00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number four oh five, and today I'm joined by Kip Adams of the National Deer Association to discuss the most important trends, harvest and hunter data, and news items related to the current state of deer and deer hunting in all right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X. Today, I've got Kip Adams from the National Deer Association and we're doing our annual review of the Deer Report that the National Deer Association puts together each year. It was previously the White Tail Report that they are putting together when they were known as the Quality Deer Management Associate aation, but now as most of you know, they're the National Deer Association, and we're examining those more most important issues that are impacting deer and deer hunting. We're gonna be talking through what deer harvest levels were, and what the breakdown of the hunting trends were, and what's new and important and or concerning in the deer hunting world. What kind of legislation is out there that's impacting us? Uh? How is COVID impacting things of the deer hunting world? How are things like c w D something that we still need to pay attention to. That's the kind of stuff we discussed today, and I want to just remind us all, and this is a reminder for me as much as it is for anybody that to be a deer hunter today, it's not just to go out there and and shoot a deer and eat venison and put antlers on the wall or something that maybe was was an okay definition of being a deer hunter twenty or thirty years ago. But today, in this modern world, with all the different pressures that are on deer hunting and deer and wildlife habitat, with everything that's going on right now, and all the potential dangers to this thing that we love, to be a deer hunter today, I would argue, means we need to be informed and involved like never before. Deer hunting and wild creators and wild places. They need each and ever one of us. This thing requires each and every one of us to be an advocate for this stuff, to be a fighter for these things, and so part of that means learning what's going on. We each need to have an understanding of of what's happening out there, not just what's happening in the woods behind my house, but also what's happening at the national level that could impact my ability to hunt behind the house in two years, or five years or twenty years. That's the kind of stuff we're talking about today. That's the kind of thing I would just implore you to to to try to take a little time to focus on and to think about and make sure you're doing your part as a part of this community. So the and for today is to dive into these topics with Kip. We're gonna learn a lot, We're gonna get a sense of what the state of affairs is right now. Should we be optimistic, should we be concerned? And what can we do as individuals to make sure that we can keep hunting to make sure our future kids can be hunting, to make sure there's deer out there and open wild places to do it. So, without all said, let's just kick right into this conversation with Kip. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening. All right, I've got with me here on the line. Kip Adams, Kip, thank you for coming back on the show for our our annual visit here talking the state of white tails and deer across the country. I appreciate you being here, absolutely, Mark, good to be here. I wouldn't mess it. I'm glad. It's become a tradition of sorts. Um. It's it's nice to have certain things that are cyclical that I can count on. With as much being so uncertain these days, it's nice to know that I can count on at least one good high level what's going on in the deer hunting world conversation with you, Kip, it's it's it's good to know I can depend on that good deal. I'm glad to do that. And uh, definitely nice and given what's going on in the country today, that we can talk about something that's fun and and has some positive trends going true true, and and that I guess that that tease that tease me off really well, or I'm not sure if that's the right way to word it, that that kicks off this discussion I think in an appropriate way, because before we dive into the main topic that I want us to cover, which is, you know, the trends and data and insights you guys have gleaned as you've put together Deer Report. UM, I want to kind of zoom out a little bit and and just kind of get your sense of the state of our deer hunting world, you know, giving your position in charge of UM, I think your official title note kept correct if I'm wrong, but it's Chief Conservation Officer, Is that right? That's right? Yeah. Through the merger, UM, I got a new title. It sounds very official. Yeah, like I'm on the law enforcement still biologist at heart. Yeah. So. But but with that said, though, I know that you have your finger on the pulse on a lot of things within the deer management and the deer hunting and the deer advocacy world. UM, You're you're tapped into a lot going on across the country. And as you kind of alluded, there's a lot going on across the country right now outside of deer hunting. It's just kind of tumultuous times across health, politics, everything. And I'm curious when you look at the deer hunting side of things from a holistic point view. So when you stand back and you look at the state of of the deer culture in America and deer hunting in America, and how deer are managed across the country and even Canada and North American general, um, And when you look at that and then you consider what all this means for the future. If you were to rate the state of all of that on a one to ten scale, from one being you can't sleep at night because you're so concerned, up to a ten meaning you sleep like a baby at night with no worries, where would you place that rating for for where we're at right now in your perspective, I think, well, I would place that at the somewhere between a six and a seven. UM. I'm an optimist, Mark. There's some really positive things going on in the deer hunting world right now, some things that I'm super proud of, and hunters are really reaping the benefits. For UM, there's just a couple of really big things out there that that are detracting from that. So there are there are certain aspects I'd say I'd raided a nine or ten out of ten. UM. There's just a couple really really big things hurting that that's uh, it's gonna pull that overall score down to somewhere between a six and seven. Okay, So, so I definitely want to dive into what those couple of big things are that are concerning you. But but let me add one more h additional add on to that first question. I've got a couple of sons who are one and three years old now, and I know you have your children as well a lot of folks listening to in having that, having kids, I guess in general has for me at least forced me to look much more for much more towards the future. I think a lot more ah forward thinking. I'm not focused on just what's gonna happen next year, but I've been forced to think, Okay, if I make this decision, or if I vote for this policy, or if I do X, what does that mean for my kid's future twenty years from now or forty years from now? Um, what's that going to look like? So, So, twenty years from now, Kip, when my two sons are, you know, leaving college or whatever they ended up doing, and they're entering the working adult, you know, phase of their life, do you think that deer hunting and the wildlife resources that we have today. Do you think that will be around in the same capacity as we have right now? What do you think that's gonna look like? I do. Some of my colleagues what would feel the same, But I do and uh. And the reason for that is because deer hunters that have have rescued our wildlife resources in the past, um, and I firmly believe that they will again. There's there's definitely some big challenges on the on the horizon right now, and thanks face and dear herds that uh, that are as big as challenges as we've probably ever faced before. But UM, I'm a firm believer that you know, for all of the the in fighting that deer hunters can do and an occasional you know, fighting with our state wilife agencies are fortunately at the end of the day, we have always answered the bell and UH at six things, and I'm a firm believer that that will do that again. I like the optimism, and I know that you are, as stated an optimist, so I hate to start with the negative. Sorry about that, But what are those things that you mentioned some colleagues might feel otherwise, what are the things that are making them more pessimistic or that are the maybe these are the same things that do cause you word to what are those things that could potentially negatively impact the future that we hope for for our kids. The by far, the biggest thing impacting the future of our of our deer management programs that deer hunting today is chronic waste and disease. UH. This disease continues to spread, continues to infect more deer and impact more deer hunters, so that, more than anything else, challenges the future of our deer herds. UM. Part of it is, uh, you know, complacency by some hunters. There's there's still a lot of hunters