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 fifty four Tay in the show, We're joined by author and host of Meat Eater TV Stephen Ranella, and we're talking conservation. All right, Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, And as you might imagine, I'm pretty darn excited for today's episode as we're joined by Stephen Rannella. Yes, Steven Ronell is on the show to guys, pretty excited about it. But before we get to that, I have another exciting announcement I wanted to share with you. And you know, as you all know, the wire Hunt podcast is free to download and listen to, and I do everything I can to make sure that the podcast provides a huge amount of value to you the listener. But that said, unfortunately is not free to actually create this podcast and run the Wired hunt website, and so would that being the case. Over the past few years, I've depended on a few like minded companies that I trust to help keep Wired Hunt funded and operational. Tell you, though, I'm excited that our longest time partner, sick Gear has decided to step up in an extra special way and its main investments, specifically in this podcast and you guys. That will ensure that we can keep producing awesome free episodes for you all for a long, long time. That said, as part of that, on each episode, Move four will be featuring a short advertisement from sick Up. But advertisement really is a bad word for what we're gonna be doing, as these super short pieces will simply be stories for me, interviews of other hunters, or behind the scenes insights from Sick of Gear employees. In short, this is going to be different than almost all ads you ever see on TV or here on the radio. These are gonna be fun, they're gonna be short, and they're going to be informative. And today I want to kick that off actually with the story of how I was introduced to sick of Gear. This all started actually uh back when I was just getting start with Wire to Hunt in the fall of two thousand nine, I believe, and I had you know. At that time, I was working for a tech company out in San Francisco. I was stuck in a little corporate apartment and I spent a lot of time online looking at new hunting gear and new anything honey really had, really and I caught win of a new hunting clothing company that was bringing high tech mountaineering fabrics and processes to the hunting market. And they also had a really cool new digital camera pattern and of course, as you know, that was Sick of Gear. And I was super intrigued. And over the coming weeks and months, I did a ton of digging around, did a lot of reading, a lot of researching, and finally I decided that I want to give this stuff a try. At the same time, though, I reached out to a new kind of digital acquaintance of mine, someone I met through Facebook, I think, and this person happened to have connections at SICKA, and I asked him if he knew of any way I could get ahold of someone at the company, and he ended up passing on the email address for Jonathan Hart, who was the founder of Sick of Gear. That was kind of incredible right off the bat, just the fact that I got the email address for the founder of this company. But you know, on top of that, I figured, you know, being as not knows twenty one year old kid at the time running this brand new blog. I figured reaching out to the founder of a company like that was a long shot. But I guess I was crazy enough to believe in that long shot because I did it anyway, and unbelievably I got a response back from him, and not only that, but Jonathan the founder he actually offered a hop on the phone with me. I was pretty damn florid, as you might expect, and shortly after that I got on the phone and actually got to talk with Jonathan for probably well over thirty minutes. He told me really all about Sika, and then he was actually kind enough to listen to me talk about wired to Hunt and all my dreams and aspirations for the blog. He asked me questions, he challenged me on my plans, and he even offered me some pretty helpful advice. And at the time I really couldn't believe the time he was giving me, But looking back now, it doesn't surprise me one bit. As several years that are Sick of Gear was the first company to get on board Wired Hunt and helped make this whole thing possible, and they've continued to support the Wired Hunt Nation ever since. I tell you all this because I think this whole interaction with Jonathan and the company since it's really indicative of the company that SICK is and the people that worked there, and it's a big reason why I love working with them. They are a bunch of guys and girls that are all about challenging the norms and supporting innovation, whether that be in the form of a new deer hunting blog or podcast or creating really expectation crushing new hunting gear. And that's why I'm so pumped for Sick of Gear to be partnering with us on the Wired to Hunt podcast. Now, all that said, moving forward will have a short weekly segment from SICKA and occasional messages from other partners too, But I promise they're They're going to be unobtrusive, helpful, and hopefully really interesting. So I appreciate you hearing me out on all this and for supporting the companies that support Wired to Hunt. Now, though, it's time to get to the real matter at hand, and that's our interview today with Steven Ronella. And this is a podcast I've been wanting to make for quite some time, and I'm just stoked that we're finally actually making it happen. But if you don't know why, I'm stoked, I have to wonder where you've been the last few years. Steven Ronella is, in my opinion, probably the best representative we have of the hunting community and one of the financed examples for all of us hunters to look to in regards to how we communicate about hunting. He's a writer and author and the host of The Mediator TV show and The Mediator podcast most recently, and all of which you really should go check out if you haven't already. But I first discovered Steve through his book American Buffalo sometime back in college, it must have been, and at that time I was just really impressed by the story of Steven's hunt for an American bison and the history he shared of this incredible animal and the whole adventure he had. I was really impressed, I guess, at that point. But then years later, when I saw this Ronella, I had a TV show coming out on the Travel Channel, of all places, I knew I had to check it out, and that show, The Wild Within showcased Steve's ability to talk about hunting to a non hunting audience, and that's something that I hadn't seen too often and really ever since, whether it be in his books on his current show Meat Either, or appearances on non hunting podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience, or you know, articles he's written for non hunting magazines like Outside. I've just been consistently, I guess some press is the only way IN come up with with Stephen his ability to communicate about hunting and conservation, which in our world today was something like I think it's ninety five percent or somewhere around there of the U S population doesn't have any experience with hunting. Having that type of skill set and understanding is increasingly important to have, and that is why I'm so excited that we finally got to interview Stephen on the podcast. You know, in my opinion, we all can learn a thing or two from this