00:00:04 Speaker 1: Clean your Gun, Janable where the uncollective show Colin Hunters New and all uncollective show with thanks or fakes and opinions are subjective. You're listening to the collecting. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode one seventy four where I am completely and totally faking my enthusiasm because I am very, very tired, but I am joined by Phil the engineer. Phil, how are you, sir? I'm doing great. You said you're faking your enthusiasm. I I honestly don't sense any enthusiasm, real or fake. So you're doing a job. Oh I'm doing a bad job. Well, I'm totally talking like this in a very monotone way, so you do not hear the pure desperation and vocal fry that's happening on my end right now, because we are on day what Ford van falls? And what day of the Turkey treck are we on? I don't know what day it is and I definitely can't count to ten at this point. What what day are we on? It's a Monday, and oh, I don't know twelve maybe ten could be anywhere between five and twelve and three, and yeah, maybe we started we technically started on the tenth and it is now. Uh, it's a nine nine days on the Turkey Trek, nine days of glorious, glorious turkey hunting. I am currently sitting in an unknown town in Nebraska where we are on the third whistle stop of the Turkey Trek one. I guess we say truck for turkeys? Is that right? For truck for turkeys? With First Light and nwt F where we are trying to we're doing like a telethon in a non live format to raise funds through memberships for n w t F. We are nine days into that telethon. Uh, no one has known it's going on to this point, so it's a bit of a backwards move. But we got four Van Fawson here who is the c are of conservation at First Light, and he's gonna update us on exactly what we need to do, and then we're gonna tell you some stories for from our trip thus far. And Phil, you all you really need to do is sit back and get excited for your upcoming first ever turkey hunt. Uh that's your only job herebody, Okay, all right, I'll do it. Well, I'll make you proud. What I'd like for you to do in the in the interim is get up at three thirty in the morning and drive around for an hour and a half and then walk around in the woods for about an hour and then go home. Just a practice for turkey hunting uh here in a couple of weeks. But that sounds like it would be a terrible training montage in a movie. Yes, yes, I would like you to run across the beach with a turkey decoy on your head, but please please Anyway, Ford van Foss, before we get into any of the stories, the laughs, the miss the mishaps from the Turkey tour, tell people our content would have debuted yesterday, which is Monday. This is Tuesday, um, but we have a bunch of content coming out for a very important reason. If you want to tell everybody exactly what's going on. Yeah, we're just we're starting the documentation of aforementioned track for Turkeys Monday on First Light's Instagram story. We'll be hitting post too, but basically we'll be telling the story of the trip uh whilst driving folks to sign up for NWTFUM for memberships. We're trying to hit a thousand memberships by the end of the month. That's sort of the goal here and and to do so, we're ripping around the West, hitting four different states, visiting some habitat projects, and killing turkeys. We have done all of that UM this week and last week, and we have roughly the rest of this this week to go. We're in Nebraska, We're gonna be in Wyoming visit a habitat project up there. We just got done hunting some beautiful w m as in different places in Nebraska where n WTF has supported and done habitat work. I'll even work working with a guy named Luke Becauzak. I always get everyone's last name wrong. That's probably nowhere near how you say his last name, UM, but Luke is NBTF Forrester. We've also been hanging out with Jared mcjunkin, who works for the NBC on a regional biologist level UM and really been learning about what they do, learning about why it's important, and hunting some of the places that that they've worked to help improve in terms of habitat, especially UM in this area of Nebraska and other areas of states that we've haunted. So it's it's been cool to learn about not only UM, you know turkey hunting out West in great detail. As as we'll tell you some stories. It also what the n WTF does so very seriously, as we talked about conservation on this show, we have Shane Mahoney coming up, the great and powerful Shane Mahoney coming up for a good interview about some of these subjects and about what conservation really means across the landscape of you know, as as shame might put a human existence or human relationships wildlife. UM. This is just one instance of UM an opportunity for everybody out there to go to First Lights Instagram. You'll see Instagram stories that started the yesterday that continue today, and we'll go on throughout the week. UM of us hunting forward. Myself, Jonah Bell and Max ben'z have been filming us. We've had, as they aforementioned folks from dan WTF, We've got Kevin Harlander, who, as I sit in a hotel room, is out right now crawling around in the snow trying to kill a turkey by himself. I might add he's pretty hardcore. UM. But it's been a joint effort between n WTF and First Light and Meat Eater UM to kill some turkeys and also raise awareness for the fact that memberships are down and banquets are not as easy to put together for NBTF as they have been in the past, and so this is all our way to drive attention for that. And um, I think it's uh, it's we're gonna talk about how it's gone. But for what would you how would you handicap where we are right now in our truck for turkeys? Give you mean the update of of how things are going? Yeah, well, you know, I think they're going really well given the weather conditions that we have been dealt. Uh, it has been wintry to say the least, I would say, and snow and blow and cold and all that stuff is not what you think about necessarily when it comes to turkey hunting, and certainly not what you think about when it comes to successful turkey hunting. So the fact that we've killed seven I think, yeah, we'll call it. We can call it eight because Luke four mention and Forester from the NPTF shot one yesterday with us, So we'll call it eight. Yeah, I think I think that sounds right. So anyhow, all things considered, I mean, have we filled every single tag we had. Uh no, but have we filled some tags in some incredibly inclement conditions. Yes, so, yeah, I can't complain, Man, I think it's coming off well. Yes, yeah, we've learned. We've learned a ton about the n WTF hanging out with guys like Jared mcjunkin, um, who is a wealth of knowledge. They spend their lives around turkeys. Just to be able to hang out with them is enough for me. And yeah, we've we had a great morning yesterday. You guys will eventually see the tail end of our Nebraska trip. We had an amazing encounter with a big tom here in the piney bridges of Nebraska and got some excellent footage of that time. Yeah, Max, Max sent me a clip. It looked straight Planet Earth. It is wild. Um, yeah, it's absolutely wild. Yeah, and so some slow motion footage, some some a bird dance in the decoys. He came in on the string from a couple hundred yards away down a hill up the other side, across the fence, which you know turkeys tend not to want to do. He did, and Ford knows that from his experience in the in South Dakota. Across the fence came right in the decoys. We let him do a little dance and make a little love and then we ended it with the t ss uh federal premun tss real quickly there. But the day before Kevin Harlander got a couple of birds, and a couple of days prior to that, Ford Van Faws and you and I doubled a joyous, joyous moment. I think folks will see and perhaps think I overreacted. But when you've been hunting turkeys and blowing snow for at that point four or five days and you finally connect with not one but two birds and in so doing tag out in South Dakota, one gets excited. They to get excited. Now I've told Phil this uh, and I will reiterate that. I'm not sure the psychological things that happened, but whenever, and it's really just be played the game of pursuing turkeys. You get up early, you run hard, you sit out in the snow, you freeze your ass off, and when you finally have success, everything is better in your life, like the sky is blue or whatever. You know. Fast food hamburger. We ended up being coerced to eat that evening was delicious. The bed is softer. Um. Everything is sweeter at this point, partly, I think because you've won the game. In the game that Fordnite played for five straight days, uh, in two different states and in high thirty wind, gusts, blowing snow, uh, extreme cold, frozen calls, frozen everything. Um, did a lot of drive and did a lot of walking. And to finally get to the point where we're in Southakote and we got two birds on the ground. Ah, you have every right to. I feel like you fell onto the ground. I would say laid you laid upon the excitement and excitement and kicked into the air like a bicycle kick. I remember the bicycle kick, but it it doesn't seem unlikely. It was very I think it. I remember there there being some sort of kicking. But we're man. We were excited, and I guess the story goes that it can be done in the and if you're out west hunting early season, like we were on opening days some of the western states, it can. Turkey hunting can be very successful in snow. It can be very successful uh in rain or wind. But boy, it makes it a whole ton harder. The success we've had here on our third stop of the turkey tour has been aided by some warm weather days which has now switched today. I'm looking out the window. It's muddy and snowy and windy again. Um. But we've we've had some warm other days, some fired up birds, and that's where you know, really the beautiful moments are getting come. But you can it can you can scratch out if you're if you're out there right now listening and it's not great weather where you're at, Um, you can scratch them out. You just gotta stay you gotta stay on it, gotta stay persistent. You gotta spend the time fortnite. We definitely spent the time well, I mean talking scratch out. We were fortunate to have rick hunting of fish hunt fight gear um and uh at our at our first stop there in Montana and Katie Michetti from Modern Huntsman's whose name I probably also mispronounced, but they were able to kill two birds in I mean borderline white out conditions. Um. And that was just full on grit, borderline spot and stock turkey hunting. But recularly saved the day in Montana with those with those two birds filling some tags. Uh and UH turning turning the frown upside down on some real inclement weather. Yep, And that that brings to mind a couple of things we need to address with the audience. You'll see it in the footage. I'm sure um Ford Ford passed up a jake on the first day. Uh, do you want to just just talk about that a little bit forward and what it was like to have me give you ship for so long? About it? No, I mean everyone, I would say, gave me proverbial feces over it. Um. You know we're starting this this twelve or whatever day hunt. We get there, the weather is lovely. We're here in birds um, and we strike up a bird and you know, it sounds a little pubic, or like it hasn't gone through puberty. I would say, I guess what I'm looking for, and pubic, Pubic's not the right words that should not gone through puberty yet. So anyhow, we get in, we set up. Jake sort of gobbles into view with another jake. I put the gun barrel over it, and I look at its neck closely, and it has a tiny little spurt of beard, and I don't shoot it because I'm thinking to myself, this is a giant turkey trip. Here we are, We're great and powerful turkey hunters. I'm not going to shoot this jake on the first day, and I don't and I get back and as you stated, she was immediately thrown my way, and in fact, I would come to regret it, ah very much so given the weather. I mean it was like on I passed this Jacob and on a dime, the wind started blowing forty mile an hour. The weather just went to hell, uh and we struggled to get bird. So I a hundred percent that should have shot the jake. And I would like to emphasize that I am not a person that usually passes jake's you know, I'm I'm always the guy looking to kill the spike. But yeah, uh you know, here we are doing this big content trip and I was just inflated about it. I think I thought I had to be someone I wasn't um. Alright, it sounds like you've done some self reflection on this. Yeah, well we had lots of time to think about it, trudging around the snow not killing turkeys, and so Yescent should have filled that type even more so because, uh, you know, in Montana's an nonresident. I had a general tag and a Region seven tag, two tags in my pocket. Uh, and absolutely should have filled one of them on the jake. But uh, you know you'll live and you'll learn. Yeah. Well, here in the hunting Collective, we forgive and we forget, and we'll tell a story about these two times we shot. But we definitely you're right about this though. We We arrived