that that don't believe it's an issue at all. And every day that goes by, we see how more of a important issue it is, and how more of an impact that's ha been on deer herds. And you know, we're getting to the tipping point in some places with that. So, UM, habitat loss is a big thing. And disease, you know, other diseases, UM, you know, hunter numbers, There's lots of things that always impact this, but by far and away, the biggest challenge on the horizon for deer today the c w D. You mentioned the complacency issue, and I would I would add to that. In addition to complacency, I think there's also a fatigue aspect with c w D for a lot of hunters, because it's something that we hear about. Folks have been hearing about it since the early two thousands when it first sort of started gaining steam in Wisconsin, etcetera. And you know, at least from me being on the the communications side, the media side, I hear from you know, audience members like you know, you can just there's this sense that you can pick up through social media and everywhere where people are kind of overhearing about it, or they wanna push under the rug, or you know, it's not that big of a deal. I kill more dear than c w D does that kind of thing. Um, how I think let me let me take a step back. I think part of the reason that is the case is that it seems like c w D is one of those one of these issues that does not showcase the negative nature of what it means in the short term. So you don't see, you know, fifty of your dear her disappear in one summer like you might have with e h D. When that comes through town and that wipes out a bunch of deer, alvious like people and feel that they can see that right away, and they say, oh, wow, e h D really clearly negatively impacted me this year, and it's cutting dry, it's fast, and that leaves the mark. C w D in most places is not showing up in that kind of way. It's much harder to put its finger on. It's much uh more contentious across the nation as far as how we should deal with that. In a lot of ways, it's it's it's sort of analogous to what we see with COVID, and that you know, some people are impacted really significantly, while a lot of other people can kind of say, well, it doesn't seem to be impacting me. Let's just go about daily life blah blah blah. And and so you you you see controversy arising around that. Um. All this leads me to ask you, Kip, given the fact that you have probably greater insight to the realities of CWT than most of us, simply because you work in this field, you study it, you're reading all the research related to it, you're you're trying to positively influence. Um, you know, the direction of how we deal with it. Given what you know about c w D and the trajectory we're on, what does the c w D impact look like twenty years from now? So using that same twenty years in the future, Um, if we if we don't do anything, if we don't do the right things when it comes to c w D, what's the reality we could be facing with twenty years from now based on everything you've seen and read and researched. Well, what we have seen you know in states that have had at four or twenty years or just over twenty years, as we start to see population level impacts. So you know a lot of people today say, wow, yeah, we still have a lot of d year. That may be true now, but you know CBD just slowly and fast through a dear population. So you know, it's not going to have a population and level impact today or tomorrow, but twenty years down the road, it absolutely is so and we know that that's very clear. We have examples of that in the United States now, So we will see population level impacts from the disease. But one of the things about this disease you know that makes it so dangerous is that there are so many other things that are tangent to it that impact hunters, Like even if CWD is not having a population level impact yet, just the fact that it it is in a deer heard where some people hunt makes some people hunt less. They hunt less, they're less engaged, which means they spend less money on hunting stuff, which means there's less money to manage wildlife. So that negatively impacts it. Well. As soon as you have the disease, now you know, if the dearest positive, you can't eat it, certainly if you if you follow any advice of the Centers for Disease Control or World Health organization. So if you can't eat it, now you know what do you do? A lot of hunters now won't harvest the deer if you're particularly let's hear, if they can't eat it. So now you start dealing with other population level you know, growth impacts, you know, where we have too many deer and it degrades habitat and that's bad for other species. And man, oh man, there's just this whole snowball effects. So you know, one of the things about c w D that that I place it so high on that issue list is because it just doesn't hit the deer or you know, one way. It hits it from all angles everything. It impacts deer populations and deer hunting. So it's the cumulative effect of all of that mark that that really places a number one on the issue list that's threatening the future of our of our deer hurts. Yeah. Another thing that seems so challenging about c w D is that the management of it is not clear cut. You know, when it comes to I don't know if I if I if I've got to cut on my arm, it's very clear people will say, well, you know, put pressure on the wound, covered up, blah blah blah, stitch it up, whatever is going on. There's there's relatively a clear prescription of how to deal with a challenge like that when it comes to c w D. You know, as as at least I've personally seen over the last ten fifteen years of myself following this. Personally, it seems like very few people and that's that's not true maybe, but there is some contention around what should we do about it, how should we manage how should we try to deal with CWD um you know occurrences when they pop up in an area, which to the long term UH management guidelines be all that stuff, you know, causes controversy. It causes just I don't know if it's despair, but some amount of agitation within the hunting population, within those folks that manage, dear all that stuff. So I bring that up to say that it does not seem like we have had a clear, easy solution yet there hasn't been. U. Well, we just need to do X, and it's going to solve all the problems. So every year when hunters hear about this, they hear us CW is a big deal, we need to do something about it, etcetera, etcetera. Average Joe hunter sits at home and says, well, there's not much I can really do. I don't know how I can positive impact things, or I don't see what that clear solution is, and so it might be discouraging. It obviously is discouraging, and I think it's also part of why sometimes you get some folks in the hunting world who just kind of turn off to it. They just want to put the blinders on and focus on what I can do personally or what's going on in my hunting world, and I can't do anything about that CWD stuff. I can't handle what the government's doing, etcetera, etcetera. UM. So my question then for you, Kip, is you know, we've talked every year about this topic to some degree since last year or in recent years. Is there anything new? Is there any new progress? Is there anything that's making you more optimistic that we will have some kind of clear guidance or that we will have some kind of clear next steps or something impactful that either we as a management community, those folks in charge of making decisions, or we as the hunting community us on the ground can do to actually make a difference here, because feels a little bit daunting. Now, you're absolutely right, Market and that's one of the reasons why, you know, we we have not made more progress on it is because there are so many unknowns, and you know, the good thing is we're learning more about it every year. Um. There's a lot of research that goes on, you know, so we learn more about the disease, but more importantly, we're starting to learn about some ways, you know, from a management standpoint, that we can positively impact or make a difference, you know, to keep it from spreading. So a few of the things that we know about CWD, there's no cure, there's no vaccine, and it's failed all there we know that After that, there are so many things that we're not exactly sure about that. This is uh one of the reasons that a lot of hunters either don't believe what the state wilife agency tells them or um just disengage on it because you know, they don't have the answers. And in a lot of the states have you know, provided contradicting information in some cases about what you should do or not. Some states say we're not gonna allow a baiting because that can help spread the disease. They have other states to say, well, we're gonna allow baiting because we think we can kill more deer around those bait sites. And you know, it's not like the old days where hunters don't know what's going on in other states. You know, everybody has the Internet. Everybody looks so you can see what your states guidelines say and what hunters and other states are allowed to do. So that confuses hunters and because of that, you know a