guy, and today I think we will. Now specifically today, I want to chat with Stephen about the importance of conservation and our responsibility is hunters to be active conservationists. But as you might expect, we end up discussing that and a whole lot more, but without further ado, and before I bore you all probably have to death. I think we you just get Steven on the phone, so let's do it all right on the phone. This now is Stephen Ranella. Welcome to show, Steve, Thank you, thanks. Yeah, yeah, this is uh, this is something that a lot of our listeners have been wanting for a while. They've asked to have you on the show and they wanted to hear from you. So I'm excited that we can finally do that. And uh, you know, as I mentioned to you before, I'm a big fan of your work, both the Mediator TV show and your books. Um, but given that you're doing so many different things, have podcasts, the show, you know, articles, all that stuff. You know, I'm kind of curious because I faced the same channels with myself. You know, when you're out at like a dinner party or something, maybe with your wife's friends, and someone asks you what do you do? How do you answer that question? I used to want to get away with it. I would sometimes, well, let me back up and say this, depending on who I'm talking to, Okay, I used to say, if I feel like having a big conversation about it with someone, I would say I was a tree surgeon, so like during graduates whose I worked as a tree surgeon, you know, tree climbers like the climber you know. So if I would if I didn't really if I didn't feel like having a yack, a big old chat about it, I'd say that. And then people tend to not ask that many questions, you know, it's like prease celt explanatory. But now when I say I really don't feel like getting into it, I'll say that. Um, I'll be like, I'm an outdoor writer and I do a lot of work in television, and and that sometimes will We'll get me out of the conversation if I don't feel like really getting into a kind of detail. But if it's if if it's someone I enjoyed talking to, yeah, I'll lay the whole thing help for him. Um. But all the times you get asked that question almost like a formality, you know. Um, if people like, oh, what do you do? You know, it's like this isn't a real conversation. We're having a fake conversation right now, So I'll give you like a fake answer right Smaller Like the older I get, the less I can I just. The older I get, the less I can handle small talk the coming sceneil already. It's just like I just like it just yeah, it's just is not like when I take my kid down to preschool, you know, and you have to be like a small talking with things with the parents as you're dropping off. I'm just like, I just don't want I just can't anymore. I don't know a lot. I'm just your old. Yeah. I can definitely relate to that now, if I if I understand correctly, you used to live in New York, right, Yeah, I don't live Yeah, I've lived all over man, but yeah most Hey, I just moved to Seattle from New York. So see I work on like I work on the road or from home, you know. Um, so it doesn't it's not that vital me where I live. I've spent a lot of time traveling. UM and I kind of you know, I I sort of like for our living situation, we can't chase my wife work. You know, I want to worked for a company and they moved her around and um and you know that affords pretty nice lifestyle for you know, it's good for her to be happy, be come gone a lot. You know it It's like it's hard for me to so like, oh yeah, let's move back to Montana and then I'll be gone all the time anyway, you know. So it's helpful to you know, it's helpful for you know, to have everybody close to something. If I were you right, I'll travel so much. I think it will probably change. But for now I'm gone enough where um, we need to live somewhere where, you know, where our family is comfortable and can kind of manage for themselves them out of town. Yeah. Now, when you did live in New York and imagined hanging out in Manhattan and Brooklyn or wherever we what were those conversations like when you said you're an outdoor writer, if they pushed you and you talked you're hunting all over the place, did you get a lot of people that gave you negative feedback or was it never never never ever never real never. No, there's such a misconcession about that stuff. It's like, and I had it to know people in New Yor were fascinated, man fascinated, And I'm still wild game dinners in New York and people just bust the door down him to come and do it. People New York. It's like there's this sort of there's this sort of like erroneous idea that that like people in the say you're just gonna be eat they have that. They don't even know enough to be mad about it, Like they really have no idea, just like how do you have no idea about their life? Like if I can't you and said, like, what are your feelings? You know about like the subway system. I don't mean to trualize it. Let's say where you people somebody systems like I don't know, they don't know, they don't hunt there. They're pleasantly surprised here there's such a thing as something seasons. You know, they had no idea. There's like I just go and shoots to from Like no, man, it's not like that at all. It's like very well managed. You know. There's this managed on the state level by agencies who are sort of under not sort of or under illegal mandate to mandate these species for longevity as a renewable resource, strictly regulated. They tell you when you can hunt something like a squirrel, how many you're allowed today. They're like, I can't believe that. That's amazing. I want to eat a squirrel. And they're thing is people in cities like this is a generalization, right, but sort of my like people in my age group in cities that I happen to know through publishing or through through entertainment and other industries, we're just excited about eating food either because they they're part of the restaurant culture, you know. And if someone has already eaten, you know, a dozen kind of meat, kinds of meat through restaurants, sushi, restaurants, all kind stuff they've already been doesnen kind of meat To eat one more and to make it thirteen isn't a big deal of them. Now, this is another generalization, but you take oral people on the other hand, and real people I think in general are gonna be are are less interested in rob game. There's no mistique, you know, because many of them already had it. Like they've had beer. They prefer beef. They've eaten their whole life. They've eaten beef, pork, and chicken. To add one or two more things in that list is a big leap increase, you know. It's just isn't like. It's not what you'd think it's like. And the thing that surprised me to you about urban stuff is I have in my house. I have a lot of hides and schools. Okay, hunting trophies, right, Um, animals that I hunted, the ones that get a prominent place in my home, our our hunts. Who are I'm real proud of the hunt. Um. I love the animal. It's like a great memory, you know, Like I get pretty strong billing to my doll sheep skulls. They were killed on self guided hunts with my brothers, you know. So I look at that, I'm like, man, that's like everything, right, That's the highlight of my hunting life right there. It's like that skull stands for so much, the mountains, the experience, just being exhausted, being uncomfortable, setting a goal, fulfilling