00:00:12 Speaker 1: I guess I grew up on an all day row. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode one twenty six. Phil. Is that right? We'll keep it in because this is this is real. It's like reality rally TV. We got a good show for you today. We got Miles Notlted, director of Fishing from One Meat Eater. Say hy, Miles, hello, and then fill up the engineer. I'm here to steal here. Okay, sounds he sounds excited. I'm feeling pretty good right now. I'm feeling like the world's opening back up like a gentle flower does in springtime. And um, you like that? He like? Does that make you feel good? Miles? He's filled. N't like it? He's like I said, no, I mean, you know, it's it's a little trite, but it's working. Yep. That's the title of my autobiography. A little trite, but it's worked. We got a great show for you today. We've got Shane Mahoney, the great conservationist from Conservation Visions also uh the founder and main driver of something you hear about soon called the Wild Harvest Initiative, which is tracking meat wild meat consumption and it's impact economically, culturally, and all the other ways. It is significant to our society. So you'll hear a lot from Shane Mahoney coming up. Um, he put me in a trance with his beautiful man. I'm as I was just gonna say, I could listen to that guy talk about absolutely anything all day. I don't like to Yeah, you're talking about crochet or cross stitch or I mean, I'm sure there's a difference between those two. I don't know it, but if he was explaining to me, I could probably learn the difference between crochet and cross because I would want to hear it from him anything. He was on fire today. He was on fire, so you're gonna you're gonna hear him in rare form. Um. He did text me later and let me pull up and read some of the text. I hope that's okay with hu, Shane, if you're listening. Um, I didn't get get this your prior, but he sent me some like motivational text and he said, um, are you sure that was a keeper, referring to our interview, And I was like, yeah, I thought it was great. And he said, if it wasn't legendary, then is it worth it? I said, I think it was I think it was worth it, of course, and he said, no, I think it was great. But we can go further great comfort zones, rattle establishments. Also, you refer to me as a legend, right or wrong, You've set the bar. So hopefully you all believe that this interview you're about to hear a little bit later on his legendary. I think it is. We talked about a lot of things. We'll cover some of those here in this in this opening segment, but I'm looking forward to that. Like as Miles said, I always like just kind of picking up his energy, getting his insights. I told him, you know further in that text conversation that he just kind of re energizes me in terms of how I see the world. And and again him pushing me to rattle establishments and go go further into these issues. Um, I will. I will take that up and and drive harder each time. So thanks thanks to Shade for that, and I'm looking forward to But before we get to all of that, Phil, you wanna keep going on the pooping in the woods thing? You want to let that let that fall? Uh? Do you have any new developments, any new emails that you found pertinent or well, Miles, have you been tracking Phil's first proof in the woods story? I have, I'm aware of it. Um. Yeah, yeah, you and I shared on the podcast during the Daily Quarantine Cast rather intimate pooping story that that, Um, you have to go back and listen to that. We're not gonna share it again. You're not getting that gold. That magic again can only be told one time and then we must put it away. But we got a lot of emails about the poop story, and there's nothing I can do. I don't want to leave the listeners hanging. Phil's first crap seems to be seems to have captivated the nation. Um, how do you feel about that? Phil? I was gonna ask that same question. You know, I'm just club glad. I can be like a great kind of I don't know what's equalizers not the right word, but I'm just bringing people together. You know, you're not alone. Um, and I found out that I'm not alone. So that's it's comforting. It's just it. Yeah, it's good. Many dogs eat human feces, as we've learned, and many people are realizing through Phil, as we talked about last week. In the week prior that, well, I haven't never crapped in the woods. I didn't know that. I hadn't thought about that, not me personally, but most of the emails are saying they've had a revelatory moment thanks to Phil, that they too had never crapped in the woods before. And so I'd like to say there's a ten percent increase in crap in the woods as we speak. So there's no way for me to know that. We will probably use some of the extra budget we have here to commission a report. But until that time, we just have emails. And one such email came from Jeremy Aaron Uh. It is entitled pooping for Survival and he it's a long email, but um he wrote this not probably having yet heard your actual story. He said, a quick message for Phil, disregard all the external pressure to take your first deuce outdoors. Much like feeling the warm embrace of a good woman for the first time. It will happen when the time is right. So he didn't know that. He didn't know that you had taken a crap, but he he goes on to talk about his time and what is called the s e r E School or Survive Evasion Resistance and escape, and that they would send their folks on a field exercise with no toilet paper. He says this, Uh, they send them out, they say, go survive on an approved list of items. Nary a toilet paper is on the list. He says. Um, for some this is not an issue. The stress of the course can cause the bowels of many to stop up quicker than your old pal, Steve, going off topic in an interview for the And you know, as an a side, TC has become a safe place to rip on Ronelle at this point. Uh, Steve, like Phil, do you feel like that's good for our jobs? Or should we stop doing that? I would say stop please, I quite I quite enjoy my job. Yeah, me too, Maybe we should. You know, Steve and Ella, being the great probably the greatest living hunter, would understand the need for comedy. You know. Also, you know, just a good looking guy, full head of hair, I mean, beautiful children, beautiful family, hot tub pool whatever, I mean, at least two cars um um. Wonderful dude. Anyway, Aaron Jeremy continues on. For others, nature still cause calls, whether you're being hunted by the steely eyed Cadre or not. So one has to take a crap, but you have no tp what to do. The instructures advise against using foliage for ship tickets, too many poisonous plants have been used before. Socks are crucial for feet, so that's a no go. They forbid us from using the cameo pants and blouse they give us, so naturally undershirts fall victim to our bodily functions. Knives come out, shirts are cut, and buttholes are cleaned. This method actually provides a good indicator of who had to crap in the woods and how much. When we get back to base and turn in our issued gear, you'll see many students missing a sleeve off their T shirt. I myself have turned my shirt into a tank top. And then there was one student in my class missing both sleeves and was now wearing a crop top that stopped just below his nipples. That, my friend, is in an inorminate amount of crapping. But hey, you do what you gotta do. We go ahead, No, no, please finish. We in the service. No sacrifices will be made by use. But recruit recruiter never told us our undershirts would be sacrificed as well, So Phil should you go on a hike and forget your ship tickets, remember this hot tip. I'm gonna build on that. I got another hot tip for for Phil or the listeners, or whoever cares. This is uh specific to certain areas. It's very helpful where we happen to live. It's not going to help you out everywhere. But river rocks are a very very good tool for cleaning yourself up and and obviously the in an optimal situation there actually is a river and a water source there that that's even better. But where we live, river rocks are spread far, far far from any water source. You can find them all over the place. The key is they're very smooth, but they have a lot of surface areas, so they're not gonna They're not gonna injure you. There are any sharp points that you're gonna do damage to yourself on, but they tend to be pretty well pocked, have a lot of surface area, do a great job of cleaning you up, and no chance of you know, poison, ivy, or any other mistake. In terms of pick and foliage of the day, you want to choose, Choose the ones that are closest, that have just been covered in water. They just the water has receded or has expelled them somehow, and they've been a little slick. Johnny Vincent talked about this a couple of weeks ago, so well, that's as one of the many things he does. But agreed, agreed, Phil, How you feeling about that email? They keep coming in? I just thought that one was particularly well done. That's good. The rocks, the shirts, it's enlightening. I'll make sure to wear some cheap disposable te yards every time I get out there. Now, I mean I do have a gear idea for th HC. Now it was just a crop top nipple shirt or like maybe just one. It's one that has like perforated lines on it. Oh like it has yet it has, and they could have looked like three ply like have like a nice Charman cooshion. Look to it. All right, it will say my shitty th HC shirt on it, and then yeah, that's good. I mean that's another way to keep keep our jobs. All right, Well, we're gonna leave that behind. Um Please, if you haven't listened to Miles and Eyes ship story, go back into the quarantine cast and and and look for that because it's a necessary function of our relationship. Um, we got we got here. This is one that, like I, I hesitate to even read it because I don't know I have bird feeders, but I don't know much about the subject. But I will read it because I think it's interesting. David Reid writes in Hi, Ben, I know this may be a little out of your expertise, but I know how much you love ethics questions, smiley face emoji or whatever. Our bird feeders ethical are We are artificially propping up a population that couldn't sustain itself without America having bird feeders? Is it okay to artificially prop up a population to make up for all the other ill effects we have had on their populations? I love your show, David Reid. Um, Miles, what do you think a buddy? Have you ever thought? I have not thought about that in that particular context. The way I've always wondered about bird feeders as being an unnatural food source has to do with predators in the sense of like, at least I will admit this my mother. My mother likes cats. Okay, I'm sorry, Cal, but it's true. I was gonna say, we need Callahan for this but my my mom eventually got rid of her bird feeder because she felt so guilty at the number of songbirds that her cats would just pick off because they would lie in ambush beneath or near that bird feeder, right, and the seed falls to the ground and the birds go down after it, and that cat would just be all over him, I mean, just just pounce. So so I think in that sense, you know, if there are cats around, bird feeders can be a little bit of a problem. Um. But it terms I don't want to I don't want to skimp on the actual question here, because I think it's an interesting one. I'd have to do a little bit more research. But having really no actual valid scientific information, I would say, I think it's fine. Birds need food. They get a long way to go. David's right. In my research, Americans make bird feeding at their homes a regular habit. Um. So that's stuff four out of ten of us a rocking that I have some bird feeders. I haven't thought about this. Um. I grew up around my my parents always had hummingbird feeders and and various specifical bird features on our porch, so it just became a way, um, you know, as you would imagine with any unnatural food source. They you know, all the research I did, they have contribute to outbreaks. Lots of different viruses and diseases. Housefinch eye disease is one of them. Don't ask me to explain what that is. It sounds interesting. Um, there's other things in terms of migration patterns and winter migration that are interrupted do this. So I imagine that any unnatural food source changes behavior patterns UM, mostly in a negative way, other than keeping birds alive that otherwise wouldn't have any food. Um. And so the other I went in search of some tips for David, even though I don't even know why I were talking about this on this show, but I just felt compelled to help David out. UM. Safe bird feeding includes completely scrubbing out your bird feeder ten like a couple of times a year, or with non chlorinated bleach solution that'll help keep that bacteria out of there. UM. Research the favorite seed for the bird you want to get in there. That way, you don't attract a bunch of different species, much like a hummingbird feeder just kind of attracts the hummingbird. And then look at feeder styles where to hang him, what to do with them? Be logical about that, but think twice, as our good friend Cal would probably say. Um, a lot of songbirds are here dying from the plague of the feline variety. As Miles explained, so if I have, if Phil, if you have a cow sound bite about cats, could you put that in right here? Do we have one? It shouldn't be too hard to find one. He's been. It's been a hot topic on this podcast. How does he not get more hate over there at cows? We can review for being anti cat? Cat people love cats. They love Cal too. It's true they're willing to overlook that because they're they're just so fond of him. All well, that's that's fine. We'll move on from that. Like I said, I don't really have a whole lot of than I wanted to help David Addy. He seemed desperate to know. Um, this is one that this next email, in our last email love this little segment will be one that I think Miles can definitely comment on because we produce our own shows. He produces dast Boat along with Can we talk about the Ice Ice Tour? Here? Is that we talked about it on the Mediator podcast. So I think we're safe here. I think we're safe here. Hey, shout out to Steven Now a great guy, favorite people in the world. Really classy dresser as well. Have you noticed that, I mean snappy. He's really a trend setter. Those hoodies, same pair of pants, four days a week. It's great. That's good. Um, what do we do in terms of filming television programs? During COVID nineteen, Scott Nespitt wrote in and he he got this question is mind after listen to my conversation with Donnie Vincent. He says certain Hounting celebrities and social media seem to be taking liberties with their quote unquote job to travel the States to hunt, claiming it is quote unquote work. An example of this is blank, we won't say your name. She has traveled from Florida, He certainly did. She has traveled from Florida to Georgia, to Kansas, to Wyoming to Montana chasing turkeys. I am only familiar with Montana travel restrictions as we planned to be chasing turkeys ourselves