00:00:01 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. 00:00:19 Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week, in the show, we are discussing the surprising arrival of white tails and mule deer to Alaska for the first time in record history. We're also going to be talking about my new film featured on the meter to YouTube channel, all about this question and my Sickle blacktail hunter last year. And finally, we'll be exploring other questions surrounding the changing landscape in Alaska. And joining me is Bjorn Dela and Colin Arisman, the two guys that joined me for that hunt, and two Alaska residents, expert blacktail deer hunters and damn good folks. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Life and their cameo for Conservation Initiative. And today we are discussing my brand new film that just launched on the Mediator YouTube channel last week, and a whole lot of very interesting questions that led to me going on this hunt and doing this project. Now, as I just mentioned there at the top, the number one question, the thing that inspired this entire adventure was this rumor that started to pop up a few years ago about white tails possibly showing up in Alaska for the first time ever. When I read about that, I immediately was fascinated. Could this be true? Where were they showing up? Why were they showing up? You know, how was this happening? And what did it mean? What did it mean for the native blacktail deer, What did it mean for other critters around there? What did it mean for me as a you know, whitetail nut myself? All these things we're running through my head at that moment. In the months after I first heard about that, I pitched a big podcast series about this. I wanted to go up to Alaska and search for whitetails and interview people about what was going on and why this was happening and all those questions that I just mentioned to you, And that podcast did not end up happening. But I've been thinking about this idea ever since, and finally last year we were able to put together a plan to do some of those things. The plan was going to be to head up to Alaska to do two things. Number one, talk to some folks there, Alaskan residents about what the reality is in the ground. I was going to speak to someone from Alaska's Fishing Game Department, and then I also wanted to chat with some people who had actually seen some of these deer themselves. And then finally, I also wanted to go and understand, you know, exactly what were white tails showing up into. What was the habitat like in southeast Alaska? How was this different than typical whitetail country, And you know what about the native deer there. I wanted to learn more about blacktails, Sika blacktails, the deer that have been calling this place home for thousands of years. What did that deer look like, act like? You know, how was that going to be possibly impacted by the arrival of white tails or mule deer. This was what I wanted to figure out. I wanted to kind of ground myself in the landscape with these deer to better understand, you know, what all this meant. And so that's what I did. We planned this trip. I talked about it last fall on this podcast. I kind of gave you the play by play of that hunt, and now today what I want to do is take a little bit bigger picture of view at that. I want to discuss those questions in some more detail and some of the answers I found, and I want to talk a little bit more about, you know, what that experience taught me and the folks that joined me on that hunt, and what all of that might point two for the future of Alaska and SIKA, blacktails and wildlife have all sorts. So that is the plan for today. Joining me are the two guys that joined me on that trip. Bjorn Dila is one of those guys. He is an author, He is a diehard blacktail deer hunter. He has done work with TRCP and written many articles for many publications and is a lifelong Alaska resident. And he has seen some of the changes that we mentioned in the film. He's seen them firsthand. He has actually been one of the people that have seen mule deer moving up into these new places, so getting that first hand insight has been very interesting. And then also with me today is Colin Eyersman. He was the camera operator and filmmaker on this. 00:04:49 Speaker 3: Trip with us. 00:04:50 Speaker 2: He also is a blacktail deer hunter and someone who's spent a lot of time working on projects related to wildlife and the conservation of wild places, so he's got this really interesting perspective too. So with that said, I think we should get into this conversation about this what I find to be just fascinating topic about how Alaska's changing and wildlife distributions are changing, and white tails are continuously showing up in new places. 00:05:19 Speaker 3: So if you haven't. 00:05:20 Speaker 2: Watched this film yet, I would highly encourage you to do that maybe before you listen to this chat. It's over on the media to YouTube channel. The title is kind of a long one, but I think it starts with the question you know white tails in Alaska? And then I think the subtitle is hunting for Answers and black tails in Alaska. So head on over to the media or YouTube channel give that one a watch. I really appreciate it, and I hope you enjoyed this chat. Is we dive deeper into this topic and this adventure. 00:05:54 Speaker 3: All right with me? 00:05:56 Speaker 2: Now on the show, I'm joined by Bjorn Dila and Colin Arisman. I almost I almost called you the thing that the arms was calling you. Colin but I didn't, so I caught myself. Welcome, Welcome to the show, guest. 00:06:10 Speaker 4: Thanks, thanks man. 00:06:13 Speaker 3: I'm glad we get to have a little reunion here. 00:06:15 Speaker 2: This is a great excuse to hang out with you guys again after such a good trip last year. So yeah, the plan for. 00:06:24 Speaker 3: Today is to talk a little bit about that trip. Now. 00:06:28 Speaker 2: After our black tail hunt last year, I came back and recorded a podcast solo. Uh, you guys maybe saw me post about that or talk about that, but basically it was just me really quick off the cuff, first thoughts on the trip. But during that podcast, I didn't talk at all about, you know, the larger issue that originally brought me there, and that kind of set the theme for our for our time together. So that's kind of where I want to start with this chat, is to is to kind of look at that theme, those first questions I had, and kind of get your as perspective and thoughts on that. Because, as you guys know, what originally started this whole thing for me was four years ago or five years ago something like that. I saw this article that came from Alaska Ficient Game that basically said, hey, white tails might be and mule deer are for sure in the state for the first time, and then there was a whole bunch of kind of announcements they had and related to that, and so ever since then, I've thought, man, I want to learn more about that. I want to get up there and see this area for myself, see what this new possible white tail country could be. And long story short, that led us to spend that time together. We ended up talking to a biologist there in Alaska, Roy Church. Well, you and mc collin, we spent some time together with him and he basically confirmed it for us right that, yes, mule deer are in the state now for the first time. White tails are knocking on the doorstep and possibly probably are in the state. We just don't have one hundred percent confirmation of it yet, but they're they're right there around the very very edge at least. So that is a long winded wind up to me asking you two, what if you guys heard or seen when it comes to these near new deer arriving in Alaska before I gave you guys a call, is that something that was on your radar at all? And I'll let you lead Bjorn, because I think I reached out to you first on this issue. What did you know about this whole thing when I reached out to you first, you know last year? 00:08:25 Speaker 4: Well, I mean I had seen mule deer in the Yukon in twenty seventeen on the Yukon River, which you know, Yukon's right east of Alaska. And then I'd heard of white tails, a white tail, like a straight white tail up and then tier even so, yeah, I was definitely on my radar. I knew they were around Skagway for mule deer, and you know, just to confirm that, right after our trip, my boys and I went up to Anchorage and bought a truck and drove it back to southeast Alaska. And the only animal we saw on the whole drive through interior Alaska and Interier Yukon was a mule deer. So they weren't, you know, they weren't. I can remember maybe twenty sixteen some people in the Yukon being like, hey man, we got cougars. Now they followed them if they followed the deer up, And I was like what, I didn't even know what species of deer there was, just like, yeah, they followed the deer up. There's cougars here watch out. I was like, Wow, that's new. So yeah, what about you, Kellen? 