00:00:01 Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to episode number twenty. I'm the Honey Collective. I'm Bet O'Brien. Today I'm joined by a return guest, the great Charles Post. He joined me an episode number eleven to talk about his background as at Berkeley train ecologist and talk about how important it is to think about ecosystems not just single game animals. There's a lot we can learn from Charles, and there's a lot he has to teach us. But in this conversation, we go, we got random, we got deep, but we ended on a great conversation around the wild horse issue in the body. If you're not familiar with that issue, please listen to the full podcast because you will find out that's an issue for all of us. If you enjoy public lands and you enjoy using them, you're gonna want to hear what Charles has to say. Without further ado, here's Mr Post An episode number twenty. We're recording to Charles. I have new equipment here. We've seen and now it is very looks very It's like a whole thing. It has a blender built on top of it. Yeah, so we're nervous this again. There's regular listeners to the show would know that I did delete one remy Warren podcast early on, and so now I have the nervousness with new equipment that like this is being recorded but will never be heard by anyone. We're going to go to go with it. Hopefully our new equipment is better. The red light looks promising. It is. It's got a little ticker there. There we go taking forward. Well, where are we at? Man? We're in not that I don't know, I do know. Just tell the listeners where. Yeah, we're at my house, um my fiance and nice movement, a new place just outside of Bozeman. So we're looking at there's a bird at the feeder. Tell me what kind of bird that is? That would be a female as a light bunting yet I get yeah, it's fun. So do you sit here? What percentage of birds that land on that feed or do you know the name of Probably ninety. But there's not that. I mean, I'm new to Montana, you know, relatively, I've been here for about two years. Coming from the West Coast, I knew most of the birds. There's a lot more bird species out there, but coming to a new place, I'm just kind of seeing the season, spring. This is a this is a grand place, this this town. I've been here a few times, but yeah, I have not been the lake close by your highlight lake, say it right, but I've heard good things. Yeah, it's a spot. You're in a good spot. I would say it's like the closest ocean to Bozeman. So why Boseman for you? Originally? Yeah, so well before before Rachel, before I met my fiancee UM, I was living in northern California, and my most of my adult life had been kind of focused around ecology and working in academia and working with the scientist. So naturally, you know, you grow up and you kind of grow in this space. You're drawn to places like Yellowstone. I mean, boy, you know, for wildlife, that's kind of like the epicenter. So I was constantly trying to find ways to get out here. You know. Also, the fishing is good, the hunting is good. You know, there's all these you know, all these kind of like draws. And then I kind of got my feet wet and thought to myself, you know, one day this would be a good place. And then meeting you know, the woman of my dreams who's from here, born and raised, you know that kind of like hooked me in and you're getting married. Now this is a big deal. Yeah, right in the middle of fall September. Well, the good thing is is that we travel so much. It's a it's a great reason to be home for that month. Well us, I mean, are you nervous about the wedding? No, we didn't talk, and I'm preppy for this line of conversation. You know, I think for folks who are listening out there, everybody's wedding is different. There's different expectations, different needs, different mothers in law or mothers to cater too. Um So I think for us, we initially thought like, let's just a lope, let's keep it simple, and then we realized you couldn't do that because you know, the wedding it is for us, but it's also for our friends and family, and we wanted to make a space where we could include everybody wanted to be there. And so it quickly went from this like, oh, we should just a lope too, And we got like winter people, you know, and we want to show them a good time, but we want to do it and I all have to have crab cakes. I don't understand why fingerfood is key. Same for my wedding, same thing. I'm like, well, let's go to Dominican Republic, Like, yeah, we'll just like swim and then we'll get married and then we'll keep swimming. Yeah, we'll go see the turtles beat and then yeah, then you get to the reality like, well, Aunt and Sharon can't come, she can't get on the plane. Had a bad hip, damn it. Yeah, I want to do that, Sharon. Then yes, then you then you get you dialed back in a little bit. So that's a natural occurrence. Yeah, but no, it's coming along. Um, we've made a lot of progress. I feel like we just hired a wedding planner, which is clutch for anybody out there. Wedding planner. Good deal, Yeah, good deal. So listen. I know you know nobody will will hear this. So if you have any fears, you want to tea me and you Yeah, and you need to talk through anything you oh gosh, any if you're nervous, Yeah, it's definitely Rachel. She'll never listen to this, so just let it out. It's cathartic to talk about it, you know. I think I think the fear is like you want it. You want it to be everything you hoped it would be, and you want your wife, your future wife to kind of have that day. So you know, I know it's gonna go. Well, I know everybody in Evolves got their heart in it. Um, yeah, I don't know. I think we have Conrad Anchor doing the words, so he'll he'll he'll tell us up. Oh yeah, is he gonna like propel in no four easy payments of Well, I say you could live stream and was follow it would be nice. No, it should be good. Rachel and the Lows. Um, he grew up together. Conrad has been a big part of her life. Um. They climbed anality together and done a bunch of cool things. He's uh, yeah, he's been a really cool kind of like mentor and what a cool person. Yeah, I've met him just briefly. Probably wouldn't even know if he's like I've been bribing, Like I don't know that is he has security like pull you away, yeah, like step back. But he did one time dramal tool one of my Yetti ramblers with the signature. I can't say that. How much do you sell that for? It's one sale right now. L's in to this. Click the link in the profile. Click the link the profile. Whatever you think it's worse. Why did that guy ruin your rain? That was contractor that's like I haven't signed with any things. Whenever I do, I'm like, well, now you have a twelve year old signature. Yeah, you don't want that as a kid, though, signatures are a big deal totally. I don't know why. Somewhere along my life and like, here's a guy just writing all my stuff, like don't write all my stuff, especially like sports, sports stars and things like that, and then they read in your forehead and you're like why, why why did you do that? I like that part so connected to you. I think, you know. Speaking of signatures, though, I think there's something to be said for like whether or not you get the signature, like making that step towards like a mentor hero, you know, and just having the chance. I mean, I remember in grad school of my advisor, she always said, like, you'll make more progress in the space by knocking on doors and shaking hands and being curious than you will with like a straight a or an EMPIC paper or good search. Yeah. I think you find most people are good people, especially if you share a passion with them or whatever. Most people are just good, totally. Yeah, and they they feed off passion. I think that's what's so cool about your podcast. And I didn't know you. It's just that I think a lot of the conversations that you've had on your show come from a space of passion. You know, come from a place of of of curiosity and like wanting to learn. It's not you know, I'm drawn to those narratives that come from a place of of curiosity as opposed to you know, let me tell you how it is. Yeah, and it's conversations are good. I always I've said this many times. It's like you get off of a good podcast where you're sitting with somebody. We're just sitting at a table in your kitchen or dining this is the dining room. I'm not good at naming house rooms. And it's just it's just like we're hanging out talking. And when I was tell my wife about it, she's like, why do you like it so much? Because I was excited for coming to boson this weekend because I'm gonna do a bunch of podcasts, And she's like, why are you so excited about the podcast portion of it because it's fun. And when you get off of a good, good conversation, you're like, man, I'm excited that person's passion. If I can just get a little bit of that every time, I'm gonna be way better for it totally. And I think that's why people listen to any podcast, Like a good conversation is worth more than you think it is, even in the moment. And so we just now we just record all our good conversations to be stored forever. Ever. Everyone that's true, Well, we congratulations on your marriagehen is gonna happen September. We already said that hopefully, you said, hopefully Rachel's getting her hunting license this year. She can't with me. Last year, Um, I was able to connect with an amazing elk And she looked at me right after She's like, I'm going to pick one. I was like, sweetheart, can we just like enjoy the fact takes some time to get before we become a real hunting enjoy the little things. But hopefully we're gonna spend some time. You know, we're kind of dedicating that month to just being out on the hills and really enjoying home and our first fall in this house and wow, yeah it should be good. Well, that's awesome, that's awesome. Alright, this place is uh this time of year, I mean, what's it mid mid July right now. I mean it's it's a little warm, but freaking beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, we just drove down the canyon. It's a big sky and they're just looking around like this. People people live here. Yeah, it's and there's there's so much kind I mean, Bozeman is awesome because it has so much going on. You know, you have the university, you have I think a pretty amazing suite of people with different backgrounds and perspectives and ideals. Um, it's pretty diverse, especially for this part of the country. And then you can go, you know, five ten minutes in they direction and you're out there, you know, which is kind of the time out there. Yeah, to public land, to national forests everywhere. Yeah, Rachel grew up just a few mines from town, and you know, we've seen moose and we saw a wolf run through right next to their house, and we've seen grizly bears and the hills up here, and you know, it's fice to say I like it here. Yeah, it's a good place, the nice place. Airport's awesome. It is awesome, you know, super easy. Yeah, my kid would landed. My kid found like have you ever when you go out of security to go in the airport there's that little store and there's like a stuff bear that's two feet tall. He just he just ran over hug that bear and just picked it up, walking like, son, that's theft. But and you're like, it's a thousand dollars dollar bear, so you can't have it. Put it back, you can cut its paw off, don't take that home. But yeah, it's like he if he goes into the Chicago airport, he's just looking around like, don't don't hurt me. Totally. Yeah, this is a very like I think you step off the plane and it's it feels approachable. Yeah, you know, accept when it's negative twenty in February. Well, anyway, don't move to Montana and nobody wants people that live here. Don't let you to move here. We're just staging before I moved to Orlando. Yeah, oh it's nice this time it is. Have you the fishing, yeah, and the dolphins in the sand in the tank and the Dolphs. Did they still have dolphins in the wild? Dolphins dam in the wild? Do they still have them in the tanks where the people watch them? Like sea? What? I know? The orca thing has a big deal. That's a big deal. I don't know enough about that to talk about that. Yeah. Blackfish, Yeah, Blackfish is a film to watch. I'm not seeing it, but heard a lot about it. Um, we're rambling, man, We're full. I like rambling. I'm feeling feeling like it's a good rambling day. So I don't really I want to get all serious or anything like that. Well, I appreciate you reaching out. I think that first podcast was that was fun. Yeah, well you know what got me thinking about that one? You live here. Obviously we've never met in person. But second, um, gear Junkie did an article and of the best hunting podcasts, mine was on there and it was like, what's the best what was the best episode and they put the one with you. Well, let's do another one. So thank you gear Junkie. Yeah, thank you. I gotta check out the article. Yeah, it just says how great you are or Yeah, maybe it's a reflection that people like nerdy science psychology stuff or just different stuff or just different a conversation that goes a different direction, because