00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is Me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening Don't Make You Eat podcast. You Can't Predict Anything. What You're about to hear is a conversation about hunters and hunting recorded at Starbucks World Headquarters in Seattle, Washington. Me your host, Stephen Ronella, along with Land Tawny and Janice who tell us take questions from Starbucks employees who chose to attend the mid day gathering. Okay, thanks everyone for coming in today. I appreciate it. I appreciate you join us for this lunch and learned in this podcast kind cool technology that we're all I'm sure addicted to at this point. UM, I'm bailed for myself, myself and Partners for Sustainability. UM. Again, thank you for coming. I'd like to take just a quick second to introduce our guests that we have today. Right here to my right is Land Tawny as the President CEBO CEO of back Country Hunters and Anglers, which is a national conservation group. B h A is a nonprofit organization that was born around the campfire in Oregon in two thousand four and now has chapters in twenty states, also Canada, and the group claims close to ten thousand members. H works to prevent the development of wild lands of North America and to ensure that we all have access to those lands. B H sent up over on the side police feel free after the take a look some cool stuff, some shirts. Uh sign up. We're also if anybody the side of today there's a giveaway um from sign ups for first light years, so entire entire base layer it's Marino will. All these guys use it a lot. It's a really high quality, great stuff. Next we have honestly tell us he's also made a career in the outdoors and shares a passion for wildlife and wildlife management. Jana spent over twelve years guiding sportsmen and women on adventures out in the wild, and now he's the part of the Meat Eater crew and executive producer of their TV show. And our guest of honor is Stephen Ronella. Stephen is an accomplished writer, an avid outdoorsman, a skilled chef, and a dedicated conservationist. He's also the television show Meat Eator It's on the Sportsmen's Channel, and his book titles include the Scavengers, Guide to Oak Quisine, American Buffalo in Search of a Lost Icon, and Meat Eater Adventures from the Life of American Hunter. American Buffalo won a number of awards, including the Circuit de Olson Nature Writing Award and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. One quote from Anthony Moore nine Around the Mediator book he had to say about Meteator, Chances are Stephen Ronella's life is very different than yours or mine. He does not source his food at the local supermarket. Um Meat Eater is a unique and valuable alternative view of where our food comes from and what can be involved. It looks both backwards at the way things used to be and forward to a time when every diner truly understands what's on the end of the sport. One of our core values here at Starbucks is acting with courage, challenging the status quo, can finding new ways to grow our company and each other. I think we would all agree that fighting for a sustainable model to wildlife and wild lands is something we value. So today, let's act with courage and have an open and honest discussion around what we can do and what we can be around this polarizing topic. I can't think of three better people suited to lead us in this discussion. Gentlemen'll turn it over to you first, all, thank you for coming down. It was some months ago that Chad invited us to come out. He had listened to a um A podcast that we did with we recorded at a Bad Huntry, Hunters and Anglers convention. So we all in Missoula, Montana, and there it was. You know, it was a crowd of very dedicated outdoorsman and Chad thought it might be cool to come and do something similar here, of primary difference being we have a way better a V set up now. So what I would like to do is just because we have limited time, he says, you guys all have meetings you're gonna go through in an hour. Um, would I'd like to do to jump into questions you can have or it could really be about anything. It could be technical things that have to do with hunting, is fine, or it could be like more bigger picture things about how hunting fits into our contemporary understanding of wildlife management or you know, ethical food or anything. It really doesn't matter, so really anything, if I can interrupt you, we all often play the game. We're out in the field making media or television. We play a game called stump Steve. It's hard. So really you know any of you drinking? Yeah? I was telling Chandler the way that via change backpack great problems. I wasn't even paid to say that. Questions how are we gonna do? Quit? You're gonna run that thing over to people who have a question? Yeah? Absolutely, Just to throw your hand up and I'll bring the mike to you. We can talk about it. Well. People are thinking we got one. Um, how how do you guys recommend or kind of see Sydney folks getting involved? Um, you know, the grocery store is convenient. I have to drive out to the woods every weekend, have a couple of little kids. I don't get a whole lot of time outside. Um you know what, what what would be some best practices in terms of sour some food from the wild, but also living a Sydney life. Are you guys familiar with the biggest uh Barri's wheel downtown? Kay? Right? Now you go down there at Ducks, you will see a line of people predominantly UH Cambodians, Vietnamese and Filipino individuals and me and my kids um jigging for squid. So in the starting around Thanksgiving running up into January, the squid or spawning. They tend to spawn about fifteen to thirty ft of water and we hammered. We eat so much calamari in the last couple of months, my wife's declared a calamari moratorian um. One of my first my first book that I wrote. A big part of the book was about a lot of the book was around street pigeons, which are you know, a non native often regarded as a delaterious exotic wildlife. Um, I mean a pile of street pigeons. I think in a more way, in a more conventional way. I think that, Um, there's just a lot of think there's a lot of food resources that don't get a ton of attention. So if you look at hunting media, everything seems to be focused around like deer, turkeys. You know, these are things that are in somewhat high demand. There's sort of an industry built around them. They're kind of, for lack of a better word, they're very fashionable things to go after. But there are many many other items that are just like I don't want to say underutilized and that something bad would happen. That's something there's a negative to not being utilized. But there's a lot of them fishing and hunting resources out there just aren't that aren't exploited really at all. Um, we're oftentimes advocating hunting small game, right, So we spent a lot of time hunting squirrels and ramps and things that people just don't do. That's the kind of stuff I do with my kids. So my kids are two, four and six, and we do a lot of things like we fished yellow perch out of Lake Washington a lot. I caught them off at about sixty perch, So I don't like cleaning that man that takes us about forty five minutes. We jiggle out of squid because we can go down to jig, I can pick my kid off from school. We can be jigging squid and then come home in time to even six third. I'll take them out hunting small game because it's like it's they can see it happen, it happens quickly. It fits within they're sort of time frame, you know. Um, I've never for want stuff to do. I think the challenges is finding out about this stuff, and