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 Kenyon in this episode number two oh nine, and today in the show, we're joined by writer and author Tovar Serule to discuss his journey from vegan to hunter, the value of thinking deeply about hunting, the ethics of hunting, how we talk about hunting, and much much more. All right, guys, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by sit Ka Gear. And today we're joined by Tovar Serule. And Tovar is a vegan turned hunter. He's a writer. He's the author of a book titled The Mindful Carnivore. And this book, it's a book that I read a few years back, and I just really enjoyed it. It's been something I've I've turned back to and you know, over the past couple of years and found little interesting quotes and reread certain sections. It's really well done. And this book chronicles Tovar's personal journey from being someone who had a negative view of hunters and who had a negative view of eating meat to now someone who himself is a hunter and who is a meat eater. Um. So that's kind of an interesting transformation on its own. But he goes through this whole story and speaks to a lot of other things I find really important, like the ethics of hunting, the importance of thinking about the why and the how of hunting. Um. He talks about the way we represent ourselves as hunters, how we can introduce new people to hunting, and lots and lots more stuff like that. So it is, Ah, it's a very interesting book. Tovar is a very interesting guy. In the conversation we had, maybe I'm biased, but I think it was very interesting too. So that is going to be the main event today. UM. I'm looking forward to that. But before we get into it, we do need to take our traditional fifteen minutes or so for our pregame show with my red bearded, nine fingered pale Dan Johnson. Um. And before we start recording, Dan, you said you had a lot on your mind. What's going on, dude, I just like my brain has been firing on all cylinders lately, and just a lot about I don't know a lot about everything, but but I mean like most of it has revolved around starting to lay out my like my western hunting game plan. And I don't mean short term like what I'm doing this year, but I mean long term for you know, trying to set something up every year or multiple times every year to head west to hunt new species. So I like your ambitions. Man. Yeah, I've I've kind of got this. I don't want to say a midlife crisis is going on, but I have this crisis, right, But I have this realization where you know, I got if I have this bucket list I have written on my desk and permanent marker, right, so it's there? Is it literally on the desk, like if you took a marker and wrote it on the desk? Yep? Yep, absolutely, And it's my bucket list and I it's a list of animals that I want to harvest. Is this your desk at work? No? No, no, no, no, no no no, this is my that'd be cool. That would be so funny. Your boss comes up, why why have you scrawled elk, moose, and caribou all across all across the office desk here? Damn? My response would be why haven't you? Sorry? Continued No, but so like, I want to put this game plan together, right, I want to look into what I need to do as far as preference points, as far as you know, getting set up rules, regulations, all these things. And I know that's kind of a long term, you know, that's something that's not done in one night of scouting on Google Maps, you know what I mean. But I have been looking at like it is so addicting. I went to onyx Maps and I signed up for their free trial period and I've already put in hours looking at different states throughout the West, at you know, BLM Land and National Forest and state land and and all these things, just kind of looking what sections, you know, starting to look at not not right now, but look at like trophy records, you know, as far as big deer or big elk are taken, but more along the lines of numbers and you know, opportunities, so to speak, and just get something concrete to where I can say, Okay, this year, I'm doing this, Next year, I'm you in this, and then every year add something towards the end of that. Yeah. No, I think that's sometimes half the fun too, is just the planning, the dreaming, the thinking about it. You know, imagining what this might be like, all that research and scouting. You know that that helps get you through the off season and the long nights with the crying baby and all that kind of stuff. You know. So I'm right there with your dude and I the the Onyx maps if you're going out west and you need to understand those public private borders and all that stuff. It is. It is a super helpful tool for that kind of thing. UM. And then I think we've talked about before, but I combined that, like when I'm doing my Western scouting, I combined that and then use the information on go hunt dot com um, which I think you're familiar with as well. UM, And they've got a whole bunch of like unit specific data for all sorts of states, and they've got kind of the outline all of the the things you need to understand within each state for how to apply for tags, what the point systems