UM panel that are specific to North America, regions of North America. But it's it's sort of the full spectrum. And then there are also various workshops and different things like that. So um it should be a fun interesting a few days. But it's these these uh every sort of sub field of history has its own national conference every year, and so it's a chance for people that are spread out across um various universities, you know each each you know, certain departments are larger than others. But you know at a at a school like the University of Montana, say there's one Russian historian and there's one environmental historian. And so the national conferences allow these people that are working on UH topics that speak to one another to all gather in one place and and share ideas and see sort of what their colleagues out there are working on. Is there is there certain research that you look for, like specifically that you're hoping for out of this that you'll publish, not necessarily UM, just topics relevant to UH Western history, Montana history, environmental history. So UM, just sort of seeing what's out there and meeting people. And then there are a lot of people from um various presses that are there um to look for book manuscripts or to meet people so it's also sort of there's that element to it as well. You can do some hardcore hob novin. Yeah, pretty much. I got all the business cards lined up. You know, it's funny about trapping regulations. The spring and April, we're going uh to Wyoming for some spring beaver action, and um, there's a reciprocity thing between the states with trapping. For instance, Montana, Um, you can't trap any a nonresident cannot get a trapping license in Montana to trap beaver, for instance, like fur bears. Okay, you can go trap coyotes, bobcats like that, various predators, but you can't trap what they have listed as fur bears like muskrat manc river outer beaver. Um. So what a lot of states will do, Like let's say you're in a state that is open and nonresident travers, but since Montana doesn't allow nonresidents, they won't let someone from Montana buy a license in their state. Okay, So Wyoming is open to any nonresident coming from a state that's in turn open to Wyoming. Even though Washington has like some draconian trapping regularly trappings basically illegal because they've outlawed all the tools of the trade without actually outlawing the practice. So you can't use connter, berries, can't use footholds. However, it's legal, right, so you look like which made the traffic? Like the trapping regulations here are kind of ridiculous because like everything's like open for a really long time, you know, and they only like they like barely update the regulations. But regulations are basically go ahead. Bro, just can't use trapped because you're not gonna like you can use get live traps, you know what I mean. So I'm filling out this form for Whoming getting my Wyoming you know, beaver trapping license, and I'm filling out this form. It's like their eyes like, um, are you allowed to trap X? It's like yes, um are non residents allowed to trap X? And it's because all like yes, yes, yes, yes, yes says yes. And I almost wanted to put a note on there being like well, actually no, but let's just say yes theoretical. And I sent it in and I got my I was accepted and got my Wyoming, got my Wyoming for harvester. You're gonna get a letter back from Wyoming it says you can come hunt, but you can't use. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, bro, yeah welcome, come get some beaver, but just keep mind you can't use at the tools that go with trapping. I never thought of the impact on Indigenous people, and people tend to be more sensitive that than they do. Um, you know other people who have traditional use practices, And yeah, I don't know. Um, I really don't have any um specific or detailed knowledge about how it works. And you haven't gone to the conference Yeteah, well, hopefully I'll be able to tell you a bit more in a couple of days. But yeah, the Canadian side of things is something of a mystery to man more knowledge of UH treaty rights and subsistence rights in the US. I'll tell you one interesting about a lot of areas in Canada's you have a registered line, like you have a line, the same way you might have a commercial fishing license, you know, and you like sell Like you have a registered line, you can sell that line, you know, when ice trap is just like it's just honor system. Like you might be like, yeah, so and Soul works that area, and nothing was actually preventing you from going out there. It would just be like an honor system that you did or did not go along with. But there yeah, man, you get like a registered line. You buy a line off someone I used to shopper, like, I used to sit there with magazines, like in the back of Trapper and Predator Caller magazine when I was a kid. You look in the classifies and be people selling trap lines, you know, and um, just one go for it back. I can't remember, but I remember like I would waste some of these guys time by like writing and asking for more information and they'd send these just maps, you know, basically a map just like never ending swamp. Yeah, hundreds of miles. You know. You buy a trapline, Yeah, always thought it's fine, go for it. So concluding thoughts, Johnnie, oh boy, can you go first? What I mean, what's up with the hunt eat? And we haven't talked about hunting eating a long time? We haven't. I meant to wear my T shirt today he's got one on all this kid wears his Hunt Teachers. I can't tell it's because he loves hunt eat or if he just has a lot of T shirts trying to get the word both. And if you have to wear your own products, um yeah, we gotta, we have we have a Turkey shirt that the thing goes live today. So but not state affiliated. No, is this your first non state affiliated