00:09:27 Speaker 2: What was that something you've been hearing rumors of yet? 00:09:32 Speaker 5: Uh, there's a rumor that a white tail or mule deer, something that's a non resident got shot up the valley from where I live in Haines, But it's it's pretty loose rumor. What people talk about a lot more where I live is we're right at the edge of blacktail habitat and we will occasionally have citing it's a blacktail on the Chilcat Peninsula just south of Haines, and it just it really shows how these deer on that low elevation snowpack. So we'll have two or three low snow years, the deer population will build up a little bit, and then there'll be a big snow year. 00:10:08 Speaker 6: They're all going to die off. 00:10:10 Speaker 5: And you know, whether they're blacktail, white till meal deer, when the years are mild, they're going to explore new places and they're constantly pushing out. And then you know, it's just really interesting how that snowpack and winter is the limiting factor for any of these species. 00:10:26 Speaker 4: A bit, you're going to have an uptick this year, and yeah, black tail settings as I got them around my house, and you know, normally, after this winter, I mean most winners, you don't see much. And this year is like, you know, I'm seeing more deer. 00:10:39 Speaker 5: But then Skagway, like Beorn mentioned next town over from us, and I didn't know about it until we were talking with the biologist Mark, but it was fascinating to hear how many mulis have been down around Skagway and we're you know, thirty minutes from there by air, so they're going to be, uh, what's happening in Skagway is going. 00:11:01 Speaker 6: To happen where I live, probably right. 00:11:04 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:11:05 Speaker 2: So so what Roy was telling us and what you know, further research and study of my part has confirmed as I started looking into other sources on this, was that, you know, as that snow and as these winters are becoming more and more mild, these deer are moving you know, up from Canada farther and farther north into Canada. So there's a number of studies coming out of Canada where they're really seeing this, where they are seeing you know, whitetail deer especially becoming you know, more and more of a northern boreal species when historically they weren't, and they've been going up through river bottoms, and there's been some debate around if some of this has been due to land use change, because there's also been you know, further development occurring farther and farther north or pushing northwest across Alberta and British Columbia heading towards Alaska. And so one of the theories was that well, as there's been more development, logging or roadbuilding or something like that, you know, that's creating new edge habitat and suitable habitat for white tails and other deer two. So that possibly could be part of what's going on as well. But a couple of studies looked at this specifically, looking at all the different changes and what lines up the best with where white tails are showing up now and and climate change changing climate weather systems and the corresponding you know, ability for white tails to survive there has been the biggest thing. And you guys had both, you know, while we were up there talking shared with me a number of different changes you guys have seen. Jorn being a lifelong Alaska resident, you had a lot that you could point to as far as the changes you've seen just over the course of your lifetime, can you speak to some of that? 00:12:48 Speaker 4: Uh, you know, I guess yeah. I mean the big one that hit me was I spent a lot of time on glaciers when I was younger and more spry, and what would always shock me is I'd have the USGS maps from seventies most of those, and then I'd have my GPS and you'd be on the exact same point on the glacier, but you'd be three hundred or four hundred feet lower and You're just like, that can't be right. So that that was my initial thoughts before, like all this, it's like these maps are off or this GPS is broken before you know, climate change back then was only kind of just starting to get talked about. And then since then, I mean, the extent of how fast our glaciers are melting is insane. I live right next to glacier. The deepest piece of ice in North America is twenty five miles as the crow flies from me, and so just having that front view of how fast these glaciers are melting, you know, going through an ice field with a map, and then I'll be like I'm on the wrong glacier because there's a mountain ride in front of me. And then you get the cord and its's like, you know, I'm then exact same spot this mountain wasn't map because it wasn't there thirty years ago. The ice has melted whatever or was eight hundred feet to reveal this eight hundred foot tall, mile long un attack wo so that that the glacier rice is huge, just seeing how fast that's melting. And you know, every paper that I read is always like, well, actually we were too conservative, and how fast these glaciers are melting. They're actually going to be gone faster than the last paper said. And another thing, just from commercial fishing for ten years around northern southeast Alaska, just seeing the changes in the ocean with the salmon that that's been you know, I kind of got that the last heyday of King salmon. Even then it was like, you know that the guy fished with for most of that time, you know, he'd been fishing since the seventies, and he was like, well, you know, there's not necessarily we said, there is less kings, but they're just much smaller too. And then during the next ten years of fishing, was like, man, there's just less kings every year. And then you know our two biggest rivers in Alaska, the Yukon and cusco Quinn. People can't fish salmon there and they've been fishing salmon for ever because there's just not salmon there anymore. So those two are like and I could go on and on and on and on, but those are the two ones that just like, can't you can't ignore those living here, I mean, because salmon and glaciers are such a part of everyday life here. 00:15:24 Speaker 3: So, yeah, what have you seen, Colin. 00:15:26 Speaker 2: You're a little bit newer to Alaska, but have you been seeing or hearing from other folks anything related to this? 00:15:33 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:15:33 Speaker 5: I get to travel around the state quite a bit working on phone projects, and I think the most striking stuff recently for me is just talking to people who live in communities in the Arctic. And my my friend works on a research related to studying trees moving north into the tundra. And you can't have a more striking example than that, Like, you know, in the last five years seeing trees growing, forests are beginning to grow in places that haven't had them. I mean, it's wild and the permafrost is melting fast enough. The rocks that are in underneath the soil that have been locked up in the ice for thousands, hundreds of thousands of years, they're coming in contact with water for the first time, and they're literally releasing acid rock drainage, which looks like rust. So crystal clear rivers that have had salmon runs have had great grayling fishing are now having these events where just like this, toxic water flushes through them. And so these aren't just you know, the seasons changing a bit. These are like the entire ecosystem is changing in these wild ways, and there's no doubt that's related to climate change. Where I live, I haven't been there super long, but we have a house and Haines and I really like to back country ski and talking to folks. Fifteen years ago, you could reliably ski from sea level. We had a solid snowpack all winter long down at sea level. You could ski up to the tops of the mountains. And this spring there's basically, you know, zero snowpack most of the winter down at sea level, and that's just it's a crazy change in fifteen years. I feel like a lot of the folks I talk to, you know, around the state. It's twenty ten. It is very different than twenty twenty five in terms of what you can do and what's happening with the ecosystems. 