are. Just because is you know, we've come to find out, um, being Midwesterners have begun hunting out westmore it's a lot more complicated than just going and picking up a tag at Walmart. UM. In a lot of these states, at least, so UM, yeah, I'm right there with you. I'm not in a position where I feel like I can map it out years ahead of time. There's so much flux right now for me. But I am getting excited for this year, and already this year, I feel like it's so much up in the air, even a lot too, um because at one point I thought I was gonna do a Montana elk hunt, and now that's shifting to an Idaho elk hunt. Um, I think maybe, So that stuff's all up in the air, and but it's exciting so um as far as yeah, and I'm talking, you know, things I can do right now are look at preference points. Right, I'm too late for most draws, but for example, Wyoming, right, they have a um, they have a preference point system that starts up in July, and I'll buy my you know, I'll buy my elk and mule deer and antelope preference points. So that way, when it comes time to you know, start looking for a zone, I have this basically ticket that I'm waiting in line is basically what it is, you know, So getting ready to cash those in at some point. Yeah, way better to be having those, you know, doing that for years and years, and then finally when you're ready to hunt, you've got the opportunity, versus saying, oh, this year, I really I've got the time I want to hunt Wyoming, but then you don't have the points to hunt anywhere half decent. So absolutely, yeah, man, that's exciting. Um, I'm actually heading to Idaho. Uh speaking of going out west, I'm heading to Idaho in two days. What are you doing out there? The back Country Hunters and Anglers Rendezvous is happening this weekend in Boise, So a whole bunch of hunters and anglers getting together. There's gonna be um, a whole bunch of different seminars, there's gonna be um. Yeah, it's kind of like this big I think it's called Beers, Bands and public lands, just kind of like a big get together, throw down party. One night. There's gonna be a storytelling night, um, Steve Ranella, Remy Warren, a bunch of other folks like that. Von Schnard, the founder of Patagonia, is gonna be speaking there. So a bunch of interesting people will be speaking at that event. Um, bunch cool stuff. And I'm on the I'm on the board for our Michigan chapter. Still gonna do some chapter training stuff and it should be a cool deal. So looking forward to that. Awesome. My buddy Dan Borne is I think he's in the Minnesota chapter and he's heading out there to uh um cover that as well. So it should be uh, it should be fun for you guys. Yeah, I think there's gonna be a quite a contingent of folks from all over the country. So I'm looking forward to it. And I was. I was originally gonna try to tack on a turkey hunt to the end of it. I thought, Okay, I'll be out there for for two days at the event, and I'll stay for another two days to turkey hunt out to night Hoe because their opening days like that next day, I think. Um. But then, man, just after being gone for like eight or nine days or whatever it was for the shed hunting trip, I just kind of was thinking, you know what, I'm already gonna be gone almost four days as it is, making that until a seven day trip would be kind of tough on the tough on the wife and baby. So no turkey hunting from me, right, as you say, Gotta gotta put family first, right, that's right. You gotta put the family first so that you can put him last in November. That was mean, that was unfair, dude. So today, just just before we started recording this, um Kylie had been feeding him and I was sitting next to We're talking about something, and she was going to go off to do something, so she handed him to me to you know, to chill while she went to go do whatever she was gonna do. And literally she hands him. In the moment my hands touched him, he projectile vomits all over me, like all over my chat best and pants, and I mean like completely had to change everything. Um It's like a half gallon of stuff all over. So dad life is in full force these days, dude. Yeah, we'll congrats. It always makes me feel better about myself when I hear other dad's getting barfed on. Yeah. Yeah, men, it's a whole new world these days. I I sit in my office and read books about you know, told our surule and whatnot, and then I go into the living room and I'm puked on and cleaning up poop and singing songs and and doing all sorts of weird new things. Uh. Speaking of kids, though, you texted me a while back and told me that I had to ask you about your daughter's first shed find. Dude, it was crazy what happened. So we were we were out at the state park in Iowa, and they have like captive they have Captive Buffalo and Captive elk on it just you know, so people can drive up to the fence and go and look right high. It's it's like a high fence type thing. And so we're driving around. I'm with my dad. So you hunt hunt there? Then, no, you don't. I think you can know. Oh yeah, I'm talking for for white tails. Although I think you can hunt there. But it's not a high fence thing