the best way to find out about the stuff is it surround yourself with people who are doing it. Yeah, I mean I think that's what I was gonna say, is that, I mean, finding people, it's probably the best connection. I also have young kids, um and you know, fortunate to row up in Montana where this stuff is maybe a little more accessible than it is here. But we have a chapter that's you know, growing by the day that's here in Seattle, and and and they actually having a pintman on Thursday night. But those are the folks that can get you. It's public land that surrounds us out here in its public water. Are places where you can't do that. I mean, Steve's described a little bit of that. So I think it's what you don't know, you don't know, and so getting next to people that can't connect to that would be my biggest I think opportunity for you get out and with the kids. Uh, I mean, I think including they can do them more than you they then you think they can. I mean, just get them out there and get them engaged and make make it fun. And then the more they get out there, they're gonna beg for it and that's gonna help you get out there a little bit more, for a little bit of suffering in there too, you know, or can't all be easy? That's character, right, builds character. It's a build song cold tolerance. You have edition down. Um yeah, but I think you gotta answered that thoroughly. Maybe huckleberries, right, huckleberries or something that can really get you out there too, right and like and those kids are' probably gonna bring any huckleberries home because it's gonnat them the entire time. But it's something easy you can do and if you find a patch, and it's something they will never forget. So I'm a huge fan of your show. I watched the last couple of season on Netflix. So I've been on maternity leave and your conversations about kids has really got me thinking a little bit about, um, the role that I play as parents when it comes to hunting and being in the outdoors. I grew up in a hunting family. My husband my hunt, and there's going to be a time where his friends come over and do I do I talk to them about hunting? Do I talk to them about gun ownership? I've always grown up in a really responsible household where gun ownership was the norm, but it was also very safe, and I learned from a very early age how to handle firearms and how to keep them away from other children or how to handle them in a, you know, a very safe manner. So I guess my question is what have you done with your children to instill those kind of same values, and you know, when is that time? When is that appropriate time to start teaching them about safety and especially in this kind of polarized Yeah, that's a great question. I have made it now two trips down to schools to explain to teachers that when my son mentions a shotgun or mentions a rifle where he's coming from. He'll mention like I have a blank, okay, or my dad has a blank that's gonna be mine. They fly off the handle. Understandably. I go down and said, you have to understand this kid's context with what he's talking about, because every piece of protein that he eats came from our hunting and fishing activities. That's all he's ever known. He goes to school with like a muskok sandwich, okay, So when he talks about he's coming at this from a completely different angle than you think he's coming from. He's coming from a practical matter where he's talking about the same way you might talk about a kitchen knife or a blader. It's always in our household of conversation. I found that when I've had this conversation with people, they've been comforted, very cool about it. It's never led to more problems. But twice had that like awkward moment where he's been made to feel like he's doing something wrong by talking about a big part of his life. Okay, so I've been careful to clear that up. My wife is more. She didn't grow up in a in a household with firearms. She didn't grow up around hunting. She tends the more when people come over with kids, she just impoll like, you know, just right off the bat will bring them down and be like, this is a keypad locked place where we keep firearms, and inside there you will would find firearms that also have trigger locks on them, so we have a redundant safety system. I'm like, why do you, like, why do you bring it up and there when you asked about it? Because because she said, I know they're thinking about it because we're like the crazy people with the guns. So she just clears it right up, and I think it's probably good. I used to be uncomfortable with it because it was all I felt like, what are you like admitting, you know, she doesn't know people wonder about this stuff. You can to consider where you live, you know, And so yeah, that's that's something. And I think that I think that my kids to eat struggles all the time with hearing stuff at school where he's talking about, oh, we ate this or we did that this weekend, and here your kids, Well that's me, you know, And I've already armed about the most basic arguments to try on them, like do you eat meat? And if you do, if you eat a chicken mc nugget, how that's produced in a sort of slurry that contains probably four or fifty chickens in it, you have contributed to a little bit of death yourself. Ours is more focused and targeted, and he's already kind of like mastering some of these arguments because I know that he's putting up with it. Lands kids in Montana are not having these conversations, but mine in Seattle are, I mean they are a little bit. I mean I think, well, yeah, I mean I grew up with kids that didn't hunt. So like their culture is, you know, changing a little bit, and those getting bigger and people are moving in that haven't been there before. I think I would I would share some of the things that Steve talked about is educating them about why we hunt. I mean, my daughter has been in the back of the truck since she was too cleaning birds out, we've been fishing, She's been on my backs and she was two years old, and so I think she's been ingrained in it just like years have. We don't. I work a little bit more than you're doing. So totally sourced all my food from out the outdoors. But but you're working too, don't mean that. Um, but I think the gun thing is a different thing too, And I think like they've known and I knew when I was a little kid and we didn't have safe guns were around all the time. Just this healthy respect for them. Now we have a safe now at our house. Um, but I think like we're the night before we go hunting, like I'll get those guns out now the the shells and stuff won't be around. But they have a healthy respect for him and so that they know that that's not something that they touched. Now we've gone out and shot like I think be beguns and uh um, and I think teaching them guns safety around be beguns. So there's still some danger there, but really the danger is not as high. And so barrel safety and like when do you put your finger on the trigger and where are you pointing that you know the end of your barrel? I think are good things to teach him with those kind of early, um, non lethal weapons. And and then you know, um, we have kids running out of our house from the neighborhood all the time and so when it's not the night before hind like those guns are away and that's what we do. Yeah, we never when I was kid, we didn't have a gun. We didn't keep our firearms and a gun safe either, but it would just been it would have been like your ask if you touch someone totally. And I think the parents are different now. They don't inspire the level of fear their parents used to inspire. So we may gout for