in Montana too beautiful weather, and literally as soon as I arrived and started getting my tent together and get all my gear out, the wind started to blow and it did not stop blowing until we were blowing the hell out of the state down to South Dakota. Uh, we're we're licking our wounds headed down to South Dakota. You know we we thought you get inflated. You think you have all this confidence, you have all these goals. I'm over here throwing out you know, double digitant numbers of turkeys that we're gonna get and how if we if we fill a tag here, where do we go next? Thinking about all these positive outcomes, and we got our butts flop pretty good there. Other than as you mentioned, Rick Hutton, who is a bit of a turkey, I'm not Gonna says. He's a sharp character. So he's not a savant, but he's a master. He's a good turkey killer. Him and him and old Steph Morris, Um, you know how to slay turkeys, in particular in Montana, it would appear. Yeah, and so Phil you, Um, you've heard all about the Jake's. You heard from Tony Peterson that he likes to shoot him. You've kind of heard the self reflection afford here. Where do you stand currently on Jake's in terms of your first hunt? I don't know. There's some sort of like weird self pride thing that probably I I don't. I don't know if I would. I'm sure I would in the moment, but thinking about it right now, I'm like, no, I don't. I don't. I don't know if are you gonna go okay, all right? What if I'm like, shoot the Jake, Shoot the Jake, Phil, shoot the Jake? Or you? Will you be like quiet quiet, o'brieniod If I'm on my my my last, my last limb with you, I'm just tired and fed up and I want things to end quickly, then you'll shoot. I'm looking forward to this man I'm looking forward to hunt. Every time I post anything about turkeys, I get about a dozen d ms about like why didn't you bring Phil? What's wrong with it? Asshole? Um So anyhow, Yes, we eventually made our way to South Dakota. We had a couple of of snowy, cold days there and then on the morning of day five. Is this correct there's a day four? It would have been day four of hunting. I would say it was our second full day in the code. I think, yeah, yeah, I think day five total. Day five, we've got two turkeys on the ground, but nothing for me and Ford. We've hunted our butts off. Ford goes in and roost some birds. The night before we had been out that morning, the wind was blown, it was cold, no gobbles, a couple of gobbles right off the roost, and then will be completely silent, And it was a feeling like it was going to be a real struggle to scratch out of turkey and the time that we had to do it. But we sidled up to the roost. We we I knew that these birds would gobble in the roost if they got fired up. When they hit the ground, they basically shut up for most of the day. You might hear a gobbler two at them for the for the entire time that they're on their feet during any point to stay. They're miserable, just like we are. You know, they're not warm, they're not half be they're not content, They're miserable. They're trying to get out of the wind. They're hunkering down, they're getting in the timber um wherever they can. And so our strategy was to get up to the roost tree as close as we felt safe that they wouldn't see us, get in there, put the decoys out, back off, and be quiet and listen for the fly down. Well, we got quite the as you'll see on the content at first, like Instagram stories, we got quite the gobble gobble show. In the morning, there was I don't know how many birds lightening up in the tree, you know, maybe a hundred twenty yards up the ridge from us. There are some some hens in there yelping right that we felt like we're behind, like we were literally on the wrong side of of the hens. The gobblers in between us and the hens on the other side of the ridge. So it didn't seem like a great opportunity to start off, but the birds were fired up, and when they flew down, I wasn't quite sure exactly where they flew down, But as soon as they kind of he heard him fly down, a gobb will lit up way in the distance, further in the distance. Then we wanted and I looked at Ford him like, I think they I think they flew down yards in the other direction. Yeah, man, I mean when I heard that hand on sort of the far side of the rise, my heart sank a little. I figured she had just dragged him off the total opposite direction, but it was so far off that I did a part of me also, I thought it was a separate turkey, which in fact was the case. Yeah, it was the case. And so it wasn't too long before. I mean, it was still in the you know, it was still probably prior to shooting light. When they flew down and they're up the ridge, they actually flew there's four what four times was it four tims yep um four times fly down and hit the ground. I couldn't see him, but Ford could. One of our camera guys, Jonah, could see him. They fly down, they hop up on a log there, Sauce trutting together. Um. Eventually Ford gets an eye on them. Eventually I can hear him spitting and drumming up there. No gobbles, no nothing. My strategy was as soon as they hit the ground to start calling, you know, and just just kind of very light, almost like tree yelps, like very contented yelps, nothing excited, because these turkeys when they hit the ground, they're just trying to get warm, fine shelter um. And so we weren't going to really be aggressive with calling, so we just did I did some like clucking, some you know, some turn and directed the yelping to behind me, and these birds kind of slowly I mean and I mean slowly snake their way in. They only had to go one hundred yards or so. Oh yeah, they kind of they did sort of the move left, move back right scenario kind of you know, danced at maybe seventy yards back and forth, and then sort of went around some dead fall and sort of started the dump and dumping towards us slowly. Yeah, and they only came out into view the first time he went down this little cut and there was timber between us and the turkeys. But there, you know, they pop out of probably sixty yards and they're just slowly working their way. No goblin. There's one dominant Tom and probably three subdominant Tom's two year olds, i would say, and one strutter. All the others were kind of just popping around looking nervous, you know, not looking like the regular fired up, happy turkeys were used to in the spring. And they kind of slowly work their way down towards our decoys within about fifty yards. And as I'm at this point, the understanding of the mindset is that I wanted to kill a turkey desperately. We all wanted to get on the board desperately. It's been five days. So I kind of had the opportunity to shoot the first bird that came down before we got in the decoys, before we had the opportunity to bring the other three birds down. My thought process was, Man, I'm gonna take a chance at this and see if the all four of them will coming to the decoys. They've already committed pretty far, but they weren't fired up, they weren't coming to the decoys. They were just kind of filtering our way with some interest in what we were doing. And what we think happened is they saw the decoys with snow all over them, and that kind of boogered him, and they all four of them started to walk away immediately, so as yeah, that's my guess, and that you know, they probably what were they probably twenty or thirty yards from the decoys, and yeah, I mean it was at that point the system was moving in, it was snowing hard, and there was probably a quarter to a half may just snow on the decoys that had accumulated just in the you know, thirty for you whatever minutes since we've been sitting there. Yeah. Yeah, So we just figured that that really they weren't comfortable anyway, They weren't really all that fired up. Um, although there was one time that continued to strut throughout, I think only just just really as a dominant the show of dominance over these other birds. But yeah, they were walking away, And in that moment that they're walking away, I'm thinking, I can't, no way, there's no way that these birds, there's no way they're going to walk away from us. My heart sank when I started to see the rear ends of them kind of heading away over over into the distance. Yeah. I get stressed out now thinking about it, even though we killed two birds, I get stressed out at watching they're just walking away from us, are like sixty yards, are all bunched up, I can't shoot. Now, I'm thinking I totally messed us up. I should have just shot the first time they're walking away. I shouldn't have tried to get at all. I should have just scratched out the turkey that we could get out of this deal. And so I just thought, well, I'm gonna have to like give a couple of clocks or something to see if they'll turn. So I gave up a just a couple of like desperate clucks, and the first bird kind of turned and they started. They didn't come back to us, but they started going up the way they came. Yeah, they retraced their steps enough. Yeah they didn't. I mean, you know, you hunt turkeys like this, you don't really know what they're gonna do. They're not fired up to charge of deco voice. They're just kind of uh feeling out the space, I guess, in a weird way. So they turned around. The first bird gets crosses U into an opening. At this point, it's on, I'm not letting him get anywhere. I shoot. He drops the other birds kind of go immediately run up the hill. Ford shoots boom, dead two turkeys on the ground. I think you had to put a second shot on him, but that's not uncommon. Yeah, you know, in retrospect, I don't even remember why I shot again. Necessarily my head. It just it did happen, um and hopefully it was necessary unclear, Yeah it was, it was necessary. So we got two top miammediate reaction was like relief and just we got it in an incredibly difficult situation. Uh. Ford's relief or forwards reaction was pure joy, as we explained, but man, it was. It's the best feel in the world. You know, we all know that when you struggle to get something, when you finally get it, when you work hard and you finally get it, Uh, it means all the more so that that that felt good and and uh those were that was our Turkey success story prior to coming here to Nebraska where we've had some some additional success. But it's uh, man, it feels good. Oh it was awesome, man. And you know the other thing ben to be honest, this storm system was had opened up on us. It's snow and I don't know inch an hour, but it was pushing, pushing, that rate coming down hard, and we're supposed to get you know, they were calling for I don't know, like four to eight inches and you know that just done. I wasn't feeling optimistic about our chances kind of going forward from that. Um. Hell, Ben, you were talking about how we were gonna we were going to track these turkeys. That was becoming our next strategy was you know, with with four inches of snow, we we're just gonna start tracking turkeys through uh through the area, which I mean we would have done, I suppose, but it was it's not how you draw it up in terms of turkey hunting conditions. So I was I'll be honest. I was excited too that we were able to seal the deal before that thing really and that storm had really laid down some snow. Yeah, because it eventually that was last Thursday and it's now Thursday and all day Friday, almost two in that country. So if we wouldn't have I would have got those two burs down when we did, we would have had two incredibly hard days of hunting. And other folks that we met that were you know, folks like we mentioned earlier we're hunting, didn't have any luck, you know, and on places where they're really used to having a quick turn turkey hunt, you know, with a lot of birds in the area. So yeah, that's just one of the many stories from the trek for turkeys. UM. If you want to hear all of the stories, every single one of the stories, then you've got to go over there the First Lights instagram that's at First Light Hunting and you'll see all the stories. There's gonna be plenty of swipe ups to get you to this n WTF website link for can can you tell people what's going to be at that link? Pos there's some pretty cool things if you sign up for membership at that link, there's some pretty cool things that you can get. So if you sign up for a n WTF membership National Wild Turk Federation membershipt um, you will also be at entered to win um a little package we put together including uh some on X max memberships, weather be eighteen I shotgun, which is the shotgun that both Ben and I and Harlander at least and probably more in our party are running right now. And uh, if all that's not good enough, you'll be entered to win a first Light kit styled over Zoom by Steve Ronnella himself. So Steve will hop on a zoom call with you. He'll say, you know, what are you hunting? Where you're hunting? What are you doing? Okay, okay, this is what you need. You need this base layer, this mid layer, these pants. Um. He'll build that kit with you and then first Light will mail it right to your door. That's beautiful, man. Well, like like we've been saying, this is this is our way of putting together