again this year in the Great State. So I made a comment to her, which I later deleted for various reasons, probably good call. Asking if she followed the fourteen day quarantine in Montana, she stated it was a suggestion and needed and it ended April, which was incorrect as the governor extended it. But anyway. She also said she was exempted because of the work exemption and she was social social distancing in her camper. What what kind of images this portraying for the hunting community as a whole, along with a ton of other questions, Scott um Miles, you wanna talk about how we're kind of handling it, or how you're handling it, or how we're trying to make this all work. Yeah, I mean, I think that this is a valid concern in question, and I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna use this opportunity to burn anybody or attack anybody. I think all I can do is speak for what we're doing, and we are keeping pretty close to home. We're not leaving the state, we're following social distancing, we're driving separately when we go out and do these things. But I also understand that it's it's very very difficult and very very complicated to try and have any kind of a hunting or fishing lifestyle at this point unless you're really fortunate and you have opportunities out your back door, which I do. So I count myself in a very very narrow percentage people who are really, really, really lucky. Um, the turkey I killed this year, I was at the desk back at work by thirty that morning because I didn't go very far from home. All the fishing I've been doing has been within an hour or so of home. So I think that everybody's got to figure out what makes the most sense for them and and what they can live with and feel good about. But I also think that we do have somewhat of a responsibility. I personally think that we have a responsibility to stay as close to home as we can and not expose anybody unnecessarily. Yeah, we talked about that. We talked about with Michael hunt Sucker during the quarantine cast where he was out running around as these kind of restrictions were starting to take shape and there was a lot of unknowns. Um Miles has been running for us at the media dot Com. He has been running our COVID nineteen Changes in Restrictions page, um Update and even really updating that, if not daily, a couple of times a week, right, Yeah, I mean anytime anything comes through. So lately there hasn't been a lot of news. No one's made any major changes in about a week at the state level. But for a while there it was multiple times a day that we were having to update that. Yeah, lots of fluidity in the situation, which makes it even more confusing as to what what you're they do. And and again this unnamed you know TV show social media person there that Scott mentioned, Hey, it's hard. That's her her living, uh supposedly and from all tense purposes. And she's in a camper driving around, so it's it's hard. But as as Joe Sihmelli wrote and a piece for us, you know, just don't you have to understand the responsibility to the hunting community, to the angling community. You don't want to be the one to cause cause trouble. You don't want to be the one um to be spreading this virus around and be the example made by some politician too to restrict access to anything. And yes, we may kind of be, as you mentioned, Miles, coming out of this to some extent where there is light at the end of the tunnel, But we don't know that for sure. It could be a train, we might be screwed. So um, we still have to just follow those those principles. I think the best advice I can give it to all hunters and anglers out there who rich and to get out and are itching to do any travel particularly, is before you go anywhere do anything, check in with the management agency where you're going and see what they're asking you to do, see what they're recommending, and follow those recommendations to the letter. It's it's as you were saying, Ben, it's really fluid. These things are changing very quickly. We can't even keep up with it. I'm spending more of my time than I would like to trying to run down what's changing where. But it's it's very region region specific, and all of it is is different day to day. So if you're gonna go anywhere you want a hunter fish, just check in with the management agency responsible for that area and and see what they recommend. Yeah, that's a the most respectful way to do it. People have asked a lot of people are written in over a dozen emails of people asking these questions like what do I do? How do I approach this is there a way of best practice way to go hunt and fish? And um, part of me wants to say, sure, here's exactly what to do. But most of the time I'm like, hey, in general social distancing, check the rules and regulations. Make that phone call that Myles has mentioned. But you know, there's gonna be a lot of unknowns, and so we at meat. Either. All of us have been kind of airing on the side of caution and been been doing things in a way that, um, we hope reflects best on our community and that we care about others and beyond that, it's hard to say. So, Phil, take us home with this very serious topic. Give us your expert opinion. Please, Yeah sounds good, Ben, Thanks alright, Moving on, Phil, Philly engineer always comes through. He's like he just it's like a comfort blanket. You are over there, that's right. I love you, buddy so much. You can't even throw things at you anymore because we're not even the same Room's baseball in his hand. I see that he wants to throw that hardy Randy Johnson over there is that people know who that isn't anymore? The big unit. Oh hell yeah. I grew up a Marriners fan. So speaking, you're speaking my language now, Ben a Marriners fan. I can't even remember where did you even grow up? Phil And I don't even I haven't put that my memory bank. I don't, I don't want. I grew up in Washington State, little city called Vancouver. Oh that makes sense, Yeah, yeah, I know I probably knew that at some point. Um, anybody remember the exploding pigeon. If you don't go on YouTube, do yourself a favorite. Right now, all of you who don't know what I'm talking about, going to YouTube and look up Brandy Johnson Exploding Pigeon. I'm sure you'll find it. Yeah, I mean, there is no way to avoid. That's why the Internet was created to preserve things like that. I mean. Yeah, And while you're at it, check out the video of Fabio getting hit by a bird when he's on a roller coaster. That one also, there's Yeah, can we just list things that you have to see? David after Dennis who knows whatever? Um, all right, well we got we got a very serious We gotta get serious because Shane Mahoney is coming up and we need to start miles. You need to really turn up the voice, man, you need to start giving us some soft, sweet tones to get us ready for old Shane Mahoney. I mean, it's it's hard to lay the groundwork for hard to leave the tracks for a train that's gonna roll that smoothly and and penetrate that deeply into your ear holes. But you know, I'm sure Shane has all kinds of interesting things to say. He always does, and I'm looking forward to it. It's like I said, it is, Um, it's a great one. No, nothing can can overhype it, I think because he just just hearing him work through some of the things we often talk about in the show is extremely valuable. But before we get to that, there's a couple of things I want to touch on. Help kind of set up a lot of what we talked about here. Um a lot of emails on this subject, trying to work this out in my own head, So I appreciate the help Miles and of course phil Um. At what point during the apocalypse do game laws go out the door? Like, at what point in the breakdown of society do we begin to get rid of our ideals around game laws. I think that this is a flawed question to start with. Let me just let me just throw this out because I think, and and maybe I'm wrong, but I think anybody who's asking this question is just looking for an excuse to break game laws, Like anybody who's who's who's digging through this and like when do I get to go out and shoot that animal that I'm not allowed to shoot right now? Like I think that you were at this point. The fact that your brain goes there tells me that you already want to do this, and that you're hoping or maybe just wondering how the excuse is going to present itself. So to me, the question in and of itself, it's not okay, it's problematic. It says some things that aren't that great. All right, Well, we're gone ahead and read the list of email names who have written this exact question. It's going to take about forty five minutes to read all their names and to damn them. You know. I will say this, Miles though, as I've thought in the in the past about hunting ethics and and fishing ethics the same, um, we there's something in us, not all of us, but the vast majority of us that like when the gloves come off in terms of like Ferrell hogs or these ideas that. I mean, I lived in Texas for a long time. I've never seen someone sadly shooting pigs from a helicopter with an a R fifteen. So I just think there's something about this where, you know, we're so constrained and sometimes people want to kind of let that loose. Now that maybe apples to oranges to the exact question, but but I think that's what's kind of poking at people here. And also that supply chains are are an issue for um, you know, store store bought meat and and other supplies of meat. So all that together kind of mixes together and becomes this weird question that so many people are asking. They're phrasing it in a lot of different ways, but I think what they're getting at is what I just asked. So it's interesting to think of that's for sure. See and and maybe I just think negatively about humanity. I'm a cynical bastard, which is very possible, but it makes me think of the fact that out my out my window of my office, just about any time I can look out into an aspen grove out there and see deer and sometimes there are some really nice bucks that walk within twenty yards of my back deck that I could very easily kill with a bow. It would be terribly illegal for me to do that, right for so many reasons. One, that's not my land too, I'm within city limits. You can't kill those deer. Three, it's probably not in season. But do I stand out on that deck and think about putting an arrow through those bucks when they walk by? Yes, I absolutely do, right, And and I think many people have had a similar experience going through Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone and looking at the size of some of those bull elk that wander around and wondering, man, what if I was allowed to shoot one of those? Right? And So I think that experiences like this one give you a moment to ponder, like when when does that thread snap? When is it actually okay for me to do those things that I've kind of guiltily fantasized about for years now. Yeah, yeah for me, Like it's it's that idea of supply chains, like says I. We were talking with Jesse Griffis last week and we've talked about this on the podcast A good a good bit about the you know, the length of supply chains. Shane mentions this in in the interview. You're about to hear like how long we've allowed our supply chains to get And a part of hunting and gardening and the local for movement is kind of shortening that supply chain so there's less links to break, right and hunting is the ultimate way to to do that. And in terms of of you know Shane Mahoney and his where he is with the North American model the wildlife conservation, which of course we talk about a lot in this because he was one of the first I guess you could call he was one of the originators of the idea than the first person to really popularize and marketed to stay game agencies. Is that there there's upholding of the public trust within that model, and these we have these governmental agencies that are proxy managers of our own supply chain, the supply chain of wild animals and wild places and things where we can get our food um and so we have to kind of maintain the idea of that public trust and the idea of those governmental agencies kind of upholding our supply chain, which is the health of our wildlife population and some fisheries and things like that. So I they answer that question, like, what point during the apocalypse do we just start shooting ship? You know, not until there is not until the government falls, I guess. Yeah. I mean, let's get real, let's get real sci fi on you. But not until there isn't a game agency to weigh in on the situation. You have to localize game management and turned back into a more tribal system. Not until that, And that's a long ways off, hopefully. I just feel like an idiot talking like this, But that's that's the question a lot of people are asking. No. I know, I know that we keep getting that question. We get it to a lot of different channels. Uh, all and often, and and again. I could be just terrible human, but my sense is that it's more rooted in that covetous desire that I was describing than any real sense of like, man, this is coming. But is it possible that we could get to a point where game management agencies no longer exist because the government has showered? Yeah, that is possible. That we're not anywhere near that, and I don't foresee that coming anytime soon. So I don't think I think we're jumping ahead in the conversation pretty far. I think the next step in the conversation would really be, like, hey, as all these people start thinking more about their meat supply chain and worrying about it, how many more people are gonna get into hunting next fall? And and do we need to think about how many tags we allocated a result of that potential increase in participation. That to me would be the next logical conversation. But it's not nearly as sexy or interesting or salacious as when do I get to shoot anything? Yes, and you know I haven't. I haven't thought about this way, but I would be so much chatter about this that I've kind of forced myself to to to travel here. Um, you know, and if you if you read World War Z or watch the movie, Um, there's a you know, there's a quote in there. I'm sure I'll butcher it. But in terms of you don't see these things coming until they're here, you know, you don't see it. You don't sit around waiting for a pandemic, but it hitching until it hitch in the face. And so there is some in terms of um, this exploration, there's some value. But thanks everybody for writing in miles thinks you're all insane, not insane selfish bastards. I think you're just like me. You're you're actually a selfish, evil human and you mask it because you want to be a good person. Phil, you seem despondent. Yeah, are you okay? I'm doing great now. I'm just soaking it in. I'm pretty sure he's just bored with everything we have to say right now. I always ask Phil to grade the show when we're done. I don't know. The look on your face that you just had while Myles and I were talking was one of complete disgust and just why how did I get here in my life? No, my mind is wandering. Um, but what are you thinking about? Man? Just open up. It's a safe place. You're in the trust tree. Yeah, I just think I'm just thinking about you know. I still I gotta finish. I gotta catch up on Better Call Saul. That's it. It would be more interesting than this conversation anything on television. No, listen, I know I know when to open my mouth. I mean when you when to keep it shut. It's when I have no I'm completely out of my uh my, you know what I have knowledge to talk about and this is one of those topics. I was just listening it and then calls me out and makes me look like a fool. Well, I won't stand for it anymore. Finally we've broken you, suggression will not stand man. Come on, man, all right, well you know to to the point you were making miles to completely leave, fill back out of the conversation, to return to our two person conversation here. There's been a rise in hunting numbers. Um, they're not firm numbers. We don't really we can we don't. There's not an enough time has passed here in the spring season for us to really dive into what all this means. But it's a little more than anecdotes. Um, you know a couple of things that I know you and I have talked abouts a little bit. But there's been six rise in turkey permit sales from late March through early May. UM in the state of New York, which is one of the hardest hit states with COVID nineteen and that and that's huge over that six increases over that same five week period from last year. That's that's big time, UM, big time numbers. Thousands of more turkey hunters in the Woods, Indiana saw up in turkey license sales during the first week of the season. Turkey hunter numbers and wildlife management areas in Georgia increased forty seven seven percent this year From um that doesn't paint a full picture, doesn't even come close. It's a tiny corner of it. But I haven't seen any data or anything to suggest that that this that doesn't signify the overall trend. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I think I've seen some some other data that show there's less travel hunting going on. So who knows how this all shakes out. Right, We're too too early to say, but I think I think initially an anecdotally, we can say that there are more people interested in hunting close to home and fewer people who are able to travel to hunt, and how that balances out is going to be interesting. I think it It would be logical to suggest that those high population areas that you're talking about, those states like New York and Pennsylvania and New Jersey might see serious spikes in hunting because a people are worried about where their food might be coming from, and be the people who normally may have gone somewhere else to do their hunting. All of a sudden, they're staying home. It'll be interesting to see how it impacts places that are more destination hunts out west, for example, because I really don't think we have enough to go off of their Yeah, there was a concern, you know, and i'd probably a very valid concern from Montana f WP that you know, non resident applications would go way down during this time because the application season ended from Elkan Deer right in the middle of like the height of our you know, pandemic and lockdown and our economy collapsing. So that's that was a huge concern for them, you know that that application part of it. But then I know the increase in resident hunting or hunting licenses, and as you say, was there's no way to know if they are brand new hunters or hunters that just had bought a license in a couple of years, or it was just more resident hunters buying licenses and less non resident hunters and how that mix came to be. But we're certainly starting to come into some line of site as to what's happening here, and it seems like um as it would be obvious that dynam Amic is changing, and it's changing for the positive in terms of the number of people buying licenses and go on hunting overall. Um And so it's interesting. We talked a little bit, you know, I asked this question to to Shane Mahoney in terms of I've read other reports this is way less, way less data driven, but that veganism is on the rise. So there was two reports that came out that talked about that in some surveys with folks. So like, the idea of veganism is on the rise, consumption of plant based meat is on the rise, and hunting transversely or conversely is on the rise as well. So what do you make all that? We talked to Shane about that, But I love to hear Miles what you say. I'm gonna guess Shane and I have similar perspectives, But I would say I think people are more and more interested in understanding better where their food comes from and having being knowledgeable about the journey that their food goes on from wherever it started to when they eat it. I think most of the vegans that I've ever talked to are very very thoughtful about what they consume and how they consume it. And what its impacts are. Um. I think that's true for a lot of hunters as well, and probably for a lot of the new hunters are coming in maybe because they're not so secure in our food systems at this point. They recognize that they're not infallible, not that we've seen any No one's starving as a result of food shortage at this point, let's be really clear about that. And they're from what I can tell, they're that's not on the horizon. But I think it's got people considering more closely how they food gets from starting point to consumption. Uh. And so to me, veganism and hunting would be parallel, sort of opposite sides of the same coin there, to use a trade phrase. There you go, open me too. Um. But they they're not that far off. I think that those are much closer than just sort of the zombie like consumption of whatever falls in front of you because someone put it there. Yeah, there's a lot of things. I've said this before, and we talked about this, and I think it's an important idea that this this pandemic, while awful, and you know, it hasn't touched everybody, but it's touched most of us in some way. Um, it's very much a bridge to some of this, you know, these other conversations about apocalyptic times or you know, society really crumbling. It's it's just like a a relatively and not in terms of the deaths, but in terms of what we're talking about here, um, supply chains and the structure our society and the fragility of those things. In terms of this, it's a bridge. It's it's letting us kind of feel some of that fear, connect with it, but also still be able to get toilet paper if we needed, but also see some empty shelves and feel that tinge of fear and anxiety that, while real, isn't exactly as impactful as it might seem at the end of the day. UM. And you know, there's been an uptiket people watching pandemic movies on Netflix and other places. I've read a report on that, UM, And I think people will watch those movies now and they feel a little extra you know, the heart beats a little bit harder. They see some parallels to what we've seen during this and it's just like I said, it's just a proximity feels a little bit closer to those realities. Um, Phil, please please wait in have you He's shaking his head telling me to go away. UM, serious question, Phil, if you have yours, If your family seen anything different over there as far as like how you consume or what you're worried about you talked about with your wife? Uh, you know no, because just like Myles said, there hasn't. I mean, at least from where we are, there hasn't really been a noticeable change in um kind of what's on the store shelves or um or anything like that. I mean, you know, there was that crazy toilet paper saw wipe shortage when this started. But that's you know, every time I've gone to the grocery store, I haven't you know, there's always chicken, there's always beef, there's always pork, there's all you know. I haven't I haven't seen a completely empty shelf of steaks and been like, oh I should go hunting. Um that you know, what was your number? Two point five? Three point five? It was two point five's I would also like to I'm gonna update my score quick aside here it's it's I'm at a four now. Yeah, I've been hearing I've been hearing all these turkey hunting stories and I I'm I'm I'm feeling the poll a little bit harder. All right, Okay, by the time we get you out there, it'll be like you'll be at least being a five. Yeah, we'll see about that. But now, I mean, I haven't the chain of um of consumption has not really been altered or broken, at least in my household yet now, and I think I think we can pull you well over into the five range, probably beyond if if if I could serve you some of the turkey breast I made this weekend off of off of, specifically off of Cal's recommendation, I'm wouna be honest, uh used the Brian out of the Media cookbook and a couple of tips from Cal and trusting it and smoking it. My only my only regret is that I can't travel out of my district to kill more turkeys because I've made the mistake of feeding some of it to my son and then it was all gone and I'm gonna run out of turkey in like five minutes. It's really bumming me out. So I'm just saying, Phil, if you could get ahold of some of that, I think it might put you over the top. Uh, you know, I'm willing to be a participant in this experiment. Yeah, I got it. And there's so many, so many failures I've had this spring in terms of turkeys and taking phil and I must admit, I mean we should we just do a Notzo sharp moment on just mine like the last two months of my life in terms of getting outside and doing things that are actually productive in terms of bringing home meat. Um, but that's for another show, hopefully another time. Myles. I got one last thing before we get to Shane mohoney. Um, I asked him this question. It was kind of in the moment question during the conversation, So in the context of the conversation, I think it made sense and he handled it well and we went through it and it was productive. But then on the back end, I'm like, does this even make any sense? Um? And You'll be the person that will be You'll be like, what the are you talking about? You're always the best to tell me when things are completely off. Um. The question is simply, this is hunting and angling. Put that in a bucket, honey and angling, selfish, selfless or both. First, I'm not throwing the question out entirely as I don't immediately look at that and be like, that's a waste of time. Why am I even think about this? Screw you ben from making the coug you know, even even contemplated. But uh no, there's there's something interesting there. I think it's probably more selfish. My experience with it is definitely more selfish than selfless. That's my opinion. I don't think. I can't think of a way I could frame the thousands and thousands of hours I've spent about fishing and also hunting and say, yeah, that was a real selfless act I did there. I really made other people's lives better and contributed to the greater good of the universe. I did not. I enriched my own experience. I learned a lot, I had a great time. UM I ate pretty well. But I can't. I can't look at that time and say, man, I am I should be celebrated. They will sing songs about me in perpetuity for all the good I did about hunting and fishing. Yeah, I think that's most everyone's answer that you would pose this too. But then you get into the realm of like we talked about conservation and how we're able to set up our systems, especially our model of conservation is is is printed into Shane's conversation here um to kind of provide value for the greater good. We're always talking about Pittman Robertson and always talking about the value to wildlife populations and the money we spend it. So I think we at least pose some of it is selfless, even if it's like a second dairy, an under layer of selflessness that just is is everyone. Anytime someone challenges the selfish part, we're like, hey, but check this out. We got it. H So that's I like to break it down for that reason because I think a lot of non hunters would love to hear us kind of just go on and on about this. You know, I agree with you on that and and but I think that the fact that it is a secondary justification that we use undermines any sense of selflessness that's there. And don't get me wrong, you know my opinion on the model of conservation that we're talking about, and I think it's incredibly valuable, and I think it's a wonderful byproduct and a great system that has been built around the selfishness of hunters and anglers to use that to fund conservation. But I don't think we get the stand up and be like, yeah, we did that, because I don't know anybody, myself included, who got into it. Because you know what the best way to fund conservation is, it's by going hunting and fishing. I don't know anybody who got into it that way. It's something nice that we get to claim, and it's a wonderful system that's been built too to use the power and the drive of our selfishness and and convert that into positive outcomes. But I don't think we get to to call ourselves selfless. See now I sound like Shane Mahoney a little preview what's to come? No, I like, what if we're being honest and we're not in a defensive posture, that's what we would all say. I think, I think there's a very reasonable way to put it. But when we get put in defensive posture, what do you do you kill wildlife? