00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, this is the Meat Eater Podcast. We're recording out of Bozeman, Montana. Sunny, beautiful, very dry right now bos and Montana. I'm joined by Long tong ANEI frequent guests, the Lavian Lover, maker of Hunt Eat t shirts. UM, if you haven't bought one the Honest T shirts, go do it now. It's the only thing he gets out of this. Also by uh Land Tawny of back Country Hunters and Anglers, which is a group I have a conservation organization that I have admired the work of over the last few years because I find that they're their mission aligns well with with my uh take on conservation issues and my take on hunting and fishing in public lands. And along with a handful other conservation groups that I like a lot. There you know one that I m M try to be supportive of and encourage. You'll be supportive of um Land. Like we have a long time of talk right now, but I want you to in super quick way. They got two questions for you kids, that which one I want you to do first? First, giving your hunting and fishing background, sure quickly don't two two? UM explain b h A the mission of b h A. You can dovetail two into one or you can just do one then two. I'll do one and two, but making my elevator speech on number two, so it's quick, okay. So fifth generation Montana grew up hunting fishing, so that that's back like seventies, eight seventies. First family members born in Stevensville, Montana eighteen seventy two, so that was they were incorporated as a town for their like in eighteen seventy two, and my first family member was born there. You know what, your coster died, uh eighteen seventy What June eighteen seventy six. Okay, yeah, that's wild man. So we have a family cabin that's down the East Fork of the Bitter down there. It's been in the family for a hundred years. It's awesome. But so I grew up on the East Fork fishing like Sam fly hatch there, um Sam fly hatch on the Bighole River. Very lucky. We spent a week down there. My father, uh knew some folks outside of Yellowstone Park on the Cinembar basin, and so he used to hunt elk down there, and I would I know, yeah, like Cindambar Mountain and stuff and uh and so I would that later became like a lot of that stuff some National Forest and something belongs to Cut, right, Yeah, Cut bought some of that, I mean that, and now Cut has transferred that over to the Elk Foundation. Was then transferred over to the National Forest so we can all hunt it now, Church Universal Triumphant. It was a cult of sorts. Yeah, it was like an apocalyptic colt based around what was her name, like Mary Profit or something like that. And then her husband got busted running guns from Idaho to Montana. They had big, huge, uh silos full of all sorts of stuff for Armageddon. They were like a post apocalyptic outfit. But down there, I mean I grew up hunting behind my dad where he'd be hiking up these steephills in the snow, and literally I had to take, you know, steps in his footsteps where I would not make it because that was so small. And then my other favorite thing I think growing up was duck hunting. And so we had a place south of Missoula in the bed Route Valley tell her wild left reff uge that my dad helped set aside, and I put conservation he's been on and when it got cold, that place was just having for ducks. I mean they would you know, the river freezes over and the only thing open the spring creeks, and so you just have ducks piling in there. And I remember as a kid, we'd show up and you know, the whole there'd be a thunderous kind of awakening of the marsh. They'd take off and then they come back in fives and sixes and tents. And just watching my dad work and the dog work was amazing. And he let me bring my baby gun along and I think I'd have a chance, but never would happen. So it's been instilled to me at a young age. And then, uh, you know, growing up, I think, uh I probably got away from hunting a little bit in high school just because things got crazy. I was playing soccer in the fall, and uh I was chasing girls. And then you know, now song keepers, no keepers threw them all back. Um, my wife's gonna love that, and uh, you know, and but now, I mean, I think, you know, my late like mid twenties, late twenties really started getting into hunting fishing a lot more. And that's where you know, I my father passed away when I was twenty and so I was out in Seattle actually going to Seattle University, and I came home and after my dad passed away, and it was like this awakening again, you know, like the outdoors and like figuring out that's what I wanted to do in conservation and so um that hunting kind of brought me there. And then my dad was the the lawyer for the Elk Foundation when the first started in the eighty five up in Troy, helped bring them to Missoula. Was their lawyer until he passed away in nine and then he was involved in conservation easements and so that's definitely with the Elk Foundation, but also with real quick explain conservation ease. I feel like a lot of people they hear that, but they don't really know what that means. Yeah, so it's on private land. Uh. Private land owner decides that they want to protect the resources on their on their private land, whether that's uh, you know, the ranching culture or just the kind of wildlife habitat. So they work with a lawyer to draw up what the covenants for that property can be, and they could do it in perpetuity. So like my grandfather that lives just outside of Missoula. He has about twenty acres and they put a conservation eastment on there to where he can't build any more houses on that land and it can't be subdivided. And so no matter what, when he you know, he's in his mid nineties right now, when he passes away, and whoever that's passed on to or sold to, that conservation easement goes along with him. But they incentivize that with some tax credits. Yep. So it's not I mean, it's not just one sided. I think the biggest thing though, I mean, the tax benefits are great, but that's not what makes the deal. I think what makes the deal for people is that, you know, they we all see development happen all over this country, and I think it breaks people's hearts over and over and over again. And that ability to be able to pass that on and know what's gonna be there far into the future, I think it's what really sells that. Oh for sure. Man, if you've got a place you're in love with, you just hate to think of it just getting trash later on in life. And I think you know, again, we've probably all seen places you know that we used to hunt or used to recreate on that are now subdivided, and you know you're never gonna get that back. So what I like about those things is, uh, you hear so much from opponents of conservation that anytime you set land aside, it's like, oh yeah, it's like the government cramming it down. You throw It's like ahead, tell to these dudes, man, right their own private property. Yeah, I mean it's a private property, right, you know. I mean they have the right to do that, and nobody should tell him not to. So you know, well you mentioned bitter. Like the way the ducks come in there. We used to end at the end of duck season's like December and January, when that rivers would start to freeze. We'd float it in canoes and just sometimes I mean it'd be like ridiculous. But you get those mornings where uh was super cold, and so you get so much steam coming off the river. You know, the air is so much colder than the river, and like you pull up on him because steam like it was so thick, you know, and all of a a sudden you realize that you're sort of in the midst of it, like a bunch of cann of the geese heads that some gravel bar man. I just love doing it, but I know that I don't tell her. That's still I mean, it's still called tell her Wild. My dad helps set that aside with Auto Teller and they put together about a thousand acres there in the Better Root. It's pinched up a couple of other big landowners and so it's a it's a very special place. Yeah, alright, so haunting vision background. You've been in mountain of your life all my life. I went to Seattle for a year and a half and uh, great town. But it's gonna be hard to take him out of the state. So give me how you got into like like telling what b h A is. So b h A. Uh. We're a national organization and we started around the campfire eleven years ago in Oregon. Basically some people got together and said there wasn't an organization focused on public policy around public lands and so where the sports and voice for a wild public lands, waters and wildlife. And what that means that it's kind of separates us from everybody else is we're strictly advocacy and strictly advocacy on public lands. We there's kind of five buckets that we look at, and it's access and opportunity is the first one, and so there's a lot of different things that come into that, Like the sail of public lands kind of falls under that piece. Trying to get access to public lands that are isolated as another one you're talking about there, you're talking about land lock chunks of public land exactly. That's the thing that Yeah, I want to talk about all this stuff, but explain that real quick. So can I just real right correct me if I'm wrong? Sure, there are big chunks of publicly owned land. BLM, I don't think any national force. Is there any national force, some national force where all the land around it's privately help and there's no easement to it, right uh Um, it's open, should be, it's available to the public. If you came in on a helicopter, you can go in there, but there is no way to get to it. So it's like we the people own land that we don't have a way to get to. That's the fact though. Private land is what it is. And I think so that you describe that kind of the don't in effect what you just did. But then there's also a ton of land in Montown that's checkerboarded. So you have you know BLM private BLM, and it's all a checkerboard. And there's a big question of whether you can cross corner hop corner crossing right and so you know, supposedly our shoulders when we cross that corner are violating airspace and so we're trespassing. Now, if you talk to some wardens, they're not going to mess with you, but you talk to some private land hunters and they will, you know, go after you for trespass. So we've we've always not corner hopped. It's that's a yeah. So corner hop will be like let's let's say you're looking at are looking at a map and you're looking at sections. Okay, so I mean it doesn't always fall that cleanly, but you have two corner sections, or you have two squares of land, and they and they brought up only on the corners. Now, if you have a GPS unit or if the lands fence, then you can see the defence lines. You can theoretically have one ft in the corner of a section and then step over and place your other foot in the corner of the other section. And be like, I never stepped on private land. Correct, I corner hopped. The argument is in some people's eyes that you did, like your body passed your body even though your feet never touched, your body passed through this person's space. So there's an ongoing debate about whether you're corner hop or not. A lot of the stuff that we hunt kind of like one of our hunting strategies in checkerboarded areas, which when we're saying as even that you have mixed land ownership, is to use maps to find areas of public land that have very convoluted paths into them, where maybe you're walking and you're walking on quarter sections and half sections, a little weird strips of land and maybe caught into a state chunk to get to chunks of land that are not easily accessible by other mugs. Oftentimes you'll see these big chunks of land that no mugs can get too because there's no way into it. And so you're talking about finding ways, whether it's cash or whatever incentives to open those up or making the case that those should be accessible to the public. Yeah, I think the first thing is is willing seller willing buyer, right, I mean nobody wants to force anybody into anything, and so you know, using the land of Water Conservation Fund, using easements or even fee title, you know, to get access to a certain area. I think when we look at corner crossing, that's one that I don't know if there's incentives out there. You know, we had the stream access law and the and the bridge access that got added to that, which was definitely a help for landowners and