a telephone. Telephone for the NWTF. UM, you'll also hear the aforementioned stories about conservation projects and important work that the NBTF does in this area. But it's not just this area. Yeah, I mean I think that's and that was sort of that's that's a part of this man. I have one of my proverbial I guess access to grind or dynamics. I think is interesting. We talked a ton about conservation in our world in the hunting industry, UM, and that's all good. But I really enjoy seeing what conservation is. And by that I mean, okay, well, yeah, we want to give dollars n WTF. Well what are those dollars doing. And in this circumstance, we're illustrating where that money goes. Right, it goes to UH spring head exclosures in the Barrelage Mountains of Wyoming, it goes to a riparian area exclosure in UM in the Custer National Forest of Montana. It's going to timberstand improvement projects in Nebraska and in the south and in South Dakota. UM. So you know, we're we're getting in there. We're talking to these guys Jason, Jared Um, et cetera, and walking these projects, learn about what they cost, how they were put together, all that good stuff, and and kind of showing folks where their money goes when they give too. Conservation groups and in this circumstance, the National Wild Turkey Federation. Yeah, And like I said, we got to meet Luke, a local forester here, and he told us all about how he were and cooperation. His position is a cooperative position with UM, all these agencies and n WTF. And he works with the Nebraska Forest Service, Nebraska Game in Parks, the U. S. Forest Service, and they administer these projects together. So it is a cooperative approach to conservation and it's easy to just say the word. As Ford mentioned, they're kind of broadly understand, um, what what goes into conservation. But then you start talking to people that actually do it for a living and what they go through and the grant writing processes that they go through and how they get the funding and how their jobs come together. Then you really start to understand the scope and measure of the work that's done. So Um, when you're walking around some of these pieces of public ground or even private ground in some in many cases with the n WTF, you can really appreciate what that habitat looks like. You know, how thin it is underneath those pines, how much habitat there is for turkeys to use there wouldn't be other, how much less fuel there is for burns in the area, so we don't wipe out habitat all together in some instances. So all that is extremely important. And if this sounds like a telephone for NWTF, well it damn well is one. And so go over and follow the instructions at first Light, doc well first Light's Instagram page and help him out thirty five bucks. You can win a bunch of really cool stuff. Um, trust me, trust us. It goes to UM a great cause and the cause that we talked about here quite often, which is Turkey hunting. And as we move forward in the year, the New Hunter and the last couple episodes of this year program before we were off the air for good, there's no more important time to be talking about it. So thank you for Van Fausten. Um. We'll keep everybody updated next week about how this whole thing ended, and uh, we'll be yelling at you try to get us to there's a thousand memberships by what do you see the end of the month. Ward that's a goal and April, I mean the trip will be wrapping up a little before that. But it's nice round numbered, uh to push h Like I said, a thousand folks to sign up for the old n w t F. Yeah, a lot of people have reached out as we announced the end of a hunting collective and a couple of a couple of weeks to ask what they can do and to say thank you. If you really want to say thank you to me, to us, this is a good way to do it. Ah, this is the perfect way to do it in fact, So UM, I appreciate you for Van Flawston and Uh, I don't mean to follow you up with the shame mahoney, but I'm gonna do it. And no one remembers before Danson, No man, Thanks for having me on, Ben, it's been it's been a blast hunting turkeys out there. It really has been tough as it's been. It's always good to chase them around. Yeah, there's never a better day than a day in the Turkey Woods, success or failure. So we're gonna turn it over to a great conversation about possession in the hunting world, in our need for possession and what that all means with I said about five words during this interview, and that's how I like it because the rest of them came from the great and powerful Shane mahoney. But before we get to Shane, UM, we had a little audio difficulty and during the interview, I did not notice that the audio is a little bit choppy on Shane's and fill the engineers fixing her up as best we can. We apologize for that issue. Um, you can still hear Shane. It's just not the best. We try to get the best audio we can in these remote interviews and this one could be better. Um, hopefully you still get to hear his message and it comes through loud and clear. Please now joined Shane Mahoney. Shane Mahoney, we had to hit record on this podcast because we forgot. I forgot and you we were having a great conversation as we tend to always do. Um So, I'm glad we're recording and welcome back to the podcast, sir well facts bet, it's great to be here. We always have a lot of fun tonight. I always enjoy it, and I'm I'm delighted and anxious to see where our where our pathway will take with this time. Absolutely, it's always uh, it's always an adventure anytime, whether you and I are having beers at the Wild Cheap Convention or podcasting and in across the across the world. Really in this case, um well, so I wanted to start by just normally I thank everyone at the end, but I wanted to to start by just thanking you. Um. I know I told you via text that are our little show here is coming to an end. Uh in about three more weeks will be the last episode of our show. We've had a good three year run. Moving on to do other things and and focus on other things, and in both the meat either company and in my career. So I want to just thank you as I start to reflect on this is a hundred and seventy some odd episodes of hour long conversations. When I reflect on on all those conversations, I look back, you know, maybe most finally on your contributions and helping us all learn about the North American model of conservation and our relationship to animals. UM. I think everyone is always inspired by your words and and so I just wanted to start by saying thank you for for participating. UM. I'll probably be very more reflective in the next few weeks, and I normally am, but UM, I've definitely been thinking that the last couple of days. I just wanted to say thank you. Well. It's very kunny man. I appreciate you saying so. You know, it's easy when you're having a conversation with being wants to think about these things. UM. There's as everything around is constantly reminds us in one way or another, relationships with nature m are fundamentally the most important things we have exceed supersede all of them issues because without the natural world, we would never have existed. In about the natural world simply cann So I think it's um. You know, it has always been a great way for storytelling to emerge, talking of nature, no matter who. And it's part of what makes us admire people who feel comfortable in nature so much, whether that's a a rural matt family or a man and woman and their children comfortable around forces and living with wildlife. It's fishermen who are comfortable on the ocean or um. It's a it's a it's an unending it's an unending louver kind of possibilities, but one when one starts to talk about animals and animal nature and so on. So a pleasure all the time, and I look forward to this one as well. Yeah, absolutely no, as you as you as you're speaking, there I a question pops into my mind that, you know, the first time we talked on this podcast, you you know, talked about your upbringing, and you talked about the way you were raised and kind of how that shaped you. If you were to if you were to meet someone who had no idea about the natural world, if if you know, an extraterrestrial came down and ask you, how is it that the natural world has shaped your life? And got you too where you are today. How would you how would you articulate that? Because I think that's an important, you know, foundational moment for me when I heard you, you know, explaining that the first time. But um, i'd love everybody to hear just in its its raw form. Well, I think I would. I would. I would ask them probably a question first, how do they think they came to be? And undoubtedly, depending on their civilization, uh, they would have either some kind of very empirical, scientific, so to speak, explanation of their existence, or they would have have some kind of mythological notion. But no matter which explanation they gave, it would involve outside forces. They were not the epicenter of their own creation. Of course. Originally they had to arise from within some greater things. That's the universe, whether that's the planet, you know, whether it's the margins of the oceans or wherever it might be. And so I would explain to them that what we call nature is that thing that is what gave us life, that is what designed us, that is what to the greatest extent of all things, far greater than our own personal genetics, etc. It's greater than all things in setting our expectations, our experiences, our dreams are physical attributes, our longevity, our mating systems, our relationships with our families. I mean that this outside thing made us what we are. They may have another name for it, but here on the planet Earth we call that. That's what that's yeah. Yeah. And then as we were speaking about before we hit recorded or there is ah, A strong feeling has always been in my life that I'm a part of that right, that thing we call nature, and I know you feel the same. Um, how did you? And and again I'm at some like some of the last you to repeat things you said I know in this show before. But how do you how do you talk about that connectedness and describe? Um, what you always said is animals are not another you know, they just are not well. I mean to me, how I describe it is to simply ask people to, you know, question themselves. For someone who grew up as I did, for someone who had the career I have had, spending truly inordinate amounts of times in wild places, it's relatively easy for people to say, well, he's become that way because of those things. And but you can take people who have often more into very different societies and very different circumstances, and yet they are fascinated by the sight of wild things. It may be fearful, they may be happy, they may be cautious, They need all these things, may may be part of their reaction. But they are in thhrall to some extent by the appearance of something that is living, is not the same as themselves. And so I would ask them to ask themselves why should that be so? Why should they be so absolutely fascinated when their backgrounds they may have been royals or doctors and Chicago or Montreal or London some other place. Why is it that we all have a certain it's kind of absolute fascination. Why is it truly all breeds and colors and creations are fascinating time, tiny little humans with the other life forms that are out there. And so I mean, I guess I tried to reach people on that kind of level. You know, if every day we open up our computers and we see these crazy videos, you know, which you can't help but watch. You know, someone's out of golf course and all of a sudden, an eagle flies by, you know, runs down a duck, you know, or an alligators out there, you know, sunning himself near the ninth Hole or whatever it would be. I mean, we are absolutely wrong to those stories. And I'll tell you something else that's really finer details. Have you noticed the emotional outpoint occurs when someone does something time for an animal, especially an animal unknown to them. Somebody cares for their dog or or or whatever. It's kind of accepted. But you know, if if someone rescues a deer that is that is found in any ice in icy water, or I saw one the other day, or a bobcat had been frozen into a railway tracks and and people totally wild, but people discovered it and helped to free it and so on, it's over. And the the outpouring of human emotion for both the animal itself but also for the humans who have assisted that animal is extraordinary. And you know, sometimes people complain about this and they say, oh, they you know, they cared more about the mountain line who attacked the lady than they heard about the lady who was attacked. There's an element of truth, but there's another layer of thinking that by that and say, well, isn't that extraordinary that we can kind of relate to the lion equally as we can to our primate friend here, the human. That's not to belittle the restiveness of the dangerous that nature. You know, these things, these things are in us. They're not put there by some book we read or some professor at university or some calling down the road. These are these