00:00:12 Speaker 1: I guess I grew up. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode one hundred and thirty three. I think that's right. Phil's not here. I'm alone Joe for Anato's here. Was that right, Joe? I'm pretty sure it's one three? Hard to say, Hey, listen, I don't have covid um. I'm back in the office, back in the studio, fills out recording with Steve Ornella, who is basically just stealing him from me. Um. I think they're recording with Tom Broke. I don't want to break any news, but they're out at Tom broke Call's ranch, I think right now, recording for the media podcast. So again, Joe, everybody's leaving me. Yep, Phil left me. Now you're leaving. I'm leaving. I'm leaving you. What's up with that? Man? It's something I did. Yeah, Actually it was pretty much all you Okay, how much all you come into the office every day and seeing you? Thanks? Thanks, well, thanks for the honesty. I really appreciate. Joe is leaving to go work. He's going leaving to kind of retrace my steps. Maybe I've inspired you to live the life. I need to go learn. I need to have those Yeah, he's taken. He's taking a new job. Had a publication you might have heard of called Peterson's Hunting Magazine where I once served as an editor. Yep. And so we're happy for you, Joe. Congratulations. I appreciate it. I'm excited for the new opportunity you. We're losing you. It's really said, I wish I could do both. What if you could just keep coming in here and it's like, just be on, You're not gonna get paid for it, but just because you're like hanging out with me and Phil enough to just come in right. Yeah, I like that. I would do it all right. Well, call me whenever you want me to when whenever you need a Jamie, I'm here for you. I'll be texting you in the middle of the night. Hey man, google this you recording? No, but I want you to google for me. Um, do you have any last words? Is there anything that you have any thinking about that you want? Uh? The seventh most people in hunting podcasts to hear seventh ranked hunting podcast. Um, is there anybody? It might be six by now. I just think it's interesting that people actually listen to it. Yeah, thanks for that. I'm just kidding you would, Phil, Really, it really doesn't help my ego. No, I think it's great. Any last war, any any anything that you've learned over your time at Meat Eater, anything you'd like to say about maybe like Steve Ornella or how he is. There's so much, there's so much. I've learned so much. Um. I think the biggest thing I've learned is keep an open mind. Listen, especially when you're in a situation where you don't know what you're talking about. Just shut up, listen to the other people in there. Him and learned something which most of us don't know most things, Yeah, exactly, just putting it out there, even if I don't know things about hunting. And I have a podcast, Hey Talking, and that's okay because you bring in all these amazing guests that offer different points of views, different different bits of information that are really good for everybody to learn from. It's a good point to make, Joe. It's a good point. That's probably the best thing about podcasts because people listen to a great conversation and you're pretty much a part of the conversation. But it doesn't allow you to have that outlet to jump in and yeah, well, shout out to a guy named Dane Ossiveto from Idaho because he won the back forty contest that we did last year with Mark Kenyan and Stephen Ronnella, and I was talking to him about his win and he's like, Dude, this is weird. I feel like I've had lots of conversations with you, but we've never met. I was like, that's weird for both of us. Yeah, it's weird for both of us. But anyway, today's podcast is all in celebration of Joe and all your days here at Meat Either may you and you got married? I got married? Mentioned that, Yeah, and you got a ring made out of sheep's big horn. Sheephorn, which is it sounds really weird to say. Listen, I think it's cool, but just just know that's kind of on the edge between being cool and being douche. So I meant to say that to you, Hey, don't pay everybody. No, No, it's not not The ring isn't douche. The way you presented to other people. I'm just just want to just want to warn you. If you're like, hey, check out, check this out. My wife. My wife got me. Now you let them notice your awesome ring. What is that? By the bye, it's a normal thing for me that it's made of sheephorn, because that's the kind of guy that I am exactly. Anyhow, today we're gonna we got a lot, a lot to do today. Um, We're gonna have a non discussion about an important topic here in the second that's the New Zealand Call of tar Um, but has been a lot of people have been asking me to talk about. So we're gonna have a non discussion about that. And then we're going to pay tribute to the late great Jim Pozziwo, who passed away this last week at the great age of eighty five. It's a sad that's a sad time, but also a good time to celebrate this man his life. Listen back to some of the words he told us an episode forty four, and and I think we'll close the show with a story from Jim because he's a great man and he did a lot for us. Um. But before we get to that that final tribute to him, UM, we're gonna talk to James Tantillo. Dr James d'antillo, an ethicist at a Cornell was also part of Jim Pozzo. It's O'Ryan the Hunter's Institute, which was focused on hunting and hunting ethics. So it's a greater tribute to Jim. We're gonna talk hunting ethics. We're gonna talk sticky situations. We're gonna talk uh crossbows, We're going to talk um baiting. We're gonna talk about all these things that that Jim kind of waded into in his books, like Fair Chase and the other things that he wrote along his storied life. And so rest in peace to to Jim posewits a great man. A big part of this show. Had so many people over the weekend and found out his passing text me or right and talk about UM this show and introducing him a year and a half ago to a lot of people, and those people being affected by his writings and his thoughts. And I think that's probably just a micro cosmim of who that man was and what he meant over the years that he was able to um impact the hunting community the way that he was. So UM, thank you for everything, Jim, godspeed, and we're thinking about your family and we're thinking about your legacy. So we'll keep on keeping on um about that take a little bit, a little moment. Sorry, a little emotional there, But man, you know what, Joe, when I was thinking about Jim, pause, what's I'm thinking, here's the guy who was on podcast. I had a chance to have several conversations with him. I knew that he had a legacy that meant something to me. But then when he died, I was like, man, it meant more than I thought because it was just a man I met in passing through kind of a professional um, you know, circumstance, and it's not like we I went to his house and you know, hung out with him every weekend. But when he died, I'm like, man, there's a there's a message in his life that that kind of ends here unless we keep talking about it. So I think the weight of that it got me a little bit emotional. Joe a little bit more. I get that I got emotional and I never even met him. But but like you said, I think his legacy, his teachings will live on through people like you who have had those conversations with him, and you know, continue to to push his ideologies and and share it with with the public. Yes, so well, at the end of the show, we're gonna do a little outro and then we'll play our favorite clip from his appearance on the show, which is him telling the story of generations in the womb of time and version of him running into a father and two sons on the mountain. It's a beautiful story and invokes some tears from Jim at the time, and so hopefully you guys can all listen to that after we hear from Dr James Tantillo on hunting ethics and reflect a little bit as we are right now. Um, but we're gonna get to New Zealand country that I love, place that I love, great place. Never been there, but I think it's a great place. That's I mean, I'm hoping you go Hope at Peterson's Hunting Gig. Attention. If Mike scoby' is listening right now, David Draper, if you're listening right now, all Joe's new bosses sent him to New Zealand, I wouldn't say no. It's a wonderful place. It's one of my favorite places in the world. So I'm gonna I want to address this New Zealand tar calling issue and in a way that I'm not even going to address the actual issue at all. I like that. See if it works in advertently address something, you know, you'll like it. Here's here's what I want to say. We are going to I am going to continue to think about who I can have on how we can dive into this topic. I know, I know it has nuance. I know that it has levels and layers that I'm not aware of. I don't live there. I've visited their three times. Um, I've shot one tar. Um. I was a part of a contest to send me there to hunt tar with hopefully one of you here next year if once once these code restrictions die down. Um, that's the that's my experience with the animal in the place. And I was telling Joe earlier, I feel like I'm a proponent of of more game animals and more places, and that's kind of the general way I look at it. But there's a complexity to the situation in New Zealand that I don't want to miss. Now, all the hunters that I know, all the outfitters, all the guides, the Tar Foundation, everybody down in New Zealand that has written in and it's been a lot of you. So I will give you all the credit in the world for feeling very passionate about this, and I promise so I'm not rejecting your passion or rejecting the need to talk about this. But what I am saying is I do I do not desire to get caught up in one way of thinking or desire to just repeat one side of the issue. So there seems to be Joe some speed with which we should have talked about this, because I think we've missed the vote already on the toll the tar coal proposal. Yeah, they accepted the proposal, so I don't I'm not I'm not acenture what that means again, but h but it has been accepted. But I would say in general, I want there to be tar on those mountains. There is there is some some very apt comparisons to what's happening in the Olympian National Park with the goat call this year, um, which we can talk about as well. I want to craft a whole episode about this. I think I struggled to think whether this isn't this is a national issue, This is an issue for us because it's in New Zealand. But I thought about and I thought about it. I believe it is, but I want to make a concerted effort to understand it and to present all sides of it and then make comparisons to what we know in the States. So this is my way of saying, I'm thinking about it, I'm looking at it. I want to know more. I want to talk to the people that are doing the work on the ground, and I want there to be tar New Zealand And, because it seems like the hunters in New Zealand want that to UM. I don't want to just travel there, pay some money and kill one and come back and not care. All of that is to say, like I want to talk about it, we will talk about it. UM. I am sorry if if UM as an advocate, I might fall short in this case. I do want to advocate for this, but man, I can't. I don't want to find myself in a situation where, um, I've spoke too soon, or I just paired to what someone else wanted me to say. So that's that's the danger. Maybe I'm wrong, Joe, but that's what I'm thinking right now. No, I think that's a great point that that kind of goes along with what I said earlier. You know, if you don't have much to bring to the converse station at the time, and I feel like I don't have anything to this conversation. I feel like I can listen to other people talking and repeat what they said, or have someone on and I know what the outcome is going to be in terms of what we're asking people to do. UM. So it's just I would just say, rather than explain everything. I felt uncomfortable with jumping on board and immediately saying you go sign this petition, go do this, go act now. I don't feel uncomfortable talking about the Great American Outdoors Act because I've I've studied it, I understand it, and I know what I'm around colleagues who helped me