I find that, like being in the industry is troublesome for me because you don't really have just a regular person's perspective on hunting anymore. It's kind of impossible to have that, even for me when I walk in you know, I've been a writer and then working at Yeddie and you know, you work in the industry, you get free product, like it's just part of the deal, not not ashamed to say it. So when you walk going past bro you're like, well, m it's expensive. It's a lot of money. So there is a bubble in our industry that you get in. It's very easy to one. It's kind of like a boys club where you you know, you hit the rumor mill and you talk about everybody, and but you lose your perspective on gear and you lose your perspective on one hunting really is, and how hard it really is to get into for people that don't do it, and to people that do take part, how hard it is on your pocketbook and in your time if you have a family, These things are hard up. So when you're doing it for a living air quotes, you lose that perspective, and maybe that's the goal, because you every really love to do it for a living. That that haunts. But I think when they hear your perspectives, just watched like, hey, here's a guy who's not talking about these amazing adventures in a way that that's his business. He started studying ecology and moved into this, and so those perspectives are my God, that's important to me. Yeah, And I think I appreciate that, and I think that, you know, one of the things that I remember my mentor and graduate school told me was, you know, some of the most um inspiring people that we've had on Earth have married to kind of disconnected worlds. You know. It's like the mathematician who's a samocist who figures out how to like patch a heart, you know, where it's the the farmer who's really good at chemistry he figures out how to make the cropper system strain. And I think that kind of blend of perspective is kind of hopefully, you know, works towards removing that kind of island dynamic that can happen in certain communities. You know, whatever field, whether you're in sports or science or hunting. You know, you kind of get on your island. You talked to your tribe, and you can kind of predict what people are gonna say, how they're gonna react. Um, obviously there is some some flux of new ideas and new perspectives, but it can be kind of that insular space. Yeah, I mean that's a good a good point. Like anymore, I'm firmly pro nuance and I'm firmly anti tribalism like that, I don't know if I can describe myself, like what do you believe? Like, I don't know those two things for sure. I feel like you have to be those two things, Especially if you live in a digital space and put content out, you gotta be like, let's leave room for nuance and let's not get in our bubble. Let's let's try to like look at everything that an open mind. Yeah, And I think, you know, one of the pillars of of science is this idea that science is a perfect science builds um the you know, our predecessors work. It stands on the shoulders of the people that inspired us. And the best science stems from the best question and they're always the best science always presented with this idea that that we are confident in our results. That leaves an inherent five unknown. So I think that's something that's that I find interesting with hunting or conservation or ecology or whatever that society, we the media, whatever, there's this inclination to be definitive and to say like it's this way or that way, and there's two bins. But what I always try to say, like you're talking about that nuance that minutia, the weeds are where the magic happens, and the weeds are where the truth comes from. Um. So it's it's hard because folks, you know, we're we're looking for answers, but oftentimes, you know, like I just got back fro this horse project, there are answers that are applicable to a population, to a herd, to a herd management area, um to a season, to a rainfall regime, you know, and then the second like that place that used to have two inch the rain gets no rain, then it's a whole different answer. So it's it makes yeah, But I think that's that's the beauty of, you know, of looking at the world that way, that there's always room to improve and it also takes a long time. Science. You can't you can't look at something like, well, I got it. Here's my scientific the final scientific conclusion to this problem. I just figured out except extinction that that's pretty obvious. Are we haven't seen him in a while, the one on the ground, and that's he looks like you might be the last one the way that he's dead, which is such a bummer. Yeah, there's so few finalities in the exploration of the out the outside or natural world. There's no finality in the scientific exploration of it. There seems to be finality in our opinions when we, you know, dial up the rigidity of our own you know, ideologies and philosophies and dial it up a little bit, which seems a lot of people have done, and then you leave no room to one change your mind when something happens, to change your mind, and to have any kind of discourse about something that you may even slightly disagree with someone else on. And so I think those things are you know, scientific approaches. The scientific approach to life might be a little bit better than the way some folks are approaching it right now, because it's you know, on a lot of issues especially in our entire society, but in our hunting space to outdoor space too. I think it's those those rigid opinions are annoying as ship totally. And I think the oversimplification is annoying because people some people are looking for that, you know. I mean, maybe that's because we've been trained by the media to look for that, because that's a lot of headlines are is just an oversimplification, a skewed perspective. You know, it's hard to make a living being liminal. It's hard to make a living being you know, acknowledging the complexities. Yeah, like I think in general we shouldn't do this, But let me just tell you, here's ten other reasons why you might be able to in this context. But out of that context, I disagree with it. And people like, well, he this guy sucks. He's anti whatever he just said. Even though he said it sometimes you could do it, he doesn't want you to do it. And he's had a plastic water bottle. Yeah that's a single use. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's hard. But I would say, and I think you're a good example of it, and Rachel as well as a good example of it. If you if you admit that those energies like hey, look, it's positivity, it's curiosity. It's like I want to go outside, I want to learn, I want to learn, I want to soak this up. Then people will pick up on that, and you do. Eventually, then you're not even talked about controversial subjects that much because it's just something you're passionate about. You're not talking about it because it is a controversy. You're addressing it because you're passionate about it, whether it's an argument or not. You know, And then that's what's way easier than you know, even me as a writer or a journalist, like, oh, it's a controversy, Well you need to address that now, but like I don't really care about that thing, right, Like, let me be passionate about what I'm talking about before I dive into the next controversy, because that's the thing that people are talking about today. Well it's hard because you know, as as people who work in the outdoor space but also the media and content space, you know, you you realize that if you're writing a story, if there's two stories, ones on grizzly bears and ones on the female indigo, bunting. You know, like your indigo bunking story is, there's been quite a few more clicks on the grizzly bears story. I think you just gotta learn how to you know, really write really sauce that. But but what what we in the science world, we have these things called umbrella species, So you can like bend and compartmentalize these spaces with a totem species, say a polar bear, grizzly bear or whatever. Something that's like attractive, it catches the eye, and then you can you can weave in all the underlying narratives that exist because that realy bear habitat exists, for that grizzly bear population exists. So there are ways I think to effectively, in in a appropriate way bring the indigo bunting into the narrative by saying, hey, it's you know, mountains don't just aren't vending machines for elk. You know, mountains actually you know our places where waters retained and where vegetation grow and where forage and habitat exists, and where elk come from. You know, a healthy elk are a function of a healthy ecosystem, and that's where the indigo bunting also lives. And then it's like, hadn't i'd get you there, folks, But I got you there. I got you to the bunting from the elk there every can look up the indigo bunting three degrees of the indigo buns. Screw you, Kevin, You're out now, So the outdoor world, you gotta get to the bunting. Hashtag Indigo bunting. Um, yeah, we don't have a hashtag for the podcast. Are continually trying to find one. I think maybe Indigo bunting. Yeah, totally. It might be the one, the Indigo bunting collective that could be good. I'd be alive, would be like today's episode, Tuesday's episode. Is indigo the real color of the bunding? Nobody knows? Or is it a filter on Instagram? That's right, it could be purple. We don't know. Um what. The other thing that interested me in your perspective is you do you feel like hunting or even hunting and the outdoor space both call them both call them the people that go outside world, hunting, fishing, outdoors whatever. Do you feel like they lack leadership from a scientific perspective, like there isn't there's leadership from like a I'm a hero, I climb a thing or I on a thing. But there's not a lot of people that are leading from a scientific pulpit. Yeah, you know, um or influencing the leading is the wrong term, but you know, whatever proper scientific influence on those people. Yeah, you know, it's a challenging thing because I think at one point science and exploration of science were valued at large in society. I mean, back when we had von Humble and we had Darrowin to a certain extent um, some of these people were out creating, you know, creating the foundation for our scientific understanding, and they were getting funded by kings and queens and being invited to speak at places that were drawing being. You know, they were the most powerful and influential people in society there, you know, listening to their research. And I think there was that kind of that all around the work. And I think there was more trust, you know, placed in the in the scientific space and community. And I think fast forward two. You know, even Abraham Lincoln protecting marapost to grow sixty four um hid the Civil War. He protects marapost to growth because he hears its epic. You know, there wasn't much science. It was more I've seen this place that needs to be saved. Then we have John Muir, you know, he comes at it from, you know, a religious perspective, but one that I think is rooted in reverence for the for the aesthetic, for the glaciers, for the natural history. Um. He was like a type of environmentalism totally, and and he did do he did collect data. He was kind of passionate about the glaciers. So I think there was an empirical kind of science um driver but it was certainly religious and theological as well. UM. So that you know, we fast forward and then it becomes you know, there's that that religious lens. And then we move into the Teddy Roosevelt time, where I think a lot of it was looked at the resource. You know, what is there to extract? What is there to save from over extraction? UM. Science certainly helped inform all of that. You know, I think with the dawn of the Force service, science became a bigger role, conservation became a bigger role. People started thinking, you know, how do we as managers fit into this equation? But then today, you know, obviously I think that mindset of management stewardship is still pervasive through our federal agencies and state agencies as well. But we have such a robust outdoor and hunting culture that I believed your point is pretty detached from the on the ground scientists and some of the key work. And it's not necessarily just the outdoor and hunting community's fault. I think the scientific community has done a pretty poor job of extending to hand and marketers for marketers, and that's not their fault. I mean, the currency and science is to create peer reviewed research and to create data sets and to be you know, there's this kind of like legacy of being insular and coming from that space. Having spent most of my adult life as a scientist, I remember going to those conferences and sitting in on those lectures and those um you know, different kind of gatherings of the minds, and it's like, Okay, this is rad that we're all on the same page. But everybody who's out there in the general public. Number one isn't gonna understand we're talking about, isn't. It doesn't have access to what we're publishing, and