for no, not for white tails. Right, it's just a small portion of this. I'm totally getting you sidetrack though. That's all right, that's all right, that's what we do. That is okay. So you're at the state park. Ye, my kids, my kids get out to go. My my youngest is sleeping in the car seat. My dad takes my daughter and my son over to this like grassy hilltop where they have a swing set, and I'm I walk away from the vehicle and I am looking at these cabins that potentially we could rent during the summertime. So all of a sudden I turned around. I hear my daughter just screaming bloody murder, and I'm just like, what what is happening? And she's running towards me, like she's running towards me at full force, and my my son is running behind her, and my dad is sitting there kind of smiling behind it all. He's not running and Dad, Dad, Dad, And I'm like, what's going on? What's going on? Because I thought she fell off the swing set? And she lifts up her hand and she finds this two point dear side and she she's running up to me. It's like and there was there was dear poop everywhere, so it's like, as you know, like it was kind of similar to what we've where we're finding all the sheds at when we went shed hunting with Ben, right, but it was a lot shorter. So the deer as the grass started getting a little greener, they were out there eating the fresh green grass that was coming up near this swing set. And this small buck must have shed his antlers right there, because there was deer poop everywhere, and my daughter saw it, recognized it, and ran up to me. It's like, Dad, I just found a dearhatler. So I I started like geeking out right, I'm like, but where did you find it? Tell me about it? And I started and so like my my enthusiasm kind of trumped hers, and she didn't know what to say. She's like, I don't know. I think I was asking her like, what's the age class? You know, where's the where's the right right, where's the trail right? And she's like, Dad, you know, and I just I just lost it. It was so exciting. And when we got at home, this is an internal battle for me. We got at home, She's like, Daddy, I want to paint it. I'm like, oh no, you can't paint it. Why dad, it's my shed. I'm just like, this is your first shed you ever found by yourself. This is like, this is very important. And she's like, but Dad, and she did that little girl thing and I'm like, Okay, you can paint it. And so she painted it, and now we have it sitting up on this little picture frame thing, and uh, it's pretty cool. I will remember that, even though it wasn't an official shed hunt, I will remember that for a very long time. That's amazing. That is so cool. Um what what? What color? Did she paint it? Purple and pink? Perfect, your first purple and pink shed, I would assume, at least in the house. It's the second one. I found a small one that I let her paint this year. But but she wanted this one because it was special and uh um but yeah, and my wife she wanted to do you know, that big one she found at Ben's. She wanted to do some kind of decorative thing with it. And I was like, sweetie, this is your biggest shed ever, so until you find another shed bigger, you can't do anything with this one. Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna sit in my office and collect dust. So I could say, since this is your shed, I will keep that in my office and dictate how it's treated. It's funny because you know, like I get, I got way more excited for her to find that shed than she does. And I even give her this little space on our wall where all of her sheds go, and uh and you know, and she's like, well, I want to do something creative with them, Like no, you just like I instantly take over. I instantly took them all over. Yeah, hey, man, I I'm right there with it. I'm a little possessive of my sheds too. When I was gone out west on that trip, my wife sent me a picture and she's like, how mad does this make you? And it was like fifteen of my sheds that I found this year, the fourteen sheds that I picked up before my big trip. She had taken all of them away from the place I had put them all out, and she put them and she put him across the mantelpiece of the fireplace. And a lot of people would I think that's cool that that my wife is willing to put sheds on the mantle piece of our fireplace in the living room. But I was like so particular about where I wanted them. I'm like, I don't know about this, right. She's always trying to steal the sheds and like put them in random nooks and crannies on shelves or in our bedroom or the bathroom. And I kind of like the idea of having all of them all in one place so I can like bask in the glory of the multitudes um. But I think, uh, I think that's probably changing soon, so nothing stays permanent forever. Unfortunately, especially with when like this room that I'm in now probably won't be my office forever. So I'm gonna have to find a new little corner of the house where I'm gonna need to put all my mounts and and deer sheds. But I have one last question for you know, we're running along on the intro, but I have a European mount, right okay, and I want to