understand it every day, so I don't feel generally inclined to wait on that one. I feel like I know what's going on in this case. Well, that's the good thing about putting together a show for it, doing the research, getting people talking to the people on the ground, doing that, really understanding it. It's kind of our duty as hunters and controvationists who care about game animals everywhere, not just in the US. Like that's yeah, people who care about conservation and like you said, you're a proponent for more game animals everywhere. Yeah, I mean I love hunting TAR and I will if I get a chance to do it again this next year, I will do it. Um. But there's no situation and in terms of wildlife management on the scale that we're talking about with in New Zealand, um that's not complex and doesn't have things that need to be knocked down and explored a little bit. So that's what we'll hope to do in the future. We'll talk to as many people I want to talk to us. So if you have an opinion or someone you think we should talk to like this about this issue, the New Zealand Tar call that can can help shape a good perspective and a good presentation, then then shoot shoot us a note t see at the media dot com and we'll talk about it man, and we'll explore it, and we will find a way to kind of include that in the conversation that we're gonna have your coming up. And again, apologies for the lack of time in this New Zealand hunting community. I know there was you know, people were asking that's just where I landed on it, and you, uh, We're gonna learn something from this. And I hope hopefully they don't kill all the tar in the national parks over there. Hopefully not man, that'd be awful. They're not gonna eat them if they kill them. Well, it's just kind of like the goat coal here. Yeah. I guess we say we'll talk about in the whatever episode we get this too, but we we applied Joe and I and Sam Longer and can I just say, I'm kind of glad we didn't go because I like I wanted to just to fully understand it, but at the same time knowing that I would have had to pretty much shoot every goat, Nanny, Nanny's kids, billies, whatever, Yeah, I was. Yeah, So just just for clarity, there was I think, you know, I don't want to say similar, but as similar in an act thing in an Olympic National park, they're going to call all of the goats out of that national and we and then you could put in to apply to be one of the agent the calling agents. I guess you would say, um, And we went through, we had to fill out this huge form. It was really interesting interaction. It was really interesting interaction. Again, what you're gonna hear from Dr James Tantillo coming up from Jim Tantillo is hunting. What he told us just a seemingly normal story about hunting on a winery, a friend's vineyard, and it was a call operation, and a doe walked by with two fonts and he normally, it's not going to shoot that. And the first time it walked by, he passed on this stone two fonds and then that evening thought to himself, well, I'm here to call are and I I have an ethical obligation or an obligation to my friends who brought me in here to do this job. And I have an obligation to the to the wildlife, which is is kind of a through line obligation. I always have it. And then uh, he said, well I thought about He said, well, if that deer comes by again, I'm gonna shoot it. And it came by two days later and he shot it, and those two funds will die ish any awful death um at his hand. But that's also three off the board in terms of the population in the in the vineyard. And so all of this to say, as we celebrate Jim Posewits, as we talk about hunting, ethics. All of this to say, the point that Jim makes and we made in the show that you'll in the interview that will here is that hunting is malleable. It changes no matter what. It's not just one thing, it's not my opic. It changes no matter the context in your own perspective and what you bring to it. So as we jump into that conversation, I want to just make that clear that that that's something that's in New Zealand in Olympian National Park and some dudes vineyard out east, like those things are happening all the time. So all that's why this stuff is all connected, So that all makes sense, Joe or am I just rambling? Though I thought it was great. I usually like having fun in these openings, but now just not feel I'm just feeling like this is a time for it's a heavy day. The day it's a heavy day. So, UM, I will remind all of you the Great American Outdoors that act contest is still going on. UM. We've had some good entries, you got a couple of poems, some good photos. UM, not as many as i'd like though, So by next week I'd like all of you to go out find a piece of property that was impacted that got funds by the Lana Water Conservation fund That you can go to Lana Water Conservation Funds Coalitions website and then you can find places around you you can go there, recreate, have a good time, take a photo, make a video, send it to us, make us laugh, and we'll give you some cool prizes, including a first Light Vortex and Nemo prizes, three separate ones. So I'm counting you guys to put in some good entries. If we need to extend the contest, we will extend the contest. But I want some good entries to to make us laugh, to give you a chance to go out and do those things. So and it really shouldn't be that hard to go find something. Nope, it's not. At Let's just say you can't find one, just go somewhere and reenact like you were at one. I don't really care at this point. This is the something that drives me, like you drop pictures of Phil makes me happy. You go out. You go out and make a poem or make a music video, or take a cool photo. Um at a at a BLM or some BLM property or some pool or some park it's gonna make me feel good, so please go and do that in emails at th HC at the Media dot Com th HC at the Media dot Com. I think that's it, Joe. I think it's all I have to say for this this part. I think it was a good intro. Yeah, I think we did pretty good. Um. If not, we'll do better next time. And and you know, Mr Tantillo will take it from here. You'll like it. James Tantillo, Hunting Ethics, episode one thirty three. I got that down now here. He is all the way from Cornell, Jim. How are you, sir? Real good? It's real good. How are things in the East Coast right now? Pretty hot? We're heading heading into July with a warm stretch, so nice to be inside podcasting with they're conditioning on. I'm sure I saw my family were complaining about heat back there while we're you know, frolicking in the mountains of Montana at cool seven or five. I know, I know how that goes. What's what's the what's these last few months been? Like? I know we checked in in January. Um, and as I was telling you, probably the email, we had a lot of listener response people love the conversation, and I know you and I both felt like we didn't quite get into the stickiness of some of these things. Um. But before we get into any of that, how how's been, how's the quarantine been, how's teaching been? What? What's what's life been like since shutdown? Are our team's fine teaching? Halfway through the semester we got sent home and I taught half the semester from my tutor in upstairs bedroom. But it went well. And right now the universe is trying to figure out what they're gonna do in the fall. But on the home front, we've got a new bird dog. We got a new uh, two year old German short hair pointer who's a litter made of our own two year old female and the two of them together are gonna be dying like this ball. We're really looking forward to hunting on this fall. Gsps are becoming a thing. Huh. They're popular. I always swore we'd never have a g SP. I always had English setters. I'm an English setter guy. That's the one true correct way to hunt is with an English center and a double gun, preferably a Parker. You know all that sixty engage. But these thinks you short hair pointers, they're pretty They're they're pretty fun. I gotta say I've never hunted behind one and had a bad time for that is that is for sure. Well, I'm glad to hear you're still teaching and still thinking about hunting, because I sure him. Yeah, Um, before get into some of these ethical conversations that that folks so enjoy. Um. I know we spoke before this that you had a relationship with Jim Pozziwits, who passed away just a few days ago, and I was glad that on Friday. Yeah, I was glad that we had this. We had this call set up prior to to to learning about his passing. But I'm glad that we get to talk a little bit about him with you because I know you were part of Oriyan the Hunter's Institute and had a relationship with him for for decades. So if you want to take a little time to speak about you know, how you came to know him and what you thought of Jim. Sure. Sure. Uh. My relationship with Jim dates back to I believe the late nineties. I think Ryan and Jim had put together this three week course on the history philosophy and ethics of hunting at Montana what is it Montana State there in Bozeman, and he actually cared for my to wish him for that course. So I went out there and and met you know, people like Mary Stang and Claude Evans, Ken Bear to Teras Odi and others. And I was just a real formative experience for me to be immersed in that topic about the history and philosophy of the hunt. And uh, it was at a time when I was fishing around for a new PhD topic, you know, and and that's what I settled on. That's what I ended up writing my dissertation on, was the philosophy hunting. So really, Jim is is all right in there. I mean, he's a tremendous inspiration, tremendous sense of humor, close personal friend, and I'm very very sad that he's gone. But he lived a very good life, you know, a well lived life, absolutely a huge impact. I'm extremely jealous of you being in a room with the Lexa, Jim Pozwits and Ted Carosodi to talk about the philosophies of hunting and ethics. It was it was great. Yeah, yeah, I mean well, we're gonna play some of past interviews with Jim here coming up, and and some of the some of the things that we enjoyed about his philosophy. I mean, what do you in terms of hunting ethics, which we'll talk about, and and the philosophy which you mentioned, What does Jim mean for you know, what legacy does he leave behind for all of that? Well, I think the focus on fair chase as debatable or problematic a concept despair chase can be in certain context. You know, he really brought that sort of whole discussion back into the into the into the forefront and and really you know, talking about people's individual ethical behavior, and you know, echoes of Leopold who said, you know how you hunt? You know, you're out there with no audience, you know, and you're in the middle of nowhere, and you're making choices that you know nobody's gonna see. And it's all up to you and your character and your sense of right and wrong or the right and wrong way to hunt. And uh, you know, I think and and you know, beyond fair chase was printed, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of copies that went into the hands of under education students in an incredible number of the states. You know something, last I looked at something like eight hundred thousand copies of that little book had been had been printed and distributed, and that was all Jim. That was all O Ryan. So Ryan was Jim and Jim was Orion. Yeah, it's a great loss, but as you said, he leaves behind, you know, more than what any of us could hope to leave behind in terms of of hunting in our community, and and sets up many of the conversation we're gonna have today even and our connection in lots of ways, and so Um, as I said, as I've probably said before on our show, I felt that, you know, my brief relationship with him was was definitely just wanting to hear his stories, but he also wasn't scared too to disagree and to give his points. And and I think he enjoyed parts of that with me, a young a young whipper snapper with a bunch of ethical ideas. I think he very much enjoyed challenging me, um and pushing me, pushing my limits. Well, thanks for just you know, thanks for talking about that a little bit, and I'm glad we can now kind of spin into talking about ethics, which is what Um, Jim spent most of his