it's not being written about or disseminated in a way that's at all digestible. So that's partially the scientific communities fault. So I think it's kind of this like big disconnect, and I think the result is that you have an outdoor industry that's largely standing on the pillars of physical accomplishment. I think there is some conservations stewardship there, but I think generally it's how badass can you be? Um, how extreme can you be? And that's great. I mean that's a whole different aspect of the narrative. Hunting industry is I think a little bit more tapped in because to hunt, you need wildlife, and for wildlife to exist, you need an ecosystem that's functioning. I mean you could climb a mountain a mountain kind of ye. I mean they have to be the same. Like, I think we get lost in our own decades long conservation story. We get lost in the fact that we can look at African and be like, well, they value wildlife because they're uh, they're worth money when you hunt them. So that's the big argument there. But we get lost in our own value system for wildlife. It's kind of the same thing we get lost in we value these animals because of the opportunities. We have reverence for the opportunity to hunt them. That's why we value them. We don't necessarily value them within the ecosystem or as as a part of a grand landscape. We value them for that opportunity. So our value system is akin to Africa's. We've just kind of over a hundred years or so, really reshaped what that looks like, what that value system looks like. Yeah, and I think you have maybe And I'm not an expert in Africa and be either, I don't know that I am. I'd rather avoid the subject up. I always try to like, so it's a it's a continent, man, we don't talk about North American hunting like let's let's slow down. Yeah, And you know, I think you could probably argue that the landscape, the social, political, ecological landscape is more dynamic there um, which makes it even more challenging for people like us who are laying to talk about or like can people say, like hunting in Africa. I'm like, do you realize Egypt isn't Egypt or South Africa? Yeah, You're like, you don't, you don't be like Northwest territories or Mexico. These are confident. These are the purest generalization of pure generalizations which happens and I think it happens the honey world and the anti or non hunting world, like hunting in Africa. Is this or that, Let's maybe take it down totally. Yeah, And I think you know, even the people like within hunting, you know, as an editor at Modern Huntsman, one of the real treats has been too focus on this idea that that hunters exist on a spectrum, just like politicians, just like humans. And there's the best, and there's those that could use some work, and there's a lot in between who I think are open to being better. And it's unfortunate when one person, whether it's a politician or your neighbor or a guy who hunts in your in your community, does something that's not ideal that paints sheds a bad light on the broader collective. Isn't that a tough That's a tough concept because I got into this podcast thinking that's what I'm going to talk about all this time. But then the like just depressing man just sucks and it and I always picture like a tug of war, you know, we had a bunch of people on one side of the rod tugging on that thing. You can choose which side you want to be on, and that little you know, that little ribbon that's gotta go one side or the other. As far as how is hunting perceived, I just want to be on the side that's pulling towards good And as long as I'm over there pulling, I don't really need to be pointing out the people on the other side exactly for what they're doing. As long as I'm pulling, at least, that's my base level for that fight. If I'm pulling towards a good I'm okay. If I see an opportunity to talk to somebody on the other side and try to convince him to come to my side, I'll do it. But I don't need to be browbeating every person that posts something that I don't like or yeah, and I mean it's like when your mom calls you us here a day going, You're not gonna sit and spend the whole conversation tun or how like shitty your day was? Like oh, you know, life's good, you know the baby is good, you know whatever, Like it's it's I think thinking positively and being drawn to the positive not only makes your day better, but just helps you focus on where we should be working to move the needle further. Because you could spend every conversation you have in the hunting world talking about people you do not like or in the outdoor space on the same totally. But what's the point Because as soon as you start doing that, you quit pull them, You quit pulling that rope, and you like have to stop the point to the other side and you quit. Now you're not doing what you set out to do. And to that point, let's just keep pulling. Well, I think, you know, to your initial question, Like the scientific space, in the scientific world, I think is making some great progress. You know, I'm seeing a lot of folks in the outdoor recreation space looking towards science and conservation stewardship to inform the way that they engage with their playgrounds, whether it's a mountain or a crag, or a trail or a lake or a river. Um. And then the hunting space, you know, one of the really kind of exciting things is getting a chance to work with sitkas and a conservation advisor and helping them develop uh, you know, initiatives and kind of repackage content and just take a closer look at some of these themes. And I've met so many people in Bozeman in the broader hunting space that you know, are sending me pure view science papers that are solid and they're saying, hey, like, this is what we're thinking should inform the way we address this issue. And I think that's something that we can do more of. And you know, we can look to the people who are spending their entire career as a field scientist, you know, like we can sit from afar, you know, looking at the world through our phone or the internet or as a plane flying over. But within every county in the country, there's a handful of scientists who know that reality better than anybody. How much can you learn from that person? Oh my god? Right, how much can you learn from the guy who's trapping hogs in Oklahoma who's trying to eradicate him and you say, wow, hunting hogs is good, and that guy stands up and like, listen, I've been doing this for fifteen years and it's not good, right, Like WHOA, Okay, totally try to talk to you earlier. Yeah, and that like his experience. You know, the hog situation in Oklahoma is very different the Hawgs sitition in California, you know, And to say it's this or that, you know, I think, like we've talked about already. You know, it's so valuable to be like, well, this guy's experience, it's his experience, and it's representative of this county or this part of the state, and let's focus on that, you know, let's tell that story because it's part of the story. Here's one of the many. Yeah, there's one of the many stories. Um. Yeah, sometimes you go to Texas topping a helicopter and shoot a bunch of hogs. That's good. It might not always be good. It probably always fun for the people in the alicouter um. But that's a hard thing, like you know, that visual for somebody who isn't relatively informed on the topic. I think there's there's that disconnect. And one of my wildlife professors at Berkeley when I was an undergraduate um his name is Reginald Barrett. He's a professor emeritus. Incredible guy studied under Luna Leopold Um and he was hired by the Australian government to come out and try to help him figure out how to get rid of wild hogs. And they went up with um the military and some high pride rifles and thought about that gonna be a way to do it, and it which wasn't cost effective because bolts are so expensive. So I mean there, I think for folks who aren't familiar with the hog situation, it is a a robust population that has no checks, so there's no balance. And death is death, and that's something that takes place. Whether you eat a chicken or a piece of kale, or you have a cotton shirt, things are dying. How do you get that? Because that example, and I always say, hey, I don't want to get on a soapbox, but I do want to examine that idea because it is an important idea. I always don't, I find myself sometimes I used to. I don't anymore because of the pulling of the rope thing we talked about. I used to drink whiskey and go online and fight with fight with vegans. What was your handle on Twitter? Oh no, it's just my hand. I used to go on to like the vegan thing and like just but not argue, but just try to talk sent you know, from the Bunting Official. I'm like, man, I'm a bird. I rever trying to eat some seeds. Um. I would and I would argue with these funs, and I always felt like that was the one point that I needed them to understand that, Like, you are a part of the cycle of consumption. You were designed to consume. That is what we do. We are an ant hill like fly over l a one time, mountains, mountains, mountains, what's that thing that's humans? Like, that's the one thing that always got me. And so how do you, like, how do you talk to somebody about that idea? Like, Hey, no matter what you do, you're you're doing being a vegan or recycling or all these things that you're doing, you're doing them for the right reasons. Totally agree with you on what you're doing. But you're not off the hook. Don't tell me you're off the hook. And don't tell me that I'm on the hook, because I kill something like how do you get that across somebody who's so far down that ideological path? I'm not found. I could walk anybody back far enough to get him to really other than to maybe take them hunting or something like that. Convince him to go hunting. I think you and I had a conversation on our first podcast where we kind of got to something that I've repeated out loud, which I've got a little backlash, and it's it's just like you're getting that. I mean, though, if we're talking about net impact on an individual level, the worst thing we ever did was be born. I mean, human population is the number one. It seems like, you know, it's like it's a rough thing. It's a it's a hard thing to say, you know, but I think you can dissect the vegan. You can dissect the rural farmer, or you can dissect the inner city. You can dissect the affluent and the hunter, the whatever. Everybody has an impact, whether it's you know, like the palm oil in your makeup or the sterial eating or the cotton shirt you're wearing, or the deer you killed, or the car you drive and the rubber that's on the wheels. It's gnarmally, I mean, everything has an impact. So I think one the people on either side of the spectrum isn't really like the focus. I like to focus on the middle ground, where there's people who have open ears and open mind and are are open to the idea of considering something else, and with that you kind of avoid the conflict to be the either end of the spectrum. And I think there's a lot of room to say, Okay, well, we are here, We're blessed with these resources, with the time, with a voice, with a platform. Let's try to do our best, you know, Let's try to make the antiprisyne like the epic that the world is currently in, a better epic, you know, like that hashtag into good bunting. Uh yeah, man, but there's hope. I mean, watch the Jane Goodolf film, you know, Jane, Like, watch that and tell me that somebody can't be born onto this planet and do good, you know, because she's somebody who's doing incredible work, inspiring countless young people to carry about the natural world. And Jane good On I disagree on a lot of shit. She hates hunting, but I still I still can respect that mindset because I think it's way closer to my mindset than most other folks out there. It's like this this extreme caring and the other the other point. I think it is important to me because a lot of the things we're talking about hogs, for example, farrell hawks wherever they may be in this in this country, and we put them. Oh really, they're delicious and there's a lot of them out We put them here, and so we created a problem. We're fixing a problem that happens a lot in as you well know, and in the in the conservation space and in the space that we live. And we're we're fixing a problem that we caused, and then lauding are fixing the problem that we cause with like a lack of perspective of it. What's exactly going on there? Right? Um? I think that happens a lot in the environmental world and a lot in the hunting consumptive space too. I mean, you're like, we killed all the elk? Were we sit there? What are they back in? Like ten or ten to twelve percent of their native range? Positive? That's close. We did that? Yeah, yeah, and we did. We killed them all. Not me and you, not are even you know, not even our grandparents, grandparents, but we humans were a part of that. You know. So what is the thing that we are doing right now? At decades from now, folks will look back at be like, I can't believe you did that? Yeah. I think that's a good point, because, you know, I