fear by using trigger locks. Um. But you know, we drove around when I was can We drove around on our bikes with twenty two is sling over our shoulders. There's like kids that I now know weren't allowed to hang out with us because we were like armed ten year olds. It's just like, it's just a different world out man, you know, it's way a different world. And I try to be sympathetic too if I don't like the cave into it either, Um, you know, I try to do think it's right. I alarmed a little bit how many parents our kids have nerve guns? Right? How many parents feel that their kids are one NERF gun exposure away from becoming a murderer. And I'm like, I like to think that the foundations are a little bit stronger there. Or a kid can sort out that they're smart enough to sort out the difference between a NERF gun and something that actually causes harm. And then there's a difference between shooting their dad with a NERF gun dart and shooting at someone with something that would name or kill them. They do a great job drawing those distinctions. I think that you've got to give kids some credit to understand nuance and these are all things that come out of hunting lifestyle, you know. I think it's like it really enhances It just gives you an ability to discuss things that might otherwise be hard to bring up. We've already covered eggs and sperm and stuff a thousand times, cleaning fish. They're dialed on that later when we kind of expanded it outward and talking about all the things they might need to know about. We'll have a good foundation and some visuals. I think that early and often too, like as soon as you get those kids out there, this is gonna be a way they think is like, it's gonna be normal to them. I have a quick question here, kind of expanding on what you guys are talking about. I'm a new dad, Um got a five month old. My wife was raised in a hunting family on New you know, third year hunter. Um getting into it with her father in law a bit. But you know, our future, we're thinking of moving out east. You know, maybe not in the near future, but um, you know, in the future. And you know we used to be Eastern Washington. Yeah, Eastern Washington. She's got family out there and love that area. But you know, we're thinking as we talk about, you know, raising a kid around guns and that sort of thing. You know, do you do you have that assumption you know about families that kids play with also have that healthy respect for guns, or you know, are you talking with those parents you know and and understanding where they come? You know, you know, you hear the horror stories of kids playing around other kids that really don't have that respect as a household, and you know, do you do you have a you know, uh kind of a thought on how you approach that or Yeah, I would say that in that case, our stuff is completely awful limited to anybody else. Yeah, I mean, like, are like, you know, our kids friends, they I don't. I don't expose them anything that that they might not be exposed to at home. You know what I'm saying. I would never take one of my kids bodies and be like, oh hey, check it out, here's a twenty two words. You know, what about your kids going over to you know, other friends, you know, do you trust your kid enough? Or you having that conversation with those parents you know, I guess they're not old enough. The words even come up, you you know our oldest six or that. That's a good question. Um, I haven't been encountered with that yet. I haven't encountered that yet. I have seen at times, I've seen at at acquaintances homes. I've seen ways in which they handle firearms and store firearms, and and talk to kids about firearms ways in which I think are that I would if my kids are older, I would not want them over at that house for sure. That they don't. They don't have the standards that I have. You know, I think in the I don't want to spend the whole time talking about guns, but I mean, it's it's a rich subject. I'm a little bit surprised oftentimes in the way in which safe handling and say storage and making a kid friendly environment in a gun owning family. I'm surprising which the way the industry has avoided that subject. I think it's I think I think it should be something that that is stressed much more um but people don't. People kind of avoid it, and on the industry sense a little bit, I think because they don' want to make it. They don't want to there's a reluctant maybe to acknowledge how serious the issue is, lest it become that these things are not good things to have in the home. I don't know why it is, but I'm pretty comfortable talking about it. Yeah. Yeah, Well, I was gonna say that it comes down to the foundation. So I think that any of our kids, once they are old enough to go over someone else's house where they find themselves in that situation, they'll know what to do in that situation. Don't make the right choice. But yeah, where I grew up, many bark in people's houses. They got a gun leaning on the door frame and a bunch of animals and done tip of a speaker. Um, I think things have changed a lot. Yeah. I mean my grandfather he still has that a twenty two, you know, back back at the front door, just in case there's a skunker. I mean something like I just I don't know, like whatever, whatever, But I think but again, I think it's like what Jana said, is that like our kids, they understand that is off limits them. And I'm out now that I say it out loud. You know, maybe I'm a little nervous about it. Maybe it's, you know, time to have a conversation. I got a question here about um, kind of the federal land transfer to states and how um, maybe you could educate us a little bit on some of these topics that we should be aware of and maybe, um, just I think it was interesting even just land, just the quick little conversation that we had before the before the show started. Um, I was not aware of some of that stuff, and it makes me kind of upset a little bit, And I think it might be good just to talk a little bit about that and just kind of drawn awareness educate us a little bit about that. Yeah, I think Land should do that. I'll just prep with Lands comments by saying that this this right now federal land transfers um probably probably the biggest issue we're facing right now from a conservation environmental standpoint, as far as it's something that's that's immediate and happening right now, not not a long term threat, but like a very immediate threat that's being addressed at this very moment in Washington. So yeah, Land, you should break down. I mean, this is something I probably talked about for a long time. So I'll try to give this kind of top lines and if people have more questions that want to dive deeper, we can do that. I think the first thing I would talk about is is really one of the things that I think is more American than apple pie and baseball is our public lands. It's a place that whether you have a lot of money or you don't, whether you live here in Seattle, in the city, or in you know, back into Zula, Montown where I'm from. We all own title the six d and forty million acres. These lands belong to everybody in this room, and anybody's listening to this podcast, anybody in America. I think, you know, you look at the system over in Europe where that really belongs to the rich and the elite and the privileged. And so Theodore Roosevelt helps start setting these lands aside back around you and n like that was something new. And at that time when he did that, it wasn't like everybody around the country was like this is a great idea. When he did that, it was to make sure that we have these lands in perpetuity and that