life thinking about and working on and promoting, like you said, through hunter education and and and everything he did later on. Um, when I looked at I was looking at you know, O'Ryan the other night, and just kind of reading and thinking about how you kind of set up the conversation of addicts. We had a lot of discussion last time in January. UM, you know about hunting as a sacred art and some of the more deeper philosophical thoughts about hunting. But then there then you kind of run into fair chase when you start as you as you mentioned that it can be problematic. Um. We know, you know, most folks probably know the actual definition that could certainly read it word for word. But how how would you you know, as you sit in your chair today in think about defining fair chase for those listening, Well, see right there, you're off on the wrong foot. All due respect, you know, I'm not sure that fair chase can be quote unquote defined. You know, philosophers sometimes speak of open concepts, and you know what you have to do is sort of stipulate what you mean by a term like fair chase. And you know, here's where some of my discussions with positis. You you you talk about debate, honest debate. He loved debate. You know, fair chaise to him was almost entirely an ethical concern. And to me, my decades long conversation with Jim tried to gently steer him in the direction of understanding that a lot of what we refer to his fair chase are really aesthetic concerns. You know, they have to do with how we perceive the right and the wrong way to kill animal. You know, do you have to kill a deer within a hundred yards or is long distance shooting unethical? You know, the deer, if honestly killed and just you know, falls over, doesn't care whether it's killed within a hundred yards or within a thousand yards or within two thousand yards. You know, so that's a that's a sort of uh stylistic preference, right, Some people want to sneak up on a deer, they want to go to archery, or you know those guys with the spears that stand in the tree stands and spear the deer straight down. You know, that's the ultimate sort of challenge. Um. But again, those are more like artistic preferences or esthetic preferences rather than uh, ethical issues. The only ethical issue is the clean, quick kill. Really, that and hunting safely and a general respect for the law. Really, I think that's where hunting ethics sort of begins and ends, and the rest of it. These questions of technique, these questions of technology, stickbow versus recur versus compound bow versus crossbow, you know, those are all questions of preference, personal preference. Yeah, I think if if you know, we could have probably we agree. I agree with you absolutely on that, and I think that um and I've talked about that with Jim as well over some conversations about exactly what are we talking about here. We have we have the way that we hunt and then the way that we kill, and there's less tangible there's less tangible aspects in terms of ethics in the hunting because it's just an act um. But the killing is where the ethics matters, because there is a tangible effect on the other end. And I've had a lot of people not really be able to understand that when it comes to say, like personal ethics and how you feel and and so it's good to hear you say that, because I think that maybe is is where fair chase gets gets a bad rap. Do you feel like fair chase in and of itself is a term that we can continue with. Oh sure, sure, because I think fair chase And here's another point of disagreement with not just Jim, but the number of people who think about hunting fair chase conveys the sense of fair play and sportsmanship. Now, it's not fashionable to connect hunting with sport any longer. I've had these arguments plenty of times with a lot of people. But the idea of fair play and giving the prey a sporting chance that is crucial to hunting. Right, hunting is not shooting a cow with a bazooka through a barred wire fence. Right to be hunting, it has to be a challenge. And if it gets too easy, this is where sometimes hunters will find, you know, after they've killed the twentieth year with a rifle, you know, bill switch over to archery, or they'll switch to a different technique. And that's to maintain the challenge aspect of the activity, because otherwise it for a lot of folks will it will fail to sustain our interest over the long haul. You know, we we want to keep on hunting interesting. Yeah, I mean, I know, we We've spoke about this a little last time. There's there's admittedly, if any hunter would think about this, there's a bit of a game theory to hunting, right. The part of the appeal as the game, right, and so you have to ascribe gamelike qualities to the thing that you're doing. Um, and so you're trying to match wits with uh you figuratively an opponent. All right. So people who criticize or don't like the game analogy will say, well, the deer never consented to play the game, you know, like the person sitting across the board from you playing Monopoly. But figuratively, it makes all the sense in the world to speak of trying to match one's wits with whatever critter you are trying to pursue. And again that's what makes it interesting. Yeah. Do you think that the acknowledge if we could acknowledge that, because I certainly have acknowledged that, Like a part of my attraction is that the game like quality. If we could acknowledge that, as hunters, things would be a little bit easier. We could rationalize our actions a little bit, a little bit more simply, well, hunters, both their explanations of hunting and then their justifications and their attempted justifications, would be a lot more honest, because too often in the past, maybe not so much as as as much anymore, but you know, there has been this tendency of saying, well, we hunt for food, therefore it's moral. Hunting is moral. And you know, if it was only about food, we'd go down to the grocery store and be done with it. Get you know, beef and shrink, gripped um and no risk of crippling, loss or wounding an animal that crawls off and dies six weeks later. You know, uh, you know again we we we hunt for the hunt. You know, meat is a sort of happy by product of our efforts, but meat is not the sole objective. Yeah, and that's you know, hunt to have hunted. Right. The the idea that the byproducts are the things that um that become the justification, right, like the adventure becomes the justification for going. But it's only a byproduct of the activity, right, the enjoyment of the activity. Really if and you can't single out one purpose versus other purposes. I mean, it's a multi fascinating activity that's complex. That's why people enjoy it. But primarily it's the enjoyment that motivates people who else, you know, you know, wants to get up at three in the morning and slept their decoys and waiters out to a blind before dark and you know, in in by deep mud and silt and and say ah, yeah, I'm having all of a time. You know, yes, you are enjoying that on some level, even though it's you know, pouring rain and you know the mosquitoes are by union, you know, So the enjoyment is not just a sort of happy, heatonistic you know. Uh, it's not a great time, but it's a it's a much deeper or nuanced, complex type of deep satisfaction. Uh. Something that strikes me a lot about about that part of the conversation is there's a there's been a shift for me, I would say for me personally and I know for people around me. Um, there's the intrinsic value of hunting the thing you're you're doing just because it feels good to you and that you are getting something from it, and then the extrinsic value of like, what do people are gonna think of this? What's this? What's this do for me? And as a guy who has a podcast in the business and has a social media account, that the mixing of those two things is torturous for me. And I know that's a lot of people have mentioned this to me. Have you thought a little bit about how social media and in media and of any kind TV shows, podcasts have kind of mixed these things together where we're, you know, we're addicted to kind of showing ourselves hunting, and it maybe rips away a little bit of intrinsic pleasure. I think this is a risk for anyone who tries to turn you know what it essence is their avocation to their vocation, their job, you know. And it's one thing to do something because you love it, right, which is the root of the term amateur. Right when you're an amateur cellist or you're an amateur softball player, an amateur hunter, you're doing it just for the love. The root is more I guess of amateur. And then you turn it into something where you're gonna make money at it, and all of a sudden it becomes a business and your motivations become profit, your motivations become Can I get the kill on camera? Uh? You know, And and you know, I think that does taint the experience a little bit. You know. I think folks that I know that are in the outdoor media care aus oity. You know. I think you know, if you were to ask him, you probably admit to that, you know, or Randy Newburg or others. Uh, you know, if if you press them a little bit deep down, I think I wouldn't be surprised if they felt some of that. Yeah, I'm not I've not had that conversation. Man, you'd be interesting to do at And you know, I work at a company where that's the goal of some Um, some of the younger individuals that walk through the door or people out there they're listening, they might think they want to work here, um, and that it's their dream to have a Netflix television program where they get to go hunting. Um. It's not quite as simple as that. And I felt the tings. I felt the tinge of going out and like, well, if I don't get a turkey this year, I won't have anything to post on social media and or right about and then I'm not doing my job, like, well, that sucks because failure at my job shouldn't be included in my hunting experience. But it is right because you know, it's what they say about fishing that you know, even a day without fish is a good day fishing. You know, you should feel that way about hunting every day year out in the field, whether you come home with something or empty handed, that was a day that you didn't spend, you know, chain to your desk. So uh. And and you know, here's where you get into the various theories about stages of hunters. You know, when hunters are young, you know, generally speaking, they have trigger rich and they want to kill. And then as they make sure and get older, their list concertain about you know, filling the bag or the kill and are more interested in technique. And then some hunters when they get to the end of their hunting career, they rarely pulled the trigger uh, because they're they're simply enjoying the moment. Yeah, did you That's something I've run into a lot here. My friend Wyman menzer Um has been on the podcast a few times and he's a great photographer in the state of Texas and came up as a trapper um trapping bobcats and coyotes and in the big empty in northern northern central Texas, and he had probably killed more coyotes than just about anyone um. And in his later years he reflects upon the regret of some of those kills and has kind of transformed into only a photographer and an appreciator of the wildlife. And he's not the only person I've heard that from. And so I get a little bit worried about, well, where am I going to go in my life? Am I going to think back on this time in thirty years and regret some of the killing I've done, or or like? Is that just a natural progression? As you mentioned, have you how would you articulate those kind of strikes. Yeah, I think it can be a natural progression for some people. I don't think these are absolute. You know, we're not describing what happens to everybody. I mean, I know hunters who quite happily kill animals up to the day they die. And and I know hunters who are in their fifties who never got rid of the trigger, which they're still about filling the bag limits And you know those are guys I don't tend to prefer to want to hunt with sometimes. Um, but you know, I think every individual deals with that differently. But it's but it's not uncommon for somebody as they get older to not be so eager to to pull the trigger. You