the goal. Right. I look at the school and I see all that. Other people come in, do you honest, They look at the school and they don't see anything. It doesn't it doesn't like speak to him, but you serve him up some like doll sheep ribs, dude, and then you want to go, you know, because people are practical people. You know. It's like it's so exciting to him. So I just never encountered that kind of stuff. And I just said, you know, there's I hate terms like conservative and liberal because anyone that I prefer to hang out with generally isn't so easily summed up. You know, I'm not. I'm all over the place issues. So but anyways, I see, I got a friend who isn't like a in a famously liberal town of Madison, Wisconsin. Okay, he's not easy. He's not an easily sums up a guy. Right, He's an issue by issue guy. He doesn't, you know, live according to like a set of rules if someone told me supposed to be according to and I was asking the same thing as he grew up in a dairy farm outside of Madison, now lives in Madison, Big Hunter now said you have keetch a lot of flags of being a hunter. And he sat there and thought for a long time. He's like, you know what, I can't think of one time, wow, that I have ever had like a have ever been like publicly confronted. Now, the internet's a whole other thing. You know, people come ask me online a little bit, but never in person. But one time I actually had like a showdown with the guy. Was a guy who came to a book signing I did, and the guy at the end during the question for held raise his hand and ask a very civilized question. So, no, it's like I was always like pleasantly surprised, and I took a lot of urban nights on their first hunting trips. Man, something I'm kind of proud of, you know what I mean. I like, none of them became hunters, but they all were really bad. They did it well. You wouldn't call consider Rogan to be a hunter, now, yeah, I'd say he's a hunter. Now all right, there's one well I'll saying I will think about because he's not. I was thinking about New York. Sorry, but yeah, alright, So in l A I have here you go. That's awesome. No, I think that's great being able to see that, be able to introduce people of that, and you know, I'm I'm pleasantly surprised to hear that you had a similar situation. You know, I had my previous day job for a while I lived in San Francisco, which you know, going into that, I assumed was going to be very you know, the people I'll be working with would be very anti hunting and what I did. But the same thing, like you said, everyone was just fascinated they didn't know anything. And so, like you said, when you start explaining, you know, why we do what we do and how we do it, there they're pleasantly surprised by two. So I think people have that we're talking in such girls generalities. We should be shot. But let's just let's just keep doing it for men. I think that um people have this sort of thing where if you, let's say you went up to your average let's just went up to like a hundred people in the city, big big city, New York, l A. And and you gave him like a questionnaire and had one question on it, and it said, like, it's hunting for wild animals good or bad? Right, it's killing while the animals good or bad. They're gonna You're gonna have the vast majority going to click the no box if you put it to them like that. Now, go and have an actual conversation, give a situation where you get they have an actual conversation with an actual hunter, Okay, and then you give him the questionnaire says is what this guy just told you about good or bad? They're gonna click good because it's like they have it. It's sort of like vague negative idea about it because they just have no idea and again not for their fault, but why should they have an idea about it? You know? Yeah, So it's not that they're like willfully ignorant. It's like you're willfully ignorant of all kinds of things happen to do do with life in other places. You know. Um, I'm sure the where you live there's issues that I don't know about. So if someone's born and raised and earn environment and you want to act like someone's wrong with them because they're not, They're not like understand hunting yet, I think it's just like, really, it's really unfair to have that perspective that someone's supposed to somehow be, you know, a student of life management without having and be something that impacts their life at all, you know, And really like this kind of leads to another thing that I have spent a lot of time talking about. I got an older brother in Eathan. Whenever he was about Hunry Crueman, he just said, you can't stand it. He's like, why would you want to increase competition? Dude? You just think like you're you're gonna be happy. You're not gonna happy until everywhere you go to some other guy there hunting, and in some way I really see where he's coming from. But when I think about all the time when we're talking about urban stuff and city folks, but all the time, it's what is their impression We're living in the country now where you know, Americans don't hunt, And often times we'll find that issues surrounding our hunting rights and habitat and other things come down to voting majorities. You know, Marian still hunt, but we decide things in general. Um, this sort of fifty fifty split. You can to scale, then you win. So all the people that don't hunt, when they sit around and thinking about hunting, are they thinking like, yeah, man, that's a legitimate constructive activity or do they think that's a bullshit activity? You know? And that right there is the battle in my mind wonderful because people come in. I think people that vote on some of these referendums to band certain kind of hunting practices and stuff, Honestly, I think they have no idea. I think they walk in and they're like staying there and they vote for the president, they vote for the congressman. In sanitary they kind of like pay a little bit of attention to like judge things, and then they get to this referendum, they're kind of, what's this now, huns and bears? No way? Click? Yeah, I mean, I honestly think that's probably how it goes, you know. And if those people have met some hunters hung out of them and eat dinner with them, they might read there and be like, oh, they shouldn't mess with those guys. I'm civil find it. But that's that's part of what I see at the battle. Yeah, yeah, agree, It's there's an internal battle too. There's like there's an external battle, there's an internal battle that we will probably talk about. And the internal battle is when you're talking to other hunters, you know, and you gotta ask like, okay, you like the hunt, Now what does that mean for you? Where does the pleasure end in the work begin on that front? You know? And and that's all older conversation. It is different so to to work in sort of like the media of hunting. I think you're always aware of those two conversations outside inside. Very true. It's uh, it's something I think about a lot too. In that same dilemma, Like you said that, you know, sure from some stand from from a selfish standpoint, we might like to have more land to ourselves and more animals to ourselves. But like you said, I think the greater good really is having people that better understand what we're doing and maybe someone want to give it a try, Because when it comes right down to it, whether we like it or not, hunting