00:17:35 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:17:36 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny. 00:17:37 Speaker 2: So much of this h this climate related stuff gets muddied up with politics and people get weird about it because of that. But when you simply look at your lifetime of outdoor experiences and what you've seen, and how things have changed these days, even for someone down in the lower forty eight, it's getting harder and harder to deny what we're seeing. And now, you know, here in Michigan where I am right now, things aren't quite as dramatic. I feel like when you head west, you start seeing things even more starkly with the increased fire season and the loss of snowpack and the warming rivers and all of that that's becoming really hard to ignore. But then when you go up north to where you guys are, where you know, the rate and the severity of change is dramatically increased compared to the you know, other parts of the country because those those changes are more severe near the poles. You know, when you hear from folks like you guys who are just seeing this massive level of change that's not just like something you see, but changes ways of life, you know, whether it be commercial fishermen or native peoples up there who depend on these salmon runs, or you know, hunters and anglers who are seeing the critters that they hunt either disappearing or moving farther north, or interacting with the new species. That that's pretty compelling to me when I hear that kind of thing, Because you know, talking head on the news, that's one thing that's that's easy to say, I forget it. But when you hear from someone who's just a hunter wrangler like I am, who is in a brand new situation then they were twenty thirty years ago, I can't ignore that. At least you were telling me, Bjorn, that that moose had. 00:19:22 Speaker 4: Been moving into new areas. 00:19:24 Speaker 2: I've heard about beaver's moving farther and farther north as those forests head north, right, and that's changing ecosystems. What's another one? You said that fishers have been showing up there by you. 00:19:35 Speaker 4: Bjorn, we got influx of fishers. We didn't have those, you know, fifteen twenty years ago, I think maybe twenty years ago I saw my first track of a fisher. But yeah, I mean there's all sorts of stuff, and the you know, some of them are really bad, like what's happening with unglitz. A lot of the ungulate species up north with these rain events that were getting in these freezing rain events in the winter, and you know that's hurting a lot of caribou populations. The sheep, all sheep are like those big snow, warm events, rain events all times. 00:20:12 Speaker 5: That whole herd in western Alaska of sheep got wiped out. 00:20:16 Speaker 4: Well east, Yeah, I mean I can remember first trip in the Brooks Rangers, just like, man, there's sheep on every mountain. This is awesome. And then I you know, I remember going I think there was a big brain snow event a couple of years later, and I came back and I was like, oh, well, they're significantly less sheep, same area. And then five years after that, more of that stuff, and I don't see any sheep and fifty miles you know, or maybe I saw one little herd where before it was like every mountain has I heard a sheep on it? So it's it is just you know, politics aside. It's you can't be here and not you know if you if you've been here and you're paying attention. It's just like it's it's more than knocking on your door. It's in your living room. Literally where I live, not we're getting these glacial outburst floods. It was from climate change. And I mean, I don't know how many houses got flooded near where I live last year, and we don't know what's gonna happen next year. It's gonna happen every year. Keep so a glacial damn outburst. It's usually there back up in the ice field, and I live right on the edge of the Juno ice field. You'll get like a kind of like a glacial lake. All the snow melt and rain will fill up in the lake. And then every year this didn't happen before, but just due to the glacier rapidly receding, it formed this kind of lake reservoir thing. Then every year that that ice dam breaks. In the last couple well probably five years, but it's getting significantly larger. So last year, I mean, I don't know how many calling you might remember you're nearby, it was something like a hundred houses got flooded, you know, people lost, and yeah, it was huge, you know, and it's just like we Yeah, you have that sort of scenario that anyone who questions climate change, you know, you literally have that happening. It comes in. Yeah, so it's it's. 00:22:18 Speaker 6: Very real, you know. 00:22:31 Speaker 3: When we're up there on the Mountain Jorn. One of the things you mentioned was, you. 00:22:37 Speaker 2: Know, how how nature has never been static, rights, It's always been changing. There has been periods of climate change over the course of the Earth's history numerous times. Right, But something's you know, really different right now, and people like to bring that up. People say, well, the earth climate has always been changing, therefore we should not be worried about what's happening right now, or there should be no impetus put on us to do anything about it. 00:23:02 Speaker 4: Right. 00:23:03 Speaker 2: That's one of the arguments that you'll hear from people who want to deny it or diminish it. But a really important thing to note is that these previous periods of climate change occurred over tens of thousands, if not millions of years, right, They were very slow. When you look at the timeline of the Earth. The change we're seeing is similar actual amounts of change, but we're seeing it in one hundred years versus one million years, and so what that means is that these wildlife species that historically some were able to adapt and evolve to deal with that change, Now when you're getting a rate of change like that in one hundred years, you know, these critters can't keep up. And then on top of that, you also have the incremental impacts of everything else that we humans are doing to wildlife, so whether that be habitat change or other forms of pollution, or you know, our own incremental take and harvest, or you know, fragmentation of it. 00:24:00 Speaker 3: To add all of these. 00:24:01 Speaker 2: Many many, many different human caused impacts stacked on top of this much much faster rate of climate change than while ever used to, you know, that's why you see so many critters really struggling now, more so than they ever had before. And that's why you know, the climate impacts at this point are are so much more concerning than you know, the historical periods that. 00:24:24 Speaker 3: Some of these species have seen. 00:24:25 Speaker 2: Now that's not to say that some of these historical climate change events still did knock out a lot of species even without humans, So you can't you can't. You can't just kind of wish this thing away and say, well, it's natural, no worries. 