they could continually use for conservation. That doesn't mean that you set up and you lock them away. That means you still have timber harvest. That means you still have crazin. It means you still have resource extraction. That means you still have hunting and fishing and perpetuity. But it's that multiple use that I think is the general idea of public lands that really sets us aside from any other country in this world. Now, I mentioned that there was some folks when theyot Roosevelt kind of started this process that didn't want him to do that. From my home state of Montana, Senator Wyoming, Senator Idaho, Senator they fought him. And so there's still those people that want to kind of take that for themselves. And so why do they want to take that for themselves. Well, they feel like there's too much regulation at a federal level and they want to like those resources. That's one of them. The second one is that they want to take them for themselves, and so they have their own private hunting grounds or their own kind of private playground, I would say, And so neither one of those I think help us in our American ideals. Now, the specific question that Matt asked around transfer to the states. So this idea of transfer to the states, again there's more of local control, we can do more with those resources, and the federal government can like that starts to sound okay. Now, what's a problem with that is since statehood, when these states first were granted lands, when they became the states, they've been divesting those lands. They've been selling those lands. And so why they do that, Well, they're they're set up to create money, and that's it's not that multiple use anymore that I talked about earlier, and so I think, um, you know, are set up to make money and and so right away I think those resources aren't sustainable and so they either rape and village and then divest them or they can't management the first place, you think about all the fires, think about the fire season that it's been in the news a lot, right states can't like if they had to take over the management with those like where they're gonna get the money to manage those fires, let alone road maintenance, let alone law enforcement, and so they'd have to sell them. And so I think this is not an issue that is new necessarily, it's something that's been going on since the beginning, and it's something that seems to cycle every fifteen or twenty years. But right now it seems to be more organized and uh, and there's more of a push for it. And I think the last thing I would says that in regardless you know, whether you hunt or fish on these public lands, whether you you know, go camping and huckleberry picking as we talked about earlier, like you if you don't do any of that stuff and spend time on them. I think you do care about clean air and clean water, and everybody in America should care about that. And like same percent of our streams start on national forest lands and public lands, and that to me, like that's one of the number one reasons. And you think about somebody owning those headwaters and what kind of bear they could hold you over, you know, on that right And and we're going through it right now and Missoula, we're trying to buy back our public water um because a company bought it and they're jacking up our prices, right, I mean, think about a foreign on company on in our water right now and what that would do to us. So I'd like to end on what the aspirational thing again is that it belongs to all of us. There's a sixty six billion dollar outdoor economy that's really based on our public lands. And if that is not only sustainable, it's but something we can grow. So in this great day of age and talking about job growth and we need to do this, we do that. That's when we should not mess around with well done. Yeah, I grew up similar to sound like what you guys did. I grew up in a perural community hunting and moving up here about a lot of people ask me why do you what do you have to hunt? Why do you choose hunt? And I just wondered if you guys could take a couple of minutes to explain um the importance of wildlife conservation has the different species and what maybe it would look like if that if nobody hunted, nobody fished, and why that wildlife conservation is important. Yeah, that's a huge question, and I think you could you could approach it through the lens of just looking at American history in general, or what's going on right now at this moment. Land a minute ago mentioned you know Roosevelt, uh doo Roosevelt. You know he's a wealthy city kid, right, but through his adventures through hunting and fishing, he became inspired to preserve landscapes. So it inspired him to take it to into advocacy on behalf of wild places and wild names. There was his avenue of exposure. So that's one of the things that comes from well how does hunting and fishing leave the conservation? That's one ways it awakens people to a world out there that they would not have otherwise known about. In a more pragmatic modern sense. Um, we have every state has a fishing game agency. Now you're fishing game agency responsible for habitat enhancement, habitat improvement, oftentimes various environmental regulations, enforcement of existing wildlife laws. They do, disease research, UM, access enhancement, access improvement meaning giving you ways to boat launch is, ways to get the water ways, trailerheads, to access forest land. Your state fishing game agency does all these things, and they work on game animals, but you can consider generally consider game animals and in non games pieces. So the vast majority of the vast majority of fish birds, wildlife in any given state is our non game, not targeted by hunters, not targeted by fishermen, but they fall under that same jurisdiction your state fishing game agency. Of the fifty state fishing game agencies that we have in this country, UM, all of them, sixty of their funding comes from hunter and fisherman revenues. So we really hunters and fishermen carry the financial burden of managing wildlife in this country. Another huge way that wildlife funding comes from hunters and fishermen is you go back to Pittman Robertson Act then the Dingle Johnson Act, and basically it's excise taxes on equipment. It's very specific to hunting and fishing disciplines. In the case of Pittman Robertson, this came in under the Wildlife Restoration Act in the nineteen thirties. It's an excise tax on guns and ammunition that generates what's the generator for You're closer billion dollars That money that comes from excised tax on any guns and ammunition. That money goes to his earmarked for wildlife work, wildlife restoration, habitat improvement work. States are able to get that funding if they meet certain criteria. One of those criteria is that their license sales they're hunting and fishing license sales have to be spent on core mission. A state cannot go in and rampage through their state fishing while they have agency and steal there were licensed revenues and apply them to other purposes like balancing the budget or and everything like that. If the state follows that law and they're using their licensed revenues for wildlife, they then can get Pittman Robertson funding, which is money from the excise taxes on guns and animal, but they have to use that as well. If they don't use it up, then it goes into a general fund for migratory while migratory bird conservation. So there's a lot of muscle in this way, and this is where our funding for wild life comes from now, as I think in culturally, we're getting to a place for other people other you know, I determined solver