know, Ida hunted last year probably every day of a three week season. I saw a deer every single day. And today's the deer just walked by and I not today. I just don't feel like gutting a deer today. I don't feel like killing this deer today. I see, you know, a six pointer and say, well, maybe I got two weeks left. I'm gonna wait for an eight point or a ten pointer. And you know, all kinds of different factors, uh, you know, factor in and and you know, I think you have to allow people the freedom to to sort of, you know, pursue hunting the way they want to pursue hunting. Yeah, And that maybe that's the thing that like underlines most of what we're talking about here, and most of what you've thought about for a long time, and most of the things that kind of strike me about fair chase and hunting ethics and philosophies is like I'm I'm I'm I've become in the last few years, UM, big on just personal responsibility and and being an understanding like I have to do this right based on, of course, what I believe in my experiences and my set of influences. UM. And it's hard to control what other people are doing based on, you know, my certain set of things that have happened to me in my perspective, UM. And that's maybe you know, at some point where this conversation has hasn't gone or maybe hasn't gone there enough. It was that a big part of how you you know, when you thought of talking with Jim and others, how that came to be this personal responsibility, like you have to know what's right for you and you have to follow the law. And that's pretty much what it is, right. You know. I had some conversations with other members of the Iryan board years ago who you know, had fairly I'm gonna I'm gonna use a term that sounds negative, but I don't mean it this way. But they were somewhat absolutist in their conception of the right way and the wrong way to hunt. And I would come back to context and I would say, you know, hunter A maybe facing a decision that on the surface looks the same as the decision facing hunter B. But the context is totally different, and you have to allow for those two hunters to make different decisions, and that's on them. You can't impose a rule from the top down to to cover both hunters experience. And so you mentioned kyle hunting, right, varmin hunting in general, oil, If you don't eat what you hunt, what business do you have killing kyotes or woodchucks or prairie dogs. Now, for a hunter whose only motivation or whose motivation is largely meat, they don't understand varmint hunting, right. But for other people who actually enjoy the challenge of shooting kyotes or calling kyotes or woodchucks are prairie dogs, you know, meat is not part of the context. Right. There are other facets of that activity though, that draw those people in and that provide them with satisfaction and that that deep joy, that enjoyment. Uh. And you know, again, I think we have to allow for the different experience of uh, different hunters, we you know, and there you get into the semantic squabbles of well, those guys whom shoot kylets, they're not even hunters, you know, or their slab hunters. They're not true hunters. And you know, all of that I think is a sort of civil war that's in the long run, more damaging hunting than just letting people have kyote you know, contests or you know, that's that's another aspect. Yeah, yeah, I got it. I got a very long email the other day from a listener who was was had to know my opinion on kyote contests, like that was the thing that they had to know about and whether or not they were going to continue listening to this particular program. Hinged on hinged on the whether I agree. And it wasn't like I wasn't allowed to give a nuanced answer. It was like, well you know in some context and I was it was like a yes or no statement. Um. And that hinged the pressure for me, which I don't really didn't bother me, and all the pressure was, hey, if you answer wrong, then I'm out. Um. I just didn't answer at all because I thought, well, that's that's a trap. That the trap that I'm not interested in it. But that that to your point, it's a big part of it, right, that's a big part. I mean you're a you're at a university, an Eastern university. UM, you know, kind of in the middle of a changing culture, I would say, I mean, or at least for sure at this moment in time. Uh, there's a cultural cultural war at going on where a speech is being examined in a way we've not seen before. UM, speeches being really equated to violence in some aspects. Do you can you relate that to to this conversation and all the way that young folks are thinking about morality and how they moved through the world. It's more of it, maybe an absolutist way of approaching things. Yeah, well, you know you would think so. And then hunting has had sort of this overall bad reputation in urban circles and suburban circles for decades. But surprisingly, and maybe we touched on this the last time we spoke. You know, we have a lot of urban kids coming to a place like Cornell and they want to learn how to hunt and and there some of their motivation has to do with the connections to the local bore movement and you know, getting your own food and the perceived health factor of eating an organically wild deer versus you know, a factory farmed uh you know a cow uh. So so I don't know. I think right now the jury is out on where this particular period of time that we find ourselves in the last six months or year. I don't know how that's going to play out in the next two or three years. I don't have a crystal ball, but you know, at least what I've seen in the last you know, a half dozen of years or so, I think there's a much more open minded uh attitude among young people towards hunting, fishing, maybe even trapping. Yeah, yeah, I think so too. I would reflect that as well, you know, as much as um many media outlets kind of present this certainly, like I said, a culture war. Certainly this discord to to a level that I've not seen in my young life, but to the level that that's presented as kind of this this battle. When I think about hunting, and I think of how open people are to these discussions, even the one that we're having, even the even the one we're having as an entry point to hunting or so the thought hunting, Um, I only see positives and maybe that's the bubble that I'm in, or who knows, but I agree with you. I've I've had more people that are open to Hey, let me start think about hunting. But first I want to sort through my own personal ethics and sort through what I think about killing and then and then I'll get to it rather than the other way around, which is how I experienced it. Right. Do you think that could be a you know, generational change. We look back kind of on this time, and we look back at how many adult onset hunters were coming in and how that may be changed a little bit of you know, the way hunting is represented overall. Possibly, I don't know if it's the adult onset which is an awkward phrase, you know, maybe come up with a better phrase one of these days. I think it's a Actually, I think it's the decline in the bilitancy of the animal rights to slash animal welfare movement. You know, thirty years ago, when I first got started in academia, that was all the rage and you know, eighty percent of your undergraduate's coming into a place like Cornell and that's all they cared about was animal rights. And I think while animal rights and animal welfare is still there, it's not you know, in the foreground and it's not sort of a dominant view. I think, um, you know, animal rights and animal welfare sort of victims of their own excesses, you know, as philosophy. You know, animal rights philosophy really doesn't hold up. You know, it's uh. And I think people are not dumb. They they sort of gradually or eventually figured that out. And and and so perhaps that's contributed to the more open minded spirit that I sense right now from say students. Yeah, I know, we talked about that a little bit last time. I I too have kind of I've talked to animal rights activists and people that really pride themselves on um getting arrested to try to save the save animals and factory farms. And I've talked to them, and I've explored the ideas with them, and I've sat down and critically thought about my own views and how biased I probably am against what they think. And it's just logically, objectively, there are too many holes in the in the approach, and it's such an absolutist way that I just can't get it, man. And and in fact, the more that I've looked into it, the more I think it's just it's it's completely ridiculous to be going honest, I mean some of the ways it's taken. Yeah, I'm gonna go I'm in an agreement with you. You know, for the most part, there are some very good philosophers who do animal rights theorizing, but by and large they're not the ones that the activists are are reading or influenced by anymore. Yeah, I will tell you that that I have. There's a gentleman named Paul Bascher out of um Where's the Australia, I believe, and he runs group Anonymous for the Voiceless and I and they came in protest in one of our live events last year, and I've got to fall in on on got follow on social media and a lot of discussion there is. There was one question that they asked, and I have to fight. The urge is to unfollow and block it out, but I want to hear these things. One of the questions they asked. One of the was a Q and a session and somebody asked, what do I do if my family members continue to eat meat and and won't listen into my animal rights ideology? And the answer from a leader of a pretty large animal rights activist group was disassociate from your family. Yes, that's what he said. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe. I just I would never want to collect a group of people into an organization of any kind that would would tolerate that type of thinking. And that's what they're doing. They want people, they want people to that believe that, believing it that strongly to be a part of their Yeah, and that's a failure of ethics and a failure of character. And you know the character problem there is if you were to buy into that framework, you know, you just that you've lost all sense of proportion about what's important in your life. Um, they as animal welfare is important, but your family is more important than that. You know. Seems fairly uncontroversial as a statement to make. Yeah, yeah, so I think, you know, that's part of it. I think animal rights will never go away, but I don't know that it will be as influential as it was saying the seventies or eight Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's good to hear. Like I said, I've I've I've I've found myself wanting to challenge it more, but only just challenge it from like a personal level, like this is the kind of person you want to be, This is the kind of worldview that you'd like to adopt, This is the kind of way you want to move through the world. You know, I think you'll you'll look back years from now and say, man, I wish I wasn't as militant. I wish I would have been more reasonable, things of that nature. So, UM, well, I think we should definitely last time, we got into the conversation as we are now, and we forgot to get into the sticky hunting debates that that that you mentioned, UH and their season. There seemed to be so many of them within the world. And I've said this on the show before that I've had more just I'll just say about flat out hate from the hunting community that I have from the anti hunting community, UM over over opinions on things, personal preferences on things, um and. So I guess maybe before we get into some some of that, I want to talk about baiting and want and waste particularly, But before we get into that, what you know, what's been your experience We've talked about this a little bit before. What's been your general experience about how we engage in these type of debates within our community. Right well, baiting, I was gonna jump on that, because even though I just got done saying animal rights has sort of faded into the background, animal rights organizations are still a significant threat to hunting. So take the Humane Society the United States, who has had an active program against baiting in a