are in us. And sometimes it takes a little more to bring them out. Sometimes it takes a little less. But I'll tell you it is in every single human being. This tendency, this this this this empathy, this connection with all of the others, and so it should be because we're all connected. They always have absolutely How do you and this is we've talked as we were mentioning before we record again, we've talked a lot about animal rights and veganism on this program. We've kind of explored how similar are our thought processes are with them as hunters. But taking a step back from that, for even for a moment, when we talk about our connectedness with nature and the animals that inhabited and that are part of it. And then you become a hunter, can you describe, you know, from your view, what are the possible pitfalls of as you become a hunter and you start to hunt, pursue and then kill um wild animals, how that might change the way that you see them in a positive or negative way, because I think for me it's been been decidedly positive. But when you start with that connection you mentioned, and then you insert the pursuit and killing of of those wild animals, it's bound to change, um, how one might perceive those those that connectedness itself. Mhm, Well it does the heavily because UM human beings have obviously great abhorrence of the killing garb species. We we have terms like murders and so on, which are reputed as anious acts UM, and so we understand at some level of the killing of a sentient being it is to cross the threshold very significant, UM. I think for those of us who grew up with animals, of course, we always knew they They were so very similar to us in so many looks. You know. They could easily be started and fearful, They could feel a lone um, they could become confused in circumstances, they could run out of fear, they could freeze and fear. But they could also do amazing things like rescue people like we're famously from my dogs, you know, which were notorious for rescuing people who were drowning, and so on and so forth. So we came to understand that the animals had these kinds of shared capacities with us, and we understood that it was possible for love to flow between human being and another animal. And humans knew that they loved them, that their horse, for example, or their but if you but deep down, they also felt and believed directly that there was an element of love that came back to them from annibal to them. And we have seen too many examples of this for it to be bated whether it's true or not. It is true. And so when one becomes a hunter um and one of it takes that act of killing, you now see another extraordinary, very tense example of the great similarities between the animals and ourselves. They feel pain, they react, and fear, they can go into shop. There are natural systems behave the same way to the impact of the bullet of the arrow as ours would, How they bleed, how they eventually die, and the entire reaction that they show at our hands reinforces I think in many people this very idea that they are the same as us that doesn't change the natural equation of life. The fleshy is flesh, and that we are all interconnected with food web. But I think for for a lot of hunters, um, and maybe for a lot of hunters, particularly as they get a bit more experienced and mikes this and think about this more, I think what hunting does actually is reinforce the that they are the same as us, which of course places enormous burdens on us in terms of you know, how we hunt and how we try to make as you may and as quick as it possibly can be. Um, there is of course always you know, radiation scale of variability and the reactions of any group of people where it's hunting, hunters, or missionaries or political leaders or whatever it be, and not everybody feels as deeply about those things. And of course there will be some people who will reject thinking because if you hold onto this thinking, realizing similar they are, but they feel the book the same as you are I would. It can be very you know, it can disenfranchise you from the action altogether. We can sort of prevent you from doing perhaps thinking too in some cases. And we all know, well I can speak for myself, We all know that at that moment that then after the stock is over and there's the point which you feel you can shoot, and you raise your rifle and settled across there as its own. At some point you do have to drift into a kind of special space where you keep all of that out of your mind. You have to, you have to enter a clean space. And having taken the life of the animal, um, you're immediately brought back the same if you get to it before it has a we perished. We see it asking for air, see bleading the CD, see first the environment its eyes, and then you see the length about of its eyes. And it is one of the most profound reconnections with nature, of course, that it's possible for anyone to have. And it should as well make us understanding more of the complex dynamics that are necessary in nature, not just the role of prey, but the role of predator and then the entire role of habitats. It's necessary to of course support those natural systems which can provide for human beings and provide for species all at the same time. It's um. Even the act of gutting their exposes you. If you were if you're curious, you know too, the different sizes of the organs and the body of different species. Why the liver may be so big at one the hearts so big in another. If you open the stomach you see what they feed on, and suddenly realize that, you know, they've been covering all this ground searching out for these different kinds of plants. So it's in the case of a predator, is different kinds of prey. And then you realize again that all of that has to be taught in some way and learned by juvenile animals in the same way that that little humans have to learn from older units. I mean, at so many levels it it makes you profoundly, you know, just kind of kind of an awe of the fact that that we can all be related to such a kind of kind of absolutely critical way, an immutable way. And and that's why, of course, at some level, the thinking of people who are very much in favor of, you know, use of animals, sustainably use people who hunt, fish and gather, and oh kind of at some in some way, not in a straight line, but kind of in an arc, come to share a lot of the emotional emotional attachments, the emotional aspects thinking for people who are more in a non use mode rights or welfare termind of you know, there's there seems to be a lot of space in between those two groups, between the hunter, let's say, the classic hunter, classic animal rights activists. But you know, it always seems to me that if we both of us were on trampolines, we just gave a little bounce to our own beliefs, in our own ideas, you know, we would probably eventually see a great deal in common between ourselves. Certainly, that's my whole because, as I have always said, if I have to choose between a world in which there are you know, some people care about wildlife and and believe in being part of the ecological relationship hunting, gatherer and fish and so on, and a group of people on the other side who say that's wrong. These animals are too precious, and they're too much like us, You cannot do this kind of thing rights whatever. I have to choose between that and the world where there are people who hunt and fish and gather someone and believe that we can sustainably utilize, respectfully utilize wild things, and and another part of the world doesn't care at all, I would much have sooner have the first work. Where are people who are deep association with with wild things and with other life forms and practice the use of them in a traditional way, and those people who say, no, you should not be doing this at all. I prefer that world of of values and debate rather than a world where there is significant difference towards animals and wild things. In difference will lead us nowhere except into this debate. Debate leads two places. Yeah, one of Yeah, one of the things that I've discovered over my time having these discussions is that you know, this analogy that I believe that when it comes to animal rights and venus, we as hunters stand, you know, at the beginning, when we're looking at a value system for wildlife, we stand or animals as a whole, We stand back to back, and then we slowly over time have walked away from each other and we forgot where we started. We're yelling across this void at each other, you know, using our disagreements as a as a way to stay apart. When we forget that we start at generally the same idea as you just describe there, that we both value animals. We just have a different way of expressing it in a different way of of seeing it in in both you know, the personal sense, the more tangible sense, and the intangible sense of the word. So I've just I've discovered in and as I said, through talking to a lot of vegans and animal rights folks, that we can come together. It takes almost one conversation to take the most ardent animal rights activists and bring them ten steps back from where they are to to to better understanding of where you and I, you know, I think equally sit. But I do want to return to to a point you just made there about that clear space when you're hunting, about that time, the flow state, if you will, when you have to, you know, make that final act of hunting, which is to kill. I just got back from I am on now a turkey hunt that's two weeks long, and I often get lost in the game like qualities of hunting, right, I get lost. I get lost in the learning the animals, habits, overcoming my own obstacles, overcoming weather changes, overcoming the things in hunting that feel like a game. There's conflict and resolution. Um, there is an ultimate goal that I'm trying to achieve. And as I think about those game like qualities. I wonder when is it okay to get lost in just the pursuit? You started to answer that question, I think you said it well, but do you see across the landscape of hunters that that we get lost in the pursuit too much and we we never do return to that moment you said, when an animal is dead and we get to to engender that respect and think critically about our own interaction with that animal. Um. That was really the basis for this show is to explore what's the difference between being a hunter, you know, and and being a conservationist or being a hunter and understanding ecosystems, um. And I think the core of that might lie at how entrenched do we get at playing the game, the pursuit game of hunting. M hm, well, there's a lot in that question too, But let me start by saying this. I think there is the individual experience that has in which he may share with his son or daughter, or with his best friends, or with his wife or the wife with a husband. There is that story, There is that there is that memory, that history. Then there is a kind of a collective image that is portrayed by you know, journalists or people who write articles, magazines, television shows, podcasts, etcetera, etcetera, which um, which often of course, particularly things are the podcasts, which are very personalized. They tend to kind of represent the activity kind of UM. And as we both know, there are many dimensions to that which are sometimes commercial and so on and so forth, And therefore we can create for the viewer of all of this very very different stories. This this oldest way of life, which is hunt. And in many cases, as you well know, an individual hunter will say he or she will say to you or to me or to other friends. You know, I really don't like the way they talk about what I do. So the first thing I would say is that, um, there is a there's a lot of ways in which the story gets the story UM. But I also do believe that um um, and the importance of that distortion, by the way, is that people who can be brought into hunting and hearing that distorted story can develop certain kinds of cultural expectations of how they perform and when they are. But the second point I make is that we you know, the the one of the great objectives of hunting course is to is to secure the animal. The ultimate drive, the ultimate psychological drive of hunting is about possession m hmm. And while there are many other physical drivers, and many other cultural drivers, and so on and so forth, the idea of hunting is to possess that animal that you see there. Of course, the only way to possess to killing those otherwise it will simply be with you. That's the only way you can possess it. And to some extent, therefore, a threshold is reached in hunting in the human mind, the human emotion and intellect um, where once the animal is possessed, when it is dead, there and you can walk up to it, touch its antis, and touch its body and know that it will not leap away. Again, that's a really important threshold of the world. Too few people go to what is the next level, the next threshold, which is to spend time honoring. As I said in one of my sports of field are three or four or five years ago. We do a great job of honoring those people who seem to