is a privilege right now, you know, And if people don't vote in favor of what we are privileged to do at this time, we could lose that someday. So if you're talk about if you talking about perfect scenarios, right, a perfect scenario would be that I was the only guy that hunted. However, one of Americans were ardent conservationists and ardent supporters of my ride as the hunter, and the first thing they thought of every day is need to make Steve's hunting world better. He's more habitat, more animals. We cleaner water, cleaner air for Steve, right, But it's probably not gonna happen. It would be nice, but it's unrealistic. When I was just having this conversation, I was having this conversation that I have it often with my brother, and he has very valid points. I almost feel like, you know, you should call him get his side of it. So it's funny because we're talking to him and he just got done hunting turkey and he just got he just got done doing a combo turkey hunting trip, small mouth walleye trip. Well, and I said to him, we're talking about this. He's talking about, Yeah, why he wanted so much competition and you're gonna make too much competition. And I was like, hey, dude, who put the turkeys? And he just hunted on the around They're not native where you're at, you know, savation. It's like, and I know that those small mouth bass and wall in our native where you're at, you know, in those kinds from fishing game who is a licensed funded agency. So don't tell me that you're gonna go it alone. You know you're not. Just dude, had no trip, dude, you know, without people, without without the kind of stuff we're talking about. You know, it's complicated, like everything with wildlife is just as annalsty complicated. Very true. So so on this topic of uh, you know, the the human element of conservation. You know, what I really want to dive into with you today was was about this idea of the hunter conservationist. Right, the lots of times we often talked about hunting. It's conservation and the original conservationists in many cases were hunters. Um. But today, in today's world, what do you think it means to be a hunter conservationists? And what responsibility do you think comes with that? Well, I'll trust that. I want us back a minute. Yeah, I think that historical is a temptation to cherry pick, you know, and be like, yeah, the hunter, the hunter conservation concept is is old. You know. I recently re read all the Leopold Same County Almanac, and I was kind of blown away by some of the ideas that that guy was having in the forties, which are very fresh right now. It was almost like the guy was looking into a crystal ball. It was amazing some of the concepts and ideas he was struggling with at the same time. But a lot of what he's responding to, you know, the destination of American water fowl and some other things, and and he touches on the eradication of the buffalo off the Great Plains was those things were committed by hunters. You know, we always like, oh and all they weren't really hunters. Because they were market hunters, but they were dudes like shooting guns, right, their guys shooting guns. If I'd been born back then, I would have been one of those guys. I have no doubt in my mind excuse if I'd have been born, if I'd have like been born in eighteen fifty as a twenty two year old, I would have been down on the southern plains shooting buffalo and salon hives. And if I wasn't would have been bummed that I wasn't there, right, because it's like, that's what's going on at the time. There was like the fun. It was like where was that. You can't expect people to just have to be like Leopold and have this crystal ball where they can see that the implications of their actions and just to keep up to that for a minute. Like once they shot all the buffalo, so they killed the buffalo off the southern plains and they went in hunted the northern plains, and the last big herd left in the US was sort of had this nexus of them around Miles City, Montana. When they shot all those in the winter eighteen eighty two, they had no idea what they've done and and and later it was said that a lot of the guys were still hanging around Mile City knowing that there must be a ton more buffalo it would eventually come down out of Canada, having no idea. They've actually shut all. You know. So when I think that like hunters created all kinds of trophies, I don't mean they set out and said like, hey, Joe, let's go out west in in uh extra pay species from the vast majority of its train. You know. They're just doing what they were doing at the time. But I don't want to act like I don't. I think it's a little bit's unfair to act like hunters. And hunting has always been this great pot, like this great force for good, because it's always been where some people we're not acting with restraints and we're not exercising good judgment. We're just blind to the future, you know. And some people were visionaries. Teddy Roosevelt of Visionary Conservation to all believable visionary conservations, year old visionary conservations, William key hornety visionary conservations. Right, guys that just got it, you know, honor conservations. And I would say that that same struggle still goes down today. No one right now is legally committing any kind of atrocity even remotely comparable to the to the eradication of the you know, the American buffalo. But I think that there are people out there who are operating on a take it while you can get it mindset, And I'm not even like so much blaming them. It could be the same things like lack of education from your father, your grandfather about sort of the history of wildlife in America. It could be just that you just weren't raised in the situation where you really asked to contemplate the future, you know. And then we still today have people who are saying, like, hey man, let's step back and take a big look at what's going on. I like to hunt turkeys, Okay, I like turkeys. What is it that allows turkeys to be on the landscape? Who is it that allows turkey to be on the landscape? And you can step back and get a wider and wider and wider picture until you've got to the point where you're looking and when you see a turkey, you see everything that goes into that bird. You admire the turkey, You admire the sky that produces the rain that waters the plants that the turkey eats. Like that sort of look, you know, holistic look at your hunting life and resources and conservation leads to like some introspection in new you and you know what, I want to make it so looks better than than the way I found it. Yeah, this especially you for me now that I have a young kid, because I don't want to be in a situation where I'm telling my four year old, oh man, you should have seen it, you know, should have seen it. Amazing. But I'd rather be like, yeah, man, let's go check it out. It's amazing, you know. Yeah. And it's thinking about like our dad's like my dad had my dad was born in I definitely thanks for the Marrin conservation movement. I hunted and am hunting a much better landscape than my dad was hunting when he started about no doubt, no doubt, there's a lot of risks right now, but just on just one, if you look at just like some landmark species, like some Pinnacle Game species, it's you know, in some ways you can say we're living in the good old days right now, comparable to the thirties, And that's all