just returned from a week long trip in Nevada shooting a film with Phil Baraboo, who had made Charge Brandon and Ben Masters, who's legend you know, you'll know um. And during that trip and after the trip, we've been getting feedback from people saying like, oh, well, this is a this is a horse problem, this is a cattle problem, or this is a Pieta problem or an activist problem, and it's a lot of Jule's problems. And what I think a lot of folks forget is that the today exists because of two hundred years of human impact. And horses are here, Yes, they were brought to you by the Spanish. There's a legacy of overgrazing, there's a legacy of resource extraction, there's a legacy of heavy handed use by humans. You compound all of those things mining, you know, pioneering, like all of these impacts you've had in the natural world, coupled with climate changes, drought, fire, all these things that are changing the landscape, and then you have today. So for people to be like, oh, it's a horse problem, it's like, well, it's kind of their problem. They're also just like kind of all the animals trying to survive and they're just eating man trying to find water. Yeah, and then you know, oh, it's a cattle problems, like well, there's a lot of people who are running cattle in a much better way than they ran him in eighteen hundreds, so you know, it's not really totally their problem. There's like a legacy issue, you know, Oh, it's the miner's problems, like well, there are regulations in place for mining, and that's something that's informed by the way we vote and people vote for you know, it's like, oh, well, it's you know, a climate problems, like well, a lot of people, a lot of the best science in the world would say that, like our impacts on Earth are changing the climate. So it's kind of like a historical people problem, you know. And it's like you read all those all that molution of piece of paper and it's just not conducive to the headline. You know. Yeah, ship's complicated. Yeah. I feel like every time I waited into a situation that I'm like, damn, this is like way complicated. Yeah. That's again why I like being able to continue to have conversations and then change your mind, and I get called out for change in your mind because you know something today that you didn't know. Like, we're essentially organisms that are just growing and changing and molding all the time. When I had a kid, immediately was a different person. To sell all your PlayStations, Yeah, well no, he'll get those. Yeah, you get a kid, You're like, oh my god, now I'm a different person. Right. I didn't do that. I didn't like wake up and be like, I'm gonna do this different this if you just wake up and you think differently, because now there's this thing over here, this human that you gotta take care of, You've gotta do things differently. You can't function the way you used to function. And so people change all the time, and too, you know you should respect that change. And in our environment changes because of us, and so you must look at it the same way. Like when we invent the flying car, I think we might have already been that. You think we are invented. You think somebody in California has a flying car prototype that that fucking works. Elon Musk surely has a flying car. I mean, I am one of the biggest NERD advocates out there, and I would bank that some nerd has something hidden away. There's some motherfucker out there flying around, Like what's that. It's not a flying car. I'll tell you that right now. It's or something. Yeah, well there was a really cool I'm not sure it was on a Vice or my brother who's like a total nerd, showing me this. Um it's this kid. So there's like self driving cars, like you know, um Tesla has some of the best technology out there. This film, I think it's like it's on YouTube. I want to say, but this kid, just like some twenty something year old nerd, goes in a garage and with like a hundred twenty dollars with the computer parts, makes an autonomous vehicle. It's like this old civic. It's like a total piece of ship. But the thing drives, it learns. So he has this like model, this program he's developed where this car is learning as he's nudging it through traffic and letting experience different types of road conditions. And this correspondent, I want to say it for a Vice, it is like holy shit, like you feel like you figured it out in your garage. Yeah, so I have to imagine somebody's flying a car somewhere, man, because the Jetsons was a long time, like twenty years ago, wasn't totally. Yeah, they had the jets inside of flying cars, so that was why t K. Yeah. My dad's like, all right, why two K, we have six cans of soup, four water bottles, and some bread. I was like, sick, we're gonna live. We're gonna make soup and toast sandwiches, dumper in the toast. Yeah, why t K. That was the dumbest things. I don't even remember chairing. I was just like whatever, fine. I was like, I still can't alle on my skateboard. Yeah, man, don't take away my my baseball bat, my glove. Yeah. I don't know where I was going with any of that, but I will say, if anybody knows anybody that has a flying car, I'd like to get him on the podcast, just talk about it. Mostly for hunting purposes. Yeah, mostly for hunting purpose because I'm sure it's quiet. Ye. Addendum, anyone who has a quiet flying car solar powered, solar powered, Yeah, no, it doesn't affect the environ, but nine recycled wheels, yes, please please call in. I know we don't have a car, I don't know. We don't have a way to call in, but just call in anyway. Um, you think we would ever have a call in podcast where like people could call in beneficial I think it would be cool, but I think you might get some like rogue colors. You know, you're like deep, It's like, well, John from South Dakota, We're sorry, we're not gonna have high. This is indigo bunting and committing suicide not listening to your boring because you're boring. Um, back to the regular conversation. Do you do you believe that with that middle ground person who you're trying to just be like, Look, you impact the world. You might not have the mental bandwidth, not that you're not a smart person, but you might not just not have enough space in your day because you're like you had a kid. Care for the human, get the human along, make sure that human gets what it needs to live, and then also get smarter and better. Um for society. You just don't have the time to do all the research about all the things and be informed on all the things. But here a few things you can do to make the world better and understand your impact. I mean, there are the things that you can think of. Is that too broader question? I know we say like recycled, do this, do that, But are there more specific things going outside that you'd be like, Man, here's your impact. Understand your total impact sucks. You're a part of an organism that is eating this earth alive. Um, But here's how you can protect the epic, Like, here's how you can make it better. Yeah, yeah, you know. I think one thing that comes to mind is, uh, college graduation. The dialomma comes to DUC Berkeley and gives a talk and he sits on his little Uh did you just name drop the Dolly past the first Rate Act? Okay, the California colleges, And though he's sitting up there and uh, you know, he says some some really poignant things. One of them is that one of the keys that has influenced what he perceives the world is to always remain the student. The second you identify as the professor and you lose the opportunity to learn. And I think that translates to the idea of looking at the world and looking at the complexities and all this crazy things that are happening from a place of curiosity and realizing that there are people who are experiencing the world in different ways, seeing it through different lens, and that through questions and listening, you individually in your backyard, in your community can have a better understanding of how you fit into the broader global dynamic, but also how you can improve yourself. Maybe you're interested in organic farming, maybe you're interested in bow hunting, maybe you're interested in flying cars. Like, through your pursuit of doing whatever you love the best way possible, you can reduce your impact and do what's feasible for you financial really physically, given the resources you have or don't have. I mean, everybody is has a different situation, and I think just looking at the complexities of the world by saying like how can I improve and what questions can I ask to give me a better worldview? I think will help. That's a great one. I always be a student. That is something I need to go reapply to some conversations a couple of weeks. Then after it was so funny because after he says that, and you know, everybody's like, oh man, that was so impass Yes. So some kid raised his hand. It was like the last question and he's like, oh, could could you give our class like any partying wisdom. And he sits there and he kind of does this a little like wiggle and he looks at us and starts laughing. He's like, yeah, good luck. And I think that's I think that's a a pretty solid um bit of advice too, because I think a lot of a lot of kind of your impact and your life experiences comes from having good luck, but also been open to the luck that you have. Because a lot of people go the world with their eyes closed. I think there's so much to be said for going through the world with your eyes open, seeing those doors that might be presented to you, seeing those people who might be there to help you, or to collaborate with you, or to corroborate with you. Um. And I think just having that openness is huge as well, because it's when people will get on that island and they put their blinders on and they put their head down and they just dig their heels, and it's where you don't get a lot of progress. Yeah, that's a good point. Um. The Dia Lama hum Man, he's a legend. I always wondered, like, does the dialama just like go to Taco bell? Probably I think so. Yeah, i'd like to know. I feel like he's just like a normal guy. Yeah. Does he have vices? Though? The dollar Alama because that's a smart always be a students about it's a smart thing. And he's become the Dialama based on all the smart things he says. I wonder if he just like I'd love a burrito. After that speech just goes down. Yeah, you know, I don't know. Probably I feel like he's just as human as anybody else. Probably that's true. Well, it's good. I'm glad the dial Aama got in on the conversation today. Yeah, is that that's the first for the podcast. I don't know. Maybe I did have Shane Mahoney and he's kind of like a bit of a diali Alama, like a Canadian dial Alama. Well, right next door to Tibet we have Bhutan, which is pretty cool. It's the kingdom. That's the entire kingdom is a wildlife sanctuary, is it? Yeah? Because who went over there? Now, Oliver White, there's a big time fly fisherman went over fish there for a YETI film, I think so with Ben Knight and Travis Romila. I believe. So maybe we'll get to know more about that the film when it comes out. But um, that's good to know. That tell me more you how much you know about that place. I know one other thing. Instead of GDP Gross Domestic Productivity, they have g d H Gross Domestic happiness. That's their metric for success or progress. Wow, alright, let's look into that. How do they measure how opinions you feel? Probably a simple survey survey monkey or something, so, I don't know. It's like that thing on Instagram stories where you can put the hard eyes at one level. I do that sometimes and then you know, it'll make a picture of Rachel my fiance, and I'll like swipe to the far right because it's like the most and then I look at him like, did I think I only personally voted on that? Well? Then maybe like you accidentally let your finger off too early and it goes it goes halfway angel, So I'm just like really, And then you get that text, Yeah, you're like halfway hard eyes, asshole, fool way hard eyes. Every time that's wrong with you. We're getting married. I don't love me. Um dial Llama will switch so wild horses. Yeah, I'm gonna make the transition from the Dali Lama wild horses, wild horse first time ever on Earth probably, and we're actually looking at some horses that are not wild in your backyard there. Yeah, Um, there's the transition. Bam. Perfect. So you went to Nevada correct with that pretty impressive group of filmmakers, um to take a look at the wild horse issue and then make a make a film on it. What did you find? Yeah? I think, Um, first of all, like the kind of genesis of the project was pretty pretty awesome. You know, we had over a dozen different state, local, and federal agencies come together and basically proposed the idea of us making a film, and it was really I think that was set us off on a great trajectory because we had so many people from so many organizations, with so many interests and stakeholders, with a singular focus on like let's let's present the story in an authentic, accurate light the film. What we didn't set out to answer all the questions. You know, people