have success with hunting awards and trophies and titans and all this kind of thing. But how often do we honor without which none of this is possible. Well, there are traditions in the world from them. In traditions are putting the last piece of food in the animal's mouth and doing various small things to honor. I think these need to be brought into the culture of hunting all over the world, and in fact the European expression which a lot of people know about, particularly the German and Austrian traditions and so on. Um this is really only modernized expression of what was the traditional feeling amongst hunters when they pursued wildlife, of course for the very purpose of survival. I have seen films oh black, grainy jumping films of kom bushman and the Calahari pursue big animals like giraffes for example, um and eland and pierce them with their tiny little arrows, poisonous arrows, until they bring the animal to the standstill by running in the blistering hot sun over the sand to eight hours. And in one of the films there was a translation where these these these small black men were running after the animal they had chasing a kudu, big animal, as you know, very impressive, wonderful example of the spiral point. And they said for the first eight hours running in the blistering sun. We chase the kudu, but after that we entered the dream space and the are we no longer look for a sign, no longer look for tracks, because we are running with him. The end of that kind of hunt is a spear thrust into the lungs and hearts of the animal which cannot run any further. But then there are the quiet moments. There were three men in this particular case talking in their own amazing click language about the end, about its beauty and its side, how well it ran, and all of these kinds of things. And this is something that needs to be emphasized more for young hunters. It needs to be part of what we emphasize. We ought to be moving in hunting experience and training and education backwards from that moment that should be the beginning moment of their training, and go all the way back from there to learning about you know, wildlife management, and learning about a rifle, and learning about cartridges and ballistics and all these kinds of things. And I think it's u some people have it to some extent greater than others, but I think it is possible to make it part of the hunting culture to a much much greater extent, And I think it would be impossible for even someone deeply opposed to the hunting of animals to witness those kinds of moments between still living human who will one day die, of course, just as the animal itself has died and returned to the earth exactly the same way, who looks down upon this life form, and as I have expressed myself many times, in a sense wishes that he could possess and consume and give life back to that animal all over. Yeah, but of course the ecology of life does not work. Now, that's a that's a powerful message. I have have recently been thinking about and discussing kind of the practical version of my hunting life, the emotional version of my hunting life, and kind of the crossroads of both and and so I can very much appreciate that possession and honor and kind of balancing those two and setting them against each other in some ways, I imagine that you'll have to do. Do you have a do you have a personal story of of a moment like this where you particularly call back to when when for context of how this, how that honoring and that emotion plays into the end of a hunt, something that has happened in your life, or maybe a story that you've heard from someone you respect along the way. I mean, I think for me then, and you know, I speak very emotionally about this active, speak personally and be honest, I think it's probably true that I started to first speak publicly, emotionally and honestly about this activity. Um. This this this natural engagement. It made, It certainly made some audience is uncomfortable. And but I guess for me, um, it's not so much a single hunt or a single event. It's a series of events that are completely independent but are very often the same, and which taught me that all of hunting is about possession. You don't hear that people don't talk. Yeah, I've never I haven't heard outside of of our conversations and what you said today. And I want all listeners to remember why you're you know that that word it's important. But that's so when I was a very small boy, UM, living in a very isolated community. Um, of course, I started out by catching insects and bumble bees and jars and visual kinds of things. And I I was, I mean, I did it relentlessly. I was always, always, always, acts um and I had from even that experience. First, I can see them in the jars now, with the small, the small flowers. I would put there in anything I thought that i'd keep them alive and keep well, so that I could keep them in my possession for longer and longer. And then, of course, eventually what would happen to some of them? They would grow weak, and then it would start to crawl around in the jar instead of flying and buzzing trying to get out of the lid, so on and so forth. And I'd make sure there were holes in the lid for air to get in, and you know, all the things to try to keep this little ancle alive, this this insect. I didn't didn't want him to the last thing. Of course, eventually I would possess him until he died, and then maybe when he was weak, I'd lay them out on the ground and wait for him to spend the life do And of course then I would be able to look at him very carefully and see the hairs on his legs and all but his eyes looked like in his jaws, and his stinger and all these kinds of things which I couldn't really see when he was buzzing around in my jump. And then we used to have things like snowbirds which would come in under winter ice, and you we try to catch them. I remember we used to hide under the wharf and and get a small piece of wood like pie wood, just something we would find on the beach, and we would put a stick under it with a little piece of rope, you know, and then crawled back underneath the the wharf, the frozen ice. There's no water under the wharf any just pure ice. It's a very poor community. We put little pieces of fat pork or rolled out anything we could get thin with enticeees in the snowbirds, and when they come in under the board, of course, we pulled the spring. And the hope was that you would you would not kill one, but the hope was that you sort of capture. And I remember doing that and and killing one, take time, and and holding that that little bird in my hand. I was a small boy, four maybe certainly all of them. And and this is this is a freezing cold place, you know, this is this is this is this is a place. You can't travel. You can't you can't travel by boat from us because it was I so much ice there. And I can still remember taking off by mead and and having that little bird and the warmth from its body, which of course it was a complete surprise to me. I did. I didn't think about them being warm as they flew around, and and and so on and so forth, and then and then feeling of course the heat leave. It's it's it's it's body. And so this these experiences gets get translated over and over and over and over again in my life to the times when I finally began to hunt them. I didn't begin to hunt till life was, you know, my early twenties. I hadn't been around it to do it myself. And of course, uh, first memorable animal was a was a monstrous pool moose. It's like it's a long way the long way of a bumble bee and a snowbird. And ah. But what I remember then about that that this one shot we floated to the ground like a beef. Shot him in the back of the spine. Was instant, instant, instantly, And I still remember as you got closer to him. First of all, this year's size, this is a big bluddy things. Uh, at the size of his holes, you know, and then leaning against him and again feeling that incredible amount of heat being renovative generated from his body. And then I can also remember finally touching those antlers I had collected. I had collected I don't know how many animals in my time. I was field researching all the time. I was fascinated my ads, my own son, my little boy. He had a collection of apps that you know, I mean, most people never see a collection of apt uh. And but I was now touching the antlers on the head of an animal that had just and that was completely totally different feeling to me. And I remember those things as they're far more important than anything in terms of you know, the shooting or that even the tracking, any of those kinds of things. It was I possessed and now I could, surely I could. I could see and learn and feel things about these animals which I I just could not when I watched them and they were far away from me, and they were living the lives that they ordinarily. And you know one far more recently, you know the cow elp that I took in in New Mexico two years ago. I remember we had filmed this, of course, but I remember she had died. It was a very good shot, went right through one along and took a part. She just it was only once and she went a short distance and died. But of course it was enough power missile. Some bloods push back out through and you know, touch the grass as we were as we walked towards her. There wasn't much blood, but there was enough that you could see it on the grass. And this is again, you know, kind of an expression of of her similarity to me. And therefore, of course there was never any questions. I would send all of them all the way back from New Mexico to where I live on the island of Newfoundland, eastern most piece of ground on the North American content. And I'm not going to tell you or any listener about what it costs me to get that meat back from Mexico, but I can tell you that I was very careful about using every ounce of that meat. Believe so um. For me, it's just part of the it's part of the ritual. And I often regret even fishing. You know, I was a fanatical trout fishing, especially as a little boy. Certain we lived that. I mean, I still get emotional in the spring the snow starts to a blade. The water runs heavy in small brooks, and it's black. The water is black and springs with the snow covering it. It looks black, and it's not like any other time of the year. And you know, but you know, sometimes when I would get home and talking again five six seven years of age, often the woods fishing, because that's the lifestyle we had. Um Sometimes when I would get home and I take my trout off, my little skiverer, which was only a little piece of tree that I caught leaves on on, I still, you know, wish that they would simply come to life in and of course they couldn't. And and I was adamant even then that they had to be eaten. Of course my mother, my mother was Irish from Ireland, every citizen to consequence, and you know, she she sometimes helped us clean them. Of course, if she saw worms and then their stomach like tape or something like that, well that was it neat. And this was always a terrible row, because h the idea of throwing them out was just terrible. Uh. And but you know, so I suppose for me the leanings were there, for you know, not many children at five years of age. When I was turned six when this happened. Actually, when I turned six, my father and mother asked me what I would like to have my birthday. And I was living another small community at that time, and I told him hands. So for my birthday, my father and small hand built. I had my own hands and m h and they were incredibly important to me collect the reggs. And of course it was a common practice that we take hands and we killed them to eat those particulars that I possessed, that I own. Ah, no one was allowed to take. So it's a you know, at what point then, did my my inclinations, my Irish Celtic genetics and my Newfoundland mixtures, uh, my mother's fantastic storytelling the fairies and banshees and what him in the darkness and so on and so forth, and the deep Catholicism of my opening, all of that kind of religious mystery and so on. At what point all of that came together? Lifestyle essentially a young ape free to do whatever they wanted in the natural world. How did that all come together? I don't know, let's come together. It did. Pieces of the ultimate puzzle, you know, that that make each one of us that, Yeah, I think that's it's good to hear. I I've heard you, you know, talk personally about your own experiences some but um, it's it's nice to hear you relate those things. And I'm sure everyone listening has those moments that they remember as a child. But also I would I would be very unashamed to say that I have a four year old son and I watched closely how he deals with fishing. He's not yet gone hunting, but we we have fished quite a lot, and he I always ask him when we catch a fish, would you like to throw it back? Or would you like to eat it? And he never says throw it back. He never once has said let's throw this fish back. He wants to possess it, and he's very proud of that possession. And then ultimately that leads us to something I know we we all quite often