the thank for here. That's all the thanks. That's the thank for hunter conservations, in particularly organizations that are funded impacted by hunter conservations. So what does that mean for the average hunter today? Then if some is listening right and you're is resonating with some of the things you're saying about looking at that larger ecosystem picture and how things impact what we're able to do, now you know what are what can the averagehunterer do today or tomorrow to become a better a better hunter conservation is to actually start working towards some of these greater good things. Is there any actionable steps that can be taken? Or do you just need to become more aware? No? I think that awareness leads to actionable stuff. But I think a great thing if you just steel overwhelmed, right, do you know what you love? Do you know that every year you and your bodies like to go out last you do an elk time? Okay, it might seem great you guys just seeing tons of elk. Whatever it takes you saying like, okay, it's good, now, let's keep it good. Who's working to keep it good? In the case of elk, I think you would have to look very far and you're gonna find the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is a good organization. Follow their lead. You know you're not going to make this stuff up on your own A lot. I since that because people that single handedly do great work. I met a guy one time that was just had a big chunk of property in Iowa. He was a bluebird and whosist. You know, bluebirds are almost wiped off the face of the earth, wipes off the eastern bluebird is almost eradicated, variety of causes. Um. But this guy, like was a bluebird. He ran a bluebird nesting program on a big farm in Iowa. So he was a single handedly out there like making bluebird to habitat that he loved bluebird. There are people who do that all the time on their own land. I got a friend of Wisconsin. This guy hang out all the time, dug there and loves deer, works on his place for deer. He's got a hundreds of acres of land. But you know he might not have that. He might not be able to exercise that kind of immediate control if you don't hold all this land. And if that's the case, followed lead of other people. I'm involved with a bunch of conservation groups in some way or another, you know, blown to rocking on the Elk Foundation. UM, I tried to do stuff that's the porn of and work with National Wild thirty Federation. I'm a public lands add it. I believe in public trust, bold but public trust lands. For that reason, I stay involved with back country hunters and anglers, you know. I I think of the things I care about and things that I would like to see continue, not just as I'd like to remedy. And there's any of those. There's wrong, as the need to be fixed. There's wrong for me to be right. And there's also stuff that's good right now it's good, let's keep it good. Who wants to keep it good? Who wants to make it better? And then so you support behind those groups. Is there a thing that we're constantly faced with? This is something I touched another one or something that I alluded to, and I was talking about all the Lehopoles all Letopole is talking about in the fourties. He's talking about the the the US has become like a hypochontract about economic issues, where we're so fixated on the idea of our economic health that we're incapable of being healthy, you know. And what I'm getting to there is I think that there's some issues, there's some wildless and conservation issues where you're just gonna have to accept the fact that in can be you know, having a healthy environment, having strong wildlife habitat, having good hunting and fishing opportunities is going to at some point in time come at a cost, at an economic cost potentially where you might have to sacrifice some immediate thing with like jobs right now. There's some immediate things like construction money right now in exchange for the long term goal of having a healthy environment, you know. Um, and that's just what people to do. People look at elk re introductions and there and there were you know who's worried about elk gre inaductions is car insurance companies. I didn't want to pay all those creams offer people smacking in the giant elk on the road right, it's like an inconvenience thing. Buffalo outside in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, coming outside of the elksoa national parket can needian They smash your fences, they eat grass, you could go to cattle. It's just like at some point in time, you always stay the idea that a little bit of it is going to be inconvenient if people go through a lot of these mental gymn masters. I think of let's talking about, you know, the economic impact hunting and fishing, and I'm like, yeah, that's great. I'd love to heart all those figures, and I support that kind of research. But you know what, if you told me that that having clean air and water cost money, I would still think it's a good idea. Stephen makes a great point here, and I'm curious to hear more. But first we need to take another quick second to thank one of our partners for their support of this episode of the podcast, and that is hunter A Maps. You've probably seen their logo on our site, but maybe you still don't know what they do well. Hunter A Maps is a company that creates super high end custom physical maps, like the kind that you hold in your hand, that incorporate error imagery with terrain data that actually allows you to see the structure and ups and downs and stuff of the terrain on your error image. The maps are just gorgeous and they're really high quality paper. If you get a field map printed out and you can actually get these in several different sizes um all field map that's easily take out with you and your hunting or in much larger versions that maybe you want to put on your wallet hunting camp. And I personally, so far have enjoyed using my field map the most. And that's kind of surprising to me, because when I first began testing these maps last year, I wasn't sure how much I'd actually use a physical map instead of the maps on my phone that's what I always use before. But over the last season I found it was actually a lot. I would use those quite a bit more than I expected. And that's because, you know, with the extra terrain features on those maps, it allows you to see things um in a in a new way that's different from just Google Maps. But then also I didn't have to worry about, you know, not having good service or accidentally tapping the phone screen and screwing everything up. Because of those reasons, I ended up using my hunt Terror map, you know, really all the time when I was preppering to go hunt my Ohio property. Before hunt, me and my buddy who shares at least with maybe we look at it and point out different things and plan what stands you want to hunt um and it helped us out. So that said, if you're intrigued and want to try out a map from hunt terror yourself, head over to on Terra dot com that's hunt ra h U and t E r r A dot com and enter the promo code wired to get ten percent off your order. That's w I R E D to get ten percent off. Now back to this awesome interview with Mr Stephen Ronnella. Now on that topic, then, you know, I've I've heard the concern about the given the fact that everything comes down to for some people, the financial ramifications of it. Like you just said, people now