use, but other stakeholders are wanting more of a say in how we managed wildlife, but we're the ones paying for it all. So there's a general, uh, there's a general unease in the hunting and fishing community when you have other people who are not willing to financially kick in, who are wanting a bigger seat at the table when it comes to wildlife manage, or they're taking a perspective it's hostile to our general extracted use of wildlife resources, extracted but sustainable wildlife resources, yet the reluctant to pay in anything. When the Pivot Robertson tax came in in the nine it had overwhelming support among manufacturers who were going to certainly see a drop in sales because the prices on all their goods were gonna go about ten overwhelming support with hunters who at the time honey was about done in America because market hunters, unregulated hunters who are hunting to supply UH feathers to industry for meat to Eastern cities, they had nearly wiped out fishing game in this country. So these were people coming out of like scarcity to say, yes, we will pay a tax on all of our hunting and fishing equipment in order to build American wildlife back up. Now, if you go to other industries, like you go to the birding industry, backpacking, skiing, all these people who don't pay a ship and you ask these industries to kick in money and an exercise tax, all they do is just they're like, there's no way they could do it. We already have too many taxes. Can't do it. So if you if you have a hostile view of hunters and fishermen, you need to really come up with how you're gonna account for that amount of input, financial input, and advocacy. Because the people who are out there on a day to day basis, like back huntry, hunters and anglers who are out there on a day to day basis are finding the inspiration and their money is coming from that. So I don't really see a way forward, and no one has come to me with a way forward on how we're going to continue to enjoy the wildlife resources that we have in this country without this base of people who have been supporting it since the beginning. No one wants to take that question up. It's not coming from the Humane Society. It's just it's not coming from anybody. But els is that answer that hi? Um, I'm probably one of those people that you're talking about. I'm not really into hunting at all, but I appreciate the fact that you're saying that you're interested in conservation. UM. And I would definitely pay to uh sustain our wild places. But that's another topic, I guess. UM. I'd like to know what your take is on trophy hunting and killing animals that people won't eat, like wolves. Um. That's something I'm really passionate about, and I'd like to hear your point of view on that. Yeah, I'm a troll with the owner. If you walk into my house, UM, my house is is largely decorated with schools of animals that I wanted. Um, when when I hunt an animal, and and and we eat it. You know, the meat is ephemeral, right, we go through it pretty quickly. Uh. Yet I have these totems, these these like things of remembrance in my home. That gives that animal a permanent place of honor in my household, becomes something I talk about. I look at it and remember everything about that trip, who I was with, what was going on, the needs of the animals, vulnerabilities. That's how I choose to decorate my own UM. I think that it's much more beautiful. A skull of an animal I hunt is much more beautiful to me than any painting could ever be. So that, yeah, trophies are a big element of hunting for me. UM. As far as wolves, my particular view on the wolves is that I think that it's a moral crime two eliminate native fauna from the landscape in places where wolves were extirpated from from human causes, I think the wolves should be present on the landscape like all other large mammals. I think that sustainable populations of wolves and other predators should be managed as a renew old resource to UH at the discretion at the direction of state wildlife managers. I say that because it's a system that has worked exceedingly well for the last hundred fifty years UM, and I think that any violation of that system is going to lead to bigger problems down the road. So I do support wolf hunts in places where you have sustainable population of wolves, just as I support any renewable resource extraction where you're not gonna harm the long term viability of the population. So an answer, maybe your first comment first is that you'd love to be able to pay into the system. And I think one of the things that Steve didn't mentioned that was happening during the dirty thirties as well, when the kind of lid was falling off the prairie, right like, we had this unsustainable farming practices and all of a sudden, these big the big dust will happened. We're in trouble. There's a thing called the duck stamp that came out of that, and it's this thing that all waterfowl hunters have to buy to be able to hunt a migratory species. That's something everybody in this room can buy as either a collective or something that wants to contribute to the conservation of national wildlife refuge and by law, I think what nineties and percent of that money has to go to buying weatlands have to So that's our national wildlife refuge system, right, And so anybody that cares about birds, and I would love, you know, the National Audubon Society to come out and say everybody should buy a duck stamp. But you, as an individual system, you can do that. You know, my kids aren't hunting yet, but I buy him a duck stamp every single year, partly for their collections because they're beautiful stamps, but also so I can tell them that story on how they're already contributing. So that's the first one they call the trophy hunting thing for me. Um had somebody explain kind of hunts me there today, and I thought it was a really good way as that that end thing that we do when we pull the trigger. It's like the very last page of that book. There's this whole story that comes before that, which to me is that trophy piece. And I was lucky enough to draw once in a lifetime tag this year in Montana for a bighorn sheep, very an iconic species that sheep. I am going to have that in my house. Is a remembrance of that hunt, but the trophy part. And I'm gonna remember some of those trophy naps that I had up on that hill in the middle of the day, when I hiked up feet and chasing these things around. I'm by myself, and I wake up like slobbering on the side of the mountain, Like I don't ever get to take naps anymore. So that like that, that that whole skull is gonna remind me of some of those times. And um so for me, I think that trophy piece um is usually concentrated on that end result when I think it's a lot of what brings it forward, at least for me. Um wolves very controversial issue. I'm like Steve, I'm glad they're back on the landscape. Uh. You know, a lot of places I hunt, I don't see a lot of wolves, but I hear a lot of wolves. And if the wolves are around, you know there's game around. So one, I think that's pretty cool. I think also mean, maybe you've heard the Yellowstone story. You know that these elk we're eating the heck out of the willows and then the wolves come back. You know, the wheels are now growing up now you got beaver again, I get better fish populations. I guess this whole ecosystem things. So I think it's really great that they're on the landscape. Um, but we're not living in a place where humans aren't anymore, and we are part of this system and those kind of populations that we manage, whether those are game populations or non game like, we are engaging in that, whether we