have spent their entire career trying to trying to answer some of these questions that are just complicated. But instead of the tension behind the film was can you guys go out there can you embed yourselves with experts, folks with decades of experience, can you learn about their their reality, and can you digest those vignettes into an overarching message. What is the state of wild horses on public lands in America? And what are some of the things we can do to push the needle in a path of stewardship of sustainability, Because right now the wild horse issue is it's shitty. The wild horses aren't winning the ecosystem. Certainly they're not winning. Um. We have a pretty divided group of people who are quote unquote air quotes four horses and against There's a lot of people in the middle who I know are eager to learn more. So we kind of came at it from that space in the middle, which is like, let's just learn as much as we can. Let's present what we've learned earned and pose some hopefully provocative questions UM that folks can listen to and and explore in their own time and through their own means. That's interesting. How pervasive is the what's the population of wild horses in Nevada? Do they know? They do? You know? Nevada has the most wild horses in the country. Um, they're wild horses and burrows generally get generally get clumped together. Um, there's well over eighty thousand wild horses north America. The exact number in Nevada, I'm not I'm not on um, but there are fifty five thousand excess wild horses and burros. So what what the what the federal government has done is they've looked at public lands in America and they've said, Okay, given the resources that these public lands offer forage and water primarily, we believe that the public lands in America can sustain at this point a little over twenty six thousand wild horses and burrows. So then you know, they send out their researchers and their their crews to do surveys and they say, you know, to the best of our knowledge, how many wild horses are there? At last count, there are fifty more than the landscape can sustain. So that might not that's just like a number for a lot of people. I think what people sometimes forget, and I think what kind of gets missed is that if you're a horse that needs to drink, you know, eight gallons of water a day, maybe more of it's hotter and needs, uh, you know a ton of forage as well. The land can only support so many horses. Then you have native wildlife, you have cattle, and you have limited water, limited forage. UM, it's a complicated situation. The kind of the main thing that I think we learned is that there's a platform to manage wildlife. We have sage grouse biologists who can go and study a meadow system and say this meadow system is critical for the stability and preservation of this population, and we need to maintain the meadow. So we're going we're going to um, We're gonna tell the We're gonna suggest that the blm ask the permancy the cattle grazer that cat the operator to put his cattle on the meadow in late summer when the stage grous have been able to use it to rear their chicks, when the flowers have been able to bloom, and the pollinator has been able to use it, when it's at a less sensitive state. And in many cases the operator will be like, Okay, I'll put my cattle in in July. We'll scratch the edge of the stage grous. Biologists will help maintain the ecosystem. We'll run our cattle through there because cattle need forward, especially at the end of the summer, and that's a win win. There's there's a platform for the wildlife managers to work with the federal government and state agencies, and there's a platform for cattle operators do the same thing. Certainly, there are examples where the wildlife are losing for a very variety of reasons. Maybe it's historical overgrazing, maybe's strout, maybe it's fire. I mean, it's a five hundred thousand acre fire in Nevada that's burning or worth burning, biggest in the country, destroying safe grouse habitat and safe grouse communities. So there's there's a platform there. If there are too many deer, too many hogs, too many elk, not enough, there is a platform and a structure for folks to work together and say, like, here's the platform we're working within, let's accomplish this goal or work towards this goal. Cattle, there is a structure and a platform for operators, permitees, and also um other stakeholders to have input in the way cattle are grays in public lands. There are certainly operators and cattle that are grays in a I would say, a very mindful, sensitive way. And there's other situations that I think could use some work. Wild Horses they're the wild card. There is some structure, but through litigation from in many cases folks whould identifies like wild horse activists. Ah, the tools and the blms in the National Force Service toolbox have been limited, um for a variety of reasons. But nonetheless there's some structure, but there are not many available tools and or resources to implement change. So a lot of these So for those those tools in the toolbox and the people that are limiting then on my guess, because this happens in a lot of with a lot of different charismatic creatures, predators, mostly anti I guess that we would just say animal rights activists are saying, don't kill them in this way, don't treat him in this way, right, and the biologists like, well, if we do this, you know, if we kill him out of helicopters, we can save the whole population. Or if we do this, do this, and then animal rights axes like do not, We're gonna put legislation out there too to ban acts. I don't know what those those tools are, is that or not even to ban but just it's just you know, being sued takes a lot of time. Like I was talking to these biologists who You'll spend fifteen years working on something, you get sued and then it's just everything's paused for like maybe years. So it's so litigation is a tool to stall. The outcome can be years down the road, but it's been an efficient it's been an effective tool to just stall things. So what do they specifically do you know what they're specifically suing. Yeah, I mean, you know there have been lawsuits around roundups being in humane UM A lot of times roundups Contemporary roundups include a tv s, four wheelers, helicopters, UM getting those getting those overpopulated populations into corrals and then they can be transferred to holding facilities for their quarantine and given shots and um you know, castrated and you know basically prepared for adoption. That can be a challenging process for the health and well being of animals. You know, it's a stressful thing. UM. There has been litigation that has prevented the research on Spain and uterine animals UM surgically. Uh, it's been coined as UM in humane UM. Right, now one of the things that people some people are excited about. It's called PCP, which is basically makes a mayor infertile for a little less than a year. UM. There's a lot of people who say that's the way to do it, the way to to stifle the growth of these populations. That's completely naive. Um. There are certain small, non representative cases where individuals who are familiar with a herd that are herd that doesn't freak out from humans, which I've spent quite a bit of time like that was not my first time to Nevada, that was not definitely not my first time with wild horses. To get within the range of a dart gun to shoot a mayor, I've never I've maybe in one occasion I've been that close to wild horse. So it's just not feasible, time intensive, more volunteer. But you gotta get them trained, and there's got to be all these checks and balances to make sure it's done well, and you need to have a protocol, and you need to have consistent data collection, and that mayor needs to be identifiable, that mayor needs to be darted in the year, that mayor won't carry a full but she'll keep continue to go into heat and the estres so that mayor will be bread and bread and bread, but will never carry a full That doesn't sound very fun. So that's so there's the PCP, there's a sterilization, there's the roundups, and then there are the harsh realities that the holding facilities were these animals are rounded up and put to await adoption or to await a life and dirt parking lot are full. Uh, we're very close to full, so that we don't even have capacity to take in more horses. We don't have The BLM doesn't have capacity to round up more horses because most of their funding is going to feeding these horses that are in captivity per horse, per per lifetime, and that's to feed them alfalfa and hay. And for anybody out there, he's ever looked at the amount of water that goes into buy one horse? Get everybody, Yeah you have a half acre, and yeah, you can do it, buy a horse and see what that costs. And yeah, and you know, it costs a lot for the government to feed these horses. It costs a lot to just holding them. You know, taking on a horse project is something that a lot of people don't have the time or money to do well. Also, to that point, you know, if you're this far along in this story and you're not really sure to like, why do I care? I'm a hunter guy. Cost who's paying for that? Where's that money coming from? And where are the land? What are the lands that this is happening on. I think that that ties back to totally. I mean, the cost of the ecosystem is tremendous. And again, it's not just the horse's fault, like there are these historical legacies of overgrazing or just humans not being supermindful about the ecosystem's health and well being. But the fact of the matter is you have places that maybe we're kind of hammered, that are just getting hammered by these horses. The horses aren't winning, they're eating themselves. At the house at house, at home, there's horses. Two horses died this year in Arizona because of a lack of water and resources. Um so if you love horses, you should you know, that should be an alarm bell flat do you uh are you talking about? Like, so there's fifties, five thousands. Are these populations all were they wild originally. How much of this is a native population are they? Is any of them? Is there a native range known for the wild horse or is it all just essentially escaped, kicked their saddle off and run for the hills. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a great question. Um, horses won't extinct twelve years ago around then, back when we lost the American cheetah um and other species. So they existed at one point North America's history. But they are here because they were introduced by humans. So they are in my opinion, and by definition I would say feral livestock. Um they have. We have the Wild Horse in Borough Treaty Act, which federally protects them. Um. So that's I think some of the complicated. That adds a level of complexity to the situation. But to your point, if you're listening, you're a hunter and you're saying, why do I care about wild horses, we should care about wild horses because wild horses are on virtually all of our public land, and wild horses require a lot of food and water. They are competitive. They will exclude prong horn from drinking. They will compete with other wildlife or forage. A mule deer mule deer won't go in the same area that an elk is in. I's a bunch of wild horses move into an area mule deer. I mean we we spent a week out there and didn't see We saw mulder in places where no horses. We were filming sage grouse in meadows where the sun came up and the stage grousts flew in to feed with their chicks. The chicks in the and the hens walked in. But I mean we had multiple like day old, multiple day old, uh, mule deer just bedded down and waste. I mean some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen in my life. Or these meadow aces in the middle of the stage brush Sea and Nevada like like five hours from town, you know, and the sun comes up and there's just little mule deer popping out. And the reason why that ecosystem is the way it is is vibrant and healthy is because it's been Uh there's a fence round and so horses can't just hammer it because they would. And we went to meadows, you know, a few miles away that didn't have fences, and we're just basically dirt parking lots. Yeah, and so we love horses. I think horses of the place. I some of my best most memorable wildlife moments are sitting out there at water holes in the desert and watching two horses come galloping up to I mean, it's crazy. They're beautiful animals. You know. My best times in the saddle have been on the backs of mustangs. Um. I've written Ben's Mustangs from into a bunch of the good horses. They sure footed, they work hard, they're you know, pretty smart, pretty savvy. Um. I think there's a lot of people who would say mustanger as good as any other horse. Yeah, we love horses. Horses are great. But at the same time, do you imagine this is a more emotional, more reflective of the emotional appeal of like animal lovers versus at this point, pragmaticians who are just trying to manage an entire ecosystem over hey, saves grass. I know they're not so beautiful to you. They are