talked about, but I want to cover here, of course, is to this idea of how we then translate that possession to food. And I think it food becomes kind of the intersection of many of the topics that we've already talked about and we'll go on to talk about because it because there is an element of ceremonial nature of eating an animal that you've killed, right. There is honor there, there is possession. There, there's many of the things we've talked about. There's the practical elements of cooking it and making it taste good and transforming it. From our friend Ryan Callahan Offense says, the transformation from a living animal to what's on your plate, it's in and of itself. Watching and being part of that transformation in and of itself changes how you think of food because you understand where that thing came from and what it where it lived, and how it made it and what it ate. HM. Take us to the to the moment where now you have this food, we've we've kind of gone from the possession to the honor, and now we're we're consuming the flesh of these animals. How do you conceptualize that? Um, that part of it and how it plays into what we already talked about. Well, UM, I think all of human beings have some level of understanding of what the higher order uses of things are UM, and this translates to many aspects of the human condition. And while the taking of animal's life can be done for other reasons and ceremonial reasons are the reasons of you know, it's part of an experience, and people wish to have memorability of that, such as ants on the wall. B. Meanwhile, there may be a variety of of of any products if you will form the counting experience. I don't think anyone in the world would be able to argue that the consumption of that animal possessed is the most profound and the most justified and the most justifiable reason for lethal possession. If you can capture an animal without killing, all these dynamics change. But if you possess an animal through its death mediated by your own hand, then the idea of consuming that animal, Yes, is this has this kind of profound beauty for two reasons. At least One is that food is a very unique thing in a lot of species. In a lot of species, food is used in ceremonial fashion, for example, helping feed a mate in a wide variety of species c bird carnivals, etcetera. Expa um. In our particular species, this is taken to a whole other level, and you know, we turn it into family gathers. We talked about it in terms that are usually reserved for our feelings to one another. You know, I think I love food and the way we talk about tastes and how we travel the world to look for ingredients that can be part of foods, foods that are alien to our own cultures but which we wish to experience. Um. They are part of our ceremonies of death at funerals and funeral rights. They are part of the origins of life and births and so on and so forth, and any number of religious ceremonies in any number of religions around the world. They are the family dinners that you make people. They are the special dinners that take on special days like New Year's Day or or or or any particular one you might choose from a particular culture. They even make football games greater because you know, you you cook on your tailgate and you have is these massive parts all around food, all around food. You know, so so food is it is? It is? It in incredibly important thing to human beings and the someone wants said to be Shane. If you want to be famous, write a book, read a cookbook. You know, then that's that's the way to fame. It really is an extraordinarily powerful psychological and physical reality. No. Originally, the only way we acquired fired food was through hunting and gathering and scavenged. And of course, the most most nutritious of all the things we get, the thing that we give us the biggest nutritional bang for our box, or to speak, it was the hunted apple. The animal rotea were broken and set free by fire and giving us an explosion of nutrition that nothing else would really equal at the time per unit um. And of course we came to understand, because we knew the importance of food to our own bodies, that when we consumed things, when we consumed living things, we killed they were what they were giving us the most precious thing any human pain can possess. They were giving us life. And so now there was this inseparability between the lives and the landscapes, the behaviors and the knowledge and the way of life of the animal and our own way of life. This is an intimacy that brings everything together. It brings our relationship to them, their relationship to us, and the understanding amongst us of all of the interrelationships between all animals. The consumption of a wild thing is uniquely positioned in this pantheon of cultural considerations, because, as we have shared before, I am certain the value that is placed on the harvest of the wild thing is always in so many, so many important dimensions, is always different, more nuanced, more enhanced, more more sophisticated than if we are dealing with something that is not violent. And this goes to our traditions of sharing the things we take from the wild with one another, which completely totally recapitulates the original lifestyle beings Santer gathers and brings it forward into century where you know, machines are crawling over Mars at our direction and sending images back to us. And yet that original power of our relationship towards wild things as the sources of our own sustenance is carried forward with a profound, profound importance today. And you may be a banker working in Philadelphia, or you may be a business owner operating in Zula, Montana. Who might be a medical doctor working in uh San Francisco. But something about things taken from the wild and turned into food, but always bring something unique and special to your experience. You give people the choice between a pen raise salmon and one taken at some point in his journey through the cold wide expanses of the ocean, and they will take the letter very good reasons, many reasons, and ultimately for cultural and evolutionary reasons that they know, uh, they take the best when they take from the wild. Yeah, and that's as you mentioned there, it sparked something in you when you take part in that. For sure, it sparked something in you that's very biological. It feels that feels like it reaches back in time and in many ways. And I know because of your passion for for wild food and you're under and your I know, you're broader pursuit of understanding of how it affects our world and how it affects you know, every part of not only our culture and society, but the economics of of some of the food systems that we have. That you've you started the wild Harvest initiative. And it's been sometime since you you began that journey years to three years or has it been longer than that? Longer than that, it's almost almost four Can you explain kind of you know, the wild Harvest initiative I think is you I know, for a fact, looking at the landscape and hunting especially but in conservation more holy that the Wild Harvest Initiatives is very unique in what it's trying to do. There's not much out there like it. And hence, I think for for many reasons, but for that one, because it is so unique and what it what it's trying to achieve, it's important for us for listeners of this show to understand and to hear you articulate kind of the origin story of of the Wild Harvest Initiative. There can you give folks just the background there and then and then I want to discuss some of the some of the developments, and then the future of of the initiative. Yeah, it's um. You know a lot of people know me for my work in carnival research, or they know me for my work on the North American model, and um, but I really do believe that the Wild Harvest Initiative is probably for me at least the most important thing that I've ever taken, because it actually brings together all of these things we have been discussing them. Yeah, that's more. Besides, I want people to care about nature, and I want them to care about nature and some personal kind of not not not in something that's fine too. But you know that's sort of smaller. I want the average citizens, so to speak, you know, whatever that means. But you know what, I want the average citizen and all walks of life, all creeds and colors, to care about the natural world. And we have to find some way to make it more important to more people because right now, of all the distance between us and nature that has occurred, too few people care. Too few people care in order for us to keep what everyone should care. And we have to change that equation. And I've published in probably twenty five review journals, published book chapters and edited books and monographs, written seventy five articles or something for Sports and Field and many other outlets and so on. So but my personal belief is that we have to find some way for people to come to nature naturally. Um. You know a lot of people place a great store on you know, scientific knowledge and academic pursuits and so on and so forth. You know, Jonathan Jonathan Swift told us centuries ago that that you cannot reason the human being into something, or you you and you certainly cannot reason them out of something unless first they have been reasoned into it, if you know what I mean. They this idea that empirical knowledge will just fix it all is very simplistic. And so I started to think about what could this be and what could it be that could transcend everything, all the divide and all the social stratis and all these kinds of things. And I landed on this idea of food. And I was aware, of course that in our world today, the idea of human health, the idea of healthy food, understanding the origins of our food, the idea of fitness and long jevit, living law and living healthy was it was a real social phenomenal. M So I said, well, what about we started to really think about wildlfe food once again. And yes, there were the arguments against it. You know, this is modern North America, you know, not living any longer in the such and such time, and you know it's a it's a recreational pastime and all these kinds of things. And well, well, hold on, let's take a look at this. Let's see how big this is, and see how big it is for the forty five million people hunting fish recreationally in Canada the United States each year. Let's let's just see if this is such an insignificant So my idea was to compile all of the data existing on the harvest of wildlife and fish by recreational users only in Canada and the United States, and to therefore the number of animals we harvest off the land in both countries, of all species, and the amount of food that is generated by all of that harvesting. And of course this had never been done before. It had never been done in the history of North America, never been done in the history of the United States or Canada, and it had never been done anywhere in the world. I came to eventually realized, and my idea is to show people the number of incredibly healthy meals that we currently are sustainably harvesting from the private and public lands of Canada and the States, and to ask them to think about what we might be able to produce if we started to think about natural systems and natural habitants as food reservoirs, as health reservoirs for people, and of course that not only provide food, but also provide running, clear clean water, clean air, and so on and so forth. So I have amassed the largest database in the world, and this um for four years and with great support a lot of state agencies and NGOs and industry leaders, so on and so forth, and there is absolutely nothing like it. We have lots of efforts out there to talk about game meat and have game dinners and all those ands and so on and so forth, and that's all good and it's all needed, but at some point in time we need powerful data to influence policy and political decisions about the lands that support the wildlife of our countries. And if we can make people understand that these are reservo hours of health, these lands, and that we are all entitled to powers in a sustainable way products from those lands, then I think we can make a real difference in how people think about the importance of nature. So we also, of course, in providing this information, we're going to say how much it's worth. So if we have billions and pounds we do billions and billions of pounds is incredibly healthy food and kicking around through our home economies, how much is that worth if people had to go and buy that. Because people like to have a price tag, they want to know how much it's worth. So we are going to tell them exactly how much be worth in terms of domestic equivalents such as beef for chicken, you know, hogs and so on, and in fact much it would be worth as especially food item if you had to go buy it at a store or at a mark something in this nature. And then we're going to take that value, which is in the many, many billions of dollars, and we're going to add that to the other values of these activities in terms of employment, in