lot of them, you know, have not believed what their agencies have told them. So that definitely plays into some of the mistrust or the complacency from a hunter's end. And at the end of the day, we just haven't had a lot of good news for Hey, these are ways you can help. Fortunately, there are some things we do know now. Um, we don't know how to completely stop the spread of it, but we do have a better understanding how this disease is spread. And if we know that today, if we just stop moving live deer, and we stop moving the high risk parts of deer that we shoot, that we can dramatically slow the spread of the disease down. And fortunately more hunters are doing that than ever before. States have some restrictions on what you can move and why, and just because you have those rules in the books doesn't mean hunters abide by them. But hunters understand more today about the dangers of moving you know, the backbone or the brain of deer from disease areas outside so as A as organizations, you're a perfect example. You share good information, Hunters follow you. They believe you uh n d A. You know we share good information. State agencies do so Today more hunters at least understand that. Okay, I can help slow the spread if I don't move these high risk parts. I'm gonna debone this meat, you know, before I take it home or before I cross the state line. That's something that every hunter can do to to battle this. And you know something that we know more hunters learn or understand today than ever before. So that's a good thing. We just need to keep doing positive things like that while we wait for the science to catch up to find a cure for this terrible disease. Okay, Okay, that that makes sense, and that is something you know, that is one specific example of something we can do that can make a positive impact. So I like that. Is there has there been any one piece of science over the last year or anything that stands out to you, Kip, is most interesting or most compelling or most um optimism inducing for you. Is there anything new on the horizon that gives you hope from the science perspective. Yeah, one thing is is the test, you know, the RT quick, which is a was a faster test for this disease. Um. You know, one of the limitations here's the hunters getting deer tested is you know, we take it. We have a sample to get the test. That we have to wait for the test to come back and may take several days. It might take two or three weeks. Some hunters have to wait a month for the test to come back. In the meantime, you know, does the processor have your meat? You know, did your process at home? We process all of our own meat. More than once we have processed that, labeled it, have it in the freezer and waited over three weeks for the results to come back for us to know can we eat this or not? I mean, that's a that's a huge burden that's there. Well, one of the things at least with science now is there are you know, there's been progress in um testing for CWD that can return much quicker results, and there's a lot of scientists looking at being able to have much more rapid tests. So all of that is a very good thing. Hunters don't have to wait as long to know yes or no, I can eat it or not. So you know, ideally, you know, we could do something very quickly or a and an in field test. We're not there yet and probably aren't going to be for the next few years, but at least the time frame for testing has gotten much more rapid now and testing is becoming more available to to a larger segment of the hunting population. So those are really really good advances in this fight. Yeah. So what what would be the NDA recommendation when it comes to testing for individual hunters? Is it? Is it your recommendation that if you are in a region where there is CBD, that you should have every deer tested. Um. Is there some kind of blanket consistent guidance that you guys would suggest for hunters. YEP. The National Deer Association that follows the CDC guidelines. You know, they're the experts on this, and they strong incurs people to not eat a deer help any any sort of unless you know that it it does not have c w D or you get a satisfactory test result. Uh. And the only way to know if it doesn't have a disease is to get tested. So our recommendation is, yes, if you are hunting into a zone where cw D has been confirmed, have the deer tested before you eat, and wait until you get a satisfactor test result before eating it. Um. If you're not in the zone. We have to remember most of the counties in the United states have not confirmed the disease, so it's not like it's everywhere yet. And that's part of this battle, is this just make sure that it doesn't get everywhere. So mo hunters don't have to worry about this, but for those that live in and hunt in the CWD zone, yeah, absolutely, we encourage it to have that animal tested. We want those states to know where that where the disease is, you know, previleence rate of it, you know, is it in just a handful of animals in a zone or is it a lot? You know, that makes a difference on how that state while ife agency should attack it and the management programs they put in place too slow that spread down or to try to get rid of it. So so it's important from the sample and end and the management end. It's all supportant from a personal safety and yeah, and I can attest from personal experience, and I'm sure you can do it. It's a pretty painless experience having to to go and get a deer tested like that. It's it's not a huge time commitment. It's a little inconvenient, but it's it's certainly well worth, um, you know, doing things the right way and being safe. So I would echo what you just said, kept and encourage anyone who's in that type of situation too to go ahead and do that. Um uh. At the ah, well, I guess I've already thrown us off of the the headlines that you might have wanted to lead with, Kip, as I know that the Deer Report this year does not lead with a depressing conversation about CWD. Um, you guys kind of lead it with some other things. So let's get back to what you've been working on over the last couple of months, which is this analysis of the state of deer and deer hunting across the country. You guys do a great job with us every year. Um, when you look at the report, what are the headlines in your mind? What are the things that stood out that we should that we should examine here, Well, let's talk about a couple of really positive things first, and because I think there is a lot of good news out there in the deer world. Um. You know, one of the things within this is as we look at the age structure. You know of the buck well in the analyst harvest as well, but we monitor the age structure the buck harvest just to see Hey, you know, how close to we get to have these very natural age structures out there in the dear world, you know, and what opportunities to hunters have. And uh, what we saw was that of all of the antler bucks that were harvested, the percentage that we're one and a half years old or you know, have that first set of antlers was the lowest that it has ever been and recorded history. And we have had this huge decline in the in the percentage of yealing bucks that total buck harvests from way back in when we started monitoring this all the way until now. So, uh, what that means, mark is that if we're shooting fewer younger bucks, then just a much higher percentage of the buck harvests are older deer. And we had the lowest percentage of yearlings and we had the highest percentage ever of bucks that were three and a half years of age or older. And so that's pretty cool. You know, as hunters, we'd love to to watch those deer during the summer. We you know, used trail cameras and scout do we take pictures of these older bucks and then now you know, we have a better chance to hunt and harvest these older age class bucks and at any point in my life, and at any point probably in the last two years. So that's pretty exciting and the hunters are really really enjoying the benefits of that today. Yes, so, so I know the answer to this question, but I'm but I'm sure there are some folks, especially newer hunters, that that probably don't. The question is why does that matter? Why does having a dear herd that is more balanced from an age structure perspective, meaning there's a somewhat more equal number of year and a half old bucks versus two and a half year old versus three and a half year old versus four and a half, etcetera. Um, why is that a good thing compared to what was more traditional maybe thirty years ago, which was lots and lots of those a bunch of year and a half old bucks in very few older deer left because most bucks are getting killed their first year. Um, why is our situation that we're approaching now better for a deer herd and better for the overall eCos them than the alternative. Well, there's a couple of things that go into the and one of them is that that deer are far more social than most people realize. There's a lot of things that happened in a in a deer population that is controlled by young bucks, they scrape a lot more than young bucks. You know, there's a lot of interactions with with aunt Lois dear that you