00:24:41 Speaker 4: Well, I think even if you know, even if you believe it's natural, and like we we have had glaciation periods and then warming periods. I can't remember how many we've had in the last two million years, but it's been you know, more than just a couple. Are this, whether you know, you believe we are contributing to it, we still got it. Like, as a society, we need to start getting ready for what we may be facing. And I think that's where it's really like, you know, we really need to be listening to scientists. We really need to be thinking about a future plan because it you know, it doesn't matter whether or not you believe it or not it's or if we're contributing to it. Ultimately, we still need to be prepared for what's going to happen. And like, you know, a lot of the native folks here and you know, one of the big stories is this great flood that happened in southeast Alaska, and you know it a lot of people died. And whether that was some giant glacial damn outburst somewhere during a colder period. I don't know, but like that is a story you hear a lot a good buddy of mine who's a storyteller, Like, that's a story. He keeps coming back to how many people died, People ran up the mountains, all the bears supposedly, you know, surviving bears, and people kind of competed for whatever little resources they could find. So, you know, regardless it's happening, as a society, we need to start thinking preparation for how we're going to deal with this. 00:26:21 Speaker 2: What's your guys' sense of what that preparation or willingness to adapt is. At least there in Alaska, are are folks around you, your friend's family, other people in the community. Are are people recognizing what we're talking about and and coming to terms with that? 00:26:38 Speaker 4: Bjorn? 00:26:39 Speaker 2: Or is this something that even there by you people are trying to debate or nor? 00:26:45 Speaker 4: I mean, you will meet some people that want to debate, but it's, you know, ultimately kind of just a waste of time. And I think a lot of us, myself included, are guilty of just feeling like, oh, I'm so small, I can't do anything. This is such you know, Nature's so big, and I mean, what do you do to you know, how do you how do you counter this? But I think, you know, anyone living in the Arctic, like Colin was saying, is like you can't be like climate. You know, anyone up there is like as obvious and. 00:27:15 Speaker 5: Yeah, there's no ideology is not gonna ideology doesn't how you see it. It's just it's interesting. Like the farther you go north, the more it's just a ubiquitous like answer that hey, this is this is what's happening. 00:27:28 Speaker 4: So I guess my my one thing is like I don't know about you, Colin, but I don't Yeah, I don't know. Like it's like people I don't hear a lot of people in Alaska being like we can do this to stop it. I Don'm not trying to be doomsday. I mean, this is how nature works. It's dynamic. Like we talked. I'm not saying we should just go pollute everything and drive you know, F three fifties everywhere and leave them modeling. But it's not that's not really a conversation I've had with other Alaskans or you know that you know, like down south, I feel like there's a lot of people who are like, we can stop this or we're all going to die. In Alaska, it's like it's just it's just happening, and people are trying to do their best to adapt. 00:28:08 Speaker 5: So, yeah, the tribal government in the community I live in is undertaking a year long process called a Climate Adaptation Plan, So they're basically going to look at the climate impacts to harvest, dying and safety and way of life for the community and then develop mitigation strategies within the community. I mean, that's it's I think, really forward thinking, and we're going to be supporting some of that with storytelling. So I think that I'll learn a lot through that, and I think they're going to be doing a lot of work in our region that hasn't been done before. And I think in terms of, you know, how I try and make a difference in my life, I think we've been kind of hoodwinked with this idea that our personal choices, you know, turning off the lights is the way we're going to deal with climate change. And I think a lot of those strategies actually came out of the oil lobby and to kind of pressure people that make change little changes in their personal life rather than push for big systems changes, which is really where things are gonna get reshape from. And so I try, and you know, I think it's obviously important to do those small things, but I think we've been kind of conditioned to thinking that like changes, you know, not driving your car when it's the you know, question is a lot bigger around how does the grid work? And what is our infrastructure options? And so I think just being being engaged and curious and learning about that stuff and how you can contribute to policy changes in your community or in your state is really important. 00:29:53 Speaker 6: And then as a person in Alaska, I. 00:29:58 Speaker 5: Think a way we can make it different is to try and protect places that are going to be vulnerable to the changes. And a friend of mine, Roman Dial, who's a climate researcher who's walked seven thousand miles across the Brooks Range in this lifetime studying this stuff, he talks about how the you know, the Arctic is in Alaska is so large that it's going to be able to absorb these changes in a way that other places can't because it's not fragmented, it's not heavily degraded by development. And I think That's a really cool wave of thinking about it. If you give an ecosystem space, it will be able to adapt, it'll be able to heal itself. But the ability of a place or cover is really impacted when you start putting roads through it and start heavily developing it with human impact. So I think keeping these big chunks of the state, like the Tongus or like parts of the Arctic intact where they the natural eCos some processes can continue. That's something I put a lot of energy into train to be part of those movements. 00:31:08 Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. Another biologist said to me just the other day, how there's never a good time to fragment caribou range, but now we're talking about the ambler rode specifically up in the Arctic. But now now is the worst time to be fragmenting, you know, wildlife habitat. With all these rapid changes, they've already got enough stressors going on. 00:31:30 Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, So so to that point, you know, there're another study that I've read a good bit about has taken a look at all of the documented population shifts across the world, and there are this there's a rapid not rapid, there is a mass shift of wildlife population distribution north, it really is towards the pole. So for in the southern hemisphere, some of these pieces are moving south, but here in the northern hemispone, they're moving north to cooler, more you know, better suited habitats for species, and then up in elevation as well. So when possible, you know, critters are going to adapt to whatever changes are happening. Problem is that, like you guys just said, especially in the lower forty eight where there's more and more development, oftentimes your habitat is fragmented or blocked, or you've got these islands of habitat created by development and roads, businesses, industrial corridors. All these different things are keeping species from being able to adapt in the ways that they might otherwise, as they can in many parts of Alaska. So yeah, there's all of these different ripple effects of this stuff, and then you've got everything else compounding. So it's like, oh, yeah, there's this climate thing, but then there's also this habitat fragmentation. There's also development, there's also energy extraction, there's also invasive species, there's also pollution. There's all of these different things that are impacting the wildlife that we like to watch or hunt, or that feed our families or whatever it is. Your connection is to to to wild animals. 00:33:08 Speaker 3: But let's talk about one of those animals. That's blacktails. 00:33:11 Speaker 2: Of course, you know, the idea of white tails showing up in black tail country is what got me interested in black tails. But you guys have been diehards for much longer than me. You've been flying the black tail flag. What makes blacktails special to you? 00:33:28 Speaker 4: Bjorn? 