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? And we asked that question here quite a lot um. I think we in a more defensive moment, look at the value that we bring, look at the selflessness of our act and sometimes that's a mistake, um that we get kind of sometimes lowered into in those arguments. Okay, phil do you, as a non hunter, do you enjoy watching us uh flail about with these these questions? Well, I I do. I think these these questions are important and what separate I think a lot of what Meat Eater as a company does from other stuff that's out there. And uh, I it's been an absolute pleasure being just kind of a fly on the wall for all of it. That is very earnest response from me, and uh, I hope you continue to have these conversations. Thank you, Philip T. Engineer. You really build us up. Sometimes you break us down, but mostly you build us up. Um. I was I will meant to be as as we get closer, we ente closer to our time with Shane Mahoney. I was sitting around on Saturday night at a campsite in the Madison River. I had had roughly five tangerine white claws, and I was on my second watermelon. Ah, so fruity, so delicious. Um please sponsor us title sponsored by White called Please as an aside, but I was feeling I was feeling like very reflective and philosophical sitting by the campfire, just thinking about, you know, some of the stuff that's that's boiled up over the time here with the pandemic. And so that's why I was like, oh, if I talked to Shane mahoney, we're gonna go straight, just no, nothing tangible, all philosophical questions, see what we can figure out. And it was a joy, um to do it. So that's where we're gonna get right now before we go, Miles, Um, can we let out the secret fishing podcast that I just said already? I guess that too late now, Um, I cannot tell you when the fishing podcast will actually exist. I cannot tell you what it's going to be called. I can't tell you that myself and our senior fishing editor and good buddy of mine, Joe Sir Mellie are digging in and working really hard on creating a phishing podcast that's worthy of being in the media network and that won't suck. So this is like I can tell everybody out there that we are, we're in the lab on it and it's coming along, but I can't tell you when it's going to exist in the world. At the beginning of that was like a Dr SEUs thing. I cannot tell you what it's called or if it will exist at all. I cannot tell you an do you have an eight team month old? So I read a lot of Dr SEUs and it might be coming through. I also also, for those of you have kids, will recognize this. I realized that I've almost completely stopped speaking in contractions because my kid is so in of the Elephant and Piggy series of books right now, and they don't have any contractions anywhere in there. And I find that bleeding over into all of my conversations all the time. It's very weird. I hate those books. It's not like those are Honestly, those are some of my favorites. Face Phil awful books. No, no, there there's so so many worse, worst options out there. I'm with Phil on this one. I'm with Phil. I think they're there's some of the better ones out there. I just don't. I mean, it's just the breaks his trunk, like get a life, Get dumb Elephants. I'm gonna push back here because they're they're children's books that break the fourth wall. Like for those of those who are writers and like to think about weird stuff like that. They actually addressed the reader directly. How cool is that? Yeah, but you know he breaks his trunk, so fuck it, Like, come up with a better narrative. Stupid just standing around. He don't know what's going on. Doesn't he break his nose too or something in the end? Anyway, Um, no listener that has anybody in the five to like people talking about if you've not read what's it called Piggy and Elephant or some ship? Yeah, I believe it's Elephant and Piggy. That's fine, That's totally fine. Don't read it or treat it to your kids whatever. I don't care anymore. Um, all right, and on to the legend. I'm gonna keep calling him a legend because I believe it, um, even though that that might bother him a little bit. I'm I believe he's brought so much to the world of hunting and conservation and just forward thinking about this and and like I said, he's an inspiration to me. Um, if I get lucky one day, I can call him a mense or beautiful beard, beautiful voice, beautiful man. That is Shane Mahoney coming right at you. Enjoy, Okay, Shane mahoney, we did it. We made Uh we're recording, I believe, can you hear me? Yes? I can't, Yes, I can. Just to get a little bit behind the scenes for the listener, we just spent your gracious enough to spend almost an hour with me trying to figure out some technical difficulty. So I must begin the podcast by saying, thank you so much for hanging in there with us. Oh, you're most welcome, glad to do it. We'll blame it all on Phil, if that's okay with you. Yes, that's fine, Phil the engineer. We will lay it at his feet and he'll have to deal with the backlash. That's that's just okay. Um, Well, how's everything where you are in Newfoundland? Well it's pretty good, you know, just like everybody everywhere else. We're learning to live with a kind of a a bit of a changed reality. And I think, like most people, UM wondering where this is going to lead, how much change will be left behind, and how much will we recover back towards the norm circumstances that we had previous to this pandemic. Yeah, what's what is your daily um life been? I know we're speaking um the other day just about how you know your travel has been cut off. Um, A lot of things are changing. What what's the day to day been like there for you? Well, it's not hard to stay busy, so it's um that hasn't changed. Um. You know, in some ways the travel has been supplanted or replaced by you know, virtual meetings and discussions that way over the long distance, so to speak. Um. And to some extent there have been advantages, more time to reflect, more time to think. I don't miss the travel. I don't miss the airports, I don't miss the hotels. I don't miss any of that. Anyway. It's necessary, but it's not altogether pleasurable. So I'd have to say, on balance, there are positives and negatives associated with this, um, which is perhaps an attitude that we're all going to have to take, because, no matter how optimistic one might be about a return to in quotation marks normal, the COVID nineteen pandemic has proven we live in a global world, and the patchwork of different responses that will come out will mean that we will not go all the way back to what we had before, but the future might be better. Yeah, that's true. This certainly has been as I've said on the show before, kind of a slow moving tragedy where we've been able to you know, see things change in real time and experience kind of those cultural and social shifts as we all try to deal with this together. You know. I know, now there's been many many conspiracy theories. There was a video called planned Demic that came out that that swept the internet, and then it was removed from from YouTube and vine, you know, talking about um, you know, the government's role in covid UM. But there's also been a lot of positive thoughts and you know, but I will be able to see kind of people reacting to this in real time. What's been your thoughts about what you've seen, UM, in terms of their reaction. Well, you know, there always exists a significant difference of opinion amongst people in the world about almost anything. UM. We're all products of our upbringing and products of our learning, products of our life experience. So naturally, as any political leader will tell you, UM, there's always a diversity of opinion almost on any policy any happening. When you see something that strikes at a global level, UM, that strikes the issue of human security, health and life. UM, it is inevitable that a lot of people will develop very different understandings, approaches, and interest in it. Some people will dismiss it, some people will overreact to it, some people will look for a conspiracy theory, some people will try to find what the realistic source of the problem has been. And I think what probably most people will not think about too much is the fact that the pageant of human history has been a series of new narratives that come along periodically. There are a lot of little, small narratives, small changes that accumulate, and every so often there is something of a very large scale that forces us to examine almost everything, and the COVID nineteen is one of those because it has political implication sans social implications, economic implications, cultural implications, ecological implications, and human health implications. And that's only in the context of what we now know. There is nothing that rules out the possibility of resurgences or changes in this particular virus, nor new viruses in the future. It's not as though this is the first time major disease problem has confronted a large part of humanity. It's one of the few times, of course, that it's confronted everyone, but You know, we have had diseases like small box and the bubonic plague and things of this nature which in previous times affected a great many people, killed hundreds of millions of people in the case of the plague, um and which disrupted human society very fundamentally. So it's too early to say what the full extent of this problem is going to be. But in any dimension of our lives, do we really expect in the near future for us to gather in groups of eighty or a hundred thousand people packed close together to watch extraordinary athletes perform, for example, or things of this nature. Um. You know, every single one of the numbers that we listen to is someone's mother, someone's sung, someone's brother, someone's grandfather. And it's easy enough as we get into the debate of where it came from and who caused it and why did it happen, to sort of forget the number of people who have already died. And it's particularly saddening, I think, to see the number of elderly people in you know, old age homes or care facilities who at that stage of their lives are so vulnerable, and yet they disproportionately certainly here in Canada, and I think in other parts of the world have disproportionately died, So it's a I think it's a time for reflection. Then I agree, I agree as as you kind of I think I as I was thinking about talking to you, I really want to get into that reflection. Um. You know, what can the past tell us about where we are now? And then you know where might we go? Because as you said, this is such a wide reaching and deep issue in our world. But is there anything that you know, just more to the here now? Is there anything over the last couple of months as we've moved through this that has shocked you, that has taken you back? Um? You know, I know that, as you said, there's a lot of horrors in this Um. Is there something that you just that you think you'll remember for the rest of your days that's happened? Or is it more than just a general malaise of change? No? I mean I think for me, Um, you know, I have long held a view that that any current reality is extraordinarily vulnerable. You know, each of us, in our own individual lives, I believe is one heart beat away from some small disaster, potentially a new disease that we acquire ourselves, or some terrible accident that befalls someone close to us, or something of this nature. So, you know, at a philosophical level, I think what has struck me most is the rapidity with which our world can fundamentally change. Now, this particular virus UM has its pattern, it has greatest impact in those who are more vulnerable UM, and it is spread in the way that it is UM. It could have been far worse. It could have been a virus that was completely lethal to everyone who who acquired it. It could be something that you know, can live on a countertop or on a piece of clothing for six months rather than just a few hours or a couple of days. And yet even with what we have, you know, we have seen massive intrusions into the economics of our planet. We have seen massive intrusions into how we will think about healthcare in the future. UM. There are open questions about where major industries will fall as a result of this, such as the airline industry and so on. And we have to remember that before March, at least in the United States and Canada, this wasn't really consider it to be an issue. This is only may and all of these changes have taken place, and so I guess that makes you reflect on the fragility of any system that you have. And it's affecting every kind tree, from the most powerful in the world to do the least powerful in the world. And it is a leveler in the sense that it doesn't matter if you're a wealthier, poor, of one race or another, of one religion or another. This virus has the capacity to to impact us. So, um, you know, I dream of a more reflective world anyway, So maybe that's one of the one of the slate benefits in not to make light of it. Yeah, no, for sure. I mean I think we we've said this a lot of like I think this is we're into the twenty something shows that since we've been locked down and essentially sheltered in place here and and that's what I've done a lot of reflect And as I was thinking again, as I said a little bit ago, thinking about talking to you, I knew, you know, I could pose some very difficult existential questions that that I think a lot of us are either hinting at in our day lives are fully immersed in and and one of those is the reflection of the natural world and what this means. Um, it's a zoo onic disease, so went from animals to humans. Of course, as most everyone knows now, Um, we'll find out more about that, I'm sure in the future as we know more about the disease. But my reflection, we're hearing terms. I'm hearing terms on the news in terms of all the human race like herd immunity and things that I've I have heard in in in wild life biology and wild life circles for years, but now you're hearing those things pop up. So it makes me reflect on how this viruses is allowing us to see our own connections to the natural world and those of us that don't spend time outdoors of course we do. Um, how have you reflected on that? How is this? How has this change how our society would would treat its relationship with the natural world, knowing that that's you know, where this disease essentially came from. Well, I think the first thing we have to realize is that what COVID nineteen and this virus demonstrates to us is how closely related we are to the others that exist on this planet that are non human. The reason we are able to contract these diseases, the reason that these viruses are able to work within our systems, to take over our systems, to invade ourselves and you do the things that viruses do, is because of the fact that we share a tremendous amount of engineering genetic makeup with these other wild things that live, and not only wild, but even domestic things that live on this planet. You know my personal views a lot of people do. I don't really see much difference between human beings and other species. I just believe we're different, all of us. And I believe the first thing that COVID tells us is that we are so very little different that we can acquire from them, these viruses and and and our bodies can work with them, so to speak, to ill effect. I think the other thing is that people, of course, will develop attitudes towards the natural world, assuming as we are, that this virus probably originated in that and then translated somehow to human beings, potentially through wet markets or other spaces. This joins a long list of other viruses and bacteria that can come from animals and invade us um and naturally, some people will react in a way that says we must displace ourselves from all contact with nature. Ah and wild things and wild animals. You know, they're kind of diseased, a kind of vermin, et cetera. And there will be other people who will look at this and say that as long as we separate ourselves from the primary source a wet market in a distant country or something of this nature, and rely more fundamentally on the foods and systems we have closer to us, that we will be better off. I mean, I think that the truth of the matter is that, um, we will all look at this crisis from our own particular lens. There will be a category of people who will try to make use of it, to take advantage of it. So, for example, some people who say, you know, we should never use animals at all, We'll say, you see, this is this is a reason you shouldn't do it. It's not just that it's reprehensible that animals are used by human beings, but it's also you know, it causes pandemics, and therefore human beings should not do this kind of thing. You'll have other people who will