like it or not. And so I think we have to have some sort of management of those wolves, um that we do just like we do any other species. You know, there's an interesting guy you should read about. He's an already explored by the last name is Stephenson, and he was even in the early around nineteen o three, he was making first contact with some Eskimo hunters around Coronation Golf in Victoria Island in the Canadian High Arctic. One thing that this is just the this is this. I know his favorite wild game was wolf, but the main point he spent some time with some hunters who would when they would kill a polar bear, they would bring the polar bear back to their lodge and they would leave the polar bear's head in the room. So the polar bear is facing out towards the family. The thinking being this polar bear would observe this family, recognize that they were an honorable family, and then he would report back to other polar bears and say, Hey, if someone's gonna kill you, haven't be this guy. He's a good dude. Um. I don't view it with that level of spirituality, and I don't want to suggest that I do, but I do think that there is an exchange going on about honor and an exchange going on about your value system when you do give these items a ace of respect and reverence in your home. I do know as well that it doesn't speak to other people. I have served the first meal of I've served literally hundreds of people their first wild game dinner. When people come into my home and they see that I have skulls and animal hides around the home, they never look at that, and they I know that they don't see what I see. In fact, didn't look at it, and they go like, oh, this guy must be some kind of asshole. Now, when they said down, eat a meal of wild game, they get really excited all of a sudden. They want to go on a hunt. They're real curious. They want to talk about this animal. So I recognize that it is a it's a divisive thing because I think that it's like they're on a certain trip when they see it. You know that there are few of the animal has been sort of tainted or colored by contemporary culture. That hasn't happened to the food, though for some reason people really respond will of the food. So I do know, I know what you're getting. I don't want to seem like I'm being a smartass. I know what you're getting at about trophies, but I think that I just feel like it would be helpful for you to understand one person relationship to the handlers on the wall in his home. Hi. I'm I'm Nolan. I have a kind of a touchy subject with this, and it's probably a long so you can hopefully narrow it down, but it's touching along well. It's regarding you know, like predators and hunters and landowners. It's like, is there an area in this country where it currently is working? I mean maybe Canada or something like that, but is there a spot where he's in northeastern Washington. We've had, I mean some spots where you put in wolves and there's one area that it clearly did not work. So I was wondering if there was some spots where we could look at hopefully replicate for this for the state. I think where grizzly bears are right now in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. UM, I think it's working, not without tensions. But I think if you look at the distribution of grizzlies in Montana, the current distribution of grizzlies in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho of what's called g y and then also the Northern Yellowstone eco or I'm sorry, the Northern Rockies ecosystem current distribution of grizzlies. Some biologists argue they're probably at carrying capacity there that no matter what you do, you're not gonna see more bears. They don't top the bears themselves won't tolerate denser populations. If you froze that picture right now, I think you would find a sustainable model, not without tension. It's not without livestock issues, I think from an urban perspective, because is the thing I always called Yellowstone syndrome, and it's like that people's understanding of wildlife ecology and wildlife management stems from sort of looking at these Christine bordered chunks of place, and they don't pay attention to what it actually means for the people who live in this landscape, who are trying to be involved in cattle ranching, for instance. They don't have a lot of empathy for what it's like for someone who's who's raising livestock as a way of supporting their family and they're dealing with large predators on the landscape, like what that means for them. Um. But in that case, I think that we've we've we've hit like a workable situation. Now you talk to people at the state level, whelming they're leery about bears moving out of that area there. They're they're leery about the east eastward southward expansion of grizzly bears because people feel like outside of this core area, which is about chunk of land the size of Indiana. Outside of this core area, conflict is gonna outweigh benefit. That's open to debate. I'm not even sure how I feel about a person, but I think that I think that um, in fifty years and a hundred years, we could very well have that many grizzlies living on that many square miles and it being a peaceful relationship. We're all interests could be like it's working, it's okay, um, And it came about through a lot of through a lot of fighting, a lot of infighting. But if it's working now, I think grizzlies could work in some more places too. They can't work everywhere. If you look at the historic distribution of grizzlies, it's from about where the Missouri River, you know, the Missouri hooks southward from there out to um the Pacific Coast. I pointed on the outfit, I wrote the New York Times, when you when you're looking at grizzlies, don't confuse Golden Gate Park with Yellowstone Park. Right we will never have full recovery, which would mean grizzlies right here. It's just not gonna happen. So there's always like ideal, like your idealistic, do you we'd recover them everywhere. It's just not pragmatic. It's not gonna have. But there are places where I would argue this, where do you feel like it's working there? Yeah? I mean I give you a real specific one, and it's in the Blackfoot Valley, so just outside of Miszoola where I'm from. River runs through it. Know about that book or that movie, right, So that's where the Blackfoot River is. And they came together a long time ago as a ranching community and said, we want to keep this place, uh the way it is right now. And so they first coalesced around wheats, right. Wheat invasion is really bad for the native grass that their their cows are eating. So they first came around and they came around around access that a bunch of hunters always knocking on their doors, and that's kind of where there's private public access to private land program. That's how they successful in Montana came from. So now as there's this is this borders for those in other landscape, there's the Bob Marsha Wilderness and Glacier Park above that. So it's this huge complex of wild land. And so you've had grizzly bears in there for a long time, if they're coming back even more, and now the wolves have kind of exploded on there. And so in that same context of trying to keep their places similar, they're doing a lot of work with a local nonprofit called Blackfoot Challenge, and that's a specific group you could reach out to and ask that exact question. And so there's you know, when there's a grizzly bear in the area, everybody knows kind of where it is, and so they are you know, doing different things to kind of avoid that. One of the practices they used to do is every time they had a dead cow, they go put it