know. Young bucks. Can they breed, Sure, they can handle the beating aspect of it, you know, but they don't handle all of the other behavioral aspects the way that mature bucks do. So I tell people, whether you're a hunter or not, you know, if you like deer, and I certainly hope that you do, even if you don't go hunting, Um, you should care that we have very natural age structures, which means, you know, some bucks that are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, etcetera. Just so that that dear population can act the way that that is supposed to in the way that that deer hurt evolved. So it's it's uh, if you take a situation today, we'll look to replaced is what we don't hunt. Um, you have very balanced stage structures and bucks. If you look at Native American middens and some of the history, and I'm a huge Native American bus so you know, I love to read about that stuff when they pull the pieces out of those and can reconstruct historic deer populations, they had very balance stage structures. So what that means is, hey, today, let let's be good stewards of our natural resources. Let's just not be consumers. Let's let's be good at managing. And so part of that means, hey, let's let's manage to your hearts the way they're supposed to be and have a very balanced stage structure. And uh, because of both the management programs we have today and hunters knowledge and willingness to pass these younger deer, we have much more at natural age structures. And that is a really really good thing. Yeah, And and is it am I right? And that there's a number of biological um benefits to that balanced structure as well. So when you've got that unbalanced situation, you might have of issues with the ruts and deer being bred and all sorts of different things like that that either impact the deer and or impacts the quality of hunting. Can you elaborate on any of that? Yeah, certainly can. And uh, you know, there's been a lot of researchers just looking at you know, value of those older deer and what happens in those deer herds just from a communication standpoint, And there's some really cool research out of the University of Georgia looking at the forehead gland of bucks and you know that's right on their forehead, right where where the word says, but that gets a lot more active during the breeding portion of the year in older bucks, not so much in these younger deer. And University Georgia researchers have actually identified, you know, more than fifty different pieces of information that bucks can display about themselves through activity in that forehead gland. Now they don't know what all that means, but there's a lot of different things that those bucks are sharing with other deer, and that forehead gland has a lot becomes a lot more active in older bucks, not in these younger deer. And that's why some of your listeners, you know, if you shoot an older buck during the run, you often notice, man his forehead the hair looks a little wavy or it's it's awesome, you know, like a little redder, a little discolored compared to the rest of it. That's because of that enhanced activity of the forehead gland. So there's a lot of really neat things like that that are going on in the deer world that the casual observer you know, doesn't realize or doesn't recognize, and that we didn't used to see thirty four years ago, when because of the way we harvest the deer, you know, almost no bucks made it into these older age classes. So you know, there's there's a lot of really cool behavioral things that impact behavior of that entire deer herd that's directed or regulated by the presence of those older bucks. You know, a couple of years ago, I think this is two years ago maybe, um, the percentage of the buck harvest that was three and a half are older had reached its highest ever point. UM at that point, I think it was thirty four percent or something along those lines, give or take. And in our conversation you had mentioned that, Um, you know, we kind of hovered around that for a number for a few years, and you had said, um, I don't want to quote you here, but but something on the lines of that, we probably have plateau somewhere around this point. We've kind of plateau, but then this year it's up to I think it's thirty correct if I'm wrong, but I think that's the number I remember seeing. Um, we kind of took a somewhat significant jump there, um A am I writing that? And and be do you think that this is indicative of further changes there? Are we going to see that percentage grow even higher? And it was the plateau effect? Maybe not what you expected? Or do you think that we'll see uh reverting to the mean? And and kind of just still stick in this mid thirty percent you know, about a third of the overall harvest will be in that. Um, you know, in this kind of category. What are your thoughts there? Yeah, you're absolutely right. Uh, I was off in my prediction. Um. I had said that, you know, at that point, about a third of the buck harvest was one and a half, about a third was two and a half, and a third was three and a half or older. And uh, you know, I just didn't think that we would go any lower run a percentage of yealing bucks. So I didn't figure, well, that meant that, you know, we just can't get too much higher on those older ones. And uh man, this past hunting season, you know, we saw a big jump in that percentage that was the oldest age class Um, I don't think that we will sustain that. I really believe that it'll it'll come back to about a third in those three main age classes marked. Um. I'm not sure exactly why that happened. You know, we have so many older ones here. But you know, I don't think that if we're going to see much difference from that, um, And I should say I'm here to everybody, you know what burden February of one, talking about the one deer report. There are still some hunting seasons that are you know, they're just ending right now. And we published this report a couple of weeks ago. And so this data is from the two thousand and nineteen to two thousand and hunting season, so it's the most recent hunting season that had complete data available. So all of the data from the twenty one or twenty and twenty one hunting season is either not even analyzed by state yet or will be analyzed over the next several months. So the hunting season that we just finished, um Um, I know just from inecdotal reports, from from what I see from state agencies and see from hunters across the country. Man, there was a lot of older bucks killed on this past year. So my belief is that we're going to revert to about to that a third of our total buck carvers will be three and a half years or older. But knowing how many big buck pictures were circulating online over the last few months, uh, I might be wrong with that. Yeah, it's gonna be interesting because I think that you have this trend where the general traditional hunting population has been killing fewer young bucks and killing more older bucks, you know, year after year. That's it's been trading that direction for a long time now. But for the first time in a number of years, um, at least, it seems from early indications, we excuse me, we have an increase in hunter numbers this past year and hunter participation because of uh, you know, most people are assuming the pandemic effect with a lot of new people heading out into the woods for something to do and giving hunting a try. I know in Michigan, the number I saw most recently was that there was a sixty seven percent increase in new license sales this past year. UM. So if we were to make some assumptions based on that, I'm wondering if we get a bunch of new hunters that came in this year that maybe you know, aren't as either educated on this type of thing. We're interested in waiting for a deer, for an older deer and instead of just hey, I'm trying hunting for the first time, I want to kill the first year I see. I wonder if we'll see some kind of pandemic effect with the age structure of our harvest. Uh next year as well. And I know say it's a bad thing when it comes to new hunters getting out there. I'm just I'm just curious. I'm it'll be interesting to see if that ends up being the case, and if if the number of new hunters that came out last year is actually something that the data will reflect or if it's more you know, anecdotally, it seems like a lot of new people, but really when it comes down to harvest levels, that won't be the case. UM. I don't know, Ki, have you seen any early indications of you know, if if any of that's gonna flesh yourself out in the data in reality, or is it more of just something that we're feeling. Um, I haven't seen any data on that yet, and uh, and I don't believe any of that data is available yet. But you bring up a good point where the increased number of hunters this year, and and that's another one of the very positive things that I see going on. And we've got a huge up swing for the first time in a long long time with the hunter numbers. So there's definitely some hunters probably say, man, I don't want to have more because then it's just competition with me. Um. I think that's absolutely the wrong way to look at it. More hunters coming into