00:33:28 Speaker 3: Why do you care so much about this species? 00:33:32 Speaker 4: I mean, sick of black tails for me is always like home. You know, that's like that's the animal. It's always reminds me of home. You know. I can remember my dad when I was really little, you know, coming home with sick of black tail, and that was always what we ate and always you know, listening to stories about hunting, just you know, so badly wanting to hunt, go hunt. And you know, for me, other people it's like probably you Mark, He's like, man, you just dreamt about hunting white tails growing up. I dreamt of hunting sick of blacktails. Yeah, and then yeah, and then just you know it's like here, we're so lucky where I live. We have like a good healthy, stable population of sick of blacktails, and we're allowed to take quite a few animals enough to feed the family for all all years. So it's so for yeah, for me, it's and it's just what bonds honestly, me and my brothers together. You know, that's that's kind of that hunting connection is what's kept us close all these years. And you know, everything from going through the brush as you saw when we went to get into the top of the mountain, the butchery and the animal to sharing it with family, that's always been, you know, such a special and important part of my life. 00:34:48 Speaker 2: So I gotta I gotta commend you when in the film, when we were editing the film, we ran across this little rift that you had where you talked about, how you know, going through the jungles of the tongus were kind of a metaphor for for like the darkness of your mind and then when you break out of it into the alpine. How you know, that's that's kind of like heaven for you. Ah, did you spend days and weeks planning that ahead of time to get that line just right or did that actually come to you in the moment, because that was so damn good. 00:35:19 Speaker 4: Oh thanks, I thought it was a little cheesy. Uh, It's something I've always thought because you know, the other the other side of the coin in growing up in Southeast Alaska's it's dark, it's rainy, it's isolated. So a lot of a lot of people here feel kind of like, man, I'm kids, especially, like I want to get out of here. But the truth is like, once you get in the woods, it's a whole different story. And some like a lot of people are scared of the woods because they're so dark and tangled. And but you know, for me, I can remember early on as a kid like teenager, you know, hating everything about life. But then going into the woods, going hunting and going through the woods, and all of a sudden you're getting up to the alpline. It was just like this epiphany for me, it was like, holy moly, this is this is what it's about. Like I've been stuck down in the fog, and I'm above the fog and I can see and I see how amazing life is, how amazing all this stuff is. And then gradually, over time I just learned to love the deep, dark, tangled woods as well. But you know, for me like getting up, So that's like kind of that was kind of my origin story as far as like being whoa, this is life is actually really cool when you get out of the darkness and the fog. 00:36:33 Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, I can. I can attest it proved true on my visit there for sure. What about you, Kellen, You you were singing blacktails praises a lot while we were spend some time together. I believe you said there by far or at least you know, you said that this specific kind of hunt was your favorite in the world, or the blacktails specifically, regardless of where they were, it was your favorite. But something like that's true. 00:36:59 Speaker 6: Right, Yeah? Absolutely. 00:37:01 Speaker 2: Well. 00:37:01 Speaker 5: I grew up in Vermont, and I didn't grow up in a hunting family, but I knew I wanted to hunt since I was like seven, So I just, you know, school hard knocks, wandering around in the woods trying to still hunt white tails in Vermont. Needless to say, I never got a buck, and it wasn't until my early twenties when I moved out to Washington State I got into still hunting blacktails with bow and got my first couple deer and just going from white tails to blacktail, like seeing that bubble increase a little bit, like blacktails are an animal you can still hunt on the ground in a way that it's just really hard with whitetail, And I think that really helped me fall in love with them was just I found this little patch of old growth outside Seattle, and I'd like walk between the clear cuts and the old growth, just you know, I'd spend all day covering two thousand yards just creeping through these big old trees and it was an awesome experience. And eventually I just realized that I wanted to see what Washington State looked like before it was heavily logged, and that's kind of what brought me to Southeast Alaska and then had some really cool early hunting experiences with blacktail during rut and just the way you can call blacktail in bringing bucks in with the call, and it's super exciting. So I think, you know, the experience of hunting blacktails and the rut is super different than the alpine experience, and I love both of those ways of hunting them. They're totally different, though, But yeah, learning to blow the call and seeing deer charge in is a pretty incredible experience. In November and the alpine thing. It always feels harder to fit alpine hunts in in the summer for me, but we usually make it up high a couple times a year in August, and it's a I think you said this in the in the film, but it's uh, it's very different than a rut hunt, where there's a little bit more strategy, a little bit more skill involved. Like if you can make it up physically into the alpine, you have a pretty good shot at getting a buck if you're if you're up there. 00:39:16 Speaker 6: In prime time. 00:39:17 Speaker 5: So it's just an incredible experience to get up to three thousand feet and you're in a big meadow with the rainforest below you. You can usually see all the little islands and water stretching out below you. And on a good day you can get up there at sunset or sunrise and look out and see you know, handful of bucks feeding together. I mean, I think they're living the best days of their life when they're up there. I think you can feel that that the animals are just happy, and you can and feel safe, like if you're a wild animal that gets chased around by wolves and you're up there and you've got all the food you want. Like they're living there, they're living their best life up there, and it's cool to just be around it. 00:40:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, when we were on top of that peak looking down into that last kind of amphitheater where all those deer were there before we took a shot that was pretty like Edenic just seeing so many Deerly the film, the cut doesn't even really show just how many deer were in that that kind of bowl. There were so many deer spread all throughout. Some you know, there was the two sparrings, some were bedded, some were feeding, some were just milling around. I mean it was really like a It was quite the miniature serengetti there laid out in front of us. 00:40:30 Speaker 3: That stood out to me. 00:40:31 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I also should for listeners. I mean, we were in a remote spot and you know where I usually hunt, it's it's not like that. You know, it's like the bucks are creeping at the oil plane and whatnot. So we had, you know, we had a fantastic zone where those those deer hadn't been touched and they're that way like on the opener, and then after that they they definitely get pretty pretty creepy. So yeah. 00:41:02 Speaker 2: So so other than that, Bjorn, what what stood out to you about our trip? You know, you saw the film, you lived the thing yourself. When you look back on that hunt, what what what were your thoughts in the experience. 00:41:16 Speaker 3: Was it pretty standard? 00:41:17 Speaker 2: Did anything seem special or particularly interesting to you? Or is this just another just another day as a black tailer? 