we're trying to find the economic impact of hunting or the economic good that recreational tourism in so and so wilderness area will bring to the economy, and so they justify having that habitat preserved because of that something like that. UM. So the risk of that though, that i've you know, I've on this conversation I've heard is that if you start putting a financial number behind all these different conservation projects or preservations or whatever whatever might be, then do you risk that sometimes when the money isn't you know, justifiable to the cost. Then poolill say, okay, we shouldn't conserve this because you know, the finances aren't there, And then you start getting the alternate view of that. Do is that something that's is that a real risk? Oh yeah for sure. Like let's say just take a hillside you get them mountainside and for any kind of thing you gotta state fishing game area or something. You go, oh yeah, because it's gonna bring X next money because you're gonna have people buying home licenses. And some guys would go like, oh, you want to talk about some money, let me run the figures for you about after I put a golf course in a resort on that chunker ground, right. So then you step back and go like, oh yeah, clearly you in man, go ahead, you make the more money that way. Yeah, it's you know, it's nice to make the case. I believe in making the case. I think it's important and it's important to politicians. You have to just like, you know, they live in a numbers world oftentimes. I mean, some do something furial world will never understand, but some of them are numbers people, you know, and um, yeah, it's helped to make the case but yeah, that's definitely I'm afraid of it's. Oh so it's a it's a financial game. Now have to justify, have to justify healthy productive land. I have to justify a cology on the immediate financial return. You know. I worry about that a little bit, and then in some ways I can I kind of really gets bigger than money. It's bigger than money. Yeah, but I get I get the need for it. I understand the need for it. Um, but yeah, I do want to be like I always want to include a caveat where it would say, like there's money here. You know, healthy land is valuable financially, it's valuable in dollars, but even besides that, it's more important than that, you know. And that's the challenge is how do we communicate that to the people that aren't out there actually you know, enjoying time in these places or where these animals, Because like, like we've talked about, there's a lot of people in urban settings that that never actually experienced that other than watching on TV. Yeah, you gotta figure out whatever it is, you know. Actually, I'm sure you are the term of like charismatic megafauna. How people they have never seen a wolf will become like art and wolf advocates and and and and I feel like they're like, like, you know, armchair wolf biologists. Um, yeah, if you could take that and and has like charismatic landscapes that were outside of the National Park System between of something very good, you know. But there's like three or four places the people in the public's mind are like in viable. And it's because it has the name brand recognition. You'll Sandy Yellowstone, but you know, you're not gonna people are gonna hang onto those. But I think people need to realize the broader scales the American treasure. I've never done this empirically and empirically like I've never like actually look at it in a strict scientific way. But I feel like if you look at the US, how many people you have living here, so population density, you look at our GNP, you know, and just like the technology, the technological dances happier and stuff, there's no way that any other country has is where we're at in those things. That is where we're at with population densities, where we're out of the economy, and that has the treasures we have. The ecological treasures will be at you know, there's no way we've done a fantastic job of of blending the of blending the two things, of having it all, you know. Um, So I don't want to say like, I don't want to say it's all bad, but there we've done a lot of great stuff. But yeah, I worry all the time. And there's more good stuff we could be doing. I think there's Morkan stuff we've been doing. If again, if we just got comfortable with the idea that some of this stuff that's gonna becomes convenient, you know, So, what are the conservation or habitat issues or places at risk that keep you up at night right now? Some of the things that keep me up at night now, in immediate sense, this idea was floating around, I'm sure you've heard about it where some people are getting like political traction by questioning the legitimacy of the federal government. And as part of that, what they do is they question the legitimacy of the federal government holding lands. It's like, what's the government got on this land for anyway? You know? And and part of the railing cries as joker in Nevada who it was like grading his cattle um on public lands without paying the public for use of their cattle for the grading property, and then the good lands wouldn't have done there him the grades his cattle and if it wasn't owned by the public anyway, And he's like, well, how should the government owned this land? I should need to pay for us Like, dude, it would be another guy owned it if they didn't own and he'd be shooting your cattle right now. But anyhow, he kind of became like, you know, he kind of became this this railing cry not like a sort of a renewed rallying cry for how the public shouldn't be able to own land. You know, those the idea that you should that we should start dumping off public ground, you know, er to open it up for you know, dumping it off to the states, and then the states would be able to do whatever, sell it privately or do whatever they're gonna do with it. Noles really hashed out yet, But that to me right now keeps me up at night. Like I'm talking to my brother. There's an area you know near him, you know, Gallant National Forest. It's like, is there, honestly a guy who drives by gown national forest and he's like, Oh, I just wish that was privately owned. You know, there must be there must be for what for whatever reason? Yeah, you know that's a big issue here right now. Is this like silly idea that we shouldn't have that it's way full to have good land open to the public. So I've been talking about this issue a lot too with some people online and sharing different articles about it and whatnot. And you know, most of the talks right now have been about state governments trying to reclaim control of the public lands from the federal government. And then they're saying that the state government could run it just as well. Um, Now I get people commenting back saying, well, what's wrong with the state government managing it? Why couldn't the state handle it just as well. I've got a lot of opinions on that, but I'm curious what your thoughts are on why is that a bad idea? Because I believe in like I'm an incrementalist, or I believe in incrementalism, Okay, I look at small steps that to me paint a picture for a broader trend. Okay, So when someone says, oh, we're gonna ban certain kind of magazine for firearms. Okay, do I really think that they really care is that much about that type of magazine or are they using this as an in road? You know, as someone