the support is really good for the future. So um, there's definitely an opportunity that the that they took some younger deer and and hopefully some more analysts dere uh. We have seen through this R three movement, you know, or that this field default movement where people you know, are getting into the sport from a food end. Um. You know, when I started hunting, it was it was just just because everybody I knew hunted, I wanted to hunt. Well, today it's very different. A lot of the people just starting are you have a very food focused reasoning. They want to procure their own food, and I think that's great. So because of that, you know, there's there's absolutely a chance that a lot more first time dear from this past hunting season would have been analyst dear or maybe a younger buck. So it'll be it'll be interesting to see. But regardless of what that age structure shows. Um, I'm a huge supporter of that big influx of a hunter numbers that that were saw this year. Yeah, yeah, I'm right there with you, Kip. I think it's I think it's a great thing, and it's it's it's it's just increasingly important that we can widen our base of of support and our base of participants because you know, going back to that, what's twenty years from now going to look like, Um, if we don't keep hunter numbers up, if we don't keep support for hunting up. Um, you know, it's it's not a guaranteed thing. As we've seen, there's there's always going to be folks trying to chip away at our rights and opportunities to hunt. So having new people into the fold is is absolutely a good and important thing. So while I know what you're talking about, there's always people that will complain about the added pressure, the added competition for deer. I would encourage everyone to to you know, brush off that inconvenience and remember that this is this is a good thing in the long term, now that we're seeing you know, a lot of reports of increased participation last year, Have you guys the NDA spent any time thinking about how do we keep that going? How do we take advantage of this opportunity where we had a bunch of new people coming in, Um, how do we keep them here, how do we keep them involved, encourage them to stay involved? How do we make sure this isn't a one year blip on the radar? Do you guys have any thoughts on that or anything you can share, uh for all of us to think about. Oh man, do we ever said? And we have spent a lot of time thinking about that and uh that you know, this year, we are very fortunate that we have the opportunity to host the Southeast Dear Study Group, the biggest Dear biologist made another year. UM, it's virtual this year because of the pandemic, and we have the unique opportunity to host that that exact question you just asked, We actually have uh specifically invited a handful of speakers, very prominent wildlife officials to speak at that conference to address that exact thing because we feel that it's such a huge issue and the I will say this, I'll give you my thoughts on this and what uh what n DA is feeling with this, and I'm very interested that we're gonna help make this a national conversation. Uh, you're right, there's a lot of new people in UH, many people who are starting hunting today, starting for for different motivations. Might be food related, might be other recreational things related. But our take on this is is once we have them here, you know, now, to keep them, we need to make sure that they feel welcome and that they feel like they had the resources necessary to have fun with this and to be successful. And there are some state wilife agencies doing a great job with a user friendly websites and information for folks. UH. Because think about it, this is not like learning to you know, to play soccer or you know, or or or play piano or something. UM. Getting into honey can be very very difficult, UM from a mentor standpoint, from an understand standpoint, you know, gosh, you're trying to kill something for for God's sake, so uh, you know, it can be very daunting. So we think it is incredibly important to provide you know, an overmundant amount of resources for these new hunters, whether that's videos, you know, written information, mentoring opportunities, etcetera. So that now that they're here, we want them to have a positive experience you and want to stay and as you're aware, you know, this could be the most rewarding thing in the world, is to find pleasure in the outdoors. And uh, we want to make sure that these hunters do have an opportunity, you know, to do that and make sure that it's not a bad first experience, so not you know, we don't want to be an unsafe or you know, an unfund one. So have fun. Let's be successful, whether they shoot something or not. If they learn something and enjoy themselves, you know, that is how you can measure success. So um, yeah, we we want to make sure that this the resources they need are there so that they stick around, stay and then ultimately, you know, expose somebody else at the outdoors. That the greatest tool for adding new hunters to the fold is more new hunters who can pass it on other people. So there's a lot of truth of that. Um. Back to the report a little bit. Well, we talked about how the AID structure has been shifting in in what you know, seems to be objectively a positive way with with fewer young deer being killed, more older deer being killed, and achieving that more balanced population. That's a good thing. Um. Another trend within the deer harvest across the country seems to be a little bit more concerning, um. And this is something you and I have talked about over recent years, and it just keeps on going this direction, which is buck harvest going up, but doe harvest going down, down, down, down, um. And this is a reversal of a trend that you know, had been viewed as a good thing for a lot of years, where you know, thirty or fourty years ago, folks, you know, thought you only kill bucks. This is my grandpa's perspective. For a long time. It was you killed bucks, but you don't kill does, because you know, we want more deer. There weren't many deer back in the day, so it was viewed as sacrilege to shoot a doll um. And that resulted in these unbalanced populations, with overpopulations of deer in some areas, and you know, quality habitat being chewed down to the ground because of that. So for a lot of years, you know, management agencies and organizations promoted the fact that we do need to kill deer excuse me, killed does This is a big thing that you guys, that the QT may preach for many years, the fact that, hey, we need to have a significant doe harvest to manage populations, to be balanced with habitat um. So for a lot of years, doll harvest went up and up and up. But now since two thousand seven, I think I saw on the report doll harvest has gone down. So uh now here Kit And you've been able to see this trend now for quite a while. What's going on? Why is this happening? And is this concerning to you? Is is? It looks to me? It is concerning to me. And this is another one of the biggest issues that we're fighting right now. And I think this is part of the whole pendulum that swings, you know, side to side. The you know, the the advent of quality deer management, you know, back in the late eighties and was all about, you know, hey, balance and deer herbs with the habitat Let's make sure we take enough ant lest deer. And and it took a long time for that to penetrate the hunting ranks, you know, for hunters to become knowledgeable enough to know that that's that's a good and necessary thing. And um and they did that and was a monumental year for for deer management. It's the first time in the US history that our hunters took more antlest deer than antlood bucks. And and that trend was continued u for the next just about twenty years. And uh so that's part of the reason we had such big gains and the health of our deer herbs and health of of our wildlife habitat because did a far better job having the right number of deer for what for what the landcape landscape could support. And uh, you know, too many deers bad for deer and bad for the habitat, and you know, bad for all the other wildlife species. So uh, well, to add to what you just asked about, we're kind of seeing that pendulum swing the other way something and uh two thousand, two thousand and four teams fifteen kind of been there. If you remember, we had a couple uh one hundred years hamorrhagic disease years. Two of the what I say, hundred jear. You know, with those events they say, oh, this will only happened once in a hundred years, will happened twice within ten years, and we lost a lot of deer from that. Uh. We have a correspond to the time where we lost a lot of habitat across the Midwest with a high corn and swayed bean prices, folks were pulling millions of acres of land out of c rp UM. So there's a few things that kind of played together that all of a sudden you add this in hand. Stand, let's harvest and and some deer herds went lower than than our state will of agencies prescribed. Well, that's scared a lot of hunters. So what we have seen since then, Mark, is that they have really really backed off on the ant of the side, and