terms of sales tax revenues, you know, in terms of all those other benefits, employment generation and so on and so forth that has been associated with the hunting an angelic world. And we're going to add this massive food value, which again no one has ever conceived of doing. And finally we're going to give the counter factual, which is to say, to be okay, let's say we stop these activities now today, including the new activities that have started both our countries as a result of covide, where people are desperately on fish and spend time on the outdoors. Let's say we stop these activities. What is it going to cost in terms of the land that must be taken, The wild life habitat must be taken further to provide both ranging space for domestic animals and also to raise the crops that we use, of course largely to feed them, the wheats and the corns and someone and so forth. And how much fossil fuel will that require, and how much fertilizer and how much insecticide, etcetera, etcetera, etc. And let me add beIN that that's not to condemn what's going on in agriculture. We need industrial agriculture, of course we do. And that's getting better and better and better in a lot of ways all the time, particularly for cattle. People are doing great things with cattle and with sheep um. But I want people to know that there is actually a source of wild flood and of what and not only the meat and the fish, but while beares, while fruits, while fungi or mushrooms, while rices, medicinal plants shed, antlers, firewood, all these kinds of things. And so the wild harvest initiative is this expansive idea void up by data. But we can tell you what it's worth in Nebraska, where we can tell you what it's worth in Alberta, where we can tell you what elk are, how much elk is generating, how much food and wild turkeys that you're hunting now how much that how much they are providing to the world. And so we now have this database, um, and we are working on equivalence. We've come out with certain amounts of information from this this this activity already. We're now working with a public relations firm to come out with a fairly sophisticated slow release of this data so that it's you know, doesn't come out in one big arm, so that people can digest it. And the hope wills that we are going to build an alliance of people who harvest from nature, fishermen, the hunter, the berry the fruit gathering, the mushroom gathering. It isn't apply all these people who take things from the wild and bring them together and have them represent a component of our societies, and then also encourage them to speak with one voice, because these lands that provide these products are the same lands in all cases. And the final thing that we are doing each of these is among numantal tasks you might be aware. Um. The other thing we're doing is we're running surveys in states where we are asking the hunter's first, and we will do but the hunters first, how much of their food they share, who they share it? With why they share it with people, because we want to also demonstrate that the people who live this lifestyle today do exactly the same thing that we did as hunter gatherers through the long arc of our evolutionary history. We shared. Not everyone hunted their own food, we did it together and we shared it with those who were not with us at And you and I both know that that is a phenomenon of the hunting anglic world that we share. But it's also true of the berry picker and the fruit picker, and the fungi gatherer and so on. We are condemned to share, but we harvest from the wild, and this also unites us is wide consortium with people who are harvesting. We are united and only by the knowledge we gain, the talents we have, the things we sue in that same space of land. We are also united by this desire to share what we have. When your grandmother bakes pie made from wild berries gathered by her rancho, that pie hasn't that so far beyond one that is bought in a store that it is immeasurable? Yeah? Yeah, the power in that man, it's it's an aid. And I feel, I feel your passion for it when you speak as always with everything that you say, and um man, I really I really appreciate it. I've been thinking that's one of the reasons I reached out to you. One. I enjoy our conversations, but I wanted to get an update about the data that you've been compiling. Um I may go so far as to ask you if there's anything in it. You don't want to break any news on this podcast and share some data that maybe you haven't. But beyond yeah, I mean, what I can what I can tell you is that even if you look at I mean, we obviously have a strategy for coming out with this information, and we continue to build the database. As a matter of fact, we had a series of meetings with a big database company today. This has become a very big thing. Um it's and it may well soon take root in Africa and discussions about that. Um so. But anyway, it has become a very big thing. But even if you look at you know, some of the some of the statistics that we have, I mean, you look at a species like white tailed deer that in and of itself is providing between maybe one and a half and two billion meals billion the b you know, you look at a circumstance where you look at a circumstance where turkeys which you are which would you are pursuing now that that that are contributing somewhere around twenty million meals based on you know, six our servings of that animal, I mean, and you add that up across all the species that we are hunting, and all the fish that we are fishing, and and then all the other natural foods that we are gathering. This is no side show. This is this is not parochial, you know, throwback. This is not this is not immaterial. And for the individual families that are harvesting this, it's absolutely vital to their home economy, to the small communities in which they live. It is vital to those communities. And obviously it has enormous implications for the sustainability of of rural people that rural local livelihoods and so on and so forth. And this is this is the lifeblood of nations, the character of the people who live in those circumstances, and and and therefore, you know, we have to look at this as not just oh, you know, there's been oh yeah, he's unto you know, he's a bit of a black. Oh, he goes out, you know, he likes to hunt turkey expense two weeks, run around South Dakota, you know, chasing, chasing these these these gobbly birds. It's it's much more, it's much, much, much more than that. And of course eventually, eventually, you know, you look at something like in Texas where we did the sharing survey, and you find out, you know, that nine of the hunters in that state share their food. But then you begin to ask, well, well, how much of their harvest do they share? They share about forty three percent of it, and they actually share it with more people outside their homes three point seven million people outside their homes than they do inside their homes, which accounts for another two point one million people like these are These are big numbers. Now you multiply them across every state in the United States of America, and you multiply that across every province in Canada. I am on a mission to convince American policy and political leaders that we ought to be looking at landscapes as food and health reservoirs, and whether it's public or private land, we should be looking at this to the best of our abilities with the most sensible and sensitive policies that we can come up with instead of only looking at land as something undeveloped, you know, something that we need to do something else with. And furthermore, because of the science of wildlife management is so sophisticated today compared to what it was, let's say, turn of the twentieth century or the turn of the nineteenth century. Just imagine if we applied our wildlife management science and our forestry science two managing landscapes for food production wild food production? How much do you think we could It would be absolutely annoyst So if there is a new mission for Shane Mahoney, it is to get our two countries, and our political leaderships and our NGEO is in our state governments and our whoever the hell we can find, to actually start advocating for an entirely new management system for landscapes, one that ultimately is based on human health and food provisioning. Well, that's a as you well know, it's a very ambitious endeavor. But I think this is you are the exact person to take on such a broad challenge. Um, and I know that there are challenges in exploring something so vast across our even just our continent. So what challenges have you run into and what things do you you know, what hurdles are you overcoming, and how do you feel like you push forward into the future to get to this this moment where you all to have this case that you can state, um what they think that I think there are practical challenges, you know, there's challenges of the resources that Conservation Visions has to mobile. As this monster's activity, we could use ten times the money and support that's that's out there. God knows if any industry or NGOs or other people are listening and they what they believe in this kind of a cause, you know, we can use that because of course accuses more people and more more materials, more social profile, more all the things that are out there. Uh. I think the other thing that's a that's a real challenge, of course, is we have to find a way. It's it's it's long term, right. You cannot been just come out with something and throw it out there in press release or write in one article in magazine and hey, that's great, you know that's done that stating walk away. It's this is this is a matter just like the North American Model concept. It has to be continuously dripped out as have to find new audiences, new venues, new spokespeople's new supporters for this kind of activity, you know, and they have to come from all walks of life. As I said, they have to be businessman and they have to be you know, observation NGOs, and they have to be hunting organizations. They had to be have to be everything the medical profession and so on and so forth which should be more involved in this than they are. So you know that that's that's a that's a challenge how to how to keep people committed to understanding that I have to give it over the long term. If the discussions on the North American Model had in two years after we first started to talk about it, after Dr Geist you know, came up the concept. If I started speaking about that in the United States for a year and then said, Okay, but that's it, I'm gonna talk about that. Do you really think that that would be invented in our systems? Yeah? Do do you think this is an evolution of the North American model or or a bolt on an addition to it? How would you describe it in relation to the model. That's a really that's a really good question. That's a lot of questions, but that's a really cool because what I see this being is the discovery of a pround of a profound truth within myself and within all people who engage with nature and particularly engage with nature in the food acquisition way all over the world, not just in word, and in a way it is not so much an evolution of the model, although it has deep direct implications and relevancies to the model, as you won't clearly see um because it deals with hunting and angling and all those things of course, evaluations of the resource and so forth management. But in a way I would look at it in reverse. I think to some extent, this issue is the start of the model in a way interesting. You know, we we wanted to protect wildlife that was disappearing, and we wanted to find ways to to be really effective in doing that. And part of the motivation, of course for keeping wildlife with us was of course to be able to harvest it and to and to hunt it and to fish, and of course there was always a huge component of that that was about food. We didn't talk about it so much that way, but that's what it was about. I mean, we didn't we didn't create the model and all its policies and laws and then say we'll go out, out, out and out and then just leave the animals in every single state and province development in the model rules, regulations, laws that said you cannot waste that animal. You know, you take that meat out and you use it in some form of fashion. So in a way, this was this was the in some ways, it was at the very origins of the moment. But we never talked about you know, we talked about game laws, we talked about regulations, and we talked about hunting clubs, and we talked about habitats, we talked all around it, but we never talked about this idea of food. And of course the North American model itself is in a way just a modern part of the long history of humanity's engagement with the natural world for consumption, for the gathering food, capture of animals, the possession of animals, and so on and so forth, and so in some ways it goes way way back before the model. Mhm um. So I don't see it as so much an outcome of the model, although I know why you asked that question. I almost see it as something