for like the users, and maybe we can figure something like that out for corner crossing that would be beneficial to both. But that's a that's a much tougher, tougher thing when you think about it, just because of the amounts of areas that are checkerboarded in this state. Yeah, and you got guys and and like you've got guys who are like, sure, it's public, but why would I want to, like I can just treat it like my own little private area. Why would I want to let you go on the land that I sort of claim as my own, even though I don't pay ship for taxes on it. You know, I feel like when you say checkerboard two, it just sounds it's like a usual loosely but in Montana, especially because I hunted in Colorado for a dozen years and there are spots that you could, you know, you apply that term as well. But in Montana, literally you can open up pages of the gazetteer and look at it and it looks exactly like a check it's yeah. And so my question, did you know, like the history or the or like the genesis, how that came to be where it was just so perfectly checkerboard between private and public. A lot of that I think was was back to like the railroads. That's when the roads came in there, they gave them so much property and like to actually put the railroad through Montana, they said, here's you know, here's an incentive for you, and so you're gonna get some of this private land and then we're gonna have a public land. You know, so you get a certain amount. And I don't know the exact details of that, but I'm pretty sure that it was because of the railroad and in some areas they just went literally like public private public, All right. So that's the that's bucket number one. That's h Bucket number one is access access an opportunity. The second one would be back country conservation and so that's like at a national level, making sure that we have public policy that protects back country areas. So when you think about like role this areas, um, trying to protect those places um with with law UM. When you think about that's like where we work on this national legislation, like the Land and Water Conservation Fund, like just protecting and promoting like I guess, back country at a federal level, which is a big, huge bucket, which I could talk about a lot of things that we're doing there, but then it goes into like the third bucket would be kind of place based back country conservation. So if you think about, you know, uh in Colorado, be like Brown's Canyon, Montana, the Rocky Mountain Front, Idaho Clearwater Basin Collaborative that we're working on the Clearwater Basin there, And so that's more like places based stuff. And so you look at a watershed, let's say, and I'll take the clear water in Idaho. We worked with a TV users, loggers, county commissioners, other conservation organizations and said, here's this huge landscape. How can we get a path forward that maybe not be perfect for everybody, but it's a path forward for everyone. And so in that circumstance, we've come up with a tentative agreement that has five hundred thousand acres in new wilderness, two hundred miles of wild and scenic river, two miles of the longest continuous a TV route in the west, and then increased timber harvest in the front country. Again, is that perfect for everybody? Probably not, But does it gives certainty and a path forward? Yes? And so this has been, you know, a ten year process. We've been engaged from the very beginning. And now that's kind of moving to the Senator creepo and they're probably is going to be legislation is introduced, actually codify that and and so that's that kind of place space, like really boots on the ground kind of you know, this is why we want to do it here. So I would be that third bucket. How many places would you say you're looking at in in in the sense that it's like been identified, that's on your radar for the place based stuff, um and dozens or is it? So this last I mean it was dozens and then this last fall the Defense spending bill had a public lands package on it. We're about six of the places that we were working on actually got put into that bill and passed, and so I'd say it's cut in half now when we're about six seven. But we're always I think there's a place like we're looking at the boundary waters right now, there's a proposed mine, soulified mine, and the boundary waters right now, which would you know obviously potentially have huge impacts. What do they want to go after? So well, you know what the hell is so fed it's like it's like it's it's a certain kind of mineral and exactly what it's used for. But it's like, um, it's it's it's pretty aggressive mining. I guess what they would do. And you know they talk about how that the clean water would not be affective, but um, I don't think there's a mine that you look at, even modern mining that doesn't affect clean water. And so um that's the bounty water is a place that we're looking at trying to protect, right and and our members have identified because that's a place where they still have that back country experience. But there's a lot of protections in place of body waters here there is, but this will be on the outside of it, and so the potentially could actually affect it. Um, so i'd say, you know, a dozen to seven or half a dozen to a seven or eight. But um, you know we're always looking at areas and and not necessarily does that have to be protected by wilderness, you know, I think there's other ways of protection. Like the Rocky Mountain Front right now. Um, they got protected. You know that that had different kind of protections that kept it the way it is. And I think what we're trying to protect and promote through these place based campaigns is that experience and that salted the challenge and kind of just that that type of hunting. You know that that you could do anywhere, Um, if you protect those places and that and I want to say anywhere. I mean I was just in the east and you know they're back und He looks way different than what we have here in Montana. In Alaska looks way different than what we have here in Montana. But what that binding kind of factor is that saltitude and the challenge of the hunt, right and if you can protect and promote those places, that's what we're trying to do. So I wish that the kind of I know, we still got buckets four and five to go. But I wish that the the sort of land consciousness and the land ethic that fishermen and hunters have in the West, sort of a spatial awareness about their areas. I wish that that thinking was a little more contagious and spread to some areas in the East, because I think there there's this idea, like where I grew up in Michigan, there's this idea that sort of like the vestiges of wilderness that we have left and the Upper Great Lakes like you don't really count. You sort of think of him as they're just there by accident. They're just there because no one's gotten around to doing something to them yet. Do you know what I mean? And people know? I just feel like, like when I say people, I'm generalizing. But growing up, there's no you never it was just not part of hunting and fishing culture to talk about, Man, we love this place. What is the story up here? Like? What is going on? What exactly is protecting this place? Do we have we taken a look at what measures we have? Could it get even better? Could we look at some areas that that are just neglected right now and sort of bring them into this wilderness area and extend this out. It's like you never hear those conversations, but I'm sure they happened to some degree. But it's not like here, It's not like in the Rocky Mountains. But it's got to be the just the amount of public land available, because when I grew up hunting, I didn't even step foot on public land until I moved to Colorado. I grew up in Michigan. Did you hunt and trap al lot on the public well? Because I grew up right on the north and the man Stee you know Maneste National Force, which you know it's a national force. But at the same time, it was like just essentially no enforcement about um a t V use, no enforcement about access. It was just like free for all stuff, you know. And it just seems that there's a much I don't know. It just seems like that people have a much stronger sense of ownership of like public ownership, where you look at public lands as being not just like something you don't really understand, but you look at public lands and being like, no, it belongs to me, man, it belongs to us, and we have the right and the obligation too as the public monitor what's going on on these lands. And I feel like in areas where I grew up around the east of like that that's that that awareness wasn't there yet. So it is good to hear that backhunt under his angers. And I'm sure you're aware of this seems like a very Western outfit. M hm. You know, it's born out of the West. It's a young group. It's like it's run out of the West. But I'm glad to hear that, like to apply that, to apply your thinking to the boundary waters, and I would hold a whole lot of other places in the eastern US. Yeah. So we have a chapter in Minnesota, and that's why you know, we're able to kind of focus there. We have a chapter now in New York and in Pennsylvania, and then a chapter of that covers the six New England states. We still want to start one in northern Michigan and the up. We're having a lot of talk about that, and I would say Steve that we've grown so fast in the last couple of years. We're trying to keep up right now. And so I mean, I think where there's opportunities and where people and we can gather together, like a place like Michigan, I think we can you know, start another chapter there, but I will tell you that we're trying to hold onto that horse right now and keep them on the track. Yeah. I mean, it's which is a great problem to have, right because if we get too big too fast, which is you know, kind of good problem to have, but then you can't manage that, right. But literally, just coming back from Vermont last week where I met with those three kind of Eastern chapters, I mean we're having these exact conversations. And one of the things, you know, if you look at that map which your honest just talked about, is that you know, the West has way more public land than the East, but there is still these bastions of public land in the East that need that kind of stewardship, I think is what you're talking about, um, And and not only need that stewardship, but there's are also opportunities within like private land trust let's say, you know that that have large bodies of property out in the East that don't necessarily allow hunting, and so trying to work with them to open up places, you know where it's all walking hunting. So they still have that challenge and kind of the experience that we're all looking for. But opens up this that's private land, that's that becomes more public access to it. So um, but I think, you know, I think you're right. I mean, I think that it's inherent here in the West, and it's partly because we we still have public land, you know. That's that's and somebody tries to take that away, and that's where people get really fired up. Um yeah, moving out here, you get educated on public land real quick. I feel like it's a big it's a big part of life. But I think that it's also I don't think it's just simply a matter of there being more public land out here, you know. Yeah. And then another thing that that similars where up we have like big navigable rivers, okay, in huge navigable lakes. The minute you get on those lakes and rivers, you're on public land. It doesn't matter who owns the banks, okay, so you can be on there and cruise around. Um. I think that developing the mind frame of thinking of those things, like thinking of lakes, thinking of rivers as being public land. You know, it's just like I mean, I'm not saying something concrete here. I just feel that, um, I just encourage people that hunting fish in the east, and you might be listening to this podcast in the east where I'm from. Two kind of like listen to the way you're talking about taking care of hunting and fishing land and realize that this isn't just the Western discussion, right, you know, Like the same way we might talk about a mountain range here, you can be talking about your river at home. I mean, like these same sort of ideas, the same sort of sense of ownership, the same sort of like watching your own back and seeing what has happened