actually, yeah, they're cool. They're really cool, but they're not so charismatic to you. Right, they're not in movies. But they're important too, and by you may not know it, or you might know it. But by trying to protect these horses, but by trying to overlove these horses like you're loving other things to death. Um, that's a problem that that every hunter should understand and should be aware of. But I just think this is a compelling example of the problems that we will face. And from a from a purely monetary standpoint, would I'd be wrong to say, like this is akin a bit to fire borrowing, where when there's a fire, and in the in the most recent omnimous package that was passed our government, the spending package, they said you can no longer states or federal government can no longer borrow from wildlife managers pockets take from their pockets money to to fight fires. Because that was happening, it's called fire borrowing. Is this similar to that where you'd be like, hey, we've got to manage these populations, We're gonna take from the coffer of the wildlife state wildlife managers bias would take money from their confer and put it into this or at least it competes with other priorities, totally competes with Elka, Compea or whatever. From a from a purely monetary standpoint, absolutely and you know, and and we were with biologists. We were with a little hot and cut throat trout biologist who is sitting there and saying, yeah, you know, like I can come to my creak that's been hammered by horses and put together a plan to restore it, but my hands are tied and that that opinion that research will never be employed until there's adequate funding to deal with the horse issue. So you have you have we have wildlife money that's been put into wildlife departments pockets to protect game species, non game species and habitat. They can do the best job that they could ever dream of. But you have this this tide of wild horses that are they're stifling their progress. They're they're turning potential habitat for California big horn or muldear or prong horn into over grazed deserts. And that's simply because there's that disconnect. There's that inability for the federal government to address the horse issue, and there's a lack of funding that's tied up with feeding horses in captivity to actually implement the change. The there's litigation, but there's also that that fiscal hurdle so I definitely think you have. In weeks we saw this. You have these biologists who are so passionate about their species, their non game, their game species, and they see what needs to be done and they literally can't do it. I mean we had I'm not going to name names, but a biologist who was the one of the head game biologists for Nevada career was spent working with game species UM and some of the most beautiful, rugged country in Nevada. He cried on interview with us because he was so frustrated and embarrassed and disappointed that he would spend his entire professional career on a topic that got worse on his watch. We interviewed a guy one of the head Horse in Burrow program supervisors for the BLM, who spent his entire career forty plus years working for the federal government in d C and in Nevada working on public lands and the wild horse issue. And he sat there and he said he was embarrassed and disappointed that on his watch the program didn't get better. He did have some positive remarks about UM collaborative efforts being developed and communities coming together to work towards the common goal, but in terms of quantifiable winds, the situation has undeniably gotten worse. So I think, like you're saying, it's a it's a money problem. You know, we're taking money out of the pockets of people doing trying to do the best work they can to protect our wildlife, our native ecosystems, um and it's just kind of like the ship show of the political system, litigation and a lack of resources. And at this point adoption rates, everything we're doing to manage wild horses doesn't come close to dealing the reproductive rates. Yeah, what is it? What's the gestation on a full well? Every every four years populations are doubling. Yeah, it's insane. That's insane. Animal. I think about like the way that we think of and how like our value systems might help correct this or make it worse. I don't know, but like when we take the gloves off on an animal, for instance, for instance, the coyote in Wyoming, they'll pay you fifty bucks whack of coyote or hogs we take the gloves off. One is hunters. I think most hunters like whoa gloves off, dude? Not kill they? And sometimes I feel like that it's like it's fun if if it's not, you know, it's part of Hey, I can go out and kill ten hogs and it doesn't matter how I do it, and that's that meets good. The experience is good. Oh man, it's shooting practice. Right. We've taken the gloves off those animals. I don't know if interviewed somebody in the same position as those people that are working on the horse program and said, hey, they're taking the gloves off. Doo much from a hunting standpoint, he took the gloves off. There's coyoties in every state. They live in swamps and planes, they live in mountains, they live everywhere. Every ecosystem has a chived. So like just taking the gloves off his hunters really do anything. And the same with a horse, just taking the gloves off and saying like, hey, you're in public lange you see a horse crack it shooting the head the only I mean, if you want whatever, fine, let's take picture of pretty. I know it's crude way to say it and probably just structful that animal, but you might get a few email Listen, I've never killed a horse. I'd probably eat one. I bunting, Uh, I just wonder as the toolbox. I mean, they have a certain toolbox that's not working. Hunters our tool themselves. So I want to or how that could be done. It would never be tolerated in this country for people to just be walking around killing horses. Well this year, you tell me this could be another emails. I'm pretty sure. Um, I feel pretty confident saying this out loud, that there was a hunting season was opened on a Native American reservation this year for a few, maybe one or two individual horses. I don't I'm fairly certain that none were harvested, but I would have to imagine that decision came about out of um desperation, you know, that group of people, those land managers, those stakeholders, feeling as though there weren't options available aside from hunting. UM on a more general from a more general place, you know. The kyote reference in the pay reference I think are interesting because kyotes were initially like a Southeastern species that have colonized America functionally, because we removed a lot of the apex predators that kept them in check, and we just created a lot of avenues for them to to just like pigeons or starlings to kind of follow our dust trails. An adaptive critter that that can live where we live, or really can live anywhere. Right, Yeah, we gave it an inch, they took a mile. Um. A lot of the research out there would say now that hunting kyotes actually just makes more coyotes, and hunting hogs makes more hogs, educates the ones that are there and makes more Right. So I think at that point, you know, hunting in those situations, I would say, isn't a tool for necessarily management. Maybe on a small local level, on a certain ranch or a certain area, you might be able to impact the long term population, but I think the take needs to be pretty high. Horses are different because they're not as fecund, or they're not reproducing as rapidly as a kayla or a pig, which we now have many babies often. Um. I'm on an expert in horse biology, but I would probably wager that if that was legal, if that was socially acceptable, if the tools were in place and the platforms in place to implement hunting never gonna happen but continue, it could be effective. Unfortunately, I as somebody who loves horses, as somebody who more than anything loves well my family and friends, but ecosystems, that's what I live for. I don't quite see another option. I think that that the situation will only get worse. And I think them we're kind of at a point of no return where the populations are going at a rate that the tools we have can't possibly do enough. Uh. And I think the result is that you're going to have more die offs, and you're going to have more public land that's degraded, and you're going to have more wildlife that are losing and more horses that are losing. Uh. And it's just kind of a shitty situation. Yea, horses, wild horses, a shitty situation. But yeah film, yeah, yeah, I mean I think these shitty situations are stressful, stressful. He's sweating right out and talking. I'm still looking at these horses right now. Sorry. UM actually want to like watch like finding any morse some something up keeping simple, don't watch Dances with Wolves or anything. Um. I like the way that you put that because I think shitty situations are are just like you said, be a student. Understand that there is a positive outcome here. Are we able as a society moreover two stomach killing a horse to save the horses and the elk and the stage your house. Are we willing to do that? My best guess is absolutely fucking not. No way damn it. Then, But me, if you gave it up to me, if if if somebody's came in here and say like absolute is um you can make the call, I'd be like, go yeah, because I think the fail sace of science based biology based tag systems, where the wildlife managers can make the proper calls. These guys you're talking about, that, the ones that are so distressed about the situation, they can be like, yes, I've been doing this for twenty years. I'm ready for this now. Maybe I wasn't ten years ago, but now I am. Let's try it on a limited basis and see and if it works and we gotta keep doing it. And let me take you over to the parking lot. There's a thousand horses bumping around and you know, licking each other and starving to death at once a once a month. Let me take you over there. People are hitting horses on the road. We met multiple people who had lost neighbors to horse collisions. We found dead horses, we have video footage of horses dying. We had plenty of footage of horses that are just covering scars head to toe fighting for water. We have footage of wildlife being moved off water because hundreds of literally over a thousand horses in a day, like a steady stream of bands coming into water. Um, I just think of what people might not understand. Fifty five thousand horses extra number one, number two, That is so many horses, nine thousand wild horses and burrows exist to the best of our knowledge on public lands. And that's fifty five thousand more than the best scientists have determined the landscape can sustain. It's a lot of animals. I like our hashtag keep it public. I do like that hashtag, But I would also say keep it fucking sustainable. And that's my other hashtag. We have a lot of good ones. That's one. Can we say keep it sustainable? Like it's public? Great, lovely? Now we're all together paying for this thing. We're all together, you know, using it and helping to manage it. But my god, can we just say, biologists tell us how we sustain this, and that's what we'll do totally. And I think, you know, another big thing is just to think about these places ecosystems. You know, whether you're an ice climber or a biker, or a deer hunter or a waterfowl guy, are different passions and interests generally rely on an ecosystem functioning at some level. And I think to remind people that, yeah, mountains aren't elk vending machines, mountains aren't didn't weren't, you know, don't exist just to be climbed. That just because you have a bivy and you hype the PCC PCT doesn't mean you're benign. You know that we all have these things we want to take, whether it's an experience or an animal or a photo, those things hinge upon the fact that an ecosystem is there, you know, And then we can't just look at them as these like disparate little kind of things. They all are connected. And I think we need to look at science. There's a lot of bad science out there. There's a lot of great science out there, but we need to look at science and look at the options available with that like level head, you know, of not getting caught up in emotions because sadly we live in a time where emotions do more than science. You know, I was listening to a Ted talk the other day and this guy said that the way we feel about animals will do more to write their future than anything will read in a science book. And that is scary. That's a great point. Yeah, And then how do we, as you and I, just as individuals, help to with all good conscious like adjust the way people think about animals without thinking about that is it's totality, right, I mean we our relationships with animals start in such a fucked way as children. Yeah, I can't say funding then that keep talking about children, sorry kids, but it starts in such a weird way. The prism that that even me as a parent has created for my son such will be so weird to him when he gets out in the world and discovers Oh well, that's not