we have deerhurts growing out of control in many places. And that's evidenced by this increasing buck harvest each hear. That's the direct result of indication of rising deer herds. So the three last year's the hunting season in a row. Our hunters have reverted to some old time ways and we've actually killed more of antler bucks than we have Antler lists deer, and uh, there's definitely some states that can have very successful programs doing that, but the vast majority of white tail states that that's a recipe for a disaster. You know, they are productive enough that we are pumping enough fawns into the system that we need to be shooting more ant the list deer than Antler bucks annually, or we're getting ourselves in trouble, and uh, we are. We have a bunch of states that are getting themselves in trouble today because we just simply aren't shooting enough ant list dear. So what's uh for those that? Again, just to get our basis covered here for people maybe aren't as familiar with this particular issue, can you give me the cliff notes on on what the negative ramifications of this could be? So if this continues and we keep harvesting fewer, does we keep on shooting a bunch of bucks? Now we've got these dear populations out of control. If if you had to tell someone in an elevator over thirty seconds, why that's a bad thing, what would that be? There's any environment only has a certain amount of food available to feed. You know, a certain number of deer, and if we don't shoot enough ant list deer, that deer heard just grows more or above the amount of food that is available, so that negatively impacts the health of that deer herd and is not good for the habitat or any of the other wildife species that are living there. Yeah, so is the solution as simple as all of us out here listening, get our butts and gear and and buy a few more dough tags and kill a few more doughs next year? Or is there any larger message you want to get out on this front? Now that that's a lot of it. And what most hunters don't realize is that you know, it doesn't take a lot more dose per hunter um if you take a look at it last year's hunting season, and you know, many hunters find this number just unbelievable. To less than half of the hunters in the US shoot one deer a year. You know, as we see what the bag limits are, you think, gosh, many stags. You can shoot two bucks and a couple of dolls, and man, we're gonna wipe our deer herds out. But the reality of it is only the hunters last year shot one deer. That was it, and only eight only the hunters shot more than one deer. And what happens, Mark is everybody would rather shoot a buck. I shouldn't say most hunters would rather shoot a book than a dough. And I totally get it. I like to shoot bucks too. So what that means is we just have a smaller and smaller number of hunters shooting any does during the years. So yeah, we're not asking hunters to go and shoot three more dose x year. We're just asking hunters out there, Hey, you know, shoot a dough, just one, and you know, feed it to your family, if not, give it away to another needy family. So there's there's great uses for them. So this is something that's entirely fixable by hunters, and a lot of it is just them understanding the need or how they can contribute positively to the health of the deer if they shot that one dough. Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a it's a simple fix right there. Put more meat in the freezer or share with some folks in your family or community, and you're doing a good thing for the dear population and for the trees and plants and grasses and all the other animals out there that depend on that balanced habitat. So it's it's it's a win win on that front. Now, another figure that stood out to me within the report this year is again the continuation of another trend we've talked about in recent years. It seems like there's a lot of things that aren't popping up new it's just we're going, we're sliding down these slopes and and this one is a little bit different as far as impact then we just discussed. We just talked about the worries of more and more dear. This trend points to something that would be worrisome if we were worried about not having enough dear. And this is faun recruitment um the recruitment rate of fonds, which is basically, you know, how many fauns, how many young deer make it to the fall, make it at the fall, how many how many doughs that are born the spring, faunds are born in the spring make it to the fall. That would be a fund that is recruited to the adult population. And I know that as you guys describe in the report, um, you know that's measured across most states, and we've seen this change over time and in most places across the country. UM, this recruitment rate has been declining pretty significantly. UM. Can you elaborate a little bit, um for those that aren't familiar with this on exactly what that decline has been and why that's concerning if if it is to you, Yeah, this is one thing that we watched very closely because it's a great measure of productivity these deer herds, and which is a good measure of, hey, how many deer could we be shooting the gear, you know, and keep a very sustainable, healthy deer herd. And you know, people think that man, those doughs have twins and so us each dough is recruiting a couple of fons, And the reality of it is that that's that's not true. And and recruitment is you know, a fond that has been born and is alive at about six months of age. So I think of day one of your hunting season in the fall, that's when you measure faon recruitments. It's the number of fonds that are alive and are being recruited into that deer herd then, and you just measure that on the basis of you know, how many fonds are there for the adult does that are there. And what's happening large scale is that that that number has really been declining over the last two decades in the US, and back in two thousand, uh the average was was point eight one fons per dome. So what that means is, you know, the average dough out there was almost replacing itself with the fond being recruited in. So you know, there's a lot of fonds that are born in the spring, you know, that die to the predators or disease or malnutrition or hit by car or whatever. But there was almost you know, a wonder one ratio. Well fast forward to today and that has declined to the point six three fonds per dough. So what that means is, you know, we're just recruiting fewer fonds now. Part of that is there's a lot more predators than there have been in the past, but part of that is just health of the deer herd. You know, as as we get deer herds that are above what our habitats can support, those those are not as healthy and they just simply can't recruit as many fonts. So that that plays into this you know as well. And a lot of hunters watched this and they see you know, where they see bears stuff killing fons. Because of that, they think, man, I'm not going to shoot a dough this year. Well, that's not the right attitude to take that. The right attitude is, hey, let's look and see what's your state wilife agency is monitoring and measuring for this and what they want to see from an antlist harvest, keep these things healthy. You know, in many cases, as we shoot more, does uh the remaining doors get more to eat, they become healthier. They actually can recruit even more fonts. So this is a very good thing to monitor to keep track of health of deer herds. And there's no doubt this has been declining, but fortunately it's still at a rate mark where deer heads are very easily replacing themselves. Um, you know, if this was drops a lot more, I think then you start to get into the danger zone a little bit, but large scale anyway, we're still in good shape in most places from this faun recruitment rate. Um, there's no doubt that there are locales that are really having trouble recruiting fonds and in some places in the southeastern US are actually having a hard time right now, you know, growing fonds large scale, like where you are, where I am in Pennsylvania and most of the country. Um, even though this number is less than it has been in the past, we're still in a very healthy situation for the number of farms we're bringing into our deer herts. Okay, well that's uh that that's reassuring. Um. So keep then when we look at the the rest of the report and the other data you collected and we're working on here coming, is there anything else that stood out to you as as noteworthy or particularly encouraging or discouraging that you want to touch on as far as deer harvest trends or anything going on in the deer deer hunting world. Yeah. One of the things that I think is pretty interesting is if you take a look at the deer harvest by weapon type. Um. You know, we monitor this just to see how changes of harvest occurs. You go through archery and firearms, and fifteen years ago, mark only about of the entire deer harvest was taken by bows. And today that's so that's grown a lot. Um, it's kind of plateau the last few years. But that's very different than the past, and it's it's a direct impact of you know, cross bow goos and expanded archery opportunities, and you know, it's