variety of states, and I got involved in the state of Maine. UH about fifteen years ago, the hs US sponsored a ballot referendum, a ballot initiative to ban baiting of bears in Maine as well as hounding bears, to use the dogs to pursue bears, and they framed it as an animal rights UH initiative. Now, I went up and gave a variety of talks the Wildlife Society chapter if they're in the nature of conservancy, and I pointed out him on other things, the contradiction of their own position. You know, if animal welfarees you're concerned. There's probably an argument that's been made that when you chase a bear in the woods, there are certain stresses to the bear from being chased, But you can't apply that same logic to the pile of jelly donuts. That offends the animal rights activists in the middle of nowhere where a bear comes in, has his nose down in a pile of beats or you know, corn or whatever, and the hunter from a blind thirty feet away can make the choice to either shoot or not shoot, aim carefully, take a delivering shot at the heart and it callow, goes well, the bear falls over right. That's the Dictionary definition of a clean, quick chill. So to say, well, this is a welfare, is an initiative that we're trying to animal suffering. You can't have your cake and eat it too. And so I made that argument, you know, like you're describing with some of the some of the you kept from your own uh listeners. You know, I I got a fair amount of that kind of uh you know, keeps on my head. Yeah, bating issues fantastic. It's just really interesting. And that goes for deer, it goes for bear. Just so, yeah, it's made more interesting right in the time of c w D. And then in the time like I said, if you would, if you try to first take baiting as a separate issue of the hunting, right, how do you feel personally, what's your personal what's your personal preference in terms of how you interact with animals. I I'd love to hear how you think about this, but I think many times in a tree stand uh setting where I'm sitting still, I I get as much of not more enjoyment out of that than than spotting and stalking through country. I love them both. It's hard to even compare them. But I'm not one of those people that say, well, I can't sit still, I want to be moving. I really enjoy kind of every aspect of sitting and watching and looking and and so I'm not going to use that as as part of my personal preference argument around baiting. Um is that how you know? I think that's maybe the first thing you can say it, like, is it your personal preference to sit there and when watch a pilot corn Um, It's it's not necessarily it's not necessarily a negative for me in terms of my personal feeling about it. Yeah. Here again is where context crucially matters. You know, if you're you know, baiting deer, It's one thing to make an argument that we should bait deer where I live, where there's probably twenty or thirty deer per square mile, right, and they just stroll out on the lawn and you can just watch the parade all day long, Versus up in the Adirondacks, where there's maybe you know, a deer every two or three square miles, where the use of some sort of attractant allure and that's really all fate is. It's a lure. It's akin or analogous to decoys. So if you're really against baiting, you've got to be against decoys too, if you want to be consistent. Um, you know, it makes sense in the Adirondex at least there's a viable argument that could be made in a way that doesn't make sense in the context of where I live in you know, downstay in the Finger Lakes in the southern tier. So you know, those kinds of considerations matter. If you have a health concern about c W D c W days, yes, Um, that's going to factor into the calculation, right, That's not a calculation that applies to bears. Um. Bears are not like deer. You shoot a deer and in the heart and it goes off fifty yards, it's still going to fall, and you follow the blood trail and you find your deer. A bear doesn't leave a blood trail. The holes clog up with fat. The bear also doesn't down in fifty yards, It runs three miles away, and so you're left with, you know, the insurmountable challenge of trying to track from most hunters, and the insurmountable challenge of trying to trail an animal that doesn't leave a blood trail. So, you know, the context of bear hunting is very different than deer hunting, and so there's quite a very good fair chase argument to be made for baiting bears and taking that almost guaranteed shot at close range, you know, for the welfare of the bearman. If you're gonna shoot a bear, you might as well shoot it well, right, And you know when we pushed hs US in Maine, Well, well it's your alternative. Well, we want no bait. You're gonna have to stalk them, and you're gonna have to, you know, shoot the bears, you know, as you're chasing them in the woods. Well, now you're talking about a hundred yards plus shot at at a running bear, and you know, like you can guarantee, like you can guarantee a shot heart that's gonna kill it. Not you know, what you've just done is created a situation where you've increased your crippling loss of bears, you know, by an order attempt. I mean it's just like so there's no logic sometimes to those kinds of arguments. And and here's where even bringing fair Chase into the conversation. You know, in Maine, what we found you had hunters who didn't hunt bears pointing their fingers at other hunters saying, well, we don't like bear hunting, we don't like bear baiting, so let's ban the way you hunt, right, And and they're hunters where their own worst enemies, you know, rather than hunters being tolerant of other hunters personal preferences and and and preferred styles of hunting and forms of hunting. You know, hunters got enlisted by hs US to UH to eliminate baiting. And and that's the divide and conquer strategy that hs UPS and other animal rights organizations are quite effective at doing. Yeah, I mean it's a great point. Is illustrative of of the the larger issue that I was, you know bringing up there, is that that we are we are generally more apt to argue with each other about some of these things than we are to you know, band together and to fight against someone who's trying to take one small thing away. Again, back to the coyote contest reference, like, well, if you're intokyote, I'm not gonna listen to you. If you are. If you aren't, then we're friends. They're like, well, I'm not the more. When I started this podcast, I probably had more hardened views of some of these ethical situations and some of the fair chase conversation. Now I've softened them because I do. I have learned more, I've understood more context, and I realized that that it's that's not a great way to move through the world, let alone the hunting community, is to say like, hey, this is what you must adopt to, you know, to to be part of this doctrine. It's it's really that's almost an impossible thing to do, especially on baiting. On the on the version of baiting. Um, you know, the disease vectors that are happening in a pile of corn, for for deer, are totally different than what's happening for bears. Um not to mention, I right not to mention? Um sexy a bear not to mention? Is it a male or female? The joke being like the only way to know is to look through between its legs. That was the point about hounding. You know, arguably, I think hounds for deer probably subject the deer to a greater amount of stress I'm generalizing than hounding a bear. And a bear gets tired of climbs up in the tree. Well, there you go. You look up at the tree, you sex the animal, You judge whether it's a large enough animal, whether you want to pull the trigger or not. I was friends years ago with the Montana biologists who came to our department. He's now a professor at Michigan State UH and he said that, you know, he went along with people mountain lion hunting in Montana, and he said the first time somebody would go, they'd probably shoot the line. The next year they'd go, they'd pass on shooting. And he said it was the closest thing to catch and release hunting that he had ever experienced. You know, what do you have or basically first time lion hunters or bear hunters who you know, they want to experience that, they want to kill it, they want the bear rug or whatever. And then the second time they're more about the thrill of the chase and there's that cliche nocean, but it's the hound music, and it's the following the hounds through the woods. Whether you using GPS or horses, are you riding a jeep. You know, it's a uh, it's that total experience. And so there once again we're back to that. You know, it's not really about the kill, it's about that total experience. Yeah. I appreciate that too, because I often I've thought here recently that when I say soften on my opinions about these things, I've I've generally taken that total experience line of thinking, like, hey, I understand all the ways that this could go down. I am therefore tolerant of as many things as can be done. And as our good friend Clay Nuclem, who who's a bear hunter out of Arkansas, he says, guard the gate if you if they're gonna take away bear baiting, what else can they take away? Um? And given that that's that's a huge part of it. I think, you know, Boone and Crockett came out here what was it last year in August um and kind of amended a bit of what they talk about with in terms of baiting and said that they feel like when it's legal, it's it's okay, um. But there's a whole lot of hedging in there. You know. It's not like it's good thumbs up, but they appropriate hedging in terms of what you said, which is context. Well, you know, I used to have this argument about pen raised birds or high fence hunting. You know, it's not for everybody, right, but there are certain there's a certain class hunters for whom you know, shooting a pheasant on a game preserve is one way of bringing in a new hunter, say, or of training a dog. And if you live fifteen miles fifteen hours away from where there are grouse, you know, which is kind of the situation I'm in. You know, uh, pen raise pheasants are a sort of cheap substitute, you know, but you have a type of hunting purism where I used to have this argument with David Peterson. I was on a diet with him one time, and he's like, ah, pen raise, you know, there shouldn't be hunting preserved period, flat out wrong. And you know, I tried to make this argument again for context. You know, depending on the context, it might make sense for a particular individual. I myself would never choose to go to a preserve, you know, and pay fifteen dollars a peasant, right, But for other people, that's that's their decision. And I think people ought to have the freedom, you know, to make those choices for themselves. Um So again, I think a lot of these decisions are contextual. Yeah, I mean that goes with a lot of things. A lot I've heard it. I've heard this said a lot, like, you know, questions like this. I think it it goes along to we have like an established people say I have an established tradition. It's my tradition to hunt this way. I liked, my family is always hunted, what over dogs, We've always hunted over bait. And then you're like, well, your tradition is just your context, the tradition that you have in your culture and your community, your region, is just the context in which you began this thing. And so it's you're just comparing rather than arguing about one way or the other, you're really just comparing the way in which you came into this um And so maybe I don't know, maybe there's a way to convince people's like there's less argument about crossbows versus vertical bows. If you just think about it in the way that there's some people are gonna prefer this because they came up doing it, and some people are going to be introduced to hunting via crossbow, which I love. So that makes a tough one well, and sometimes the context, you know, getting the hounding of deer. You know, I used to make this argument in hunter education training seminars that I used to do that you know, geographically, it might make sense to use hounds to hunt deer in the in the South Carolina local country which is just swamped for as far as I can't see, or in Louisiana or Mississippi, know, Falkner Country, because