to the places you care about, you know, and what more can you do to help the place you care about, and not just have this attitude that when it goes to ship, that was just how the how stuff happens, how it goes, I don't know, it's about a new place. You know. The reason that we have what we have here in the West is because people have been stepping up for like a hundred and fifty years and trying to make sure that we have that continuing. And I think you know that's that can be said for a print kind of conservation in general. But I think that there's there's definitely that feeling from folks in the East, but they feel like they've I think lost a lot of that. But I think you bring up rivers and stream access is such a convoluted thing and it's so different from state to state, but it is a place where you can go and uh and experience that kind of you know, that that challenge and that solitude that only like a rivers can do. You have a ringer that sounds like a mallard. Before we get to uh, buckets four or five, we'll take a quick break and'll be right back alright, so Land, give me just a recap. Now, make sure I'm paying attention. Bucket number one, Access and the opportunity. Bucket number two general, how do you how do you describe? I know Bucket number three is like specific place based, so I didn't describe too as much, but it's like backcountry conservation. So I would put like the clear water or the clean water acting ok at that right, So it's like these big, huge things that happen out in d C that that are broadly applied exactly. Bucket number four, buck number spots for Steve. Bucket number four Bucket number four would be uh illegal h v us. And so I drove my truck here. You know, I think everybody drives, you know, somewhere sometime. But it's about that illegal use. I think that that gets our hackles up. And you know it's it's about l security, it's about um, you know, your security. It's about sediment and streams when illegal stuff happens. Yeah, and it's screw. It's like here now, I want to clear I'm not speaking for b h A. Okay, when I say what I'm gonna say, like I'm not. This is not Landni talking. This is Steve Ronell talking, who's not paid by b h A. I don't speak for b h A. All right, it's just me talking. The four wheelers stuff is out of control in the illegal use thing in my mind, and this argument that we're gonna run out of places to drive vehicles strikes me as being absurd. There are so many places the ride vehicles, and there are places that legally ride vehicles that I don't understand why any law abiding citizen gets irritated, any law abiding oh B user, which I would account myself as one of, Okay, why they get irritated when they hear about curtailing illegal four wheeler use. It's not attack on your quad runner. It's an attack on doing illegal ship right. It's like poaching, right, And it's like if I say we shouldn't poach, why would a dude who likes to hunt but doesn't poach get pissed? But the it seems like four wheeler folks, and again, man, I use them, but seems like four wheeler folks get like mad when they hear that someone wants to start enforcing illegal use, like it's an attack on quads. I don't think that busting poachers is an attack on hunting. I think it's helping hunting. Now Lantoni will speak about actual stuff, all right. That was not That was not Lantoni talking. That was not. But I mean I think we all shared some the same sentiment, right, I mean, I think, I mean one of the reasons why illegal a TV us is a hot topic is because we've all been behind the gate two hours hiking it's been dark, and that a TV comes. You hear that murmur, and all of a sudden there's an a TV coming up right up the trail that you just were dude, I approach them. Yeah, there's the area we hunt turkeys, and man, I go up to him. You know, university. I don't care how many signs that there are saying it. I don't care how many signs they drove over, right, So I didn't realize always it's like, dude, I know, you know, man. And so one of the turns that we're trying to get out there is we have a reward. So you know, the penalties for illegal a TV us aren't that high. I mean, there's there's joke. It's a lot of times to slap on the wrist, right most guys will gladly pay double of fine to you know, be able to drive their a TV and part of doing business right like there. And so I think, you know, we're working trying to state legislature, state legislature UM to try to increase those fines or but one of the things that we're doing is providing a reward right now, So if you get if you see somebody that's doing something illegal when your turkey hunting, and you get like a license plate or you get like some kind of identification, able to turn that into the local. But yeah, it's hard to get that, try to get that stuff. Oh yeah, no, it's and it's and and and that's another one that's kind of interesting is that the um that it's fought is identical identification that you can actually see right when you when you see a boat, you know, out on the lake, they have that identification like to stick around it and you can see that from a long way. It's color coded, so you can tell if it's out the data that exactly. And so why can't you do that for a t V S and so? And I don't get it, Like I mean, I would be a good conversation to have with you know, a TV users on why they won't support, like you know, identification UM. But if you actually do UM some investigating, like you know, and are able to take some pictures or whatever and turn that person in, we'll give you a five award. We've given out four this year, so not a lot, but we get a lot of play and we put sometimes we put that in the regulation books just so people are aware of it. And so I think that's a deterrent. And then another thing that we're doing is when we do see a t V S park that the trailhead which is great, right, I mean that they use that just like I took my truck. We'll give them like a little thing that says thank you, and then i'll beer opener can opener that has a B H A signature on it. So it's like we're trying, you know, what we're doing kind of both right, Like we're we're I guess I would say three legged stool. We're trying to figure out better ways for enforcement in places where they probably shouldn't be. And then we're trying to have something to trent with that reward. And again, I think that's more a public outreach than it is actual on the ground. And that third piece is like thinking people for doing the right thing. And um, you know, I mean I think that it's not an issue that's gonna go away. It's probably gonna get worse. And um, I would love to see industry step up even more and talk about this responsible use. I think you do see it. Um, it's pretty prevalent. But what is different is everybody talks about doing the right thing, but then they don't want to address people doing the wrong thing. So when people are doing the wrong thing, we're not increasing fines Like if you had your a TV taken away from you in the woods, and it was like your third offense, let's say, by being behind the gate. That's pretty like that's that's not your slap on the wrist anymore. That's that's a that's a big thing. And so I think I found a guy who's three times been bosted with an illegal ELK. Yeah, something's gonna be in jail. Yeah. So I mean, I think that's about increasing fines. And I think a lot of times, you know, gets to a judge and he's like, seriously, this is taking my time, Like you know, I'm just gonna give him. But I think awareness needs to be creative. That's partly what we're trying to do. That's our fourth bucket. The fifth one is kind of harder to fund. I think it's different probably for all three of us in this room, and that's fair chase hunting. And I've heard it described that we all kind of we all have different perspectives on fair chase, but we all know something when we see it that isn't right. And so one thing that we've jumped on is drones. And so when you know, drones started becoming more prevalent, not just for military, but for civilian use. Uh. There started to be problems up in Alaska, Colorado, Montana where folks were using drones to track animals and then go kill them. And and so we decided to get out in front of that early. And so, UM, we started working with state fish and game agencies or state legislatures to ban these for hunting and scouting. And we've gotten We've done it in eight states now states. Um. So we've got Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Vermont New Hampshire, Alaska, which is seven um. And then I think we're working on it in Arizona right now. And I'm sure if it's done yet. I love because it's like yeah, yea, yeah, yeah, I love it. No states like Alaska, Montana like like great hunt states but with a very conservative minded populace. Who um, I just can see that that's not good business, right. The drones aren't good business, you know for the hunting world. Takes away of the experience of the hunt because so often, and this is something I want to talk about with you a little bit. UM. It might be uncomfortable for you to talk about, but it's so often enemies of conservation often try to paint um conservation measures as being sort of like these veiled left wing conspiracies, do you know what I mean that we're like talking about hunting, but what we're really talking about is like stealing your freedom, you know, or like governments shoving it down your throat, right, that kind of stuff, because it's just the way they're afraid of it, and they want to beat it. Right. They don't want to have like not that they hate clean water and clean air and good land, but just that they don't want anything to stand in the way of them doing pursuing their own personal gains. You know. It's so when you see something like the drones thing come up, it's been encouraging to see the way states that on areas outside of conservation are very conservative states realizing that this like seeing that for what it is. It's not like this unwelcome intrusion of government, but just saying, you know what, that's just not for us. It's not good business. It is not good for the business of hunting. And I think, I mean, so you have drones now, but I mean that's why hunters stepped up a hundred years ago when there was market killing on I mean like this is nothing new. Hunters have continued to step up, and so I think that, yeah, it's like self there's like a there's a concept bit of self policing. Yeah, and that piece that you talked about how it's like kind of this veiled attempted by you know, the government, or there's green radicals like shut things down, Like that's just a tactic that's been used again for a hundred years. And so it's it's I think, you know, there's these hunter conservationists which are why we have what we have today, and and they're they're still going to be the same arguments that happened around Roosevelt's time, but they're just new now. I mean, drones is obviously a new thing. Um, But I've been I've been real pleased with our chapter is jumping on that this issue because they've they've done it. I think you know another one we're looking at right now, which is high fence hunting, and you know, I mean, I know how you feel about that. You know, we took care of that in Montana by making it illegal to charge for hunts. You know, they I think there's still two that are left. They're actually raising them for meat. Yeah, that was that passed by what se keep keep Elk wild and free vote for I And I mean what a great campaign it was. It was like overwhelming. Oh yeah, and I think and so that's like you know, you talk about, you know, these honey numbers that are going down, you know, as far as the populace, but this is an area where everybody understands that that's not hunting. And you know that's a it's a long discussion about about high fences and but that's probably fair chase. Thing I'm telling you about is that that's one of our buckets that we look at, but it's really hard to the find. Yeah, let me let me. I want to speak to that for me because it is complicated and this is the one bucket you have where it doesn't make me nervous, but it's to me, it's not as clear cut. It's some other issue. And and and I'll just share the story that I've told many times. I was one time in South Carolina hunting with a friend of mine who has a blind, a deer blind that they called the condo. Okay, he purchased some timber company land thick