that was at the origin of the model, but we had to go back to the beginnings to really think about Yeah, and it will as profound questions as it gains more and more influence. But and as we do the surveys in Arizona and in Texas and in Wisconsin and in Nevada, which boys to do now, uh, you know, we will have so much information to bring to people. I think it is going to raise issues around the model, like, well, how how do we gain access to all this great meat? If I'm not a hunter? Should I be able to buy that? Not everybody's going to hunter and angler and things of that nature. So it will it will challenge certain principles of the model in certain ways. And of course that's a good thing. That's a that's a really good thing. The most important things that the model is about value wildlife. That's ultimately what it was about. Sprang from that. We will not lose it. We had to give it a value. And this whole wild Harvest admission is about talking about giving wildlife of value that no one has ever quantified before, ever, ever in the history of the model. I love that you say it that way with value, you know, because there is as we've talked about, there's political like this would add a political value to to wildlife and wild places that they don't currently have. It would add to and butcher's the cultural value that that wildlife and hunting and wild food share. I mean, just you can add you know, economical value. Obviously you're really just kind of codifying and packaging up what's what's already there. Um. But I really do appreciate as as as I tell a lot of people that listen to this show and that are um that participate actively in what we do. The North American model has become, you know, the the guardrails for how I think about many things within our space. And uh, I've tried to describe it in many ways, Shane and I used to think it kind of I used to look at it as kind of a bit of the Bible, like the Acre Text, and then I didn't think that was giving it the credit it deserved, because it's not meant to be a sacred text, right It's it's meant to be it's meant to be a value system and explanation of value system and the practical application of said value system, you know, and and um man, I've I've learned a lot over our time, folks that you can go back and listen to Shane and I did I believe it was a two part podcast. It might have been years ago now, um on in the North American model, Uh, we'd probably go more two or three more hours just talking about that. But what we have, what I know you mentioned to me a while back, like the seminal conversation or or Shane's explanation of the model, all encapsulated in those earlier podcasts, So you can always go even when the show ends, you can always return back to those um to me, Shane, These these conversations become you know, time capsules for for where we were over these last three years, both personally and professionally, and then where our community has has has gone. So, um, where can people we can find the wild Harvest initiative through conservation visions? But specifically, what would you ask people to do if they're interested in neither learning about it, participating giving I mean, I think they should just really get in touch with us, because we are welcoming new partners all the time, even in this COVID year. Um, you know, the State of Alaska, the Alastaficient Game Department, the State of Wyoming, um New Mexico Wildlife Federation. And now we have a number of conversations going on with very interesting new businesses that had nothing to do with the hunting space at all, which is really encouraging. And with some international funders now have expressed discovered us and expecially interested in doing something. Um. You know, we are welcoming new partners, new supporters, and we want them to be diverse. So if there's a medical doctor who we know the medical benefits of course of time outdoors and wat foods and so on and so forth, anyone can simply reach out to us and it can be just for a conversation, h or it can be to figure out how they can uh, you know, personally get involved. And I think I'll turn this this this back on you a little bit man. Uh. You know, you have a lot of connections, you know, a lot of organizations and a lot of individuals. I'd ask you to encourage them to reach out to us too and talk to us about you know, and see there's many ways to get involved at many different levels. And if this is going to succeed. You know it's going to succeed, largely because the alliance that we've built around is so new, intriguing and inclusive that no political aisle is going to be too wide for it to jump. Yeah, well I can. I can leave this conversation, um our last on on the Hunting Collective, promising you that I will put you know, the powers that I have limited or as broad as they may be, into into not only having this conversation and letting people know about it, but but pushing people to contact you and ask you questions and and look at the results when they start to roll out. UM. I know that I've been happy to see back Hunt your hunters and anglers getting involved with you as I sit on the board there. That's been something that's been super important to me, and I'm glad. I am glad that they have have stepped up in the way that they have and that allowed you a voice and also been a partner of yours. So we'll continue to to push where we can. Um But Shane, as always, we could go hours more, but um, I have to actually go and kill a turkey if if, if you allow me that absolutely I wouldn't keep any mad from that, and just remember to honor that fine bird when he stops. I have absolutely will. Yeah, it's it's funny. I'll leave you with that. This isn't something that I've been able to really self reflect on until recently, that when I shoot an animal and it's dying, I have, like I all emotion kind of leaves me. I get into a state of calm and weird almost sedation that I don't quite understand. I will, I want to celebrate and then do celebrate, you know, the achievement. Uh, and then and then go on about the work of honoring the bird and taking the meat. But even today when I shot I shot turkey this morning, and even today it was like there's like a weird sedation to to my own feeling when something dies. And I don't know that it's overly emotional or it's sad. I'm not sure I really understand it, to be quite quite honest with you, Um, but it's but it's interesting that that's my I own, Yeah, that's my own emotional state when something like that happens. UM, continue to explore it. Yeah, well, I mean it's a long life. There's lots of more I think the important thing is to reflect on it too, you know. I mean there's a there's a basic difference often between you know, what might be equally sensitive and equally intelligent the ampathetic human beings. Uh, there's one kind. You know. That sounds terrible because there are certain people who can live through and experience emotional events and and be very much in the moment aware of the specialness of But there are other people who could go through those same events and become really reflective. These are the poets. And uh, not all poets, right, poet really, some poets simply live poetic life. So that's what I would wish for you men, that you go forward to live poetic Yeah. Well, cheers cheers to that, Cheers to a poetic life. Shane Mahoney, thank you as always for joining us. You're a special person. You're important not only to me but to our community, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you. And UM will continue to work together hopefully in the future on many many things, UM. And and congratulations on how far you've gotten with a wild Harvest initiative. And and UM we'll be working together, I know, to push that forward. So thank you. Once again. Thank you very much man, Thank you care of yourself, all of us. Bye bye bye. That's it. That's all another episode the Hunting Collective in the books. I am always thankful for guys like Shane Mahoney, for Van Fawsen, anyone out there who cares about wild places and conservation and the animals we chase. That is why I'm here, That's why we are here, presumably, and um, it makes me happy that we can do it for a few more weeks. Phil, did you get any messages from our our listeners after the announcement last week? I did. Yeah, I heard from Luke Reeves. A few other people may be rich. Um, just yeah, it means a lot. I told him, you know, I appreciate it. Thanks a time for listening and for being such vibrant members of the community. Um. And I also just got one more Instagram post from about five minutes ago saying a comment on your latest Turkey picture, saying why doesn't Phil have one yet? Well, we've made him wait quite a long time, but coming up here in a couple of weeks, you're gonna get it. Me and Phil are gonna go out in the woods and we're gonna wrap up this podcas guests, and the only way that I could figure out how which is to take him turkey hunting and get him a turkey. Uh. So you know, stick and stay for that. We get a couple more episodes to go. I'm excited about the content we're gonna put out. I just wanted to say, uh me or what Phil said there a little bit and thank all of you for the well wishes, the heartfelt gratitude, all the things that came in over the last seven days. I've been Turkey Hunton, so I haven't been as connected as I would want to be, but I have seen all the messages, um, all the well wishes and and felt that. And I really do appreciate everybody for for sticking with us for a hundred and seventy some odd episodes. UM. There's no perfect ending for anything, uh this podcast included UM. But everything has to end, and so we're gonna make it the best we can for the weeks we have left, and I will I would extend my gratitude and thanks back to all of you who have listened for all these years, who have been a part of these conversations and have continued to support us, and I'm sure we'll continue to support us in the years to come as uh as my career and Fill's career at Meat Eater and likely beyond. What was that Phil's career and then that caused you a career? Well, because you're gonna become a famous hunter after you kill a turkey. That's right, Okay, I think your engineer days could be over. Maybe fill the hunter at the end of it all. You never really know, um, but yeah, I really there's there's not much more I can say other than thank you. Um. It's it's gonna be hard to see this thing in this is as I said last week, it's a big part of me. It's a big part of my life. Um. I've I've had I've had, you know, watch my kids be raised while we were recording this. Um. And maybe one day they'll they'll listen back to it and they'll get kind of a time capsule at these three years and and all of our lives. My life fills life a little bit to listen back to these episodes and learn about where we were and what we were thinking during these crazy years. Pandemics and and my second child being born and all the things that life events that have happened during this show and UM and it you know it won't go away. So if everybody that asks Meat Eater will keep the show up, all on seventy seven episodes will remain and you can listen to them whenever you like, uh and get and relive some of the cool conversation we've had over the last three years. So again, a heartfelt thank you to everybody, UM, to every listener, and especially you know, I want to if you'll, you'll let me feel I want to say thank you to one specific listener. Is that okay? Of course? So, uh, my dad listens to this podcast every week and we talked about it quite often, and we always talk about kind of how our dad's, many of us our dad's got us into hunting, how they kind of shepherd us into this lifestyle that's pursuits. But I have to just thank my dad not only for um being you know, my hero and the person I look up to, but for pushing me to do the best I can with everything in life and just being in it with me. I was explaining this to some of the other day. You know, when you're a parent and you feel like your parents or you're you're in it with your kids. You're you're in it for the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows, the good times and the bad times. You're just invested in their life. And I feel like my dad is right there with me for all the things that I've happened to me over the years, this podcast being one of them, and um, he was the reason, one of the reasons that got started. And if I had one listener and it was him, that would be the happiest I could be. So I want to say thank you, Dad, I love you, and we'll see you next week. On The Hunting Collective, say Bye Phil, Goodbye your Gun and turning your Bow, Where the Hunt clipt Show and calling Hunters New and all the Hunt Collected Show, Working picking Shuttle or working bening Han. We congregate nice lovers early la Bibul and we're focused. We're just living for the search and dreaming of the fire and a salty Gilburn. But we ain't coming back un till it's colden Lake taking its slow. So week she straight clean your gun to your bowl, Where the Hunt Gleggs Show, Calling Hunters New and all, Ain't no cold onime told,