that's the only practicable way to hunt deer, you know, whereas hounding deer where I live, where there is again twenty deer per square mile and they just sort of walk out and beat grasped using a dog would be just stupid, you know. So to to try and get people to think about how different hunting practices originate in different locations, right, geographically, different contexts that I think that's really important because hunters tend to you know, at least in the past, I've had sort of it's my way or the highway kind of uh philosophy. And I think that's pretty damaging to hunters in general. Yeah, I mean, I think crossbows and vertical bows is I think one that you can return to, of course, And you know Pope and Young, Pope and Young still doesn't allow crossbow killed into the and is that a I mean, what's the what's the point of the battle. And I've heard here's where you get back to that game analogy, the play game sport. You know, Pope and Young whether they like the terminology of sport or game, you know, they don't like or at least they perceived the crossboat to be quote unquote easier. There's less challenge. You know, it's like the stickboat guy says, you gotta have a certain amount of strength to pull that string back versus you know, a bunch of wheels um. And that challenge, that preoccupation with challenge comes out of again, hunting as a type of game or or play activity. Right, we are playing at our primitive sort of ancestry. You know, we're reenacting pioneer times. You know that what Leopold talks about the Daniel Boone values of baby character values. However he puts it, um hunting is atavistic, it's got a primitive ist sort of essence, you know. And uh, I think they're hope and young runs into some of their old internal sort of inconsistencies and contradictions when they when they try to rule on these questions of technology, and and those questions of technology bleed into our wildlife systems of managing wildlife, you know, into our model of conservation, whether or not, you know, the argument is oftentimes, well, if we allow crossbows, then we get more hunters. And if we get more hunters, we have more harvests, and we get more harvests, we have less time to hunt or were restricted in some way. While at the same time, on the other side of the mouth, someone can say, the only way to get more Pittman Robertson dollars is to have more hunters. The only way for our our you know, lifestyle to continue is to have more hunters. And so there's there's inherent contradiction in the idea of this argument that people that are both sides are contradicting themselves at the same time, which is like a matrix of ridiculous bullshit. So I've heard this. I've heard this multiple times, and um, hopefully Jim you can answer all these questions and bring some sense to us. Well. You know, there again there are political considerations, their management considerations, all of winter you know, sort of prudentially uh rooted decisions you know that are sociological, they're not philosophical, and they don't really have to do with hunter individual hunters preferences or motivations. Right. It's like when you want to do a deer cult down near New York City. You could basically hunt deer every day for six months and you could put a hundred fifty deer in your freezer. Right. I guess what. Hunters run out of freezer space, Hunters run out of motivation, Hunters run out of thinking that this is any challenge whatsoever, right, and so sooner or later they're thing activity grinds to a halt. And that's because there's a big difference between a simple cul where you're trying to stack up the bodies and a hunt that is difficult. Right, Because partly why we do it is because it's difficult. If it were easy, everybody would do it, right. The reason I like hunting rough grouses because they're damn near and possible to hit right, and and that's what that's what I enjoy about it. Yeah, you run into your own contradations, right well, I have my own. Do you have your own? I'm sure right right, yeah, And I've I'm on the side of what I will say, like, hey, I want more hunters, and that's really and I want them to be able to use whatever weapon that they'd like, or I want them to be able to use what dog they'd like, or what you know, within the bounds of the law that we've set. But at the same you know, at the same time, I love hunting. I want to be able to hunt as long as I possibly can. And if ten thousand new crossbow hunters coming to the state of Montana next year, I'll kill a bunch of elk during archery season. I'll probably have a shorter archery season at some point. Um. And so those are that you just got to pick a value. I would musure I have more new hunters and a shorter archery season. That's the thing I pick. In the reality, typically on the crossbow issue, what we find in New York is that way more than half the hunters who take up crossbow hunter. They're not new hunters, these aging hunters who for a variety of health really reasons and mobility reasons, you know, crossbow hunting extends their hunting career in additional ten years beyond which they might have otherwise hung up their their bow or their rifles. Why is that a bad thing? Here are people who have paid their dues for forty years, paid for a license for forty years, and now all of a sudden you're going to deny them the opportunity to continue hunting into their retirement years because you're a snob about crossbows. That's not fair, not ethical. Let's so you know again, I think there's a blind spot again the uh more youthful hunters, shall we say, or go with trigger rich and pride and hubrists and want to do everything the hard way and you know, wait until they get to be old and well you say, it's easier to restrict someone's rights or strict someone's you know, in this case hunting, if it's if it's the thing you don't do, it's easier to take someone's rights if you don't use those rights, you know, it's easier to take someone's guns. If you don't own guns, it's easier to take somebody's crossbows if you don't use a crossbow, because you don't understand, you know, you to criticize what you don't know about that. It's a lot of its ignorance that that's the hunter's pointing fingers at other hunters. They just don't understand. They don't have an empathy. Really. Yeah, And and I think maybe there's a bit of a psychological trick that happens when you start talking about tradition you stop. Well, depends on what tradition, and depends on where, and depends on what you want the outcome to be. You know, if you don't want there to be crossbows or you want to ban you know, gsps um you talk about the tradition of English setters and how the tradition you don't want to lose, and people shouldn't have these gsps running around all, you know, working birds and doing these things, looking at different um with five shots. Yeah. So it just it becomes this weird thing that I think Honey has allowed itself to get into the murk on um. That's it's maybe it's hard for us to get out of At some level, we certainly have built a club around We've built up the Pope and Young club is like a purist club. It's a club where some people are allowed and some people aren't. That's that's certainly problematic. Yeah, I I you know, I don't have much of an opinion on Pope and young I can't decide who is better or worse than you know, Pope and Younger. But I probably should have shut up there. I don't mind. I you know, I might as well. You might as well just push the on those buttons, because I certainly I think it's just problematic to have position statements on these things that act like they are going to reflect everything. It's that's the that's the part where I get off the get off the bus. At some level, organizations like Hope and Younger, Boone and Crockett Um. You know, it's a little bit like what you were talking about the media. You know, there's a there's a self interest for the media to make money and to get clicks and to sell papers, and a non governmental organization like Cope and Younger, Boom and Crockets they have a self interest as well. They've got to keep membership they've got to keep their budget up, they have to keep in the public eye, and they have to keep their lobbying efforts going. So they have to generate interest in what they do, and you know, some of that is not really necessary or essential, you know, when all is said and done, put um and so there, I think we need to sort of separate out what some of those from have to do just to stay alive versus what matters to you know, sort of the you know, the regular the regular hunter. Yeah. I think that's that's a huge and that's a discussion we can have without saying we have to. We're not canceling Boone and Cracker or Pope and Young. We're saying, like, what's the value here. Um, It's okay to have. It's okay to have for the club to say, you're this is what we believe and this is the kind of people that we want to have come in and be part of our club. But it's not the thing that I would argue against is having that be you know, dictated to other hunters like well, the Pope and clubs the way that has to be. Jim, what do you think about Antler point restrictions in terms of you know, how we restrict hunting or how you know we how we restrict how people hunt. And then what the outcome generally is there are ecological reasons for wanting to do antler restrictions and to encourage hunters to harvest more dose things like that. On the other hand, limiting hunters choices to big antler books, uh, you know, excludes them from being able to shoot uh, you know, a yurling four horn or a spike horn. And there may be hunters whose motivation is purely met who prefer that one year old dear. They don't want a three six year old black uh. And so here again, by taking that sort of freedom of choice away from hunter's antler restrictions, while well intended, um, you know, can actually have a sort of coercive effect on a on a certain segment of the hunting population. Yeah. And I think a lot of a lot of the things we do for you know, for the wildlife populations have those effects on the hunting population and vice versa a lot of ways, um, of course. And so when I when I think about that specific point, you know, I tried it. This is the way that I've I've developed into this and again, I'm sure you would agree with this or or have an opinion on I've. I started at a certain point when I was a kid, how I thought about hunting, as we discussed the kind of the stages of hunting. And then, you know, as I've really become entrenched on why I do things, and what really am I after here and what really are the values that I'm pulling out of this and applying to my life, I've I've changed and and become a little bit more thoughtful than I was before um and and acknowledging those changes in myself. Then I have to try to say, like how do I apply fair chase and philosophy and my own personal ethics, and and like what's my own way to approach this? And I and quite simply, I've I've developed the idea that I really believe whole hardly in the North American model wildlife conservation. I feel that it is really the best example, the best expression of what we do and why we do it, and what the benefits are and what the structure should be. And then I've kind of started thinking about this idea of fair kill rather than fair chase, where I need to start with the fairest kill, because I can affect how fair the death is um with how I act and how I train and what I do. And then maybe I'll address some of the more fair chase issues or some of the more personal hunting preferences in the actual act of hunting later. But I have to start with the kill. And so that's where I am this today, this moment um right, and at that I'm sure that will shift and change in the next decades. But is that you know, how what would your reaction be to like that approach. I don't know that I'm leaving fair chase behind altogether, but I certainly am focusing on our model of the conservation and the killing as the things I think I can best kind of articulate. Well here again, this is a I mean, a great topic because individual preferences and your individual choices as a hunter will will evolve over time, but societal values will also shift. So you