scrubby ground and put in these long four hundred yard five hundred yard long food plots that radiate out from the condo like the spokes of a wheel. The condo is at the hub. Okay, it's a big blind with rolling chairs, heaters, fridge sliding windows, lead sleds and they sit in the condo hunting deer and they got the yardage is marked out in each of the food pots. I'm up there hunt with them, and I'm telling him about how I'm gonna go out to Arizona to hunt dry ground lions with UH, a lion hunter. And there's two kind of mountain lion hunting. There's lion hunt in the snow where the snow the tracks of snow indicate the size of the cat, what direction the cat was going, and usually how long ago the cat came through. There's dry ground lion hunting where you're probably gonna find a track, there's a chance of dogs and go in the wrong direction, and it's a very difficult type of hunting. I'm explaining to my body in the condo about what I'm going out to do. He turns his UH swivel chair to me and says, now, what is the challenge? And shooting a lion out of a tree. Right. It's like your perspective on fair chase is heavily influenced by what the guys in your area do. You got guys in the South have been running deer with dogs for hundreds of years. It's a traditional use, right, just traditional hunting use. In the North, you talk about a guy sees a dog chasing deer, the dog gets shot. If you went and try to put a law in in Michigan saying you could hunt deer dogs, it would be universally despised. Okay. So there's a tremendous regionality to these issues. So when people talk about fair chase, I think we all like the idea of it, you know, but it gets really difficult to start telling people what is what and to have us all agree on certain principles. So even though I give it lip service, when it comes down to it, it gets to be very difficult. Like we used to, like when I was a kid, we'd like to cut a big hole in the ice of spearfish to the ice. You know, someone not familiar with that, it's gonna look at that practice and be like, you know what, I'm like, you sit there and when the fish comes down, you jab with a spear. Traditional use. You know. I keep harping on this idea of traditional use because I think that one key to sorting this out is what are traditional socially acceptable practices? You know, Um, I don't know if you spent much time, but I spend time hunting in Texas. It's a very different situation that they're dealing with in Texas. You know, it just gets hard now. I want to say that and then let you continue out. But it's like that's one thing that I hear and I always get a little bit like wow. Because when they were just trying to ban hunting bears with dogs in Maine, what's your shot down? How are they selling it? It's not ethical town of bears and dogs? Main that was the terminology they were using. A friend of mine recently sent me a paper where this guy is pushing this idea. Let's just stop. Let's just change the terminology and talk about not fair chase or athletes were talking about fair take, you know, because the thing we get into and again I want to clear by this is not Landown any talking. This is me and I'm talking with land I don't represent b h A But the thing we get into is, um, the more we open up stuff and the more technology comes in to increase efficacy on the part of hunters. So all of a sudden, like you can use drones, you have a rifle that's capable of shooting a mile. Um, all this kind of stuff comes up. Hunter efficacy grows up. It becomes easier to hunt. Two things are gonna happen that you're improving the pump without improving the well. Okay, you gotta bucket of water. You gotta you got water, and you gotta pump. You're making the pump pump faster, but the tank of water don't get bigger. When that happens. As efficacy increases through technology or through other practices, you're gonna do two things shortened seasons or reduced number of tags generally because we're talking about shooting the same killing the same amount of stuff. Right. Um, all this stuff plays into this conversation we're having about drones or any number of technologies or any number of fair chase issues. With all that said, me like teeing that up continue the conversation, but I wanted to like demonstrate the complexity what we're talking about Yeah, So I think I've heard a fair chase describe. One way, which I think is helpful to think about, is that fair chase, Like it doesn't really matter to the animal, right, Like the animal can be shot at five yards with a recurve or at a mile with a smart rifle. Right, I mean that animal is still dead. He doesn't really equally plausible in either case, yes, which is a good example, right, Um, But what I like when we start thinking about that fair is it fair to the hunt in the hunter? Right? And so I think you know, you're getting to that piece like where things become easy, which I think is technology. And maybe that's just the way that's the world works as you try to do things easier and faster. But are you cheating yourself out of that hunt? Right? And like what the hunt is? And I think that's the way for me to think about it. And so when you think about drones in particular, like there's nothing about fair chase and like and that being a hunt besides maybe being very skillful at flying, you're droning up in the air and finding those animals, being like shrewd and technologically savvy, being good at megan money right, right, so you have a bunch of them, you know, and and and so I like, I think it would be hard for for anybody to defend drones for hunting. And and that's why I think we've we've been able to, you know, have the success we have at this state level. Yeah, that's like a clear that's a clear case. And it's a clear case large because it's new. It's something new, it's something new that we're looking at, like is this the director we want to take this. It's define herbal it's new, it hasn't caught on yet. It's the perfect thing for people to sort of get a grip on it because it doesn't get into traditional practice. Yeah. And another example of that was was the one attacks where they were allowing you to shoot animals through the Internet from your desk, from your desk, you know, eat very easily shot down. One that's not that's very different is like the radio use. You know, it's like say Alaska to Montana or no, I guess Montana you can't either Alaska you can't, but you can. Yeah, like in in Alaska, you cannot use two way communications of any sort to assist in a hunt. To which to mean to use it to communicate, like the whereabouts a game to get someone in on an animal in Arizona, that's become this is a bold statement. That's become like they the day factor way to hunt, multiple guys with radios talking people in the game. I remember Montana banned two a communications during a hunt at all, and then the next year adjusted it to be this, you use it up to open it up, that you could use it for safety and stuff, and just couldn't use to assist game, which seems like a very fair way to handle. I think it's a little bit. I think it's overreaching just to come in and say like you can't have to like I can't be out hunting my kid. I can't hand my kid a radio to tell me if he's got a major problem he's dealing with. There's different than me talk walking my kid up into an animal so he can kill just over that next ridge. And I got good friends, man like well meaning dudes, conservation minded guys who who in Arizona what they do all they do is warter people into stuff on radios, you know, So I think, I mean partly what we're trying to do here is creates this conversation that we're having right now. What is fair chase to you? And I try to like define that, And again, I think it's probably different for all three of us in this room. I think it's probably very similar, but probably different. We got down talking to it. Yeah, when you get down, when you get down to the when you get down to the nuts and bolts, um And I think the best way to discuss it is to discuss it the way we're doing. We're like, let's sit down, talk about radios, let's sit down, talk about Jones, listen on talk offenses. Yeah, it's important to remember that it's okay to have the discussion. You know, so often I feel like now we're getting chastise for even like having the conversation. It's like, look, man, we're just talking about it. No, you know, nobody's getting mad. Like it's okay to talk. There's two ways of looking at it, um is or not. Two ways look at it. Two ways I hear it discussed. One is that any amount of like in the hunting world, any amount of internal policing, er internal talking, is tantamount to playing into the hands of the anti Yeah, we're all in this together. And like we're on this boat together, And I said another podcast, I'm like, yeah, we're on this boat together, So don't be chopping holes through the bottom of the boat. Dude, you're gonna sink the boat. So lowest common denominator, is that what we really want? Yeah? So it's like there's that, you know, and I'm and I'm sensitive to that. And the thing that bothers me by a lot of these issues is it becomes a matter of terminology hunting and suthing. I care a great deal about I've written about it. I've dedicated my life to it. It's it's like outside of family matters, it's like the thing that matters to me right. Um, what I've been bothered by is when people take the terminology and take the rights of hunting and apply them to things that I clearly are not. I point out this case reason, like, my brother has some irrigated pasture. He keeps lamas for hunting. He likes to use lamas hunting out in the mountains, but he has a bunch of irrigated pasture. He's out of town a lot in order to encourage his friends to come over and check on his lamas. When he's out of town. He lets his friends run lambs, run sheep on his pasture. They come out to check on their lambs, they check on the llamas. It's this great deal. And so he's got any given time, I don't know, a dozen lamps. He gave me a lamb recently, I you know, and I don't get a way to catch the lamb. We go out and just shot the lamb. Okay, inside of fence. Was that an unethical thing to go and shoot livestock inside of a fence? No? No, we're harvesting livestock. We ate the lamb. It's like, that's it's farming, farming, ranch, whatevery wanna call it? Do I then apply the terminology of hunting to that and somehow try to drape that activity is hunting. It's like, that's nothing to do with hunting. You know. I didn't then go get dressed up in the camouflage suit and take a bunch of gripping grins with the lamb and act like something happened that didn't happen. We're shooting hot livestock. So what bugs me a little bit is like people act like they oh that you think it's It's like we're not talking about athics when we're talking about shooting stuff, shooting livestock inside fences. But why do they insist on dressing it up with something that it is not When guys do opt to go like kill you know, wildlife inside fences, why are they so uncomfortable with what they're doing that they're like hiding the fence all the time. If that's what you do, I think you take your picture up against the big damn fence, you know. That's uh, Like why I don't understand why they don't own it? Right, Yeah, it's like, if you like doing it, do it, dude. But again and again, I've watched shows where they're hunting on high wire and they're so embarrassed about the high wire. So it's like, if you're so embarrassed about the high wire, don't do it inside the high wire? Were you shamed of? But I think it so like it gets down to that that they want to do it the easiest, fastest way, and then they'll tell the story about something else, right, Like the guy who buys the sixteen thousand dollar tag goes and kills his big bull in Idaho, goes back to wherever he came from puts that bull on the wall. He does not tell that story that he shot him behind the fence. He tells some other story and and so, but he wants to be part of that hunting culture that you know, I shot this big ball, and that's why he does it that way because it's the quickest and easiest way to Yeah, like he admires the culture and he wants the acceptance. But just like, isn't comfortable. Yeah, it's and I don't even know where. I don't know like what we're talking about. I don't know how it every sends in the legislation and stuff. But it's just something I see and it's something that