shirt? No, we've got the first one was not like four or five. Now I've been told to pass along word that we need an Ohio shirt. So Oregon, do you have an Oregon shirt? No? He won't make it till you hear from ten people. I got ten people. Like Idaho is like it gonna be at the printers in the next week or so. By the time anybody hears this, it will probably be live already. But Washington, Idaho, Yeah, there, they should be live by the time this podcast here. So how many states by the time the podcast there? Oh boy, maybe ten? Close to it? A long way to go, Yeah, we do. But you know what, you're adding t shirts faster than we added states as a country. You'll catch up eventually. Yeah, we haven't had. We haven't added once in the fifties. So all right, do you do you think you wind up doing Hawaiians? We're going hunt in Hawaii this year. It would be a good one. It's like a destination hunt spot. We finally, like a lot of people buy Montana in Alaska, you know, because it's like a dream hunt dream. My brother there Day was wearing a Hunt deep Montana on where he got I didn't give it to him. I know where he got it. Oh dude, I get him to He said, sweet my two new favorite T shirts. Um, so that's your conclusion, No it's not. That's my concluding thought. What's yours? Oh man, I'm gonna bring him back around to lead and just like I like I said, I'm I'm I feel like the reason we're having a discussion because there's just not enough research out there. So I'm hoping that now it's kind of coming back and a lot of people are talking about it again, someone's gonna get after and do some more research because come out of since you're bringing it back up, I'll bring it back up. I think we haven't brought up in just like efficacy, right, it's some things just work real well. It works real well. So it's it's like, I'm trying to weigh that out as well. What is the like when you come in with what is it? Gonna say what is it? What would it do to wound loss? You know, are you gonna have a lot more wound loss as you dictate less effective ammunitions to people. So I've I've found the statistics on this, at least for someone from US Fish and Wildlife basically had said that once they instituted the ban, there was a spike in self reported wound loss and then over time it dropped back down and now it's below what it was prior because people adapted. They weren't taking six, they weren't taking six. But I don't believe. Here's the thing that gets into a whole other issue of sciences. It's very I think that self reported very hard. Go around, do a little informal survey and ask all your bowl hunting buddies what they think wound what what's your wound loss rate? Yeah, you'll never get an honest answer. You'll never get an honest answer. Um. I think that when guys fill that out, it's like, dude, I don't believe the thing. I mean, I'm sure some people probably do it, but people don't like to self incriminate. Now that it against love. I think people are like I think most people are full of it when it comes to the wound loss rates when they report it. Right, So the reporting might not be representative of reality, but the change in reporting over time does give you some sense at least of the bigger pictures. Everybody's probably not reporting totally honestly, but the way they do report, yeah, yeah, they I saw that. I read that saything they saw a spike and it wasn't a horrible spike. They saw from near or someth to something like whatever the numbers were. And then within a few years it dropped back down to twenty, and then shortly after that it even dipped below sort of pre band numbers. So yeah, as people adjusted well, and for waterfowl, if you want the efficacy, you can shoot the business and tongsen costs quite a bit more. And I wonder why we haven't seen a tungsten or business cord hunting bullet yet. I don't know. There's some reason for it or not. It would be good. We gotta get a metall or just out here. I'm going that way with fishing tackle, you know what I mean? Non lead teeth too bad, man, Like I can bite lead sinkers all day long. Man, You give me a non toxic sinker and I chew into that thing. Dude, that hurts. Yeah, I'm I'm thread through, you know, thread the thought bullet weights. Wh I'm talking to tungsten. For the most part, I don't know about trying to bite down on tungsten. Wait, that's ill advised, I think. And then steel shot shatters your teeth. We used I think it was tin. I want to say, five fish in those green egg ones and uh, I actually liked those because they were so reusable. I feel like they I just got more use out of than the lead. They're less malleable, which I think just yeah, just gave them longer life. They held their form better. Man, You're sitting about five ft from my little stash of non toxic sinkers back there, and I'll have to say, I was just fishing the other day and that's not the one I grabbed. Grabbed the old stylers a lot less expensive to the old style I'd like to keep in my mouth. Um, but you know what I find O. It's like, uh, I do catch myself Like I don't like my kid messing with them. M I don't like him. No, I don't like him pinching him down because the teeth Like I wore a groom into my teeth cutting monofilment, and I probably like cap my tooth with lead. But yeah, man, and I started. Then I switched the floral carbon and it's like, you're like, dude, that's even harder. You gotta use a canine teeth for the floral carbon teeth. Oh yeah, Matt, what are your concluding thoughts? Ah? Well, uh, it got stolen. I was gonna bring it back to the to the lead versus copper issue. I suppose if I had a concluding thought on that, I just hope that whatever whatever decisions are made come from the sound science and a good a good place, a good place of thoughtfulness and and in the best interests of conservation, and not political party line. Yeah, not like I don't like guns, right, therefore I think the lead is toxic, right, and I like conversely, I like guns, therefore lead can do no harm. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think you should come from that either. Randall's your concluding thought? Oh, man, I don't know. You're excited about this. I'm excited about this conference. I'm intrigued by I want to meet someone who identifies as a self professed sport culinary enthusiast. I like that. I'm still too and on that one, but I don't know sport cutlery. I'm sorry, Yeah, what did I say culinary because I was saying that's me, dude, I'm a sport culinary here with you, a sport culory enthusiast. Um. Yeah, I don't know when it comes to lead and steel. Uh, I don't really hit enough birds for it to make a difference. So we're just talking about all my all my empty honeyholes before we got started here at them. Yeah, we're talking about the fear of losing your GPS, and Randal just saying he'll switch GPS even with anybody because he said it can't be any worse than what he's got. I'd like to point out that I started shooting copper well before I ever thought about lead poisoning in my gaming, because I saw the efficacy in the field as a guide and I'd be like, what, you know what someone would recover a bullet. I'm like, I've never seen that thing? What is that? Oh, it's the you know Barnes, you know triple shot. I was like, Wow, that thing hit that elk in just Jordan And I know a lot of that has to do with shot places. More of that has to do shot placement than the bullet itself. But anyways, that's kind of what got me shooting those coppers and went until later until you know someone's like, oh you also get that out of benefit of you know, that's what I want. That's the norther thing that I talked about it that came up in this this kind this uh conversation, was I said, in some ways, I feel like it's gonna wind up being beyond the point, not with lead shot for for upland birds and stuff. I was like, in some ways, I think it's the discussion about toxicity is beside the point because if you look at reloaders, like if you look at the avant garde, the cutting edge, there's just a very I feel like there's a very definite shift going towards monolithic bullets, don't you think. I mean, it's just like more and more people who don't give a ship about the lead issue are shooting solid You don't feel that that's true. I don't know. I wouldn't say you know better than me. If I'm wrong, tell me, because I feel like you know more about that stuff than I do. And I think a lot of people, like especially I think out of all the monolithics. They like the barns because it's known to being accurate bullet. You know, a lot of people just get good loads out of it that they are accurate loads. But I feel like it's especially with the long range crowd most of them, I don't think they are shooting rats. Yeah, I think they're shooting lead core. Especially with long range, the bullet a lot of times upon the impact is moving slower, and so they need a bullet that fragments or you know, pedals more at a lower velocity, which the monolithics don't do. That's what That's what I that was when I made the switch back to Jack and his bullets was, um, I shot a deer with It was pretty far out. It was, I feel like, if I remember, it was four hundred sixty yards a long ways. I shot a deer and he still continued running around, running does and I'm like, I don't understand which this happened. And then eventually he got woozy and fell over. And when I went up to him, it looked like someone had taken a dowel and punched the dowel through his body field point. Yeah, it looked like, yeah, like you took a field point arrow and just stuck it into him. No, it's definitely number one complaint. It didn't do It was like he didn't even know what happened. Yeah, definitely through the lungs and eventually faded out. And then people like and that's what I was like, and it's going back and something I know and trust. Then people just said shooting his shoulder. Then you get him in the high shoulder, so okay, So then I gotta blow the shoulders out of him and ruin all kinds of meat. What if you miss? Yeah, everybody's always preparing for the guys like I hit him right in the head. It's like, is that right? Right? What what mean you wanted? You gotta prepare for. Man, there's a lot of variables, right, and you gotta prepare for the variables. What happens if your shots not exactly high shoulder? What if it's a little far back? Yeah, I like, you know, like the trophy bonded, the bear clot like just a ya, they all they all have failure rate, so you know, yeah, I mean it's you can say that those bullets, you know, it's super close range. You know, they might fragment too much. If you do hit the bone and then they don't make it into the vitals, especially some of the long range stuff that is made to be very you know, frangible. You know, you do hit a big bone right off the bat at fifty yards, that bullet just blows up and it might not never even make it into the cavity. So all right, that's it, right, that's all I got to say. You got a concluding thought, Randall. He gave it. Yeah, but I don't remember. It wasn't like I wasn't blown away by it. I can't remember what it was. What was it? Pretty high standard? He was saying he would he would trade his GPS to anybody out there. Oh yeah, And he's saying, and I remember, now, Um, you'd have a good cluting thought sport culinary. He wants to be a sport coulory enthusiast. But you didn't have a clearly thought where that that you reiterated your disdain for bias. I did, yeah, in a in an eloquent way. I made a point about someone hate and lead because they hate guns, and you said, but it's just love lead, it's just because you love guns can do no harm. Yeah, all right, thanks for tuning in

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