reflect on it and say, no, um, I have been engaging in the use of animals for a long period of time. And what this convinces me of even more than before, is the fact that my reliance on them in my local environment in Montana, or in Newfoundland or wherever it might be, is a safeguard against these kinds of tragedies. So, um, you know, I think, as I said, a crisis like these bring out the they sort of they sort of draw out from people the diversity of opinion and expression that exists in humanity, and the implications for the natural world could be very severe. Right now, A lot of people are saying, you know, it's because we have this interaction with wild things that these problems are happening. Well, one comment I would make on that particular viewpoint is that human beings, when have we ever not been relying on wild things and other animals? That is no change. There's absolutely no change in the world about that. As a matter of fact, from from millions of years in previous forms and ancestries, we have been interacting with, killing and consuming all manner of animals. There are still hunts for bats species, for example, in other parts of the world where people consume them. Why not, They're they're they're an animal that can be eaten. Um. What has really changed, of course, is the Malthusian principle. We have so many of us on the planet humans, that is right now, and our vigility, which means our our capacity to move, has just been exponentially changed by technologies trains, planes, boats, cars. So something that happens way over there somewhere is all of a sudden on our doorstep and in our homes and in our nursing homes, and in our hospitals, and in our restaurants and in our nightclubs and bars and pubs and so on and so forth. So one other thing that we should be reflecting on is the fact that so many of us moving so rapidly around this planet will have implications, some of them very positive. Some of them we will view as progressive, as an advance of civilization. Others of them will prove to be incredibly difficult for human beings. No species, as Martha said, no species increases forever to these astronomical numbers as we have without bizarre implications emerging. So I think there's all of that, and I think the other thing I would say about our reflections on nature here is nobody is thinking about, you know, other issues like habitat loss and climate change and all of those kinds of things which are going to also change and move the interface between human beings and wild things. Um and as we move into a warmer world, we are going to see many things that are unpredictable. This year alone, we've had massive locust swarms in in East Africa, major butch fire, you know, catastrophes in Australia, unprecedented proportions. We've had massive floods in Indonesia. Uh, and we've had this pandemic. I mean, there's a lot going on and in the natural world. If you believe anything about nature, nothing is disconnected. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great you know, one thing I want to hit on that point, But I do want to return to something that you mentioned, because I think it's very important about perspectives here. I've read I've been reading a lot of articles tracking trends during this short, relatively short period of time, roughly two months or a month and a half. There's there's report from a company called Markets and Markets that finds that plant based meat will probably grow and veganism will probably grow because of the pandemic um substantially over the next the next year, year and a half, two years. There's also many reports that hunting participation is up over the last oh, you know, four weeks early spring season numbers out of Georgia, UM out of Colorado, out of a bunch of states that are putting out early projections on hunting license sales and participation across the board, that that that is also going up. And so as I read that, it just denotes what you were saying a bit ago, that it you know, people are taking their own perspective and kind of amplifying it in these times. How do you how do you see those trends? Is there one something one of these stronger than the other. Is that like the self sufficiency, feed yourself local wore ideas stronger than the more global veganistic uh animal rights worldview. I that's my main My main thought is which one is stronger, which one is more prevailing? And there's any way to know if if there is? Well, UM, when we talk about the issue of use of living things to provide for human beings, the kind of hunting that you and I are familiar with, the recreational hunter in Canada, the United States, Europe, other parts of the world is of course a component of that, and in our cultures in North America certainly quite significant. You know, we have millions of people who participate, tens and tens of millions more with whom that wild food is shared and so on and so forth. It is no small item. But when you put it in the context of say something like world fisheries, which feed two billion people a year and employ hundreds of millions of people, etcetera, etcetera. Um, you know, our recreational hunting in that sense as a food provisioning system from a global perspective, is relatively small. But I raised the point, you know, because sometimes this worldview is dichotomized between those who sort of recreationally hunt and use animals that way and individuals who have a different perspective and field that animals should never be taken and harvested for for for that reason, and we forget the fact that in this modern world, still in this twenty century, billions of people, billions of people across all spectrums of society and all countries are totally reliant on the pursuit, capture, killing, butchering, and consumption of sentient living creatures. Fish alone, as I said, is a classic example. So this, this world view of let's become vegan versus let's continue to use animals, is much wider, of course than a comparison between recreational hunting in that that's that's the first point I would make. And very often people who are involved in the debate on the on the recreational hunting side or the hunting side itself, forget the fact that we, in fact, in that activity are linked with massive global undertakings that are absolutely essential right now and for the foreseeable future and the sustenance of human society. Um. However, there are alternative views or alternate views, and one of those is begins with animal rights views in the extreme and then goes to ideas you know, that we should all be turned vegan and so forth. But of course there is the question of how do we all become vegan? Then? Where does all that habitat come from? What is the cost of turning the seven and a half billion of us on this planet to total to veganism entirely? How much while life habitat has to be taken to produce all of that food, what will be the implications for species loss. I'm not saying I have the answers to all of those questions, but I'm saying the profound questions that need answering before we can see, you know, where the world ought to go. Now, what will be stronger? Well, I think what will be stronger depends on where you live. I think in some societies, uh, you know, this will push people, or encourage people to become much more self sufficient in their harvest of living things, hopefully in a sustainable, respectful manner. In other cases, it will cause people to say no. If I have been thinking about veganism, maybe now is the time for me to move further in that kind of a direction. Of course, I don't think the two worlds are completely separated, are they. I mean, I think you probably eat cucumbers or potatoes or lettuce periodically. I mean, I don't think you've taken them completely off your list. You know, I enjoy them, yes, and many people and many people who eat, you know, don't want to see animals harvested. Of course, end up eating a great many animals that are harvested, whether it's shrimp or codfish or salmon, or to un official or whatever else it might be. So I mean, I don't think one is stronger or weaker than the other as a result of COVID. I think the interests in them are being heightened as a result of this. Where the world will head with respect to all of this men is a profound question. Yes, And in between the worlds of veganism and individuals and organizations who are opposed to hunting, and the world of people who are actively engaged in hunting, there is a massive in between world of people who consume across the ecological spectrum, but who are also becoming in increasing numbers concerned for the future of wildlife and animals. That is over all a very good thing. But some of those people will drift more towards a protectionist side, and some of those people will drift more towards a sustainable use side, But all of them will be part of shifting our relationship with animals. Let no one be misguided about that a fundamental shift, independent of COVID is taking place in human society with respect to our attitudes towards animals, how we perceive them, how we represent them, how closely we see them resembling ourselves. Of vice versa. That's all real and that's all pre COVID. The interesting thing in that debate is how will this experience the code experience, I mean, influencing that trend that has been already occurring. Yeah, that's that's the kind of where I was going with that. Like these polls, the vegan pole and the hunter or wild caught food poll within the discussion, you know, which one has a stronger you know, is a stronger magnetic pool, right if there are polarities or different ends of the magnet, like which which one is going to attract more people based on changes here? But I think the question I was thinking of as you were making those those last comments was how much we talked about that are how we value animals and kind of the value system that we've built. And we'll talk about your wonderful book with with val Geist on the North American midle here in a little bit, But how we've built structure and then also value around while the animals and domestic how much do you think within this spectrum are these value systems in leaments by economics as in, the more comfortable you are, the more let's say, first world you are, the more comfortable economically you are, the more you have time to think of this larger value. If you are UM, I know you spent a lot of time thinking about it. In Africa, in some of the poorer communities, there's a different value system struggle going on. And so within the conversation before and after COVID, how do you see that economic piece of the puzzle impacting the value systems. It's clear from human history that depending on how distant you can be from nature directly, that can provide you with the freedom and the time to reflect on larger questions, whether they are questions of human freedom and justice, or whether they are questions of our relationship with nature. Um. It is is a fact, whether people find it regrettable or otherwise, that it has often been people who have been privileged or imprivileged circumstances. They've been well off, you know, their food supplies have been secure, they've lived in nice homes, and so on, who have reflected about these larger ideas. The North American wildlife conservation approach itself, it was not really born in the rural communities of a place like the island of Newfoundland. It was borne out of the reflections primarily not exclusively, but primarily a very of the blue bloods of America, the rose of ELTs, etcetera. UM, So I think there is a direct tie between, first of all, just conjecturing about these things. If you're living in a rural community in Africa or in the Canadian Arctic, or wherever it might be, and your day by day sustenance depends on you going out and taking the lives other animals in order to feed yourself in your family, and you have absolutely no other alternative, well you probably don't reflect too much on all of the deep philosophical questions that that might attend. You have much more basic questions to answer. So I do think there is a relationship between wealth, security, UH and the inclination and capacity to reflect on these larger questions, and that can and has, I think, in many cases, set up dichotomous views of the world. Where it is very interesting that often those of us and I include both you and I, and this we are privileged in this world. Many of us can develop attitudes which we think are correct and that we for some reason feel can be applied to people elsewhere. So in the extreme circumstance, you can have somebody very well off living in a major city in Canada or the United States, who if a cockroach invades their home, immediately scrambled for the phone book or their dial on their phone to see who the local exterminator is and call them to get over to their domicile immediately because they cannot live with this one insect. But they are quite prepared to argue that African lions and leopards and elephants and so forth should be completely tolerated, loved, accepted, I mean viewed as iconic by people who every day may be eaten, killed and eaten by those animals, or who may suffer the complete loss of their crop as a result of a marauding elephant, for example. So there's no question that there is there is some relationship here. But I don't think we should go so far, of course, as to say, and I know you're not saying this, but but some people sort of set it up very clearly. There are, clearly are many people of means who are deeply concerned about the lives of people who are not as fortunate, who invest tremendous amounts of their time and money and and and freedom in in working on behalf of things that don't necessarily benefit themselves but benefit other people in the world. And these are the These are the great people of the world, the people who do these kinds of things. Ah, And we have a lot of them. Your country has a great many of them. And I think it's a fantastic thing. Um. So I don't feel that just because you know, the world has gotten wealthier or more people live above a poverty line or something like that, that that means ultimately we're going to have a complete overwhelming anti use view of the world, for example, or protectionist view. But I do think that as wealth increases, and as our systems of providing for ourselves distance us more and more from nature in a practical direct way, then I think you are bound to see a significant shift in the average kind of thinking, you know, where society sits with respect to these questions. And I think is that is the reason why we were seeing this rise in empathy for wildlife today? Yeah. Yeah. I had a vegan ethicist or vegan philosopher UM named Dr Robert C. Jones on a few weeks back, and we talked about bargains um in terms of food consumption. You know, we're all making a bargain no matter what we do. I gave him the example of, hey, listen, we're talking about suffering in this case, you know, the the undue suffering of sentient beings. It's kind of his animal rights philosophy. I don't want to