just a lot easier for archers to get involved today. And uh, what I think is interesting about it, though, is as you look at that number and how it's changed and try to compare it to hunter numbers, what we see is we haven't seen a big number shift and actual numbers of hunters in the woods. So what's really happening is is it's about the same number of people participating, just a lot higher percentage are killing deer earlier in the year. Now. You know, all these guys in many cases are a rifle and shotgun hunters that that also bow hunt. They may have always bow hunted or maybe just picked it up, but we're seeing a shift into the harvest earlier in the year, which I'm a die hard bow hunt I mean, I've always both hunted, but you know, I see it in my area where more people seem to be in the woods during archer season and take advantage of some you know, additional analyst opportunities in some cases, take advantage of better weather in many cases. But one thing I think that it's imported. Weren't for people, particularly Northerners to remember about this because I know where I am in Pennsylvania. Historically, you know, we had a two week buck season that that was the most electric time of the year, and when deer season came around, schools were closed. I mean, it literally was bigger than Christmas, and you could just feel the excitement. There was orange everywhere, and the roads were full, and and that's very different. Today it's not like that, and you have a lot of people saying, you know, well, I wish it was like it used to be in deer season is so different, you know, nobody hunts anymore. Well, the reality of it is, we're killing more deer in my area of Pennsylvania today than we used to. It just rather than happening over two week period, today, it happens over a three month period. So uh, anybody, particularly not so much as south because Southerners have, you know, much longer hunting seasons, but for us in the North that have very short, intense firearm seasons, in many cases, they are very different today because some of our buddies, you know, are filling those tags earlier in the year during archery season, and it gives us the appearance that hunting is not as important. Uh, that's not the case at all. It's just taken advantage of much longer opportunities than we used to have. Yeah, Yeah, I've wondered about this, and I've wondered if we maybe it would be interesting to look at a measurement of hunter days, So not just the number of unique people that hunt in a given year, but if we looked at how many days hunted. I'm I'm guessing I'm gonna I'm curious if that number has actually gone up. So while over the last years we've seen a number in license buying hunters, my intuition tells me that thirty years ago, while we had however many hunters, million hunters, or whatever it was, my guess is that the average number of days hunted by those people was much lower than the average number of days hunted by people now today, at least some percentage of hunters today, Because I get the feeling that there's a lot more people today that view hunting as a lifestyle where they dedicate vacation time and weekends and and all that to spending significant, significant amounts of time outside. So I think that that number of people who spends you know, ten to fifteen days hunting or more, it's probably a lot higher now than it was thirty years ago. So that's that's an assumption. That's maybe I'm too much in that world, and I'm assuming more people are like the people I talked to. But I wonder if that's the case. I don't know if have you ever thought about that or heard anything about that? Kip, Yeah, now, and you're exactly right. We did a national survey a couple of years ago to just see with stage, you know, what was the average number of days that folks on deer hunted a year, and the national averages around fourteen days. Uh. We did the same survey of at that point it was QTMA members, you know, before we became the National Deer Association, and and our members hunted on average it was thirty days a year. So we want and doubled the national average. But so you are right, today the average person just spent far more time available, partly because bag limits tend to be more liberal, there's a lot more opportunity season why so, yeah, people are spending a lot more time in the woods. And this year as part of our report, we asked states about, you know, the number of days that there they folks could archery hut in their state, UH, muzzleloader hout and fire arm hut and then whether the total number of days you know was more less or similar to what it was ten years ago. And uh, opportunities are far more today than what they were a decade ago. UM. With the exception of the Western states and the and all of those have similar number of days of deer hunting available today to a decade ago. UM. Many of the states, and I should say the majority of the states in the northeast, the southeast, and the Midwest have more opportunity, more total number of days available to deer hut today than they did a decade ago. So yeah, so there's more opportunity. Hunters are taken advantage of it and and greatly spreading that total deer harvest out over longer period of time. Yeah, it's an interesting it's an interesting trend. And it's also I think part of why some hunters are confused by the data that we see that shows like, hey, hunter participation is going down, it's going down. They keep seeing those headlines and hearing that, but then when they go to the woods, they feel like, man, there's more hunters than ever I'm getting. You know, it's harder to find places to hunt, it's harder to get anywhere where there's not other people. And my guess is that it's because of this. While there's maybe fewer total people, there's higher participation from that group, and so, UH, that might be part of why pressure wise it it can feel like there's more people out there. UM, it's maybe an optical illusion just based off of the intensity of the people that do participate in the fact that, UM, there's more opportunity. People are getting into this lifestyle more passionately than maybe in the past, and and that's that's what we're experiencing. Maybe. So it's interesting, UM what what kept? The report ends with an overview of some of the the top kind of legislative winds or the top issues that you guys as an organization have focused on and been working on. UM. I know that the National Deer Association and you personally have been involved with a lot of different UH issues, advocacy opportunities that are that are working towards, you know, fighting for deer and deer habitat and deer hunters. When you look back at are there a couple of things that stand out to you as as the most substantial or encouraging winds on that front that you want to make sure we know about. Yeah, I think one of them is that you know all of the Pittman robertson dollars and that that's the excise tax on the hunting equipment that we buy. UM. Many hunters have ever realized us. They are just built into the price you pay that goes back to help fund our wildlife programs. UM. One of the biggest wins is that now some of those dollars can be used to help with the R three efforts, and and our three is recruitment, so it's hunter recruitment and hunter retention and hunter reactivation UM. Now for the first time ever, some of those Pittman robbers and dollars could be used to help support that our three movement, which helps with our hunter numbers UM. And to the casual hunter, that might not seem like much, but that was a huge win, a huge, huge win for for conservation and for the future of deer hunting. So, uh, you know, there there was a lot of state specific things that you know, opened public land and gotten more hunter access and that type of thing, but big scale or large scale of man the opportunity to use those PR dollars to help support the future of hunting was a really really big thing and something we were extremely proud to help be a part of. That's awesome. Yeah, again, speaking to the importance of of help building our base of participants and supporters, all those recruitment and our three initiatives are are important to do that. So that's that's huge. What about? What about? Is there anything that you are really paying attention to or that you would encourage us to really pay attention to or to get involved in when it comes to issues or legislation or something we need to be uh, you know, sending emails and letters and pounded ondoors about. Yeah. I'm just this past week I thought that, you know, there was a bill it was dropped in Oklahoma for a big foot hunting season that is one that we are watching. Oh boy, No, you know, I bring that up partly because I think, you know, it's a lot of hunters saw that and you don't kind of joke about it. But obviously people can look at that and say, WHOA, that's really out there relative to hunting. But it's amazing the number of other bills in states that you know, they don't have big foot attached to it, that are really bad, bad bills for for hunting or for the future of conservation that the average hunter doesn't know about. So um. While they may not be associated, you