mentioned the North American model, you know, which is premised on a hundred plus year old history of selling licenses and limiting uh, you know, access to game and bag limits and whatnot. That model may not work anymore in an era of overabundant prey populations like you know, areas where dear are overpopulated, and when you have declining hunter numbers and declining hunter recruitment, you know, you have a lot of game agencies, particularly in the eastern part of the United States, trying to figure out, you know, how do we kill all these damned dear and privatizing the market for dear meat may be one solution that game agencies are going to have to pursue, even though that flies squarely in the face of the North America, the so called North American model of conservation. And we know that game sales work in places like South Africa or in England. You know, you go on the glorious twelfth of August and you shoot a bunch of grouse and then they go down to the pub and they're consumed by people who buy them in the pub. Um. You know. So we have these rules that are a hundred years old to say you can't sell dear meat, but we may have to change some of those rules. And hunting a hundred years ago, who had to do with making the best of a bad situation where game was scarce, so you played up the challenge and the sportsmanship in the fair chase. Now we have too many games. We want to make it easier, So we want to open up technology. We want to allow rifles and shotguns and compound bows and crossbows and you know, allow baiting and have long seasons and no limits on a number of those you can kill. Um. So there's there's a societal that's a societal shift. So that's a great point. I mean, I think of the seven tenants of the model as I think about them out to pull them up so I don't don't miss one. But like wildlife is a public trust, I think that's probably something that will stay in the test of time surely. Um. Yeah, except that wildlife is a public trust. It's easier to wax eloquent about that when that wildlife is scarce and you're talking about Bambi's mom and the noble red stag, the elk and other charismatic megaphonia. But it's another thing. You know, roll the clock forward thirty years and deer are just hoofed locust, you know, to use John Muir's uh phrase. You know, they're just their pests, their vermin. You know, they're they're like woodchucks or environments. Um, you know, we're gonna have to change how we think about, dear. They're not going to be the symbol that they once were. You know, the iconography of the stag. You know, we we you, we're gonna change to an ethos square. If it's brown, it's down, you know, sluesm um. And that again goes against the more sporting uh notions of limitations of one's technology, of fair play, of allowing the game an opportunity to escape. Right, this hunting will be for dear. I'm just gonna stick with deer evolved from being sport hunting to culling right and again in New York State, down near New York City, deer hunting is culing right. They cannot kill enough, dear. This was Pat Durkin's column about Staten Island. Dear, you know, Stalin Island is spending millions and millions of dollars in a very ill advised program to do birth control for deer on Staten Island. Will never work, right, because they just can't face the uh, you know, the scenario that they they've just got to go all out and they got a nuke the deer on Stanard Island. They just got to kill them. Yeah, yeah, Well to your point, I mean, I think any of these ideas we certainly can run through and find ways. I mean, one of the more troublesome tenants of the model that I've always talked about. I've talked about this with the folks who wrote it, Dr Geiston and Mr and Shane Money. Um, you know wildlife should only be killed for a legitimate purpose. Well that's that is a you know, how do you define legitimate? Um? And how do you think about that? So I think those types of things certainly have a little bit more room to move in the future. Um. And much like I think of fair killing, I I guess would we try to lay a base of like how am I approaching this and what are the tenants of the ways that I approach hunting? And then when things shift above that that base or that foundation, then certainly they can move. But what, like, what are the principles that I kind of know to be true through my own And I can't imagine them, can't imagine them changing. Um, I can't imagine. I can't think of a time where I would can you know, completely give up on those ideas and think that well, times are going to change, so I have to shift and move with and be progressive. Like, well, there has to be some you know, kind of foundation here. Is there a way that we can construct one? Like, is there a way that we have a starting point that makes the most sense? You know? I really don't know how to answer that other than again, and I'm I'm sort of in my own mind, sort of dwelling on the deer example. I like to sport hunt deer as much as anybody during the regular season, but a couple of years, you know, not a couple of years ago, about two decades ago, a friend of mine who owns a vineyard locally, got a nuisance permit for deer in the summer because he had just planted five acres of new grape lines and the deer were doing a major hurd on his new, very expensive grape lines. And he knew I hunted, so he asked if I would help him out with deer population control, and I said sure, I've never done it before. And in the middle of July, I'm sitting there in the sweltering heat and humidity, and one day I saw a dough come out with two probably week old fonds, and it struck me that, oh my god, you know, if I kill this dough, those do those fonds are dead. And so I passed on the shot. And that night I just felt guilty about it because here's my friend expecting me to kill deer to protect his vines, and this is a nuisance permit. And I realized, you know, I had sort of split ethical obligations. I have an obligation to dear, but I got an obligation on my friend, the vineyard owner, and I swore that if I saw that dough again, I would actually shoot her. And wouldn't you know, Like two nights later, that dough comes out with those same fonts and I shot her, and you know, I was that was like a three for one deal, right, I killed three deer, and honestly, those two fonts they didn't die pleasant death because they were still nursing. And but you know, that's the difference I think between a hunt that's purely a sport hunt and hunting enlisted as part of a larger management program. There go ahead, Well, just you know, that's an individual has to wrestle with his or her own conscience and and make those decisions and and make those calculations right when that dough came out the first night, I hadn't thought to that as a possibility, right. I needed time to process that scenario in my own head. So it took me the better part of that evening in it to the next day, and that's where I said, Okay, I'm gonna do it, And when it happened, I was ready to pull the trigger. Another person would make a difference decision. That's fine. Yeah, now that that that's a very I think, you know, a very common but you know, a very common thing that might happen in the woods, but also very profound telling of it, because it just tells you how the idea of hunting is so malleable it can change in an instant, just the situation you put yourself in, or you know, you think hunting is this and it's always going to be this, and then you get put in a situation where you're making the ethical decision you had to make, which you know, I think, I think the best thing that I could say for folks, listen to this show and for you and for that you're thinking about it and you're making a conscious decision. You're you're not being forced into to it because of a tradition or because of a certain way that people are doing around you, kind of a social um restraints. So being just being a thoughtful individual in the woods making these decisions, I think is is with with that personal responsibility seems to be the way where at least we're getting somewhere, and these these ethical commemorial conversations that come become confounding for sure. And and I've always suggested to people when I've done hunting talks that I actually honestly believe most hunters, more hunters, more often than not, are thoughtful. Yes, there are the few slab hunters out there that are reckless and they're not safe, but I really think they are in a tremendously small minority, you know, and they but they get all the press, you know, they're the ones that are in the newspapers and who get arrested for poach and breaking laws. And you know, by and large, most hunters are safe. They're thoughtful. Um, they're reflective. I really believe that. Yeah, I believe it too. And I We've had a Vegan I call him Vegan philosopher, but he's a Vegan philosophy professor UM at a California, Robert C. Jones and him and I have some very friendly debates about veganism and animal rights and hunting and where all these things go together. And he he asked me that off the air after we finished recording our last conversation. He said, Man, I'm really impressed with you, and really you're you know, you and everybody at meat either very thoughtful. And I just have an honest question, are you the minority? Because it feels that way. Um, and so he was articulating, yeah, yeah, yeah, so we may I hook you guys up because he's he's a college professor on the in the West year in the East. You guys can talk about it and you can't articulate that point to him because I think it's important one. And he is a very well meaning I a friend of mine. I enjoy him immensely, and I think he had was never exposed to someone that thought hard about this, and therefore is kind of like doggedly giving. Well, there are hunters that think like this, but it can't be all of them, know, as he kind of raptualizes his thinking, his prior thinking. Right, It's definitely an interesting way. So I hook you guys up and te be like, no, I they're they're most of us and I and I do think it's true. And even the guy who emailed me about the coyote contest, at least he's thinking about it and taking a stance and and and talking through with people around him whether he was doing it the right way or not. Um. I try to, you know, and trying to maybe close up here and thinking about new hunters, whether they are the dreaded term of adult onset or they're coming into it like I did, maybe at the age of twelve or whatever. Um, is there a way that you would address the new hunter that's interested in this the topic of hunting ethics and and thinking about whether to pour a pilot corn out for a deer or thinking about that. Is there a way that you would just just address them and tell them, you know, the most healthy way to kind of approach the conundrum? Right? Well, I think we touched on this last time as well when we spoke. You know, I think that sometimes new hunters come into hunting and they go straight to big game, and they go straight to deer hunting, and that's an awful, awesome responsibility to you know, put the twelve year old behind the trigger and you know, shoot Bambi's mom or a buck. And I think we ought to get back to encouraging youthful new hunters to do small game hunting first, squirrels, rabbits. Not that those forms of life are cheaper, but hey, it's one way to hone your skills as a youthful hunter and really develop that ethic of a clean kill, you know, trying to get that squirrel to drop out of the tree and not move, you know, and the same thing with a rabbit. And uh and And to me, I think that would be where I would start, and I think the ethics will follow, right because I think, you know, you have to go about squirrel hunting in a certain way to be good at it. And it's excellent practice for deer hounding, it's excellent practice for deer stalking. Really, um you know, so I uh, you know, I think that's part of it. Uh. And I also think there's there's less uh machismo. And I think there's less hubris and less arrogance and pride. You know, I don't think anybody who's youthful is going to get all wound up about killing you know, the biggest squirrel in the woods or the you know, the most squirrels in the woods. You know. I think you can bring a young