I understand that my actions will cause death, but I don't want to cause any unnecessary death or suffering if I don't have to. And the example I borrow for him in terms of bargaining was that I would love to grow tomatoes and other crops in my backyard, but I had a a vole infestation that was making it hard to do that. And so I had to kind of make the bargain of do I kill these voles which allows me to grow these crops in my backyard and not get a proxy, you know, even a proxy local farmer who I don't know what his practices are. To get to this end point. So now I have to make a bargain. My bargain is if I kill these voles, I know the result. If they all die, I know I get the tomatoes. If I let them live, I know I probably won't get as many tomatoes. And then I've got to kind of outsource that death to someone else, or you know, approximately do that lack of you know, knowledge of of of what the impact of that death is at least, And I think that's for me a question I'd love to hear you take on, Like is it just a series of bargains that we're making in consumption? Some of us are making the bargains more tangibly, we know the result. If I eat this, this happens. If I do this, this happens. Others of us are you know, making those bargains either in secret or just not acknowledging them as we make them. When I eat a hamburger, I don't. I don't think about the give and take, um. And so I think that's maybe the ultimate question that I have is is how do you see that the idea of these bargains and how it moves through our own thinking through time? And also I think what you just said pertains to this, the the economics of the situation, um, where you grew up, how you grew up, your traditions, your culture. I think all the things go into it. But UM interested to hear your thoughts about you know, bargaining death and suffering around consumption. I don't know if I would call it a bargain um, but from my view of human evolution and history, and my view of the planet and the natural systems from which all of us draw life, I think it is inescapable that one way or another, our species, like all species, will take We cannot live without food, we cannot live without air, we cannot live without all kinds of things. And there's only one ultimate source for all of this. It's called Earth. Some people talk about going to other places, but let me tell you that's not going to help most of us. I don't see anything unnatural in the process of human beings taking from the natural world, and that includes the harvesting of other creatures, anymore than I see it unnatural for the leopard to do that, or for the wolf or for the deer to to browse and graze what what it takes. And to some extent I find it increase exceedingly unnatural as a philosophy to suggest that that is in quotation marks the role or position for humanity, and I believe that to adopt that role suggests that we are separate from nature, and I don't accept that we not only are born through this exact same processes as other mammals. Not only are we raised in exactly the same way you know, fed at our mother's breast and so on and so forth as all mammals are, but you know, we live our lives based on the d n A and the architecture of what we have. We consume and burn food in the same way we require certain nutrients to survive, and ultimately we die, and we decompose, and we go back into the earth that ultimately was responsible for us. This is the journey that every human being is on, no matter what their philosophy, or their creed or their skin color. UM. So I do think that as human beings because we reflect beyond accepting that we will harvest wild things, which I believe in UM and and I do because I think it is ecologically sound and proportional. UM. I do believe we have a responsibility to think about suffering and to think about death, particularly death that we in selves, ourselves impose. I have long argued, for example, that the hunting community has stood outside all of the discussions of animal welfare UM and failed in our responsibilities to talk about issues such as animal caring and animal welfare and we should have been. I don't think it should have been those individuals, for example, who were opposed to all use of animals who forced the world to develop more humane trapping methods. But that's the truth of the matter, isn't it. M I think that therefore, the only bargain that I sort of look at from my perspective is to know that when we go to harvest animals, we go to kill them, not to hurt them. And that may seem a ridiculous proposition and differentiation for someone who is completely opposed to the harvesting of wild things. But there's a reason why one should train to be capable of harvesting an animal quickly. There's a reason why one should know over what distances one is able to harvest an animal, for example, depending on the weaponry that it's used. And I do fundamentally believe that there are hunters who are concerned about these issues, and I believe there are hunters who are not concerned about these issues. And for me, um my harvesting of animals works inside this man at the same time that I can openly say I am in love with them, and I have since a boy until the day I die I will remain absolutely fascinated by them. This very day, in the storm of wind that's taking place in rural Uffittland, I was watching gannets, you know, dive into the high waves and taking food in the harbor next to where I live. Um, there were lots of people walking up and down the street, for example, who never noticed those animals? Don't wonder about how do they see in these turbid waters? How do they how do they know where there are a little fish down there that they can miraculously find? But for me it's a source of infinite interest and inspiration. And I know by watching them over decades that many of them have capacities we can only dream about. So there may be costs and benefits that we can talk about with respect to how we approach using the natural world to feed ourselves. Whether the world would all become vegan, What would that look like versus a component of the world harvesting while things. What does that look like? So we can look at it from the point of view of course benefit relationships. But I think ultimately in feeding ourselves there is the question of what is the ecology of man? What is the ecology of humanism? What is the ecology of this species that should, for some reason make it so remarkably different from the millions and millions and millions of other life forms that make their way. If we can strike a bargain, it might be to say that when we harvest wild things, we harvest them more humanely. Then most of them die in nature. And for those of us who have spent time studying nature as biologists or people who spend a lot of time in the outdoors, death of nature is never a retirement to a rocking chair on a porch. Animals that die in the wild die hard. So it is not a question that if we leave them they will live forever, lives without pain. And the idea that to leave them and therefore it will be more natural, suggests, indeed, that we are presuming we are not part of nature. I find that philosophically inconsistent, and I don't I don't agree with it. I have I as I've delved into and spoken to folks that I could find to be rational and and and a bit irrational in the in the animal rights community, I've I've only become more hard and the idea that they are are just patently wrong, and that that time will weaken their ideologies and philosophies within it. When you're talking there, something struck me a question I think, um, that you will will be able to answer. And it's been a core of what I've been thinking of in terms of our own hunting community. But then the folks within it and without um, it's hunting. I'll just say it plainly, it's hunting. Selfish, selfless, or both. All efforts to maintain our own lives are selfish. Evolution has provided each living thing, no matter what their level of intelligence or cognitive capacity, with a drive to live and well. The cricket or the gannet diving for fish, or the whale eating shrimp. I don't think they think very much about whether they're being selfish or not, but they are driven to undertake this acquisition of things they need to survive. I think human beings have this buried in them, no differently than any other species on the planet. Um. So I think um in that to that extent, yes, every undertaking in the acquisition of resources is selfish. I leave aside for the moment whether one thinks that is morally wrong or right, But evolutionarily, there's no question that each animal. Each organism strives to live as long as possible, and we see this as lives come to an end. People struggle to stay alive for good reason. Um, I'm not sure what you would mean by self less In other words, are used trying to examine whether we do this only to benefit others? Do you mean it in that kind of an altruistic sense or what what do you mean by selfless conservation? I think we we often I think some of folks that don't understand our our worldview might say that as we present this selfless, this rather selfless idea that by killing one animal and participating in, you know, our model conservation, that we may um want to apply value to those animals, but also benefit the greater whole. So if i'm you know, if I'm saying hunting, this is a very abstract way to put this, it's selfless in that way, like there is a grand a grander benefit to the you know, the participation of what we might call sporner pursuit however you call it, And so selfless is maybe not the best best term, but the idea of there's a there's a larger benefit to your to that undertaking. Yes, I mean in that sense, I totally agree. Look, one of the things that the world is going to have to get over if we're going to keep wildlife with us at all, they're going to have to get over the idea that there's only one way. There are many ways to conserve nature. We need protected areas in some instances. There's no question we need dramatic intervention. In some circumstances, like, for example, if we're losing the coral reefs, we need to do extraordinary things there, and that might mean displacing everybody, fishermen and everybody else who's out there to to to to sustain these incredible ecosystems. But we also need to have sustainable programs or sustainable approaches to the harvest of wildlife when billions of people in the world are engaged on it and dependent upon it. And I may not agree with all of those kinds of things in every particular instance, but we know that we need every possible mechanism in the short, the medium, and the long term if we are to have any chance of keeping wild others with us. In my lifetime, I have seen in the completely unindustrialized very much still wild place where I live. I have seen massive losses of wildlife, of shore birds, of passerines, of insects. I don't have the explanations for all of these patterns, but I do know that those patterns are real. And if someone comes to me tomorrow and says, Shane, you know, I can demonstrate to you that if half the communities in Newfoundland turn vegan, we would be able to enhance biodiversity in the long term, I'd say I'm with you. If somebody comes to me and says, I believe that the harvesting of an elephant in an African country is beneficial because it provides money to communities, saves helps protect habitat, and and in this particular point in time, enables us to to sustain larger numbers and diversity of wildlife and so on and so forth, then I'm in favor of that. If someone comes to me and says, we need to shut down the cod fishery because if we don't do that, we're going to have nothing left and we're going to destroy an ecosystem, I'm in favor of that. The reason I called my organization Conservation Visions in the Poor is because anybody who tries to tell me that there's one vision and one mechanism only to keep wildlife with us is it's an imbecilic viewpoint. I'm sorry. We need we need the views of indigenous peoples and rural peoples and and urban nights and philanthropists on every side of the divide, those who want to protect all wildlife and those who want to encourage sustainable use of wildlife. And we need to be picking out the very best of those ideas and applying them. And the world is a big place, spen it has vastly different circumstances for the wildlife and the people living in those places. There is absolutely no way to bring the Montana model to some place in Tanzania, or to bring the Newfoundland concept of how we live with our massive seabird colonies and have always lived with them within within spitting distance of our coast. We could have wiped them all out centuries ago, yet we still have the greatest concentration of seabird colonies in the northwest Atlantic. Why is it because Newfoundlanders didn't hunt their maniacal hunters. They're fanatical hunters, but we didn't destroy those colonies. I mean, there's all kinds of examples to show where people can do these kinds of things and maintain diversity. So for me, you know, this whole divide, it's inevitable that people take sides. It's part of who we are as human beings, it seems. But to me, when people start to reflect on it, to suggest that we don't need all these different approaches to conservation just does not make any sense. And I don't believe that. You know, every hunter that goes out there is thinking as his primary motivation or her primary motivation. You know, this is a great thing I'm doing for humanity and for the entire wildlife troop that's out there. You know, there are what's happening with the conservation model that we have erected in North America is that the selfish motivation of the individual can be turned to great good and benefit a majority. That's the small sparkle of genius in that approach, And it is no different in some ways than pointing out the fact that if you incentivize rural people's, indigenous or otherwise in other parts of the world to view wildlife as having value, that they will work then to keep that wildlife with them. That is a selfish response on their part, it benefits me, therefore I will keep it. But the benefit to the world could be the survival of lions in the wild or elephants. Yeah, I love I love the U say that the benefits of the world because as I see, as I've kind of really sat down and thought about again to return to the animal rights side, it's a selfless They believe a selfless ideology, like a selfless world view where they're giving up something in order to save something or end suffering or again, as I said, with some of the more cogent thinkers in that sect, like end unnecessary suffering. And so as I go back to that, that's a that's a very selfless idea. But then compared to you know, the villager in rural Africa doing the very selfish thing right, which is killing that elephant that's trampling their crops, I think it returns to what we're discussing earlier about the economics of it and how we can all kind of process it's where you are your relationship with the wildlife on a on a micro level that