know, with the with the yetie or anything like that, it uh we fight very hard on those and we try to make those available to hunters. Um So. We're really just now getting into the legislative season. You know, a lot of legislatures are getting back in session and a lot of deer hunting related bills are just starting to pop up. But I've seen some come across my desk about the legalizing the venison sales. You know that that is a huge or is going to be a huge bill. This is out of Maryland. Um uh So in a handful of others that are like that that that we're gonna be weighing very heavily on in the near future. So um. From a hunting perspective, there's a lot of deer hunters out there, you know that they just aren't into the advocacy end and uh and I totally get it. So they can at least rest assured knowing that there are organizations out there like n d A and and and many others that are fighting on their behalf and keeping track of all that legislative stuff. So we'll let our members and others know of opera just to engage and on a whole plethora of bills and you know what our stances whether we support or oppose that stuff, and give them a chance to engage two if they want ye. So, so Kip, I would venture to say, um, and I'm just gonna make this claim whether I'm um, whether anyone's granting me this power or not, but I will say that today in two Thoe, to be a upstanding member of the deer hunting community no longer means you can just go out there and shoot a deer or two a year. I would say that today it should be a requirement. And of course no one's actually going to um require this, but I'm going to say that in your own head, you should think of it as a requirement to be an informed hunter and an advocate for what we're doing, because if we want to be able to keep hunting, and if we want to be able to keep this lifestyle out there, we need to be a participant in making that a reality. We can't just depend on people like you, Kip. We can't just point to that other person to take care of the stuff. It's on all of us. We have a responsibility to to contribute to the future of deer and deer hunting and wild places. My argument is that as an individual responsibility as much it is the responsibility of an organization like the n d A. So if we will, if people will bear with me on this and and take that to be truth as I believe it to be, what would your top action items be for a deer hunter in two thousand twenty one? Kit maybe one or two things that ever one of us can take action on this year in some kind of way to be an informed and active member of this deer hunting community. I wholeheartedly support what you are saying their Mark, I agree with that and uh and I will add my part to that. Does I think that the absolutely should join a conservation organization of his or her choosing that most closely fights for for what they would like as deer hunters. A certainly hope that folks would join the National Deer Association, But if you choose to not join us, join somebody else, you know, another organization that is fighting to keep you know, deer on the landscape and to keep dear healthy and to provide opportunities for to you know, to go afield and hunt them. So I think one join to help support that. And number two is we have to change the culture around hunting from just being a consumer thing that we do to seeing it as our responsibility to to mentor the next generation of hunters. So I think that every single hunter out there today should look at it as his or her job to expose somebody new to hunting and then to teach and to mentor them. Might be once a year, maybe five times a year, you know, whatever you can do, and then next year do it again expose somebody else. So I think that is the way that we will win, you know, the long term game relative to managing wildlife and making sure that that hunting has looked at as a necessary uh recreation in the United States. We need hunters to the harvest white tail deer. We need hunters to support wildlife programs largely through purchases of funding equipment. So those are my big things. Join an organization and mentor somebody takes somebody a field and teach them what it is to be a steward of our natural resources. I love it. I'm I'm right there with the kid. So my last question for you is this, if there's anyone listening today who has been, you know, inspired in some way or reminded of, you know, a desire to become a more active conservationist in some kind of way, taking some kind of more active role in the types of things we're discussing today. Um, and if they want to pursue that a little bit more this year, where would you send them for inspiration? I get a lot of people who say, you know, I read your book, or I heard this thing, or I learned about this thing. You know, what should I read next? Or what should I watch next? Or what should I listen to next? Is there anything out there that you would encourage folks too to read or or watch or listen to or explore some kind of I don't know what what? What's something that pops to mind when I mentioned that? Well, the first thing is is is our website. We provide so much information from everything from the brand new casual hunter up to experienced hunters. Would we purposely try to provide information either on our website or our YouTube channel that that can fill the need that that that hunter wants. So I've got to encourage the folks to check out our stuff. But in addition to that, there are so many resources out there today, and I think people should take a look at how they most prefer to get that from. From a podcast standpoint, there's all kinds of information if people like to get it by listening, you know, your podcast obviously U a great opportunity of the Meat Eater podcast. All kinds of information out there for folks. There's also more opportunity than ever before to to receive information and in short videos, you know, on YouTube. It's amazing the number of different channels that I take a look at and watch and following and learn myself. So, UM, I don't know. Rather than saying a specific name or specific place, I think it's it's it's a good thing for people to realize that however you'd like to receive that information, it is there for you today at unprecedented levels. So if you're a magazine reader, or a newspaper reader or whatever that is. It is there, so just it doesn't take much digging to do to be able to find it. And uh, I'm a big fan of being a voracious reader. I tell my kids that I tell folks that I work with that, you know, there's nothing that we can do from a hunting perspective to be more engaged or to help hunting and to make sure that we are informed so that you know, when we talk with our hunting buddies or our our state wilife agencies or conservation officers, whatever is, you know, if we're more informed about it, we can make a more positive impact to the future. So so read, learn, watch however you want to get it, but be informed and impact Dear positively in your community. Can we get a book recommendation from you? Any book related to I like that? But they don't you don't need a can Okay, I'll let that stand and and certainly will encourage people to read that one. Um. Well, KI, what about lastly? Here people that want to become a member of the NDA or learn more, where can they go to do that? They can go right to our website which is Dear Association Dot com and they can join there and if they want to take a little test drive and just see what is there first, there's all kinds of information available, you know on honey or habitat management or dear biology or whatever the case is, that they can look through that and realize or see if hey, if I think this is for me or not, and then and then makes a choice after that. Perfect alright, Kip, Well, as always, I really appreciate taking the time to to walk through this stuff with us and and share your perspective and and and all the work you put into putting together the white the Deer Report, not the white Tail Report and more the Deer Report this year. Thank you for you know, sussling through all this data and giving us some really important highlights. So I appreciate it, and uh looking forward to doing it again in a year. Absolutely, Mark my pleasure. Always good to talk with you about you have a great day. Thank you too. All right, that's a wrap for today. Thank you for tuning in. Uh, you know, I'd be remiss if I let the opportunity to slip away. Kip did recommend my book That Wild Country, which is for sale on places such as the Meat Either website or Amazon, or from a lot of local bookstories. You can get a lot of these online, check them out. I certainly appreciate your support. It was probably the hardest thing I've ever done, the most work I've ever put into anything. So you're continued support and picking up a copy or buying a gift for someone, Man, it means the world. I honestly can't tell you how much that means to me, So thank you in advance, and thanks for listening, thanks for being a part of this whole thing. We've been doing it wired to Hunt for a lot of years now and hope to continue doing for many years to come. So until then, thank you and stay Wired to Hunt.