hunter in that way and in pulcated kind of humility, whereas if you go straight to big game and your whole you know, you know, you're hunting boby block and you're just turning it into this high stakes activity. And that's where I think young hunters get kind of a warped sense of what hunting is because it's not all you know, big buck, you know, big racked bucks. Yeah. I always thought I would just say, like, you know, remember that intrinsic part, Remember that part, because there are so many other influences out there that are gonna pull you in different directions. This was my argument with Peterson about you know, hunting preserves you know that again, there's similarly low stakes, right, you know, it's a sort of contrived situation, but it's an ideal place to work on a young hunter's ethics and safety and gun handling and how to move, you know, in a line where you know, if you're doing a drive or whatever, um, you know, versus what can be kind of an anarchic situation out in the woods. If so, I don't know. I don't really have a good answer to that question other than, you know, we have to just continue to hope that hunter education programs do their job and the young hunters have reflective mentors who can bring them into it the right way. Not everybody does, you know. In a lot of times, people you know, have to be self taught. And here's where, you know, it's a great thing now these kinds of podcasts or YouTube videos done by the right kinds of people, you know, showing it's not all about kill, you know, but it's about how you hunt. And uh, you know, so I think it is possible now it is day and age to to sort of be self taught. It's a little easier than it was, say, twenty or thirty years ago, when there was no YouTube. Yeah, we see that a lot. I had somebody bring up to me recently. Why are you always saying it's about the experience and not about the kill? What? What? Why is that a refrain? I said, Well, it's only refrained for me personally, because when I grew up, it was all about the kill. Like our culture centered in the eighties and the nineties centered around the kill the hunting community in the magazine. I was part of it, in the magazines and the videos and the kind of the products. That's what it was. So I'm only saying that to say, like, that's certainly a great than killing a big buck is fantastic. I love doing it. But I'm only saying this kind of as a reaction to as a symptom of trying to present the things that I know to also be true and and let maybe level set things a little bit for folks coming into it. Right, that's certainly, but we have to we have to allow the youth to have their day and to be immature. I mean, that's that's that's also a good thing. You know. I wouldn't go too hard on Uh. We had a conversation in the office earlier about what would I tell my twenty five year old self, you know, about a certain situation. I said, what my twenty five year old self probably would give me the thirty five year old of the middle finger and say fuck you, I listening to you. And so, you know, there's some humorists and expecting people to kind of approach it in the way you want them to at a young age, said okay Boomer. Yeah, I mean, okay, Boom, We're shut up. I'm gonna do it my own way. I'm twenty five, my brain is just about finished fully forming, and so you know, so there is there there is some hypocrisy in preaching this idea that I would never have gotten to if I wouldn't have experienced life the way I had, hunting the way I had, so um, and I think that's and and again that's why and find this compelling. That's why Jim posits I'm sure found this compelling and why you find it compelling because it's it's just full of these things, you know, the side roads to explore, and our own contradictions are kind of baked into this, and our own you know, motivations are baked into this. So I I know, personally, that's why I love these conversations. I love having you on for that reason because there's you just don't know where it's gonna go, and you, you know, learn a little bit something about yourself every time. Yeah, there's a lot of fun to talk to you. Well, absolutely, Jim, We'll stay safe out there on the East Coast, and I am definitely going to when we can get back to traveling again. I'm gonna call the great Pat Durkin as we were talking about before we hit record, and we're gonna get into you, him, me, you and him up in the Wisconsin deer camp that has very few deer and where it goes from there. All right, thanks, Jim sounds good. Thanks Ben. That's it. That's all. Joe Fernado, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. It's good. It's good having here. We're still gonna hunt together, right, Oh yeah, does this mean we can't hunt it? Get No, definitely, I was hoping we could still hunt. Yeah, it'd probably be more fun, less stressful. Yeah, we're gonna hunt the brakes this year. We got brake sax. Oh yeah, that's good. I thought maybe we weren't all to talk to each other anymore. Now we're on. We're on it like North and South, mortal enemies, mortal enemies. You're not working for a I hate you now, competitive Media company. Yeah, I completely hate you. It's a sad day, so many ways, so many ways. Well, no breaks, hunting bulls are gonna die. What else do we go with? Have Idaho deer tags? Yea Idaho deer. So we're still gonna be You'll still got another puppy coming, so we have to go kill all the birds. All the birds. Dude. I saw I was out putting trail cams up, and I wish I have a Noza Sharp moment about trail cams. Oh yeah, you could probably guess what it is like fall down the map in front of it. No, I didn't fall down. I hiked about two miles in about four miles out. It was a hard it was. It was good hiking two miles in and four miles out. So you poked a long way out, okay on purpose. I just might have walked past your turtle how at like nine am that cool? Yeah? Yeah, I love wolf. It was cool like in the drainage we were in, so I mean had the echo factor. It was really cool. Actually, So stayed in this cool little airbnb after the wedding right above lakeside and uh woke up early early there was like moose walking around and could have Warner heard wolves? How could have just been in my head but pretty hungover. Oh yeah, it was great, that's all it was. Yeah, that was cool, but I something Helen shout out to my neighbor and good friend Omar Flentes who was with me, and I didn't put the card in the camera. Oh yeah, I should have guessed that didn't put the I didn't got home. He was ready for a little barbecue. It was on July four. Getting ready for a barbecue is getting a shower, looking and put my hands in my pockets. I'm like, there's the case and inside the case, and how stupid am I? Because I like at the time that I was hanging the camera, I'm like, that's not really the shutter doesn't seem to be working, like it's the light is on, but it doesn't seem to be taking pictures. There wasn't like a little message on the screen and said no, the screen was blank. That was another thing that should have alarmed because kept hitting the button, it wouldn't it wouldn't show any messages on the screen, and that's hitting menu and it wouldn't do anything. So there was a million reasons. So I should have known that I messed up. But that's my not so that's just saying we just hung one. We were checking out a wallow, a spring fed wallow that I thought would be it'll be it's good later, but it turns out. There wasn't nothing hitting it right now, so we just kind of hung one up on a trail that I thought was advantageous. But there's a lot of bear a lot of bear ship. We heard wolves, We've seen it. That's it's the same spot we right last year where we saw the wolf tracks on the road. Um. So yeah, there's my not so sharp moment. So we may just have to read that work sharp sharpener now No, I already have one, so good, but I'm stupid anyway. Thanks to James Tantillo, um, and thanks to you Joe Forno for all your days at meat either man, it was a good time. You're getting down on a high note, I say, going on to the greenness of green pastures hopefully. Um. No, grass, grass is always greener on the other side, right, that's fine, but green grass is nice, so you can just just play around until the greener grass comes. That's what I've done, That's what I did. That's how I'm here, And like I said, I'm basically just modeling my life after yours. So um, not not a good thing, but um one thirty three, I really enjoyed talking to Jim Tantillo. Um. You know, I know for many of you, the ethical conversations are frustrating because a lot of times you just start your hands up with like and Jip had this a few times to me. I don't know if I can answer that question, but I think, UM, asking these questions and exploring these things and understand our own contradictions and our own once in our own why, it's kind of the point of this whole program. And I have, as I said, in talking to Jim, UM learned a lot, learned a lot about myself asking these important questions. Sometimes I learned that I'm full of shit. Sometimes I learned I was right all along. Um. But it's those explorations that make me a little bit better at at this very important game of hunting. And so that's hopefully what we can mean. And speaking of all that, I want to leave you guys today with with Jim pozziwits his voice UM a story that I think has impacted me. And I've thought about it um many times since we recorded this podcast back in January, and I'll continue to think of it when I think of him, and and it's you know, it's a story about hunting and generations and passage of time. It's a story that, while in like Jim Tantillo's story, while very normal, can be impactful um depending on the person that experiences it. So that's what you're gonna hear. We're gonna leave you with that today. Hopefully all of you can go take a look at Beyond Fair Chase. If you don't have a copy, pick up a copy, read it, reflect learn about the life of Jim Positis. So rest in peace. Jim. Here he is. We'll see you next week. A couple of seasons ago, I'm stumbling up into We used to live eight miles south of town and just out the back door, did lots and lots of hunting. But I go to an little familiar place in the dark and I sit there because there's gales coming up the other side. Your wife, yeah, and she's liable to, you know, start some elkout. So I'm sitting in one of the passes where they sometimes go a hunter as the hunter is known to do. So I'm sitting there in a pre dawn and I'm looking down the trail. I came in what looks like a father and two sons come walking up the trail, and I'm just sitting there excuse me. The father sees me and he halts the boys, and they're like poster children out of Hunter Education magazine. I mean, they're control of their weapons, undivided attention, standing there quietly in the background. And the father tiptoes up to this old guy sitting in the woods, and the father says, we don't want to get ahead of you. He whispers it to me, and I look, and I'm thinking, here, I'm sitting on the National Forest public lands in pursuit of a restored wildlife population that's available to anybody. And the first three guys I meet want to defer to me. And I said that, you know what I'm thinking that Theodore Roosevelt talking about the generations within the womb of time is what he called us. Well, there were three generations right there, this old guy, me, the father, and two sons what I took to be two sons. And I look at the situation and I say back to the father, I think I know what I see here, and I want you ahead of me. And then he says, the youngest boy can shoot a cow if he sees one, and I give him a smile and the thumbs up, and the kid's face lights up in the dark with excitement of that moment, and in his anticipation is an excitement. And just again I lean on Roosevelt. We do these things, uh, for the economic well being of the people, But there is more. They also add to the beauty of living and therefore the joy of life. And there I was looking at the joy of life shining in the dark, and I thought, holy Mackerel, well and all you've experienced in your life. Yeah, And then they walked up, and then you know, they walked ahead. I sat there and I bawled. I was so emotionally moved by how this all fits. Two