affects your your benefit to the world. As you just said, you know, how can you function within the greater world, which which I think is um why I love talking with you about the North American model because it's so interesting on so many levels. That it works at all is amazing both on a legis lative and governmental side, and that has existed for as long as it has and and maybe even more interesting. Do you think the North American model? I know you've thought about this. How would you how would you judge it's ability to be transported to other other places, other countries, other nations, other societies. Yeah, I mean I I do think about this because again, you know, my life is directed towards trying to find things that work for wildlife. So when you find something, of course, you know, if you think it's good, then you you naturally want to share it and you want to explain to people the benefits it as brought. But I don't think it's realistic to hope that, or even strive for Why would we um that we could take the North American model and simply transplanted to other parts of the world. But what we can do is to show how the North American model has worked, and to show why has worked and why fundamentally it has worked is because we gave wildlife a value, and we found a citizenry, and not just hunters, but a broader citizenry that cared for it and largely came to care for it. In the context of our United States Canada partnership in the model, largely came to care for it as a symbol of their countries. That that that wild sheep on a mountaintop meant something to the country, that elk in alpine meadows meant something to a country, That that that wild runs of fish meant something, that that that pristine landscapes mean something. I mean, I think that providing evidence to the world that where countries can develop a sense that their wildlife is part of their cultural legacy, part of their nationhood. I think where we can show evidence for that, it encourages other places in the world to do likewise, and so ports them in their choice of developing models that are based on those kinds of values. People in wildlife have to share and ultimately do share a common history, and they also share a common destiny. Our fate is entwined, and so providing systems of valuation that lead to successful conservation that is the critical thing we seek. They may be different in different parts of the world and how they are implemented and how they look. But ultimately that is what we are looking for, the systems that work, and ultimately to understand the values that underlie those systems, because because it is the values ultimately that are responsible for the architecture and the sustainability of the conservation systems that are developed. Yeah, that's why I always returned to my own personal examinations of this as wildlife as a public trust is is really the lynch pin of the model. I don't know if you agree with that, but that's just something I've always returned to because that idea, this idea that if you own land, you don't own the animals that may travel on that land, on that earth, the idea that we all are kind of contributing to this is really just just like the underpinnings of the values that you're talking about, Right, that is true for our system then, But then let's look at a system such as um South Africa's, for example, where indisputably it has been the private landowner model that once turned to viewing wildlife as the sort of engine of their prosperity and engine of their opportunity. It was those private landowners and that private landowning system that led to the recovery of their wildlife. There are you is conservants is conservancy is kind of at the core that not not in South Africa and South Africa. In other African countries, conservancies are in some cases, But in South Africa it was purely private landowners who made the switch from raising, under what were marginal circumstances agricultural species or domestic species such as cattle and goats and sheep, and moved into returning Africa's wildlife to these private lands, which was essentially responsible for the recovery of wildlife there. And this is why I say what we share between that system and our system is that there was a value, an intrinsic value given, and that the people saw a value in having wildlife on their land. Our system in North America, of course, is vastly different. While we do have private land examples of conservation. Clearly the wildlife itself, as you point out, is a public trust resource and people are not given ownership of those animals. But in South Africa that's quite different. And yet there was a choice in South Africa between a landscape devoid of African wildlife, all the iconic animals and the land filled with domestic species, or a land that was filled with wildlife living in their natural habitats and providing incentives for people through economic return to keep wildlife with it. Oh, if you're asking me which which one I prefer? I come from Newfoundland. I prefer the publicist side of things. You know, you're in Montana. You want you want, you want. That systems totally understandable and it's worked. So why would we why would we try to move towards privatization of wildlife in a system that has worked for a hundred years. Yeah, we're returns of what your point earlier, which is very much that it depends on where you live and the circumstances and kind of the cultural you know, touch points in the history of where where you come from, as to how you can prescribe the best thing for wildlife, which is kind of the beauty and the struggle of conservation I imagine in and of itself and in many ways. Um, and as I don't you know, I want to get to the book and and we talked about the TC book club, and UM, it's important to me to have your book with val Geist, which is just simply entitled The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation UM as the first book in in this club that hopefully all our listeners will read together UM well, and we'll come back with you and and hopefully we could talk to val Geist as well. But I often think about, you know, people, people have challenge and I know you're aware of this kind of like the structural points of the North American model and the timeliness of it, how it how it will continue into the future. And that's okay. We should definitely only um we should definitely pressure test any system that we have UM within conservation or any other part of our of our world. But what what I tried to explain to people and why I love it so much and why, as I said earlier, I become a zealot of it in some strange ways because of the things that are beneath the structure of the tenants of the model, which is what you've talked about so eloquently, is the value systems and the reverence and all the things that are baked in the fact that that came from the thinking minds of the elite, and it has been transferred in a lot of ways to rural communities and and everybody in this country. And so that's why I love it so much. That's why I talk about it and and instruct everyone that will talk to me to go and read about it and learn about it, not only because of the way it's set up, but how it's lasted over time, why these ideas have kind of transferred and lived in um, how the ability to cross generations of different thinkers in different places in in in our continent. So that's what I think of the beauty of it is. Does that does that reflect what you think? Or is are deeper even? Is it either even deeper still than than that point? Well, I don't know if it's deeper, but I mean, I think you raise some excellent points, man. I mean when you consider that the transformations that have taken place in Canadian and American society US society since say nineteen or since eighteen eighty seven, for example, when the Boone Crocker Club was formed, or the turn of the century, the twentieth century when the cra Club was born, and you go on through you know, the long periods of change, the First World War, the Second World War, the depression, you know, I mean, all of the things that have happened, Um, from a society that didn't really know what an airplane was, the one that buzzes around and jets all over the world. You know what I mean? Is I mean, they really have been transformative changes that have taken place, and yet the basic approach and principles and value systems in the North American model have been maintained. Um. The miracle of the model there there are several First of all, that it arose at all. Because when it arose the idea that we should all just have free and open access to wildlife, kill as much as we want, make as much money as we possibly could from it, at so on, that was fully consistent with the American and and settler view in both countries. I have come here to escape restrictions. I have come here to make my own way. My country even tells me that my independence and my you know, my my capacity to create wealth and so on and so forth, is what actually makes me an American or a Canadian or whatever. And therefore, you know, I should have this drive to do these kinds of things. There were so many well established industries that depended directly on this idea of the freewheeling sale and marketing of whether it was eat or feathers or skins or whatever it might have been. It wasn't as though you know, a few you know, well dressed intellectuals out of the American northeast, you know, came down and sort of offered up something that was easy to accept. I mean, there was a lot of opposition to this, uh. And there was a lot of fatalism on the part of even the founders. They they they did not know it would work brilliantly. They just were determined to try something. I mean, the original exhibition of heads and horns at the Boone and Crockett Club assembled was to tell the people of the United States of America, come come and look at what you're You're going to lose it. This this stuff is gone. You're not going to have it anymore. Uh. And yet they fought for what they believed was the only way to successfully bring that back, which was to basically tell everybody, none of you on it, except you all on it. And it was kind of a bizarre thing in a lot of ways. It's a hippie idea. You go from rugged individualism and manifest destiny which is baked into you know, even even the forward thinkers who created this, like Roosevelt, those things were baked into their own lives the way that they came to that point. And yeah, I so imagine there's something like they're reversing their own thinking to come come to this in the face of great loss. Well, I think they did what all people who care about something deeply do. They're willing to challenge their own worldviews. And remember that these blue bloods, uh like Roosevelt and pin Show and so on. I mean, you know, they never ever had to worry about their own personal hunting experiences or times of field. They were guaranteed to be able to enjoy them for the rest of their lives and probably their children and their grandchildren. Um. So, the second miracle of the model was that that they managed to convince the American people that this resource, these these wild things, that these wild things were part of American legacy and inheritance, and that if you wanted to call yourself an American citizen or a Canadian, you would work to protect them. Now, so what they did as well, the second miracle not only that they overcame the opposition and brought in a transformative narrative. They linked that narrative in a very unexpected way to the whole idea of nationhood. This was this was the second act of genius in the model that that most people just just forget about. I mean, they would say, we don't have the louver. We we don't have the amazing monasteries or the amazing cathedrals and the amazing art galleries of Europe. What we have are these things, and we will protect them, just as Europe has protected these legacies of art and literature and so on and so forth. That was the second act of genius. And the third act whether many, but another active genius, of course, was to find something that had value systems that could translate over multiple changes in society. You know, when Teddy Roosevelt left the White House, because of course, conservation is very politicized all over the world. Was politicized in your country, it's politicized here in Canada's politicized everywhere. When Teddy Roosevelt left the White House, you know, there were a vast majority of people that were very happy to see him go. But we need to ask ourselves why when he was so criticized by members of his own party and people in in the other party. For the things that he did, like his national forests and his national parks and all those kinds of things he did. We have to ask ourselves why, right up until this year of no president, no Congress has really people have toyed with it and plucked at it and done various things, but no one has overturned those basic ideas. Why was that. It wasn't because they didn't want to politically lots of times. It's because somehow that value system got completely embedded, even in the American public that we think don't really care, but try and take it from them and then see if they care. These are absolutely extraordinary things. And without those extraordinary things, I can assure you that you would not have the wildlife in your country that you have today in either would Canada, and you certainly wouldn't have the opportunities that you have in Montana to go harvest that wildlife to feed you and your family. Yeah. It might sound trying to explain it this way, but as you said, your planes flying overhead, we're talking on microphones. Uh, you're in Newfoundland, I'm in Montana and we're talking via microphones and headphones that we can see each other. You know, a hundred years ago that would have been uh, it would maybe not even a sci fi movie. But the same ideas that were written down on parchment. And you know, like I said, it might sound trying to say they wrote it with a feather, but hey, whatever that that has has somehow been transported to to this conversation. So like that is it's um. It's an amazing idea, UM, and an amazing set of principles to be malleable yet so stringent to to the generations and the passage of time. So it's it's it's great. And across the diversity of the country has been I mean, if you look at your country and you look at Canada and moved from coast to coast and north to south, there's an enormous cultural diversity. You know, the countries value systems that that you know, I mean, people in different regions of the country feel differently about different things, vehemently so uh. And yet this basic approach has been carried out by every state and every province for a century. I mean. And then of course that approach, this is the other one of the other acts of genius was this early recognition of the need for international treaties. I mean, we talked about conventions on biodiversity and and Brunklin Reports, and conventions on migratory species and things of this nature. My