the way. You might as well have created certain individual species as Santa Claus, you've basically told me a lie about what they are. Like, you lied to me. They don't wear suspenders and go to the market, they eat, they're young, Like, why did you lie to me? Why of all the things you could have stuffed and put in my crib, why didn't you just put like a crab in there or something. Why did you put a freaking why did you put a bison and a bear in there? Like why did you choose that? And we'll have to say, huh, that's a good point, man. And you know I wrote this the other day that a wildlife, a wild space life is not an easy one. You know, for folks who have sat out and watched elk in the rut, or have watched horses a little watering hole or even watch does get after it. I mean it's rugged out there, you know. I mean it is. It's a game. It's a it's a margin of inches and centimeters and and drips of water and leaves and bites of food. Um, and it's not Yeah, it's not Disney World. It's not Disney lamb. That's what I think. My another thing, when my son, my wife's like, hey, we want to go to the zoo. I said, I'll let you go to the zoo, and not that I control you. We want to go to the zoo and our son has fun there for now he's not even two yet. That's great, feed the goats whatever, but let's watch it when we get we get to the point where he understands what these animals really are because and that's a good I feel like it's a good segue or a good way to mash together what wild animals are and what those that are living in captivity are. Those animals more accessible to us. We've taken away their wildness. That doesn't necessarily make those animals happier or healthier. It makes them sick. Ah. And so this this why not embrace the wild, like how wild it is and how complicated it is, and how it asks things of us as participants in it. That can be difficult, because living in the wild is difficult. But you can't take that away from a a lion put in the zoo and say it we'll be happy now we took away the wild. Nobody will try to eat it in there. And that was that I was like, fuck you, I would rather be out there trying to get eaten by something. Well. And I think you see the horses in the holding facility, you know, and you see them and it's like, Okay, they're safe, they have water, they have food. That life's gotta suck, you know. I mean, life in the wild isn't much easier. But I don't know. I think if those horses could talk, they'd probably vote for an option in the wild. And if the bears could talk, they'd be like, stop putting me the stuff, asshole, because I'll eat you, and you come up you go up here trying to feed me, and then I have to eat you because I'm a bear, and then you stop it. Well, and it's the idea of of of ambassadors. Really, you know, it's something that um, a good friend of mine, Chris Burke. Are people maybe listening to know of his photographer a really great yeah, great guy. You know, he and I were having a conversation about Yosemite and it's like, okay, how do we talk about Yosemite? Is it wild? Is it wilderness? You know the valley because I know the up country is different. Um, but you know, we we we came up with this idea that it's kind of like the sacrificial lamp, that it's this ambassador for wild places that while the average visitor, like myself, maybe we'll complain about the traffic and the people and the cement paths and you know this and that and the other. The beautiful thing about a place like Yosemite is that every day, thousands of people go to Yosemite and have an epic outdoor experience. They go back to their communities across the globe with a new schmark for epic nature, and they, in some way, to some degree, I would imagine, have some sort of deeper connection with the natural world. Just like the bear in the zoo or the horse in my backyard. They're kind of ambassadors for these wilder things and in the same through the same lens. That's what excites me about the hunting space. You know, I grew up hunting, I've hunted a little bit. I'm mainly a wildlife nerd who eats meat and enjoys going out and trying to get some I do think that one of the things that's been intriguing to me about the hunting space that there are a lot of people out there, yourself included, who I think are amazing ambassadors for the right story, the story that helps solve the pr crisis that I think has been troublesome of the hunting space, narratives that challenge all the bs that gets published, the worst examples that gets published, and reminding people that there's a lot of really good humans out there doing their best with open open mine, an open heart, interested in asking questions, interested in being compassionate, interested in doing the best they can on the land, and just trying to go about in the best way. And it's like we're better off showing them the best examples of our community as opposed to talking ship and saying like, look how bad this person is or how they could have done that better. And that's something for me that recently came up because I got into a situation not long ago where I was in a bunch of like in a group of people that were all honey industry people, and I found us just churning through like oh that guy all we all kind of agreed on, you know, the judgments we're throw in a too handsome like guy's a nerd, nerd, get out, get out of here. But I found myself like, oh, man, here's a bunch of people, smart, influential, understand hunting, compassionate, good people, but are getting caught up in like just I mean, maybe it's just an interesting conversation to have about people and the rumor like man, I gotta get away from that. That's one too. When one of these damn lady killed the giraffe stories comes up, and the and just like the the gun, the mass shooting comes up. This is a storyline that we've all heard before, right, So, so lady kills giraffe, sits in front of draft, takes photo. People get mad. That's a storyline we've always discussed. We've been there, We've done that. I think this, you think this. I ignore. I have to ignore that, like going forward in my life, not that I did in the past, because as a writer and a journalist, I'm like, well, that's a great can write a story on that, people might click on it. Whoa. Um. But now it's just like I'm gonna keep just over here pulling and maybe whild horses, although not as compelling as Lady with Giraffe, is a better way to spend my time, in a more positive way, to pull the rope towards me. Um. And maybe if as soon as I start engaging in some ridiculous bullshit argument with somebody about a giraffe, and you know how it always goes, She's like, hey, she should have shot that giraffe, And you're like, well, giraffe, that was an old giraffe. Man, But you've never even seen it was eight. Look at the strange. It was an old giraffe to be like, listen, go away, I'm over here learning and experiencing and doing the things that are important. You were over there looking at a giraffe somebody shot in Africa and getting mad like no, And even if you win that argument, or I win that argument, or whatever happens, none of us have ever done anything to pull the rope right to the right right side. And this is just a tug of war taken off. That's just taking our time. A giraffe, once they have purple tongues, they do. I've seen one. In fact, I was in Africa. I saw one, and I was expert Africa. I was with my mom and she cried and she saw it was a little struck by it, and I thought, well, let's and then we decided. They were like, well we were hunting, not your graft. And the guy goes, well, you can shoot a draft you want. I'm like, well, I'm aware of that that. I like, well, my mom's crying about how impactful. See my mom, asshole, he's crying. It's my mom. I don't shoot things, Yeah, I don't shoot things that make my own crime okay, buddy, but that's like, well it's seventeen fifty. That's how much it costs to kill That name is George. Yeah he's old, don't worry. So if you take a picture with him head button all the draft eating all the tops of the trees. But that, yeah, that those things are just I think maybe with wildlife, if you tell yourself, I want to understand the entirety of this thing, or at least when I get down to a certain species or a certain problem, just like wild horses, let me understand the entirety of this thing from the perspective of compassion, as you said, perspective of leaning on the biologists, leaning on the ecologist, leaning on the people that are doing it, trusting their opinions and letting them do their work. Like all those things come together to be the best thing for the animal. Saving all of them is never the best thing that I found. Killing all of them is never the best thing I found. But there's some weird middle ground that we should strive to live in that would be helpful. Yeah. And you know one thing that I think kind of I guess changed the way I thought about some of these wildlife issues was spending time in South Texas. So Ben and I went down there two years ago and we were staying on a ranch kind of near fell furious you've been there, not been there right now. There's a lot of fracking out there, shell country. Um. And we're staying with friends of friends, wonderful family. Uh for listening, Thank you for having us. Um. And I was talking to mom, you know, and it's this huge spread um, you know, mesquite kind of this new country for me and never never been out there before, so pretty intrigued. Tons of pigs, tons of deer. Um. You know. The family loves to hunt. Uh. They also had a lot of fracking going on. And I talked to the mom one day, you know, being somebody who I think a lot of people would have been as kind of like a hippie to start with, you know, UC Berkeley, ten years, California surfer whatever. UM, call me what you will. I'm totally intreated by the middle ground. I'm totally intreated by other people's realities. And I asked her, I was like, hey, how does like I don't know anything about fracking. I've read a bunch of papers about it. I like listened to professor's talk about it. I don't think about it personally, like you on this land, how does it like? What's the deal? How does it make you feel? She's like, well, do you look out there, that little guesthouse you got to stay in. That was my family's homestead. That was their their main house. And they scraped living together, running a few cattle, probably oriented, uh, never really got ahead. It's tough life. You know, South Texas hots rugged. There's not a lot out there. I mean there is, but it's it's rough to landscape. So she says, okay, so imagine this. You know, you own all this land. Somebody knocks and Georant says, We're gonna pay you guys this much every month for this many years, and it's gonna change your life. And she's saying on her famili sement her future and she says yes, And everybody has their own opinion. I don't know what I would, you know, I'm not going to make an opinion on it, but that's what she did with that. It's changed their family's life. She's now one of the main people in that part of the state that holds uh migratory pollinator kind of events where people come out to their ranch and they document songbirds and migrating monarchs, and they're constantly working to restore the ecosystem to be more friendly to migrating pollinators. And she was like this total butterfly nerd and totally passionate about it and totally passionate about songbirds and creating habitat and managing the wildlife. And she wouldn't be able to do that if they didn't accept that opportunity. You know, one is not better than the other. But that's her, somebody's reality, and she is going about her reality, and I think a pretty awesome way. You know. It's easy to say like, oh man, she's fracking that shitty, you know, but she's a good she. I met her. She's a great person, and she is using some of that financial latitude to do something that needs to be done, you know, which is like being mindful of the fact that pollinators are in decline, migrating monarchs are in decline. And she has a small role in that huge narrative, which I think is an important one. Yeah, well, what that almost bleeds into like in a strange way, you go north to Utah and you look at bears ears, and you're like kind of similar to that, Like there's a place that's sacred to a lot of people. Sacred to one side because of its the glory of the way it looks in the in the landscape, and even on the native side how they how they view it in their culture. But then it's really so the other side they be like, we get some money out of that thing. We need that stuff. That's there's consumption that we have to drive and there's some over there like to get it. Um. Same for that lady, I mean, you have to have if the government was a person, if the government was that lady, the government has to make that choice. One side would choose fracking, one side would choose you know, butterfly preserve um. Even for the government fracking money, you know, national monument costs um and there are some so there's both signs of that. And it's hard because like how do you how do you how do we you know, you and I have our