in the bone yard. But what does that do? That brings in grizzly bears that are hungry, right, and so instead of doing that, they're burning those animals now and making sure that's not an attractive Another one would be like like uh, bee hives, be hives becoming more and more popular. Everybody likes having their own honey, right, and and so um uh they are electrifying fences around that now before they kind of we're having to live with grizzlies or that they have this uh um, I guess respect for them. Uh, those bears are getting in trouble and those bears are getting killed. So now like these bears that are avoiding people all the time because they get in trouble when they're mountain people. Before it was just like a big free for all, and so um, I think that's a specific place to work. I think that Steve's right that, um, the greater Yellowstone Area and the Northern Rockies as a as a whole a great place to look. But that's a real specifical one, you know. I think that, yeah, creation, I mean, it's such a rid rich subject because I don't know if anybody need to realize. You guys know that you have a heard of caribou in your state that flirts with the border. So there are now about a dozen caribou left in the US, and they're right at this very second, probably none are in the US, but there's a population of a dozen, you know, Mountain caribos some people call the woodland cariboo that moved between Washington, Idaho. The Montana ones are gone gone. Now, when you have a population of one dozen animals, losing an animal to predator to a predator is a humongous deal. If you have two d you can support some predation. But when you have a dozen and you lose a female, that's a major blow. It could be the thing that means that we will not have those things anymore. People tend to really like those sort of like calendar animals and for whatever reason, um, you know, like a New Jersey cat lady is not inspired by a caribou the way she is by a wolf. So by playing our favorites and by using even things like the Endangered Species Act and turning it into a sort of my favorite animal protection Act, we eve in some ways shot ourselves in the foot when it comes to while they manned because people really don't want they want to be like I love wolves. Hurting wolves is bad. Anyone wants to kill a wolf as a terre whole person and not looking out and also trying to measure it with this idea of we're trying to say one doesn't care you. Once they're gone, you will not get them back. They can do a thing right now, like they can take care of you from other locations and bring care of them into Washington and Idaho to supplement this existing doesn't when those doesn't vanish, and it could happen anytime. You will never have the political cloud and the financial stuff to just do an outright reintroduction of bringing carebo and it will not happen. So if you talk to someone who works on this careb who heard and then you want to talk about predator management with them, you will get a very different picture than what you think of when you think of some you know, meanal rancher who doesn't want wolves killing off his cabs. It's a rich subject, and I think that when you're gonna weigh in with opinions, you kind of have an obligation to go look at the whole braw a picture of what's going on out there. There are many different viewpoints than, many different interests than what you might feel by, you know, looking at some picture on Facebook that blows up because it's a guy that shout a bold it took a picture of them sitting there with It's a lot more afflic I just said a question. Uh, So I've never really thought about the public land ownership and uh having ownership in that myself, and just relatively recently the last couple of years, I've gone out to some of the national parks in Utah and then also some of the state parks here in Washington, UH and really just started appreciating those are are kind of our best national resources and exposure to uh some of the stuff going on to where that could eventually go away or change hands or not be uh in the same format in our future. UM has really kind of uh I've gotten interested in that subject through this. But are there things that we can do, uh to kind of get engaged in the protection of public lands or or what can we do as kind of individuals are new to this, uh to kind of help with that cost. Yeah, that's a great quat that left lands and dark that most But I'll just point out that I grew up at the southern terminus of Manistee National Forest. Our view of it was that it somehow fell from the sky right. We used it all the time, never gave an inkling of thought to how it came to be and what would what do we need to do to make sure it continues to exist. It's like you know, apathy. Yeah, app here's lack of awareness about what it is that it's actually like in this ongoing fight, and that we're still having this national debate about the validity of publicly owned land. UM. In my mind, one of the biggest steps sort of preserving our public lands is for people to become aware of how they came to be and to understand that there are still people questioning our intent and making them UM. But I think that just basic awareness seems to drive a lot of action as far as specific action, Uh, I think land should speak there. Yeah, I mean I can be selfish and put a plug in for back countree hunters and anglers join us today. And I think besides building numbers for us so we have more cloud when we go out to Washington, d C, it's it also places to educate yourself and we also make it easy for you to engage. And a lot of people in this political climate right now or just in general, don't think that your voice counts anymore. And you know, like making a phone call, sending an email, writing a letter to the editor at your at your local newspaper, I think it doesn't matter. And I'm gonna tell you that's exact opposite. Every time we talk to politicians out in d C. They know when there's actually real noise happening out there, and they care about being reelected. Their constituents matter to them. And so that phone call we talk about it. If they start to get about ten phone calls, they start to pay attention, they get a hunting phone calls. Let me tell you what they're paying attention. And so I think the more people are engaging that way, I think it's an important thing. Um and it's not. I mean there's basically if you talk to those centers and talk to their staff like you're not talking unless you know that center, you're probably not gonna be able to talk to them unless you see them at an event. So their staff is the one picking up the phone and they got a little checklist they're keeping score, right, and here's where we hear it on this side here and we're hear it on the other. The same thing with emails. I would say that, um, you know, will help you craft emails, but the more you do that yourself, that counts a little bit more. UM. And again, I think we can help you do that. But a lot of people want to have apathy like he's talking about, Oh, they're just here and they're always going to be here, or others think that their voices don't count. I will tell you that it may feel like that, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Um. The last thing I would say is that, you know, part of the reason we're having this discussion is because some people want to see management improved on our federally managed public lands. I would agree with that, and so there's opportunities to get involved, like get a travel management level plan or a resource level of plan, and so you have input on the local place where you're going. Um. They