I ponder all the time. And maybe he doesn't. Maybe he doesn't have the opportunity to have the experiences that you and I do, like on public land, where that there is that challenge, right, Like, maybe he gets hooked up with somebody that's like, hey, let's go hunt the West, and this is that's the only thing he's exposed to and that's the only thing he knows. And so I think that that's part of a conversation like this, and probably like what we're trying to do is No, there's this other thing out there that you can still tap into the way hunting has been for eons on public land if you want to do that, And I think there's an appetite for that. And that's one of the reasons, you know, why back country Hunters and Anglers is resonating so much is that people aren't looking for the cheapest, easiest way anymore. It's like it's about that journey that gets you there, So that challenge and that adventure, like that's more of the story than you know, that animal on the wall. You know. I want to I want to point out real quickly too, when we're talking about um fencing up servants, it's a much bigger issue. Again, this is not the Steve talking. We're talking about fencive service is a much bigger issue because I might say, deer and elk running game farms. We're gonna talk about like, oh, is ethical not to kill his anvileside game farms. You have tremendous disease transmission issues going on with these and proven cases where you have communicable diseases that are within domestic herds, within cage herds that are living in very close proximity to one another have been exposed all manner things, either escaping or transmitting the disease to deer and elk that can't help themselves, but to come up and stick their nose through that fence and rub noses with the tame with the domestic ones. It's not just an issue of like, it's not a morality play. It's an issue of do we value our wild deer and elk? And is a guy's right to make a few bucks selling deer and elk greater than our right to have disease free hurts? Disease free hurts. And that's also genetics, right. I mean, it's not about kind of if those animals are gonna get out. It's like when you know, and I remember cases of a guy in uh In, Idaho, Rex Rambo, who had a big game farm and big winner. A couple of fences go down. He's got Roosevelt elk now mixing with Rocky Mountain elk like right there, like during the rut, and and and and the fishing game comes in and tries to shoot them from helicopters. He's hazing them back into the woods and so that they can't be shot. I mean it's just this ridiculous thing that that yes they're shooting them there, which we've talked about, Yes there's that disease factor, but then there's also this this huge thing about passing on those genes, you know, and mixing kind of herds, which is a travesty to me. Yeah, it's the same issue, and we all agree on certain concepts here, like if I live on a stream, we've basically agreed that I can't go and and plow a few thousand pounds of manure into the stream of my property because it's always my property. No, because that water flows downhill, Dude, you're gonna mess up the agricultural landscape and the fisheries and stuff on the next guy down the lines land. We've all agreed on that basic premise resources. Yeah, like I can't have a bunch of holes in my gas tank underground next to your drinking water, because you're gonna be really pissed when you get get groundwater contamination you're drinking water. And so to look at the fence issue, it's bigger than just like what somebody's doing on their own private land, because again and again hast been proven that it's not that way that it's like we're talking about diseases and other stuff, and it's just like people have to wake up to the complexity of stuff and realize that it's not just this constant battle of like you're my right to do this and you're right to do that. You know, it's so much bigger, like what you do on private land affects public land, and what you do with animals that are privately held effects publicly held animals. It's a it's a I feel like it's a pretty clear cut issue, but it's obviously very uh convoluted and um and there's and part of that is because there's money at stake. Um. There's a lot of money being made, whether that's with the shooting or with with you know, just for the meat, um and and breeding stock, I guess, And so I see it. I think it's something that uh that I think will evolve out of To be honest, I think that the public awareness on the disease factor in particular, but also this kind of the ethics of it. I mean, people don't accept that and when they when when people find out about it, they want to figure out how to do something about it. And so I think this will be something that we won't be talking about in the twenty five years. I was just at um you Quality Dear Management Association. There's a offshoot a q d M A and and if you haven't heard of q dm A, like q d M A is the is largely to the bank for um A movement. Now you know among private landholders almost the larger than that. They've been very influential, instrumental among private landowners to strive towards managing white tail deer, toward having for lack of their term, what we'll call like more natural population dynamic mix some white tail deer. If you live in an area where you see twenty that where you got twenty dolls for every buck, that's a manifestation of like shitty deer management of shooting all but every buck to walks in front of you kill you're not killing. Does you wind up having zero bucks that are three and a half years old the oldest of boxing gets two and a half and you get shot, and it'd be like guys not wanting to shoot doughs, shooting every buck to walks in front and sort of the changing culture we've been experienced in the last decade or longer of being more open to the harvest dos trying to allow some bucks to reach like a natural reproductive age like that's come out of q d m A. They speak larger too. They've spoken larger to private landowners because private landowners have more say in the harvest races that are going on on their land. And offshoot of that is the National Deer Alliance, which is a bunch of biologists and land managers coming to go to look at deer issues. And I heard, and I don't think I'm wrong on this that they're pushing for. They keep pushing for a ban on moving servants across state lines, not with an eye towards cramming it down the private man's throat, but for an eye of preventing diseases, which I mean from just inadvertently moving diseases from one end of the country to the other. Chronic wasting disease, which is all over now, is not a thing of this land. It was brought here and it wasn't from deer swimming the ocean. I mean, that's that's obviously a policy. I think that makes a ton of sense for the protection of our wild herds, and so you would think that that would be something that even um, you know, some of these private dear owners would think of them as a positive thing. I saw an interview with a guy who's credited kind of largely credit with having spawned the dear white tailed deer breeding thing. I think this guy in Pennsylvania, he really was. He was a dude that loved dear, guy that loved dear and um eventually had one. And it's funny about like what's funny about the deer farming and deer raising industry and and how much money is there and selling like genetic lines and bucks seaming and stuff is are there? Anybody brings us up? But if you trace it all the way back, it had to have begun with a crime, because you can't just go catch a deer and have it for yourself. With our model of conservation, deer are like public property. So I always wonder like it's almost I'm not saying it's like it's the Statue of Limitations way run out, but it always like it always strikes me as me and something that began with the wrong r. Some guys like wait till deer right. You know, some guy went out and said you know what, I'm just gonna make that mine and then from there innocently enough, you know, it's perpetuated. We've got into this thing where deer have become like for some people, it's not good enough that we have have deer as like a national as wildlife. It's like they gotta turn it into something. And it's driven by many factors. And one of the biggest thing is driven by is the desire to shoot a gigantic buck, right, um and what and you what these guys care about is just shooting a giant buck. They don't care if it's been drugged or what you know. And uh, it's just sad when you think about that. At at what cost that's gonna come to our wildlife? But do you think and I feel like that's been a trend until like the last like five ten years. Yeah, I think it's reaches apex. And now it's like people are like, that's that's not okay. So I think we're kind of ruling back. And that's why I say I think like in twenty five years, we're probably not gonna be having this conversation. I hope, I hope you're right, because I was at as like one of those big conventions recently. I won't name the one. I mean you probably guess. And I kind of thought that like that stuff had faded out just because I wasn't seeing it. But I went to this convention and you walked down the aisles and rows and there were many, you know, in the dozens of boots that were, you know, these farms selling and you look up at these heads that they have mounted and you just like, well, they're just I don't know what they're selling. They're selling them the box or whatever. But you look at these bucks and you've never even seen anything like this. You know, I don't even know this stuff existed. And now here here there was twenty boots at this show, like selling this opportunity at you know, one of these heads, and they're just like, you know whatever, it's like an upside down stump, you know, going on top of his deer's head. And yeah, but I think that's there that we are, like I mean when you when you brought up like TV and like they're trying to keep like that stuff out of the shots. You know, for a while they didn't really care. Yeah, I mean you'd see you see fences and I mean, same thing with like cordon feeders and stuff like you'd see them in the shot, and I feel like they're not doing that as much anymore. And it's because about that experience of the hunt, and um like people like that the cheapens that hunt, I mean in a lot of people's eyes. And so I think, you know, we'll see I mean, we're probably always gonna be those guys that want that big rack and they don't care. And I've seen videos of deer that are drugs that fall over and they have to prop them up with sticks. Then a guy shoots whatever with them. You know, it's ridiculous. So they're always going to be those kind of people. But I feel like we're turning away from him, hopefully, I hope so. And I just hope for it. Saying like if that's you know, if that's what you get off on, great man, But I don't want those practice. I shouldn't say great if that's what you get off on, and you want to do it in a way that's not it doesn't have catastrophic implications to wildlife health in the US, okay, but you better find a way to guarantee that those practices aren't like lighting sticks of dynamite underneath public wildlife. Yeah, I don't think there's a guarantee. Oh no, all right, let's change the subject. I hate the harp the negatives. What before we started, need to start to let's say a quick break land. When you look at the future of conservation, the future of public lands, tell me um a handful of things, handful of trends that you think are detrimental two hunters and fishermen, Some things that are going on right now that that we really need to be as hunters and fisherman, that we should really be watching out for two in order to protect our rights and to like, uh, what are some of the things that you're most optimistic about that you see right now, that that that are happening, that they're good and that we can hopefully keep continuing to be good. Yeah. I think the biggest threat that I see right now, and this is nothing new, but it seems to resurface every ten or fifteen years, and that's the sail of public lands. And you know that it's it's it's been guised in the transfer of public lands to the States, but really the sale of as where it ultimately ends up and that to me that we can talk about all these other issues. And I mean we've talked about already today. What makes part of the West so special is all the