00:41:24 Speaker 4: Well, I think I told you Mark. There was this this bear hunt guy named carl Lane, and there was a picture of him on top of the mountain we went on that Grandfather Trail, that's where the bears walk on the same spot, so over you know, decades, hundreds or in some cases honestly thousands of years, and there was that picture. As a kid, I saw of Carline on top of the mountain next to that Grandfather Trail, and I've just always been you know, that was such like as a little kid, You're like, oh man, that's what I want. I want to be there, so for me. And then Carlaine was huge in keeping the island we were hunting from being completely eroded and clear cut. He brought a case against this to the Supreme Court and you know, fought like ten years before that Island was turned you know, designated wilderness monument. So for me it was always like I never knew Carl. I knew other guides who hunted, you know, the other guides who hunted underneath him. The young guides are now old men, So I never knew Carl, but I knew a couple of different guides who hunted underneathneath him. So it's for me it was just a really special experience to be like, yeah, it wasn't. Because we had a bit more budget than you know, I have on like my personal life. We were able to go to that mountain, and for me it was really special just to be up there on that trail, and I thought it was really cool to even thinking of the context of you Mark being like, you know, you shot that deer like three four yards from that Grandfather trail where carline the picture of Amazon. I was like, Wow, that's that's some pretty powerful stuff when I think about this, you know, guy who fought so hard in the seventies for bear deer and hunters and anglers of the future. Then you hear you are shooting you're deer right off that trail, I thought, Man's that's a really special moment. 00:43:24 Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, that's pretty incredible. What about you, Kellen? What what were your thoughts. 00:43:33 Speaker 5: I mean, anytime you can get up there, I think you're going to look back at the end of your life and count all the days, all the trips you got got to go up in the alpine like that and super special. 00:43:47 Speaker 6: I think the first alpine I had where we got up and blew my mind. 00:43:52 Speaker 5: I didn't know what I was in for, and it definitely changed how I was thinking about my life and getting older. And you know, I'm in my mid thirties now, but I it's like, I gotta gotta start taking care of myself, like I, this is uh. I don't have kids yet, so I'm sure when you have kids you start thinking about it that way. But it was like, no, I need to do this every year until you know, I'm seventy or something. It's that important to me. So to have the opportunity to go up there for work is incredible. 00:44:20 Speaker 6: It's awesome, man, And. 00:44:22 Speaker 5: You guys are the right people to do it with too. Like I, it's actually special enough to me. I don't want to go up there and do those hunts with people. I don't that don't have the same philosophy on it, like it's a special thing. 00:44:33 Speaker 6: I don't want someone to take it too lightly. So that meant a lot. I think you brought you brought the eight Spirit to him. 00:44:39 Speaker 4: Mark. 00:44:41 Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I uh, I would say right back at you guys. 00:44:45 Speaker 2: You were the perfect companions to introduce me to a place like that. I appreciate so much the sense and the knowledge of the history that you guys had, and it was so great for me to get to be with youeople who understood not just the history of it, not just the qure we we're after, but also kind of like the the story of the landscape and the ecosystem, and you know, current and past threats to these deer in that place. And I found all of that really interesting. I love you know, I'm not the idea of just going somewhere and just shooting an animal is not terribly appealing to me. What's what's appealing to me is going somewhere and immersing myself in that landscape as as best as you possibly can, and learning all about and understanding the context. I think you know, to to hunt and kill an animal, it's not just a trigger pull. It's not just that meat in the freezer. It's it's kind of the full experience becomes what you bring home with you, those stories, the history, the understanding of that place and and what it means, and all that I brought home with me. And a lot of that is because because you guys were great teachers. So I I consider myself very lucky that I got to have not just an incredible opportunity to be in Alaska to hunt and harvest a blacktail deer, but to do it with two people who had a lot to share along the way. 00:46:10 Speaker 3: That, uh, that was pretty special. 00:46:23 Speaker 2: That that said, though, uh, sick of blacktails, Let's let's talk about them a little bit more specifically as far as how they're doing. How are blacktails doing in southeast Alaska right now? And what's what's the future look like? 00:46:37 Speaker 4: Jorn? Uh, Well, we were hunting the ABC Islands and right now, I think you know everyone, those islands are more intact, there's you know, there definitely are some white swa swaths of clearcuts, and unlike in the lower forty eight, uh, clearcuts clear cut logging prevents present some problems for our sick of blacks up here and One of the big problems is we do have these big snow events. So when we have a big snow event, and especially in areas that have had a lot of clear cut logging, they don't have that those big trees winter habitat trees to protect them from the heavy snowfalls, and so we'll have these huge die offs, and I've seen them. I mean it's tremendous. It goes from you know, after a year of a big die off. You know, we'd see like we saw like what thirty deer, forty deer in a day. We'd see like a dough for lucky, same same mountain. You know, you know where you hunt hard all season. I've had, you know one season where I hunted hard all season and I did not get a buck, which you know, I usually have my freezer totally full of deer meat. So you know, in the ABC Islands we're doing pretty good. Unit two and you at three has some more problems. Unit two is Prince of Wales and Unit three is are Central Islands, and there are you know, every zone's different and every zone has different dynamics and every year is different. But kind of the bigger thing that we've seen is when we have these big clearcuts. One. You know, they actually do offer feed, like more feed for deer for the first thirty years, but if you have a big snow event, you have a massive die off. Another thing. After thirty years or so, the forest centers stema exclusion. That's where basically all these spruce trees grow up so close they block out light so you have no understory. And and here because we're colder then like somewhere like Washington, the forest can be like an a stemic exclusion for like well over a century before it becomes decent wildlife habits had again. So people like the Mule Deer Foundation and the New Blacktail Foundation are really pushing for you know, in the past we've for logged areas where we've just done commercial thinning, and they're pushing for wildlife thinning, which is like, you know, you still can go back and log the second girls at some point, but it just takes a little more time and you can create more habitat that's more appropriate for sick of blacktails. So you know, here some people in Prince of Wales, you know, and that's where most of the hunting pressure is. Most people go to Prince of Wales because there's so many roads from the logging operations there. The people, you know, also recognize that they're just one bad snow year away from losing their deer. And that's what happened in the Central Islands where there should just be deer everywhere. But the Central Islands had a massive amount of clear cut logging in the fifties and sixties up in the seventies, and then that was followed by this mass couple of year winter dumps of snow, so that and you know, you can't you also do have to factor in just that heavy snow. When you get the heavy snows, that's when the wolves like just go to town, like they can't hunt that well