you know, a lot of there's a lot of talk about last DC ton us what to do. Those decisions get made at a local level. UM. So that's kind of like the Short and Dirty become a member not just of US, but of other conservation organizations that are engaged in this public land's fight. We worked with a large smattering. I would say that one of the great things that I've noticed here in the last couple of years, it's like outdoor users have their own groups, like the International Mountain Biking Association, the Kayakers. They're starting to come to this issue because of the threats that there is, and they understand. And I talked to a woman who's a member of ours this last weekend arena. She's a big long distance a question rider like she rides horses. That's what she does. Like she's going thousand miles ride. Where can you do that anywhere else? And she came to us again, it's a plug for us, but we're being this isn't really the issue that we work on his public land strictly, and so no matter what, we're gonna be standing up for him. She saw us being consistent on that time and time again, so that's why she's a member of ours, And to me, UM, that's again we all have a stake in this. I don't care if you hunt or fish, ride horses, pickuckle berries, or just enjoy the clean air and clean water. We have to do something and if not, we're gonna be sitting there in a few years and being like man, I wish I would have done something, and by then it's gonna be too late. I think it support you to understand at this point it's not strictly a partners an issue at all. UM. The incoming head of Interior Department has stated several times that he has no interest in seeing our federal lands liquidated. The incoming president has had, you know, sometimes some somewhat conflicting messages, but has stated he's not interested in saying off our public lands. Yet other people within their political party UM have advocated on behalf of selling off publican federal public lands. So it's not really decided yet. I think that whatever party you affiliate, I think you need to bring it up to your representatives and let them know because hopefully it won't become something that's just like this, this binary Republican Democrat battle is not shaping out to be that way. So I think that you need to speak up to your representatives to just like just like Land saying, to make sure that it doesn't become something that it falls along party lines. Right now, there's people advocating on both halfs, and like Land mentioned earlier, we have a great um sustainable economy built around public lands, and so we need to speak to the business aspect of it too. I hate being in a situation of trying to justify things of beauty in terms of finance, but in this case, I think it makes sense. I think it's useful to do it, Like how many coffee drinkers use public lands? Oh right, so Steve, we're coming up on our time. Is uh, what haven't we asked? What can we wrap it up with? What kind of knowledge can you drop on us? Like a concluding bob concluding that? What's the concluding thoughts? I never thought I was gonna say that, Yeah, that's one. I don't have one. Oh, I was thinking still about predators on this wo woman asked about it just like a place in the United States where it seems to work. And I was just thinking about like one of those common predators it's out there. But again it's not one of those calendar animals, but the coyote that specys enjoying great um, you know, population growth all across our country. It's everywhere now, Like you know, we grew up in Michigan, never had in kiots growing up. You know, now they're all over Michigan and all over the Eastern Seaboard and it's cool, it's neat. They seem to be balancing and make them do and the people that are seen them are so far interested in them. That could change as soon as you know, a people more cats and small kids getting nipped, you know, in Central Park. People might not have the same view on kyotes, but I feel like all across our country coyotes and people are making do you know, yeah, we got kyot in places at the time of European contact there word okayo right um yeah. Another thing in that way, if you look at we talked about wolves and grizzlies, um and how they fitting out and occupy historic range. I alviously think it's helpful to point out that elk only occupy about I think it's about four ten or four ten or fourteen percent of the historic range. At the time of European contact, you had elk across the United States of America, So you know, like elk are we've really accepted elk as sort of this like iconic big game animal. Right we have how many there's what a couple hundred dollars and elk whelming as two hundred l Colorado is more than app all over the place. Um, but we haven't even begun the recovery built if you think about it in terms of east of the Mississippi River. So I think that when we look at our large predators and we sort of weigh, like, what would recovery look like, what does sustainability look like? I think it's important to keep that in mind. We've definitely accepted elk as a renewable resource, but again, they occupy a ten percent of their historic range here. Um, It's it's a very these issues are very complicated, and I think that if you're interested, if you owe it yourself to kind of start to understand the historic context of some of the decisions we're making right now. Uh my closing thought, I mean to thank Chad for bringing us in here. You know, I think, um, when I uh for sure that we're coming in here, I didn't know what kind of crowd would have. You know, I don't know if there's anna two people or honor people. I didn't know what kind of questions they are gonna be asking. The question and diversity of questions today are super impressive to me. The size of the crowd are super impressive. I think that for me, um ah, that's enlightening. And I think, you know again, these public lands, because I'm gonna leave you with they belong to all of us and it's up to us to keep them that way. And you know, I I hope that you all start to educate yourself a little bit more on this issue, that you do get engaged. This is still a democracy that can work and should work. But the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and if they're hearing from somebody else, they're not hearing from people that care about public lands, then we're gonna lose. And you know, we've had a lot of conversations about kids today and that's the part that I think my kids are hopefully going to have the same opportunity as I did. But believe me, that can slip away in the generation and you think about the future generations and what this country that we tried to set up differently where it was much more of a democracy that led things than you know, oligarchy. Let's let's keep it that way. And this is one of those ways that I think we can do that. And so I think that takes everybody from all walks of life to be able to do that, and we're you know, it's hundreds of anglers were just a small piece of that. So that's where I did. Yeah, I don't know one to ask about the relative merits of eight by thirty over ten by fifty four over prism acts question, because that would have stopped me and I would have passed that right to you. All right, thank you very much, Steve. I just want to appreciate you guys coming in you j honest and and Lamb flu In from Montana to be here with us today. Steve's a local boy now, but I don't be claimed Stanley. Do you claim us as your home undeniable right right here? Yeah, I'm still a little sad about that. So I can we get around of blast where I guess today. Thank you. Two defeats in qual