public lands we have, and like some of those last bastions of public lands in the East, you get rid of those public lands, which are in my mind, the cornerstone of our hunting heritage here in the United States, which makes us different than every everybody else. And you get rid of that, and we can have all sorts of conversations that we were just having that don't matter anymore because it's just that's not that's not the unique kind of American experience that we've had. And and so you know, right now or in the middle of of of we have two presidential candidates that are calling for the sale of public lands. Um Senator Cruise from Texas and uh Ran Paul just this last week was in Nevada talking about it. And it's not just like dude, like just dude, urban dudes, man, they don't get it, like just I think just like like kind of like city slickers that just have no comprehension of the kind of stuff they have no comprehension of is from Texas. How much public land is in Texas, you know, And so I mean and when I say, you know, so it's becoming more mainstream, you know, I mean it's uh, this is not something that's on the fringes um. You know, we've had a big movement here in the West that I think we've done a really good job beating back at the state level, even though at the state level there's no binding authority that they have at a state level, it's more about just kind of creating some momentum for a federal action. But you know, when you had the this is getting into the weeds. But there was an amendment this last spring that Murkowski from Alaska brought forward that would create a fund to help facilitate the transfer and sale of public lands. Now, she said it was for a small piece of in Alaska, but it was broadly written, so it was anywhere. Fifty one senators voted for that. Now, this isn't like those are. That's fifty one senators. That's a that's a big deal. And so to me, a lot of people have said, oh, this is just kind of this noise that happens and it'll go away. Well, to me, that's not just noise. When you have fifty cents for it and you have to presidential candidates one, it's a little bit more mainstream than the other. Um. But I was talking about this is my brother and he was like, I just like he was trying to he's a b h A member, but he was like, I just I try to understand the mindset of people who want to ditch public lands. He said, is it that they like drive and look at a mountain and they're like, man, I just wish I couldn't go up into that mountain. I just wish it was owned by a billionaire, Like it can't Like he was being facetious. That can't be what they think. But what is it that it's not being sold in that way? But what is it? Like? What is it? Dude? What do they really feel? I know, I feel like I know what they're actually talking about. Like what I'm always interested in is what are the secret private conversations they have. I feel that I know what the secret private conversation is. But what is really being said in the outward way about why it's beneficial to ditch public lands? So I think the private ones are like, you know, the money that's being made there right by they're not being rank and filent calling for us it's like rich people. So that's the first one. It's a hatred of government. But yeah, so it's what's not me it's like a um our public lands aren't being managed and in their eyes, like in a correct way, and so they have frustration aggressively for profit way. And so they have frustration. And so whether that's you know, trying to take more trees, they're trying to do more mining, whatever that is, I think that's that's that piece that people are frustrated with. Now, what they don't necessarily understand is that federal lands are managed for all of us, and that means multiple use and so that means a TV users, that means hunters, that means anglers, that means birdwatchers, that means miners, that means loggers, that means grazers. And so is that complicated, very complicated um and how to all make that work? And we talked about the clear Water Basin before, and that's that's the reason that has come up, is because federal manage mint wasn't working for that area and they've tried to do something else. Right, So I think we can agree the public land management um, it could be improved, but at the same time it's as a pretty good system where everybody has a voice at the table when it comes to the state that's managed for one thing, and that's for profit. And so like in I mean Colorado is a great example. State lands and Colorado that are open to hunting. The fishing game in Colorado has to lease those from the state to open those up to hunters. That's ridiculous, Like that's all like that should be their land. It's not least you can't even sleep on it, you can't camp on it. And like in Montana, like you can think what you can camp two days on on on state land, you can't fourteen on national forth without moving right, and so but that's all because of money, I mean, and that those lands are there to generate money. And so I think that's a big one um. And then you know, if if we have unfettered kind of development, like what kind of habitat and opportunity do you have on that land after that? And and so this is again being bred out of frustration and part of who is bringing this forward are also the people that are cutting Budge it's for the force service, and so you know the forces for service has to do less or more with less. Right, they have less money to keep roads open, like a lot of roads that are closed or because they're not being maintained. That's because they haven't got the budget up at the federal level. That isn't because you know, some environment group came in and said, no, you can't you know, hunt in this body where we're gonna shut down this road or whatever. It's because of like budgets have been coughing, because colverts get washed out and sty that becomes a liability. It's hard to maintain those roles in those kind of places. You're talking dirt roads and heavily roaded areas, and so you shut them down. Yeah, there's a lot of confusion at times about what exactly got gated up for lots of just like simply liability. It's not safe to have. From their perspective, they can't people driving around on roads that like effectively don't exist. So I think I mean that it's it's it's a little bit of frustration with public the management of our public lands. That's where it's coming from and that's how it's being sold to the public. Um, but ultimately what's where what's at stake is really money and in the big money that's behind kind of these efforts. Is that oil and gas and kind of extraction industry. And is there a total smoking gun. They're like, you know, no, but I'm not. You know, we're not that it's pretty easy to figure out, um that this is much more organized as this time, and like the American Lands Council or American Legislative Exchange Council based out of Utah. I mean that funding comes from large industry and um, you know, and so it's not that hard to make that that stuff. I guess, yeah. And they've gone after you, guys, they're going after you personally. They've gone after a lot of people in the conservation world as being like, uh, these sort of secret slide the green decoy, the green decoy, and I think, you know, it was funny. But the first time I heard about that, I was coming home from actually a Bozeman there was a hunt film tour here in Bozeman that we had worked. I was coming back from Missoula. Snow was just dumping. I had both hands on the wheel and on my on my phone comes up this phone call from Louisiana. I did a lot of work down Louisiana for a while, like I don't know if I really want to talk to him. I was like, God, I but I love this guy, and I but answer. He's like, dude, I have you've seen the green decoys? And I'm like, no, tell me about him? Like are these like they have all flocked heads and they flocked bodies, Like what are they? I was like, Oh, you haven't seen. And that was the first time I found out about it. And at first I would say, um that that bothered me that somebody was coming after organization to me personally about it. But the way I looked at it in that way I look at it now basically saying like, oh, those guys don't like to hunt fish. They're fake. They're fake. They're guys who act like they like a hunt. And I remember thinking at the same time, they'll be like, dude, I would love to take a random sample of b h A members and take a random sample of whoever these guys regard to be real hunters and real conservations and it match them up. Tote to tote a hunting contest. Dude, it's like it would be it would be hilarious. It was just it was so outlandis to me because I bet, like I've know a lot of b h A member has been the b h A funks to be like, oh, you're saying those guys don't actually like the those guys like the hunt. There's morningbody. I know it's a it's a it's a way of life, not a pastime, right, And I got what I love thinking about is like, so it's just the firm is that's actually behind that as Berman and associates, it's out in d C. It's a PR firm. They've been called dr Evil by sixty minutes. New York Times at a big expose on him last year when Richard Berman got caught in an oil executive meeting and talking about how he's gonna use all these dirty tactics to to fight folks and um an executive push record on his phone because he didn't like, you know, he was talking about you can either win or you can either lose of being prettier, he can win being dirty, and like that's when he pushed record. Didn't like it, and so then you get out The New York Times New York Times blew it up. And so there's actually a Will Coggan who works underneath him, um, and he's just as white pasty lobbyists inside DC that I'm guessing has never set foot on public land. But I definitely know that my daughter, who's six years old, has had more blood on her hands and he had a will and so to call that fake and I think, you know, again, the reason they're calling us out is because we we we look at this land and want to perpetuate these opportunities and conservation is a big piece of that. Am I saying, Are we saying no more oil and gas development ever? No? Like we're talking about in responsible fashion, right, and we have a long track record of doing that. But I think the reason that green Decoys thing has come out is because of the success we're having talking to people. And so that's where first I was frustrated and worried about kind of what that meant for us, And since then, uh, it's it's more like a badge of honor, right, Like the reason they're coming after us because we're being effective, and like they're like the other day, we like your voice is loud, I would tell you I had a dozen people when I came out, I had a dozen people fans of Meat Eater show right or on Twitter or whatever, come on and say like, you know, I don't know. I don't know if I can keep supporting you because you guys support b h A and it's always gonna link to this green decoys thing. Right. Everyone in my rote too, And I said, I invite you to do two things. Well, look into who made that, okay? And two go to PH's website or called b h A. And then you tell me one policy issue that they have that you don't agree with. Like I don't want to talk about who there did what when, but look at as an organization. You find one thing that you want to come and tell me it's bad policy for hunters and fishermen, and then let me know what one you think. I never heard back from a single one of those guys. And I think because saying look, it's not like a mysterious group. No, it's a nonprofit. No, no, we I mean all our where we get our money is all up online, like you know, all the policies that we have us up online. I mean again, I'm I think um that there there's some shadows there and these organizations that's an organization of like two that's out in d C, like the Environmental Policy Alliance or whatever they're called now, um and so, and they don't disclose where their money comes from. And it's just just like some of the things that they're causing us a ridiculous and um when I look at it again, I mean we've gotten you know this, we'll come up on a blog, right and and and partly what I think they're trying to do is trying to waste our time a little bit, right, like should they get out and so then we have to deal with it. We'll come up on a blog. And what's been great is that we don't really interact with