who believes in incrementalism, I know that they're doing things. They're picking battles if they can win in order to whittle away at the larger picture. When you have in California, like we we're gonna ban mountain lion hunting with dogs, and we'll get that passed. Okay, we got that passed. Next year, we're gonna just ban. Now that we got the dogs ain't taken care of, We're going to ban hunt mountain lions at all. Okay, we got that taken care of. Next step band hunting anything with dogs, get that taken care of. Like that's how stuff moves, okay. And I think it's always important when you care about something to look at what are the private conversations that these people are having, you know, what are the private conference when they're sitting around drinking cocktails in private, the money that's behind these kind of movements, What are they really shooting for? I would argue that anti gun people are shooting for a gun free country. They feel somehow that the country better off if people weren't able to own guns. That's what I think they're really after. Okay. I think that the people in California who are back in these things to banned little aspects of honey when they're sitting around and having drinks together, I think what they're really after is you shouldn't be able to hunt. Okay, the privatization thing, I think it's coming out of this, just like this condemnation in disrespect for federal land management. They're really coming out of the thing where they're like saying, like everything that Theodore Rules all stood for, I stand against. That's what I think they'd like to see. Okay. So if I'm in my mind, I want to head them off at the past because I know what they're done and for it. They're going for this idea that they want to make a Unich out of federal land management because they hate the idea that there's some stuff they just can't do. There's some land they can graze, there's some places they can't run four wheelers and drive them nuts. And the most immediate quick step in the right direction is to try to like the most quick immediate step to get around regulation is trying to get it put into a different situation, a different management strategy. If I honestly thought that what the real goal here, The real goal was to put things in the state management because the states were going to manage it better and be better apologists, then not be like, yeah, this is a great move. But I just don't think that's what's going on. Yeah, and I think there's a strong risk two of those states, you know, looking at the economic value of that land if they had control of it too, and then beginning to lease it off or sell it off to the highest better as well. Of course, man that that's like I feel that that's like if you track down the real money, the real money was pushing for this. You know, there's people who got a gripe about something that they wanted to do and they're not able to do it. There was an instance where so when I think what's going on in the Vada, I don't remember the guy's name. He want to be a little bit crazy, and everybody sort of distance themselves from him. But there's a thing about at the same time where there's some BLM land and they found an archaeological sight on the blm Land, Okay, until they closed down the road in the canyon because they wanted to do an excavation on this archaeological site and the Indian camp, so they closed down the road. So they didn't want to get to get driven on because bunch guys show up down there on quad runners and bust the gate open and just as a show of force going there and ride all around on the archaeological flight. But it's like, like, what the what are really like? What really do you care about? You know? What keeps that guy out at night? I don't know. I just can't get into it. So all like so much of these a little like flashpoints and stuff. I'm just very suspicious of this whole thing, you know, I'm very suspicious whole thing. And I'm suspicious as a people who feel like they have something to gain from Yeah, I think rightfully. So there's a lot to be suspicious about there. But in a hundred years, in a hundred years good wildlife habitat, there's probably gonna be the less of it, you know, and we're going to be even more glad that we hung onto it. And I don't care, and I don't mean financially glad, spiritually, glad, whatever work you want to put to it, emotionally, spiritually or whatever, we're gonna be very happy that we afforded some level of protection for our hunting and fishing grounds. You know, they're just really there's some good cases where we're making more, but we're losing a lot more. Yeah, agree with that. Now, I know you've got some time constraints, so I want to try to try to wrap this up here pretty quick. But one last question, I guess I know you have an upcoming speaking engagement at the North American Deer Summit, and you know the North American Deer Songs being put on by the National Deer Lines, which really came out of the fact that over recent years, you know, the meal of your populations out west have been dropping for quite a number, quite an amount of time now and white tail populations in some areas recently are starting to see that trend to um. So now we're bringing people together and stakeholders to talk about what's going on here from your perspective and from your experiences. What do you think is going on here? And is there anything we can do about it? You know? Man, like the thing I follow most I grew up on white that I grew over in Michigan. But um, I yeah, I love mule deer man like the one am. I'd like to get a big one off someday as a mulder if I could, and I shot, I hunt a lot of milder is my favorite thing to hunt with the older and something had like to get it, just a giant and hang on the wall and be like, there's a giant mulder. Um, that's just like what I want. I keep telling people. If I were get a big mulder, I just could sell all my hunt equipment and quit hunt and just sit around staring at rather than going on. I'll stare at my big mulder, you know, after I've eaten them. But the picture is so complicated about what's going on with mulder where it certainly certainly has a lot to do with habitat loss, sage flats, riparian areas. Um, habitat fragmentation definitely has a lot to do with that. Then might ask something do this having a lot of help, it might have something to do it have a lot having white tailed moon to some areas that we traditionally haven't had white tails. Um, it might have something to do with climate issues, droughts and certain areas black snowfall um in the media sense winners that are too severe that you get the wrong kind of winner in the wrong kind of area that has mulder. They're already stressed, and you also love the whole bunch of meldre um. But I think that I would leave it up to the professionals to untangle that web of things. But I have a hard time picture. But if you knew the absolute answer that it wouldn't have something to do with habitat, you know, because they've always dealt the species is always dealt with droughts, the species always dealt with severe winners. But one thing they haven't dealt with is um fragmented habitat. You know, we used to not understand how much they move. But there's some reason stuff. I'm sure you saw this, or they discovered what wanted being the longest manual migration and lower forty eight tradially the