goodness, these are these are these are these are juveniles? Now we we we have a system of treaties such as the Migratory Bird Convention and Act that that's a hundred years old. A hundred years ago they were talking about the need to manage ducks flying back and forth between our two countries. I mean, it's it's it's unbelievable. There was only a small population of of of white settlers living west of the Mississippi. Yeah, here we are a smacking. Here we are a smack and duck stamps on our licenses. Like that's how it is. That's how it has always been, you know. There there is Yeah, a lot of extraordinary things. I've always have been astounded kind of the separation that we've allowed. You know that that somebody can buy a hunting regulations manual or booklet as what however we'll call him each year, and that there isn't some some treaty listed out that says like look, at all the things that happened to get to this point, Like you can't don't don't turn your page and see how many turkeys you can kill in your region without first reading first center saying some perspective of how this came to be, however brief you could summarize it. I've always always wondered about that and thought that that's some sort of mistakes, so that that that that brings me to I think what I want to do, and I always talked about this briefly. I've wanted to start a book club for some time. Many of of our guests um this thing, wished and maybe some not so distingished, have books UM, and we all kind of read them together, but we never our listeners will read them together, but we never really put anything around it. I think it would only be right to start with your book with Dr Val Guys, who's also been on the show The North American Model Wildlife Conservation. UM. I'm gonna ask for no other reason than I think I know a lot of people are financially on hard times, but for no other reason that I think this is an inspirational work, not only the book, but just the idea that we've discussed here. Um, I'd like to ask our listeners to to read that book with me. I've already read it um at one and a half. I'm almost done my second read through it, but I will read it again with our listeners, sort as you have to go out and purchase it, um and then Shane, you can tell us it's available for everywhere books are sold Amazon, different places, right, Yeah, I mean it's published through Johns Hopkins University Press, so I mean that's the primary source, but I mean anyone can get it from them kind of thing, so it is available. One one very interesting thing about this book too, which I think is somewhat controversial but certainly topical and something that your listeners will want to weigh in on if they do read the book. Um, there is a there is a strong mention made in the book, in the opening chapter, in particular about you know, what might be vacancies in the model or whatever. And I'm asked that question a lot, and I talked a little bit there in that first chapter about what we lost when we lost the Native American cultures and what we might have learned had those Native American cultures been left to thrive. And been intact and so long, because the history is what the history is. But it shouldn't blind us to the fact that those nations of people, every single one of them, had developed extraordinary capacities to live in nature all over the breadth of Canada in the United States, you know, hundreds of different languages and cultures that were absolutely amazing. And while we may, some of us, pride ourselves on being able hunters today, we might reflect back on what it was to be like as a hunter when you were tossing a stone tipped arrow as your primary means of attaining your prey and so forth. And unfortunately, for political, cultural, social, ethnic reasons, UM, that is not part of the North American model, and in my view it is undoubtedly the greatest vacancy we have. Yeah, I would agree, and that's often in modern times yere with the ideas of social justice and some of the more progressive attacks on you know, what America is. I guess in our own history, I tend to just think of it this way, just like as you have said there, I mean that the North American model is this, this born from UM, the idea that we needed to change and do it better and put some structure around wildlife and cohabitation and value. And so there is this history on the back end of that, you know, for the century prior to that, where we were building to that moment um, and a lot of things that weren't so good happened during during that century. Um, there's no question. Yeah, and we can only acknowledge it. It's not to say that America isn't a wonderful place to live in a great place and a product of many nuanced happenings that both good and bad, shameful and and prideful. So you know, I I always want to preface those types of ideas with this. We're not here to set anything, but like here's here's history, and here's what happened, and here's how you can learn and move from. And I think what you just said is a good example of that. You know, this model that we're talking about such a great, long lasting thing. Kind of what it's missing is is some of the prior decades um that led to that. You know, it's void, it's void of it. So, um, it's a nice way to dichotomize and think of of our history. That So that's I appreciate. I know you and I have long talked about putting something together on just Native American wildlife conservation, and it's still long to do that with you at some point in the future, but as long as you're okay with it, Like I said, I'm not. I just want to make it clear, I'm not profiting from this in any way. I don't want to, UM, I want I just believe in in you know, the book in general is a it's a vehicle for my belief in the model UM and what we've already discussed. So I'm hoping that many readers can go out and buy that book and read it with us. Hopefully, Shane, you're you're okay with us coming back and roughly a month here UM and and we will certainly try to track down val Geist as well. Coming back and having a recording where we just talk about the book. We'll go through it UM and we'll talk about how you came to to want to put it together, how it was put together, and then and then the final result. And we'll ask our readers and listeners both to to participate and ask some questions and and write reviews of the book and and and we'll really all Hopefully together at least it will feel like together be able to examine the work and and and see where we land. You know, I absolutely delighted to do it, and I thank you for for taking on this idea. Not just about this particular book, but one of my goals over my career, through speaking and writing a great deal in both our countries, has been to try to convince our community, and by that community I mean anybody who cares about wildlife, including of course our community of hunters and anglers, to become more knowledgeable of their history and more knowledgeable of why they have the opportunities they do today. Because if you don't know and understand what it took to get you here, you're in a much more precarious position. You can lose what you have or fail to understand how you can protect it if you don't understand the efforts that were made to set it up in the first place. You know, a movement is like a country. You keep it vibrant and and working by what you invest in it, not by what you take from it. Yeah, yeah, profoundly said. Yeah. Hopefully everyone can take take the ideas we discussed, even in this time of COVID and understand that you know, an examination of this model is kind uh exactly that we've all kind of reflected as we started off here, we talked about reflection. It's a good time to reflect on and and if your value system includes hunting and going outside and loving wildlife, then you have, in my opinion, at least you should really dive into this and reflect upon it so you can move forward. Um. Well, let's also hope to ben that some people who are not in favor of hunting and who are uh sort of not in line with the models thinking also participated this and offer us up some challenges that we can do. That's perfect. Yeah, I mean the good thing for you listeners out there that I'm asking to purchase this book and get it shipped to your house and read it. That you'll share it with your family members that maybe you aren't hunters, your wives, your husband's, your cousins, your friends, your neighbors, share it with them. Maybe not the book, but share the ideas. UM, pass it around and bring to the discussion next time we join Shane. UM some really hard questions for us to to to dance around and try to answer. Um, think about it. Hard come at us or Shane looks ready, I'm ready, um to to really tackle some tough questions and some tough lines of thinking and critical critical as they need to be. Um. I think it'll be fun. I look forward to it. We're gonna do that with lots of books in the future, but Shane, I'm very glad to do it with with your book. UM up first, well, thank you very much. We're very proud, and I'm sure Dr Guist will be very eager to participate as well. He always is. And of course never forget that it was valarious Guist who came up with that term in the first instance. That's all right, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be calling him. Maybe he's over there on the opposite end of the from you. I wanna I want to on an island as well, So maybe that's maybe that's a common thread that you guys both picked the islands or books or that's you are. So we'll get ahold of him and hopefully he'll take part. I'm sure he'll, like you said, have a comment either way, and I look forward to to next time. Shane. I really appreciate everything the thoughts, Um. They're both inspiring, and sightful and thanks for taking the time to be part of this little program as many times as you have. Okay, thanks pretty much, Ben, Good luck to you. Thank you, Shane, Bye, go Wilcome. That's it. That is all. Another episode in the books. Thanks to Miles Nolte, Thanks to Shane Mahoney. Thanks to you Phil Ty engineer for hanging in there with us. We had a lot of technical difficulties with Squadcast not a sponsor um getting into the Shane Mahoney interview. Yeah, it was a it was a it was a nightmare. It was a guy like a nightmare podcast, not not a fucking sponsor in this case. Here is to bring you behind the scenes a little bit. We had Shane was having surprised with his computer, then his headphones, and then we got that gone and we finally crested the ridge too to really be where we could actually record, and then Squadcast wasn't recording Shane, and then we had to like restart to see if that would work. And then we restarted Shane had to get up to go to the bathroom and came back his headphones didn't work, so we had to restart it again, and then like Phil had to do some Jerry rigging magic on how we actually recorded the podcast. We recorded in eight different programs at once. Phil, you want to try to help people understand. Yeah, I know, I had it. Yeah. I eventually had to take a laptop and have a series of wires connecting it to another computer that was recording in a different program. It was It was fun. I mean, it was a learning experience and I'll cherish it forever. It was also Mother's Day, and so Phil and I were and you know, Jane, we're all away from our families, and it's like we really had to do it on that day. So like that this the stress was there, but hopefully you just listened for a couple of hours and and um our efforts were worth it. Thank you Phil for hanging in there with me during these these times. Of course, next episode, I'm back in the studio, I'm talking to a very uh it's evactly like a very important podcast. We we teased it last week, so I apologize that we pushed it back, but we pushed back. A guy named Brett Bond, whose father Glenn, was attacked by a bear on the Denali Road up there in Alaska. Um In you've probably all We mentioned it last weekend. I'll apologize that we pushed it a week. You've probably seen the images of of Glen Bond. His face is ripped off. Basically, um, there's a video of him talking without a face. The images in the video are gruesome as you could imagine, and they were all over the Internet and they sparked what amounts to over a forty years span, an urban legend. They were attributed to a lot of different places, a lot of different people, a lot of different things, until Brett Bond came forward with what we believe is the true story of those images and how they came to be. It's an amazing story that includes Brett uh heroically saving his father by shooting a bear while it was attacking him, driving on the snow machine back to safety, Glenn Bond refusing any blood transfusions, any pain medications during the ordeal, and medical incarceration is a part of this. The really the story of this family is intertwined with the story of the Spare attack. So next week you're gonna hear all about it. I am very excited for it. I think it's one of the best things we've done. Sam longer. And have you heard on the show, Joe Ferronado. You've certainly heard on the show. Help me with the research, and um, we've uncovered a lot of really amazing parts of this story. So we can't wait to share it with you next week here on the show. Phil. Are you ready? Yeah, I've I've heard um a lot of it and it's it's crazy, it's wild. Yeah. Are you do you want to kind of like hype people up for this, Like from what you've heard, is it, uh the crazy sparit tax story? Does it make you cringe? Where are we averybody? I mean we've we've I've heard a lot in the past year of my life just by you know, proximity to all of you people, you insane people. Um, and this is definitely the most like just the most adrenaline pumping, like horrifying one. I'd say, out of all seen the photos, Uh no, I have, Nick, and I have not brought myself to look at them. Okay, Well, I mean that's what sparked this whole thing there that you know, then of the stuff, you know, how like a controversy becomes more controversial with his video evidence. This is just one of those things. You know, it's something to hear about a bear attack, but to see some of the imagery from the attack, it's just it's mind blowing that like Glenn, Bond and Brett are alive and telling the story to us and walking us through it. So um, not only are we recounting a bear attack here, but we did all We spent lots of hours investigating it and looking into the truth and and really because it became an urban legend and there was so much untruth around it over the years, we wanted to kind of set the record straight do that. With Brett, we we find them to be very credible when to be telling the truth. So I'm very excited for that next week here on the Honey Collective. So stick and stay with us. We look forward to uh cringeworthy but important episode one, right Phil, Yes, that is correct, damn right. We'll see you then by know, because I can't go a week without doing rong, oh without fe roll, drinking out right wrong, drinking in

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