that. There's other people either members or people that that look into it. So then that conversation happens. We get members out of that. We've gotten life members out of that, which is a great thing. Like no press is bad press, right, And I think what it fuels that fuels the people that already kind of want to think that way, like this conspiracy that oh you know, like these guys are you know, acting on behalf of this anti hunting green decoy or what you know, green kind of whatever, and so that fuels their fire for the people in the middle that investigated a little bit or or asked to investigate, and they look at it, they're like, oh, these guys are like kind of share a lot of the same values. I don't gonna become a member. And then on the other side, you know, they did it. They did that video of me right before the Shot show this year, and they sent it out to all my corporate partners, and so I get to the shot Show and um, you know, a little bit nervous about how this is gonna you know, how they're gonna react to this. And two like an organize a corporation that we worked with, they were like, we saw it. We think it's hilarious that they're actually doing it. You must be kicking you know, major ass. And then three like we want to double down with you and do more with So it's like, you know, to me, like it's backfiring. And you know, I mean, we just had something pop up around the Clean Water Act. The Administration comes out clarify some rules on the waters of the US to protect for headwaters, for headwater and isolated wetlands. We come out with Trial Limited and TRCP and say thank you for doing this. And then they come out right after that and say, hey, by the way, these guys out your friends. I'm like, okay, So the prairie potholes in North Dakota where they're making all the ducks, you don't want to protect that, like that's the duck factory. Like that's the duck factory. And then here's you know, something that's gonna help protect those lands. Like tell me how that's anti hunting and it's not. And then you know, it gets down to clean water, like everybody drinks clean water. I don't carrecter, you shoot ducks or not, but those you know, marshans are important to all of us. And so like it's it's comical a little that their tactics, but it is something and it comes out of this this effort that um and that I believe you know, on this public lands effort for sure, and that they're trying to they're trying to snake oil sell this thing, and they're using tactics to try to cut down people that are trying to make sure that we keep in public hands. What's funny is now we've all like it's funny like Theodore Roosevelt. Okay, it has been deified, right, I mean he's everybody's angel, right. He's one of those guys that everyone from all persuasions wants to align themselves with. Theodore Roosevelt. We just agreed that he was a great guy. I would love to go I don't know why I haven't done this, but to go find the rhetoric that was used to attack Theodore Roosevelt when he was trying to create a public lands system, national force system, to use the rhetoric that was used to attack him on doing something that we now universally agree as one of the greatest achievements of American politics. They were saying the same stuff then. I mean it was senators Western senators from Idaho and Montana that ultimately made it so he couldn't declare national force anymore when he did the when he did the Midnight Force and so. And the reason they did it is because they were kind of the timber bearings at the time and they didn't think that they were gonna be able to, you know, take as much timber that they wanted off of those national forests. So have they been able to continue to to log on those forests. Yes, um, and and so I think you're righting in the rhetoric. It just changes, you know, I'm in the sage brush rebellion. Then you had Congressman Pombo in two thousand five that wanted to sell off public lands, palth. The national debt like it seems to come up every ten or fifteen years, and the language never changed, just different players. And at this point, Um, I think it's it's it's been more organized and more funded this this school around. And and I think that's partly because people are frustrated with the government in general, right, I mean, the federal government is just no matter what you talk about. But when you talk about public hands and staying in public hands like that still is like a seventy people want that to stay. But there's this frustration with the public or with the federal government. I think they're capitalizing on that. Well. The one thing I don't really understand why people have such a hard time grasping is I don't think that all of our public lands should need to answer for themselves at all times in an economic way, like anyone who sort of manages their own money, manages their properties, manages things at times you just you hang onto things for the future. You know, if you look now at some of the great treasures that we've created, public land treasures, we create, some of the great things we've said aside, we hold many more of those in our pocket right now that if they're preserved, will be as valued by future generations and will be as valuable. As the relative nature of landscapes change. We will continue to develop more, create more, build more roads, straight more habitat. As we do that, we are just going to increase the value of the lands that we haven't done. They will become like many more yet also national park type things, you know, as the contrast and creatures increases between wilderness and civilization. And when people now sit down and well meeting people and people a support sit down, they're always trying to demonstrate the economic footprint of hunting and fishing, justifying it through the economic footprint. I wonder, I'm like, sure, let's use that. Let's use that that justification about our humongous economic input from license purchases, travel, hiring, outfitters, all these kinds of all the money we generate and jobs we're creating, revenue we generate, why not talk about that. What makes me learly about it is to be like, oh, so it's only justifiable if I can prove it in present day it's it's value in present day dollars. Like I need to justify hunting or justify my right to have clean water and air through the economics. I can't just justify it through something that's bigger and more valuable, like more spiritual in nature than just trying to tell you in dollars what hunting and fishing is worth. You know, I don't need to justify the existence of my three children and based on how much revenue they're creating for me, right, you can just bet that. No, It's like it's beyond money. They're precious. It's like they're the things that I care about most. No one says, yeah, well show me how they're making money. No, in fact, they're costing me tons of money. Does that make me love them less than? In a weird way, it makes me love more? Do you? I mean, like, why can't we talk about public lands in that way, you know, instead of having to sort of justify their existence based out like how many jobs that it creates? All the Leopold when he wrote San Colony Almanac. He has this line there where he talks about Leopolds like the father of one of the many fathers of modern conservation. He talks about we've become like economic hypochondriacs, where we're so worried about our financial health that we're incapable of being healthy. You know, I don't see that it's that bad to have some things that maybe cost us a little money or don't generate a lot of money, because we're holding them in perpetuity with the good faith, as demonstrated through many other landscape projects, that they will continue to be of tremendous incalculable value in the future. That's national forest lands, state forests, but uniquely makes US America, right, Like, I mean, we're so different because of what you're describing, and I I mean, I think the economic argument comes up, and it's I think it's an important one because it's uh, it's it resonates out in Washington, d C. Where a lot of these policies are made. And when you think about the you know, adding the outdoor recreation industry into that piece, when you're talking to billion dollars, that's that's a big number. That's sustainable and so for some folks that don't get the intrinsic values that you're talking about, the only thing that they can think about his dollars and cents. You have to do it, But I just like it. May you have to do it. I support to him. At the same time, it makes me a little uneasy something. So what are we exactly are we saying? Did I have to look at I like to fish catfish? You know? Do I have to like look at a catfish and be like, what have you done for the economy today? You know, I just don't know that I need to hold I don't need the catfish needs to support that that burdens on his shoulders around his dorsal fin man. But I think when you do talk about it in that kind of that that value set that you're talking about, like people get that piece. I mean that that whole ken Burns piece you know about national parks, Like people are proud of that we have national parks and it's that uniquely American thing, And so we need to talk about it more in the way that you just talked about it, um, because I think it resonates and and you know, and if I'm if I think about you know, the survival of these public lands. That's a big piece of it. All right, how long? How long we were talking to land? Concluding thoughts? Concluding thoughts? Um, I think that oh, it would be nice if you want to before you conclude thought, or you can use it as you're concluding thought. But the prior questions to this was, yeah, what what's what's like? Yeah, what's what's got you excited? Right? So my glass is always half full, right, you know? And I think that's the way I grew up. And if there's always opportunities and and so I think when you look at you know, hunting fishing numbers that just went up, and the reasons they went up is because people um hunting fish more and when the economy is down, so those numbers went up. But then you have this new kind of like foodie kind of movement that's helped drive that. And then women and hunting, and I feel like we've been a group of I'm forty years old now, so maybe I am one of these old white men, right, but hunting has been and yeah I'm one, so I've been one for two years. Yeah. Yet all right, we'll look forward to it like, um, he's a young white man. But it's been like this old white man kind of sport, right and and it's and and now you see uh people getting into it, you know, through the foody movement or more and more women. That's women talking to women rather than guys going, hey, you should come out and you know, hunt with me and do it that once and then call yourself a hunter. Like it's real, Like these are real women that are going out and wanting to do this as a lifestyle and and and so that to me, um, it gives me hope that that that hunting continues to stay in a mainstream kind of way, and that conservation kind of fabric that's been woven through the last hundred and fifty years has been driven by hunters. Helps carry that into the future. And you know, I'm also I mentioned the outdoor industry a little bit ago. I feel like they're starting to realize, um that not only that they are a huge economic driver, but they have a huge steak in our public lands, and that they need more of a voice and and so how they do that, there's any different ways for them to do that. Part of its financially, but I feel like those groups, those new groups of like foodies and women and kind of you know, kayakers and mountain bikers that aren't just just just using the outdoors but actually are gonna give back. That gives me, uh, I think, um, it gives me hope for the future and hope for like my kids, right like, and that they're they're gonna have a place to defend, right and that I feel like you and I are here right now and we're you know, defending the legacy that was handed off to us. But it's for this short amount of time, and then our job is to pass it on to the next generation to help fight for that, right Like, Like, that's all we're doing, is we're passing that on so they have something to fight for, because they will have to fight for it, but we have to we have to make sure that one it's there for them and one that they have something inside of them that actually