people say goes to the anilop migration, realize that the longest animal migration lower forty eight is a mule deer herd and whelming, yeah, that has this mega truck. They make through all kinds of obstacles, you know, and they had no idea that that's what these deer were doing. You had individual deer moving, you know, hundred miles whatever was every year on an annual basis. And I think we just don't understand everything that takes to maintain the older I don't think we understand it what they really need and where are going um and so I'm sure had to have something to do with it. But but I'm not a biologist, man, you know, I'm not a biologist like I draw my information from the same place everybody else does articles trying to follow what's going on and trying to stay engaged. I think the guys that the mules are federation are probably out ahead of it as much as anybody, you know. Yeah, I think it comes right comes back down to what we've been talking about all the conservation. It's concerning to me in a large term sense when you look at mulder what's funny about mulders they think that, you know, they think the mules here the vlarious guys, who's kind of a lead onto the biologists. Uh, it's a very spirited case that mudle here are are relatively new on the landscape. That it was a hybridization event between black hills and white tails somewhere around the Rocky Mountains. Lead the mudle here since the place. Okay, so it's sort of like a brand new animal in the landscape. Um, and it's funny. It's sad to see that they're on their way down. But you look, there's haven't like they haven't any like that long. White tails have been on the ground for millions of years by like me, Like, I don't know. I've heard like three million years in the southeast for white tails. There's survivors, you know. Um, the mule there, man, it's like mule there are sort of this little experiment. It's like this little sort of evolutionary experiment. And I hope they win. I love those things. But whoever it is fixing the problem, I can tell you one thing. If we decide to fix it, and I hope we do, it's probably gonna involve a little bit of inconvenience. Yeah. I comes back to your earlier point about the fact that a lot of these conservation winds are going to require that and you have to have that long gonna have that long term view. I know, and I know and if someone's gonna come and go like, oh yeah, mule deer contribute blank the economy and great. I'm like, yeah, but I don't care. I mean, that's good. But if they call you comm me money, I still want to keep them. You know, well we are we are way over time, Steve, and I apologize real quick. I know you've got a new book coming out soon. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, so excuse me. Um. Yeah, So I have two new books going out. It's a two volume set, so it's called The Complete Guy to Hunting and Butchering and Cooking Wild Game. And I've been working at it for a few years with the guy who I worked with on the Met Show. We've been working out together and then some other folks been involved in it. There's nothing like There's nothing like it out there. I can tell you that it came into a lot of like it. It's gonna be a seven page book, so it's coming out on volume one and volume two. Volume one is Small Game, Volume two is Big Game, and it covers everything from gear, species profiles, hunting strategies, hunting basics, how to find hunting lands, how to scout, how to shoot, how to Butcher and scand it's just like the complete the Hunting, Butcher and Cooking Wild Game Volumes one of buyums too. Volume one comes out this August. Um, people go on and pre order. You do me a huge favor if you go pre ordered um and then volume to will follow a couple months later, Small Game Bolume two will follow soon. Don't tell you that there is nothing like these on the marketplace, man Um. I got at in the wild getting into but not I've done. I mean, I'm it's just like I'm really excited about these books, like they're they're they're they're cool and um and dozens and dozens of very accomplished owners of all contributed. There no how to make you know these books as good as they can be. So that's the thing I'm that's the thing got going on right now, man Um. Yeah, I hope people check it out. I think that people will be pretty excited when they see these books. We'll we'll make sure to link to that Amazon page that people can pre order to it, preorder it, and then uh, you know, you've got the podcast going on and your TV showing all those different things. If somebody wants to see all the different things you have going on right now online? Where can they go? Yeah, just go to the like so meat eater dot com, so not so the meat eater dot com and there you'll find links to the meat Eat podcast. You'll find links. Um. You can always check out the show on Sportsman Channel and we've been on sports and Channel for years. Hopefully we'll stay there for years. Um. If not, go to meat Eater dot vh X dot tv and you can streaming download mediatre episode. But you'll also find all that by going to the meat eater dot com. And I'm on Twitter at Stephen Roannella. But the best place is just hit the website, the mediator dot com or check us out on Facebook, um, Steam ronell need you and you'll find it on Facebook, and then you'll see all the whole you know, all the all the all the inner workings and all the outputtings of our organizations. So but thank you for having Yeah, it is a good conversation, something I like to talk about and something I care about a great deal, So I appreciate it's the disgust of stuff with you. Absolutely, it's been It's been great chatting and for everyone listening, you know, take Stephen up on what he just said there. Check out the website, check out his books. He has three really good books out there right now. His show is incredible. The podcast is one of the best out there, so be sure to visit the show notes page for this podcast will link to all that stuff. And Stephen, thank you so much for your time. Hey man, thanks for me all right, Well, that is going to do it for us today on the Weird Hunt podcast. And that was a pretty interesting conversation, wasn't it. That said, for the show notes I mentioned just a second ago, visit wired to Hunt dot com slash episode fifty four. We'll have links to all things that Steven mentioned. And as always, if you've been enjoying the show, please take a quick few seconds to leave us a rating or review on iTunes. It's a huge help, so thank you speaking thanks as always, we also like to thank our partners who helped make the Wired Hunt podcast possible. So big thank you to Sick Gear, Trophy, Ridge Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds, Hunt Terror Maps, Osonics, Carbon Express, Lacrosse Boots, and the White Tailed Institute of North America. And finally, thank you to all of you listening in today. If you're new to the show, welcome, and if you're a longtime listener, thanks for sticking with us. I hope this episode inspired you to think just a little bit more about a responsibility as conservationists, and maybe it's even got you thinking about ways you might be able to make a personal difference. I know it's certainly got me thinking about that. So with all that said, have a great week, enjoy the great outdoors, and stay wired to hunt.

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