when they don't have good snow. But when they have good snow, you know, that combination of not having feed wolves, predation, weaker unglits. You know, then the neonates get hammered by the black bears. So this combination of logged big winners predators created this dynamic. My best understanding because I fall I've you know, looked in at quite a bit in the Central Islands basically where there should be deer everywhere, Like people weren't really able to hunt for decades or they were allowed like one buck a year and I'm allowed six where I'm at, And it's starting it seems like it's starting to get a little bit better in some of the areas in the Central Islands, but still there's just no there just should be deer everywhere. And just because you know, the massive clear cut logging, big Winner and predators just kind of all contributed to a massive die off. So, you know, going into the future, it's just like, I think we just got to think how we're going to do these logging you know, logging all, you know, have a more holistic approach to logging. That's something that you know, I think a lot of us calling me feel passionate about. We definitely want, you know, there to be a logging industry, sports small mills, but we just want it done in a way that is conducive to wildlife. And it can be done. That's the thing, can one hundred percent be done. So we're hopeful that that is what we the direction we can go. 00:51:46 Speaker 2: So, so to oversimplify, is the desired method moving forward to not do these wholesale clear cuts like they've done in the past, and then secondly to do this wildlife thing for second growth versus something else. Would that be the oversimplified. 00:52:04 Speaker 4: Well, these whole thought, these huge you know, clearcuts are still the best way for foreign corporations to make money. You know, it's one and done sort of deal. And that was like, you know, we had like they're like Asian corporations in the fifties and sixties that were doing most of the logging. The pulp mills were owned by like Japan and I don't know where else. So on a local level, like I'm calling in my in most Southeast Alaska's perspective, there's just like we would like it to just be done in a way that benefits locals. 00:52:36 Speaker 5: Yeah, Like if you want to build something here, the lumber is getting shipped up on a barge from Seattle, super expensive, and it's cheaper to buy locally milt lumber. But we don't have local programs in place that incentivize and support logging production for our communities. So you know, the log it's crazy like locally and the wood comes up from Seattle and then the wood that's clearcut here is sent down south, and we just want to be. 00:53:07 Speaker 6: The community for the community. 00:53:09 Speaker 5: And you know, our friend, my friend Gordon Chew is one of the only people logging on this small scale. He cuts previously clearcut areas thirty forty years after the clearcut he's going back into bring down second growth, thin out the stands. So he takes you know, two out of three trees, one out of three trees creates space. He's making the forest healthier, but he's also dropping some really nice straight wood that's come up and he's selling that for a good price in the community. But it's super hard for them. It's not something that the force. So even though he's doing a service for the community, for the ecosystem, he's doing the model we all want to see, there's so many roadblocks in place for him. So I think we need to see programs that facilitate that sort of second growth thinning logging operation and make it easier for people and subsidize that work. 00:54:05 Speaker 2: So then, what's your guys' take on some of the proposals and executive orders and things we've seen here in the last couple of months related to logging. I've heard word of the roadless rule being rescinded in the Tongus National Forest again subsidizing dramatic increases in logging across parts of our national forests. Does that concern you or does that sound okay, we need more logging. What's the read there? And you did a great film all about the Tonguus and these issues, Colin. I know you've got a lot of background on this. 00:54:43 Speaker 5: Yeah, just as a starting point, I think it's really important. It's very different than the lower forty eight. So I think just making it clear to folks, like when we talk about large scale logging operations in the Tongus in southeast Alaska, we're talking about cutting high quality old growth and there's not that much of it left. So this is not we're not talking about tree farming. We're not talking about, you know, a productive cycle where every thirty forty years we recut these stands. Like I'm a I'm for tree farming. That's great. We don't have that economy anywhere in Alaska. So the only stuff that pencils out for a large scale timber sale is these last high quality stands old growth, which are just as important as the black tail deer. So we're basically just fighting over scraps at this point, you know, most of that, most of this high quality old growth that has a lot of value has been cut already, and the stands that are left are either really important to communities or they're in really remote places, and it's just it increases the ecological importance of these last stands. So when we see you know, these administration changes where stuff comes back on the chopping block, it's all hands on deck, you know, try and try and delay, try and pause, try and block it, because this stuff isn't when they clear cut these these old you know, eight hundred year old stands that are our critical winner blacktail habitat. That stuff doesn't grow, it will grow back, it'll come back in thirty years, though it's just not it doesn't provide those opportunities to the community or to wildlife, and it's not going to provide those for several hundred years. So it's just like when we get in these conversations with folks who maybe don't see eye to eye with us, I think it often comes down to people are. 00:56:42 Speaker 6: Like trees regrow. 00:56:44 Speaker 5: This is a sustainable resource, and it's just it might be a tree that regrows, but it doesn't provide the same services it's not the same force for hundreds of years. 00:56:56 Speaker 4: And the realm this rule is what would for deck is remaining stands of old growth for us. And you know, Colin's completely right. I can't remember what the percent of what we have left of old growth even in southeast Alaska, those really productive old growth stands that are whatever the tree trunks, you know, wider diameters, and so the road this rule will protect those old little scraps of of what we have left. And we still have like five thousand plus miles of logging roads in the Taugas, you know, and it's like we're all for the Gordon Chew operation, you know, like that's what we want, and we don't want those big corporations subsidized. We want the We want the small logging operations that utilize existing roads that. 00:57:46 Speaker 3: Are going anyways infrastructure. 00:57:48 Speaker 4: The road this rule doesn't hinder development except for the development of billion new roads to access those remaining bits of super ecologically productive old growth. For so it's it's like there's there's no reason to get rid of that road in this rule besides benefiting bigger corporations. And sure, I'm sure the road this rule, like you know, maybe we'll slow down some of the smaller guys in certain ways, but we need to work around that, like we just need, you know, to work to the Yeah, we just need to work so that the smaller guys can can work and you can use five thousand miles of existing road and all these second growth stands that need to be thinned. We need to build our economy around that. 00:58:40 Speaker 5: The road pieces is super interesting, Like going back comparing the lower forty eight to here, this is we're talking about putting roads on islands or in bays, places that have never had roads before, they've never had access to machinery, and it's it just changes a place in a really fundamental way. And so that's pretty fascinating. You can't really go back from adding roads. 