makes them want to do that. And you know, I know, I mean, I know that you're doing this with your kids and I'm doing it with behind. Is that they're getting engaged in the outdoors from the very beginning. It's just something that they're gonna be a part of. But you know, hopefully that they're the next leaders and that they're they're creating more opportunities for other people, and for me, I think that we're going there. Um. The threats are dire, but they've always been dire. It's just our time right now to do our part to make sure that we pass it along to the next generation. And um, you know, with things like new technology like this podcast, I mean, you're reaching more people that way, right, and you're reaching hopefully different audiences than just that old pipe man. And nothing against the old white man. I'm one of them now, uh, and they have a lot to contribute to conservation, into this kind of hunting and fishing legacy. Um. But if we are just so looking inward, we're not, that's not going to perpetuate into the future. And then you lose this thing that you just talked about that is uniquely American, which are these public lands that have these values that are hard to describe, but we all know it because it makes us, you know, it makes us feel proud of who we are. I'm not nervous about exposure, man, I know that like the way to get people to want to fight for what they have is showing what they have. You know, I've traveled a lot to you know, a lot of different countries, and you're getting a lot of areas where the disconnect between people and their landscape just becomes so severe because they're so shut out by you know, difficulty and travel economic considerations where when they're talking about that mountain range off of the distance or that marsh offer distance, it just has no they just never picture how it might possibly relate to their own well being. You know. I think that, Yeah, you've got to show people what they have. If we continue to do that, you know, then we got a bright future. If not, it's gonna look way different. And I don't want to think about that one. Yeah, any concluding thoughts, Um, I'm guilty of I'm gonna throw myself under the bus here because I'm one of those guys like just pays my for the thirty five bucks annually. I get my journal and get my sticker, put on my analogy and bottle put on my truck. But I need I feel like everybody should do a little bit more. I need to do a little bit more. I'm gonna talk to land when we're done here and see how I can actually put my boots on the ground. But it feel like a little bit of a call to action, like everybody should do just a little bit more than just paying a thirty five bucks. And maybe you could speak to that, just you know, in a couple of sentences of just like what's it show? But the chapter meeting is that we're just yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, we have chapters all over this country. There's seventeen chapters UM that are mostly based in the West, but I've talked about the ones in the East, and so it's getting engage with those chapters. And you know, I mean there's all ways to engage, you know, whether that's helping us with fundraising events and membership events all the way to showing up at your UH at the District Rangers office and talking to him about, you know, a TV abuse in a certain area and how can we help curtail that UM, And so there's different ways to get engaged. And I would say that the only reason I've already said that the only reason we have what we have today is because people have stepped up. And I think, you know, paying the twenty five dollars um you know for a membership a year, that's a great way to step up. That's just the first piece. And that next piece is that you know the people. People that step up, UM make a difference, right, and you still get that Cambert A CP for joining Lifetime, you can you can get the A that's a sweet deal a CP if you become a life membership and you get that that CP, which is like gone, so it doesn't make any sense. You guys are able to do that. Well, we have a good relationship with Kimber And then it's a it's also what you know that we create awareness for b h A and we gave away seventy six guns last year. Right from that between the micro carry that three A D, then the A C P and then the Mountain of Scent and that Mountain of Scent is just like unbelievable. If I had some money, I'd buy that right now. But no, no, I think it's it's stepping up, right. I mean you're asking about it, and I think that, Um, if you're complaining and you're not doing anything, and stop complaining, like you gotta do something, and and it's about that's that's the way America has been built. That's the way we're building an organization, and it's you know, those who step up actually get things done. Yeah, I think it would have matter. It's like, look at what is the thing, Like, what are the things you care about most of life? You know, I take all kinds of measures to make sure that that you know, family right is taken care of in a multi generational sense, Like I care about that, Okay, I'm willing to make sure the dike is taken care of. I care about my vegetable garden. I look to make sure my vegetable guards take care of. It's like I care about hunting fishing. You need to look and make sure you're hunting fishing is taken care of. It's just not gonna happen on its own, dude, it just don't. It's not gonna happen on its own. And also I think people think it's daunting, right, like oh I just my voice doesn't count, or like I just don't know how to do things. We can help you do that. And you know, again like showing up to that meeting, um, you know, and with your district ranger, like he's hearing from all sorts of different people, but that woman. We had some people working on the bitter Root travel plan, right, and like our local chapter was working on that their voice and talking about LX security versus a voice that's saying open up all roads and unfettered like a TV access everywhere. Those two voices then come together where they make a decision without that voice over here, we don't make it back in the middle, right, And so it's like your voice does count. And uh, and so I mean we'll talk more about how you can get engaged. But you know, we're we're young, and we're growing, and we've we've built this organization on word of mouth, and we're starting to get more opportunities like this to do bigger word of mouth, right, and uh, but we're resonating. We're resonating for a reason, and that's because people see us focusing on public land, which is this asset that we all have. It everybody has. Was that your compudent thought, you know, this is kind of like mine. It's kind of like computing thought. A lot of times I get like, we get a lot we feel a lot of emails of people who say, like, man, I you know, my dad didn't grow up hunting. You know, I was never brought up around it. I really want to start hunting, but it's like so daunting, Like I don't know anybody that hunts. I tell them often. I'd like, I shouldn't even be telling you this land. I'll say, you know what you ought to do, really joined a group, Like join a group like b h and start going there and pitch in because you're gonna wind it being hooked up with the most hunting and fishingist guys around, you know, because like I've met many b h A members and they are like guys that live the life. Go to those places and become like a teammate there and pitch in there and do it that way and just worm your way in to like a hunting and fishing culture in order to start like untapping the vast wealth of knowledge that your members have about accessible hunting and fishing that anyone with a with a pair of boots can get involved in. Hopefully you want that kind of member. We totally want that, and we do. We do. I mean, and I like, we do have a series called back Country College, and in that college, in that like online kind of video series, like we teach skills and I don't know how many comments come in there that I have. I've never been hunting, but this like actually making me feel like, you know, that I could have some skills. Now we're doing all the skills and does that take place of anything that happened on the ground now? But I think having people that come into hunting later sometimes or even more passionate about it and like appreciative of what it actually is because they didn't grow up like you and I did. Like we're just kind of a way of life, right, But when they come in, it's like new and a lot of times they're in their late twenties early thirties, they have a little bit of means and um and they can dive right into it and and to them they see the rewards that we do all the time, but it's so new to them, it's so exciting to them, and so they get you know, they're almost even more passionate. And so I think, you know, please continue to do that. I mean, anytime you're gonna, you know, help us, like push membership, please do that. I used to shovel, manure and throw hay bales and exchange for hunting permission. Yeah, I didn't even know what else do with my My dad would farm me my brothers will have to shovel, manure and throw hay bales for hunt for his hunt permissions the reason to have kids. Right, So now I'm like, yeah, man, tie into like if you look at the what, look at the mission of the organization, tie into the organization, hang out and like it's just inevitable because like good people get involved in conversation or its conservation, good people get involved. People who care about the future, who care about other people, right, who want the world to be better than they left it. Those are the people who are involved in these organizations. That's also the kind of person that's gonna take you under their wing and show you some things when they realize that you're aligned in the same way. I don't think you need to become like an expert hunter and fisherman in order to be involved in conservation. And I'll tell you what. We have this semantic thing in the u S where we got like environmentalism and conservation, and it's like, in some ways we view these two things as being different. I think that if we're gonna take like sort of the garden variety acceptance of of environmentalism being somehow like preservation and conservation being sort of like this idea of environmental protection open to the idea of us extracting we new doble resources of fishing game. The conservation movement in this country right now, this is a bowl statement, but the conservation movement this country right now is far more effective and far more powerful than the environmental movement because they reach across the aisles. I mean, I think the conservation is doing more on the ground stuff than than the often that might build that that might use these like semantical terms. I think if you want to be a powerful player in supporting the kind of things you care about, I would look at the conservation movement, and you can start conservation without knowing shit about hunting, fishing, agreed. The one thing I would say there is one of the reasons why the conservation is being so successful as because as there's that like far right flank over here, and there's that far left flank with environmental over here, right, and so there's that opportunity to try to make that space in the middle, and which you know, I've had conversations with my mom, who has been involved in this kind of stuff for a long time about this exact thing, is that if that if that right flank of just unfettered extraction wasn't there, and that left lank of this kind of like leave it all alone, don't ever touch it again, don't fish it, don't where we don't even look at it? And where are we gonna be in the middle? Like what if you like, what if that middle was you know, farther over the right, what if that middle was farther over the left, right? Like it's there? Is that middle for a reason? And so do they play a role? I think so? But it's where stuff getting done. It's conservation, all right. That was my concluding thought. Thanks for listening in. Give a good look. Um, don't just take my word for it, man, it's a be it. You're a registered nonprofit by law of registered nonprofit needs to be transparent. Go look at what b a j Is doing and then come tell me if you got a problem with it, and I will explain how you're wrong. Um, thanks for tuning in. Lands great to be here. Alright, guys, think any