own set of ideals and experiences and and uh kind of intuitions, like how do you put a value? Like how do how It's hard, like how do you judge that? You know, I mean, how do you judge the Native Alaskan who is advocating for a road to be built to there their remote village that goes through Caribou migrant myer tree grounds, and they're gallon of milk is gonna go from twelve bucks a gallon to three because they can drive in the nine hours to Fairbanks. You know, like how it's it's tough. I could see it both ways. I can see, I can see like the history of I can see one way saying we don't need any more roads, right, because if you follow that one guy's line of thinking, I need a road to make my milk. If everybody's milk gets cheaper, our landscapes get destroyed. We have flying cars. See call in. I know there's no calling away, but right in write me a letter like flying car guy, I need you. But do you think of flying cars there would be no roads or would there be like count floating cones then by flying cones, but then they would probably run on the batteries and they'd crash in the water and then pollute the water. Right, the floating cones to run on some sort of biodiesel ship say or something. Anyway, if we said, hey, guy, you need cheaper milk. We're gonna do that for you. That's your choice. We're gonna we're gonna make that. If every guy that needs cheaper milk gets a road, then our environment fucking loses. But if every road doesn't get built, then the people that rely on that environment lose. So shitty situation. Well, so it makes me think about you know, Wilson's half first hYP hypothesis. You know, Wilson's probably the most famous in my nerdy opinion, extant living conservation biologist. He's a Harvard professor emeritus, just total legend. He one of his theories is that in order for humanity to exist long term, we need to set aside half of the planet for wildlife and and ecosystems. He thinks there's hope with that mindset. I think it's a pretty awesome idea. With that mindset, you know, we'd look at the guy who wants cheaper milk, and we look at the other dude who wants cheaper milk, and we'd say, what is the ecological value and what is the impact the net impact? So me personally, and maybe I'll get hate mail for this. I see the bearsiest thing which is important and has the out of value placed. But if we took all that inertia that was being put into saving a monument that has mining operation and grazing operations and recreation and cars and roads and a lot of impact, we took all that inertia and applied it towards anwar the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or to the National Oil and Gas Refuge Reserve, which is next to Animar, which is the largest piece of public land in America. It's the most remote that there is a place in that in that reserve that is more remote than then certainly Elstone, but it's the most remote place in America. We should put all of that energy into saving that place because the ecological system there is pretty pristine and there's a lot to save. So it's easy, I think for folks to get drawn into these clickbait wolves. It all funk at all. Yeah, but we just seem to be I think. I think the move is to be thoughtful to say like, hey, look, if we're gonna save something, we can't begin to compare bears ears to an war totally different things. What's our goal for goal? Saving ecosystems? We've got to save Annir for our goals to honor and preserve Native American culture. Already that up, already sucked that up. But that's obviously something that's a little bit more. And maybe I'm not even to say that, but it seems like that's a big part of the Bears Ears. Yes, for sure it is. Yeah, Yeah, it's hard to draw the comparison, but way high level, the fracking lady in Texas is making some at some level of the same decision that our country or government is making on that landscape. Do we take the stuff out we want and possibly harm this place and profit from it as society, or do we leave it? Um, that's an interesting one. And so for half Earth, do we get to go to the other half and hunt? No, we do? Uh VR virtariality. Google with the little goggles don't like that. I don't know. I think I think that you yeah, I don't know. It remains to be seen, But I think the idea of sustainable hunting, sustainable eco tourism. I mean, it's just like you see these people with photos of of the whale sharks. You know, there are examples of eco tourism, opportunity to see whale sharks that I think have a pretty low impact, and there's a lot of opportunities, like in the Philippines where they're just dumping dried shrimp in the water and there's eighty boats and the whale sharks are not kind of stoked. So there's good and there's bad examples. And I think just back to hunting, you know, like there are more white tailed deer in America today than there ever have been. To kill a white tailed deer is a if that's something that's available to you, and you have the means to do it, and you're interested in you eat meat that is, you cannot argue the net impact of that harvest, and what you would gain from just the cal caloric standpoint is far better than definitely ordering meat from getting meat from the market, and in some cases buying app It's like, if you don't live in California in the fall, you're getting apples from Washington shipped from California Chile. If it's if it's you know, the winter, I mean think about that, you're getting an apple that's grown probably with pesticides, on an ecosystem far away, put on a plane flown to you some cases wrapped in plastic. You know, I mean, and it's all about I think, looking at what's available. Like I felt so honored and lucky able to harvest that elk, because not only do I have you know, well over a hundred pounds of meat, but there's all the benefits of realizing that, like I shot that less than an hour from my house. It was butchered by my fiance's uncle. Ah, it's that animal lives an amazing life in public land. It died quickly, and it's kept me fed, my friends fed, and it's been this amazing, amazing reminder of like how that little unit, which is not a national park, not a state park, not a national monument. Frankly it looks like nothing from the trail, is my favorite piece of public land in America. And if that place was going to be destroyed or impacted, or if there were some threat, I and probably a bunch of other people would be out there. Yeah, you know. Well, and honey, I think is like to me the outside world, if the outside world was a swimming pool, if you go climb, it's like, yeah, sitting up to your waist, you're in it. Yeah you're not really in it. I really don't like you're in it, honey, is like diving in, Like now you're in it. Now you're part of the give and take. Now you're part of all that stuff. And then you dive in, you're dawn. I want to swim deeper, ship, I gotta swim even more deeper now I can just I don't even need to breathe anymore. This is just the way I am, And I like, that's why it's so different for people. If you've never dipped your toe in that pool. Diving in seems like a long ways away from just like, oh, that's nice. And that's why you said, like as as ambassadors for the outdoors, place like Yellowstone are important for people to be like, well, that's cool, that's an elk, and then conversations like this one. Oh man, all right, I could kill that elk, but I could still have compassion and care for it, and they could be nuanced. M okay, maybe I might try that, And then that person goes and tries and they they teach that method to their kids. I mean, maybe maybe the modern sport hunter just had it wrong for the beginning, Like maybe the modern sport hunter somewhere in the forties of the fifties fucked it up, and there was a hole legacy of my grandfather and my father teaching me a way that wasn't sustainable for now totally. And I think not their fault, by the way. I love you, Dad, and I'm sure there's things that we're thinking now that aren't sustainable for the future even then. But like somewhere along the way we made a pool seemed like it was not you know it was, it wasn't very swimmable. We made it seem to the regular person who's never been in it. I don't know where that happened. Well, I think that's the beauty of like history, right, like hindsight. Foresight's a lot less than that, you know, And to your point, I think back then, like you can't necessarily blame the trappers. My grandfather hunted wolves because there was a bounding on him and he was a Harvard trained forester. He loved the woods as much as anybody. I don't think he would have thought in fifty years you would have an environmental situation like we have today. There's also I think a point worth making, which is that the currency that the hunting community or the outdoor community, or the wildlife active you know, advocacy community, the current the the outstanding currency I think could be improved. Whether it's the outdoor space too. To offer praise around athletic feet is worthy, but I think there's there's a lot of room for stewardship as well. The hunting space, the adventure, the hunt is what draws a lot of people into that world that gets them to dive in. Often times the hunt is take is given a back seat to the trophy shot. The trophy shots can be done across the spectrum of could have done better and pretty mindful, I think. And what excites me about working, you know, with working being an editor, modern huntsman, being a conservation advisor at SITKA, is that there is an opportunity to place value on a new model of currency, to say that we as people in the industry, as people in your community, as your neighbors, as people who are interested in care about the things you're interested in care about, we value this type of narrative. We value this type of curiosity, this type of hunt, this approach to storytelling. And I think through that our kids and our grandkids might be able to look back and say, like that was pretty cool, you know, they like pushed the needle in the cool direction because we have so much knowledge and so much so many resources that our grandparents just didn't have. Yeah. Yeah, you know in the internet, for one, invented it. Yeah, thanks al, you know. Yeah. And I wouldn't never be to say that it never is foolish to think like we're somehow better than them. It's not the case. The case is the way the world in society has shifted. Maybe the place we started wasn't the right place for the shift that happened. Doesn't mean anything along that way was done, you know, with ill intent or whatever like that. But I do think that's UM a huge part of this conversation and and points well made. And I think we've we've on an hour and forty six minutes. Somewhere. My child is in Bozeman crying eating its third kind of ice cream. That's right, he was getting pizza. I think that wasn't Yeah, but anyway, UM, check out all of sikest conservation projects. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff we're working on. Read Modern Huntsman. Read Modern Huntsman. UM watch for these films that are coming out on wild horses and also on sheep in Texas. Yeah, thanks to you helped us out with that. Yeah, I did you? Eddie sponsored that? Yeah, all kinds of stuff. Yeah, and you can learn more about my nerdy escapades Charles Post trails Underscore post on Instagram. I mean it's not I mean, for a nerd, you're pretty cool. You know what I'm saying. Thanks, You're no problem. It's funny because I took Rachel. I played I have a film, Sky Immigrations. It's done the band world tour and uh wild and seeing a few others you know, played at Berkeley, and I was like, oh, I got to take her to my like and I took I walked her to the library's racist study because those are my favorite places, like, oh that was my desk. Anyway, don't make fun of me. If you shoul listen to this. She was like, well, thanks for towards the library. Let's get out of it. We are you gonna take me next? The other Ali bar cool man? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thanks for having stoke for neighbors. We are cups and string or walkie talking. Hey, um, breaking news. I'm moving to Bozeman. It's awesome. Don't move here. Don't move here. Nobody else. Okay, bye, that's it. That is all episode number twenty of the books. So thank you to Rachel and Charles having me onto their place in Boza, Montana, and to Charles especially for the great conversation. Hopefully you will continue to follow Charles look him up on Instagram, look at look up. All his media projects and film projects, all those are worthy of your time if you're a hunter. He's got a perspective of EA and he could be a true conservation of bastard and true and bad stroop for science based conservation as well. Until next time, for episode number twenty one, will be joined by Sam Sohol and Jason Matt Singer. Go to the Honey Collective dot com. There's articles there in this podcast. There all kind of stuff there that you can go. Take a look at the last couple of podcasts from Ben shed Crazy, Dantha Monte and others. So enjoy those and we'll see you next week.

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