00:59:07 Speaker 4: To a place. 00:59:08 Speaker 6: It's just a different place. 00:59:10 Speaker 5: And the way we paid for these roads has been large federal subsidies, which is super interesting as well. And you know, it's I'm all for cutting federal waste and bloat, and I think a good way to start with that is to not subsidize logging operations. If these logging operations are profitable and makes sense, I think, you know, the the old economics need to line up. We shouldn't be spending federal money to open these places up and not retaining any of that profit in the region. I think the last piece with roads that's really interesting is the way they open up travel corridors to predators, and I don't think that's talked about enough. And you know, blacktail deer very acceptible to predation from bears and wolves, and part of that's because we've created pathways for these animals to cover a lot of ground quickly. Particularly wolves like deer have their advantage over wolves in thick tangled country like you saw that there, they slip through things that are very hard to move through, and that's not terrain that's is conducive for a wolf. But when you give them a gravel pathway that they can get in their super efficient trot and just cover ten grounds following a cent trail, it's a huge advantage and I think that really changes the predator prey balance. 01:00:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's funny. 01:00:46 Speaker 2: You know, over the last couple of years, I've been working on this book that's coming out next year and been studying issues impacting fish and wildlife across America for the last two hundred plus years, and what's funny is that we see the same things happening over and over and over again. A lot of these things happen in Europe, and they happen on the East coast of America, and then they started pushing the Royal West, and then we saw them happening in the Rocky Mountain interior, and then we saw them happening on the West coast. And we continue to make the same mistakes. 01:01:21 Speaker 3: Over and over and over again. 01:01:24 Speaker 2: And all of those same mistakes have you know, scratched the surface here and there in Alaska. But in many ways we've maintained a pretty good stronghold there in your guys' home state, but it's not immune to any of these same risks and challenges and economic pressures and developmental pressures and all that. 01:01:47 Speaker 6: Seems like. 01:01:49 Speaker 3: We still haven't figured it out. 01:01:50 Speaker 2: I still feel like the same things that we've seen happen time and time and time and time and time again are still being discussed as things that should happen there in Alaska. And you would think, and you would hope that in this last place we could maybe try a different way. And it's it's shocking and disappointing how few people seem to agree on that front, but uh, we still have a hell of a thing. They're worth worth caring for and stewarding. And I'm thankful that there's people like you guys there now. They're just living there and enjoying it, but also standing up for it too. So uh, yeah, Alaska, I'm glad it's there. I hope my kids will get to see it in just as incredible shape as it is right now, because it's awfully special for sure. What would what would you guys leave folks with if you were to have a call to action of any kind for people listening today, whether it's you know, related to blacktails or any of the other things we talked about today, what's uh, what's something you want folks to do coming out of this conversation? 01:02:54 Speaker 4: Jorn? I mean, you know this is all you know, public land, public wildlife, this is all. Call it our resources, call it our heritage. You know, this is this is all yours and ours unless yeah, man, pay attention. We all got to make a living, but we don't have to make a living in a way that you know, kills what we love. So yeah, i'd say, you know, if you haven't inn too Alaska. You come up here, take a look, whatever you do, will you know, it's be a great trip. But yeah, truly special place and yeah, man. 01:03:39 Speaker 3: Any thoughts in your front. 01:03:41 Speaker 5: Uh, not to get political, but I just encourage people going into the midterms do your research on different you know, don't you don't have to vote down party lines like with just take the time. There's going to be resources for hunters and anglers. You know, in your state, there's going to be specific issues that different politicians are going to have different stances on. And nationwide, I think we're just looking at large the potential for large scale transfers of land from the federal government to the state level, and depending on the state, like if we have big you know, there's potential two million acres of the Tongus could get transferred to the state and the state will manage that land very differently than the for Service has And what that would look like would be aggressive clear cutting without any of the kind of safeguards we see with for Service clearcuts. So we've gone out to these places and they cut right down to the beach, they cut right down to the river. 01:04:49 Speaker 6: I mean it's like a bomb. 01:04:51 Speaker 5: Went off and we're just we're super nervous about that. So I think just if people feel it's hard to feel like anything matters politically right now, it just things are blown up and it does matter though, And there's we're we're going into time. We need to really really decide what we want the future of our public lands to be. 01:05:15 Speaker 6: And I think, you know, get informed before the midterms. 01:05:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And and let anyone who is seeking election or reelection let them know that this stuff really matters and that if they want your vote, they better get right on this stuff. And and like you said, callen transfer or sale of public lands. It's not gonna fly with hunters and anglers, uh, you know, extraction without any care for doing it in a balanced way that protects wildlife habitats still in clean water and clean air. It's not gonna fly with hunters and anglers doing There's there's so many, so many examples. We gotta we got to stand up for these things. 01:05:57 Speaker 5: A positive example is Montan hunters are outspoken and they're amazing conservationists, and they've made it clear those political suicide to give away public lands in Montana and the Montana Danes and representatives senators there, they're some of the only Republicans coming out against this stuff right now, and it really really shows if you stand up, make it clear this is just a lion in the sand. Well, we still support you, but this is off the table like that, this stuff makes a difference. It's really heartening to see that across party lines, that stuff's not going to fly in Montana. 01:06:37 Speaker 4: Yep. Yeah, that's a really good point. Just to add a little bit to that. You know, I've talked to so many people over my lifetime that were like, a trip to Alaska is the dream of their life. You know, it's that's the dream trip, whether it's to hunt caribou, whether it's to see a brown bear, whether or whatever. And just you know, so you know, have your make your voice known for Alaska's future too, because it is it's the trip of a lifetime. You can't you can't undermine how important this is for our here outdoor heritage, for hunters and anglers. So it's you know, this is the dream. Let's keep it that way. 01:07:12 Speaker 2: So here here, Well on that front, gentlemen, I will thank you again for your time here today, for the time we spent last fall. It was It was a hell of experience and I can't wait for the next one, which which I think is gonna be happening here soon. 01:07:29 Speaker 3: So more on that to come. 01:07:31 Speaker 6: Thanks guys, looking forward to it. 01:07:33 Speaker 2: Thanks guys, all right, that is going to do it for us today. Thanks for being with me this week. I appreciate you checking out this film, tuning into this conversation, and being a part of this community. So until next time, stay wired to Hunt.

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