turn it into a regular shoulder mountain. What did what did you have to do with it? When you know someone found or you found Jawbreaker dead right, yes, right? So what did you have to do to get a shoulder mount out of a dead skull? Well, so what happened was I found the whole you know, antlers and skull and everything intact on him. So I took the dead head back home with me after I got a salvage tag from the DNR. And I had a friend, you know, Dustin, who had he killed the buck the year before, but decided that it was too small to a shoulder mountain. Sid I didn't want a shoulder mount it, but for whatever reason, he decided to keep the cape just in case, you know, he changed his mind, And so he had the taxidermist who is his brother in law and a friend of mine. Um had his brother in law keep the cape. So then I find job breaker like four months later, and he reached out to me and said, hey, you should shoulder mount that thing, and you should and you should use my cape. I'm not I don't really need it, you should do it. So basically I just brought the dead head to the taxidermist. He had a cape, and you know, they just saw the skull cap with the antlers or whatever and put that into the form. So I think that all you need if you've got you know, you've got the skull and antlers and tact already, bring the euro mountain and then I do think I don't know if this is everyone does this, but I've heard that a lot of taxidermists have extra capes sitting around that people don't want for whatever reason, and so they keep it just for this reason. So you can probably buy a cape from someone and then they'll, you know, he'll be able to cut off the skull cap on top of your eural mountain, put that in the form and stitch up the cape, and you have a you have a shuldar mountain right. And the reason I want to do it now is because it fell off the wall and I don't know what happened to it, but I came into the room and it was on the ground and the nose portion of it broke off. You know those thin bones that can come off those all broke off, and uh so now I it just it looks like I found it dead and didn't shoot it, you know what I mean. So I want to get it shot. I think I want to get shoulder mounted. That's another five bucks. Yeah, what buck was that? It's the buck I killed in two thousand and nine. It was I call it the two by four buck because it's a four point side with just like two really big points coming off of it, like a main beam and then a g one and that's it. Two. That's a cool, dear, that's a cooling. I remember that one. I always remember that because that's the first time I ever saw you. Was that was the video when you shot that buck. And I will always remember when you're like that buck came in and made me go, oh, I'm sorry to shoot him, And then I said, you know what, I think I like that guy. We should do a podcast together. So it's a huge tool, but I think I like it. And here we are today and here we are so all right, well, um, i'll be interested to see what that looks like. That'll be cool. And um, on that note, I suppose unless you've got anything else, we should we should wrap this one up. Oh man, I'll see I'll see you U. We'll see you tomorrow. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Oh yeah, because you're having me on your podcast. That's right. Well, be sure check out the nine Finger Chronicles whenever that comes out, folks. All right, well, we're gonna stop here. We're gonna take a listen to our sitcast story of the day, and then we'll get to Barn and he'll elevate the conversation from here. For this week's take a story, we're joined by Beaumartinic, who tells us about a spring turkey hunt where everything went right. It was last spring in Pennsylvania when the temperatures were a lot lower than normal. To sing turkey hunt, I left my house early in the morning, well before light. I wanted to get a quick hunting before work. And as I started crossing the valley, I heard some gobbles coming across the other. This line I heard up went down through the crick bottom. It was very windy and cold on thirty eight degrees and quite a bit of rain was coming down at this time, so allowing to get in pretty close to the roost of gold was. As soon as it got light enough for the for them to come out of the roots, I gave a few soft calls with my my Grandpa's homemade call, and they flew down, came over the ridge and the big tom gave me a good thirty five yard shot and put him down, ran up to him, grabbed the whole of him and couldn't believe what I had. My my biggest turkey to date inch and the half spurs and a ten and a half inch beard. And it was one of the craziest and quickest hunts that I was able to make it to work on time. On both hunt he was wearing sickst core lightweight bass layers. If you'd like to create a sick of story of your own, or to learn more about Sitka's technical hunting apparel, visit sitka gear dot com. All Right with me now? Is Tobar severely welcome to the show. Tober glad to be here. Hey, I I, as I just mentioned a second ago, I been looking forward to this for a while, um, because you're a guy who I came across I don't know, maybe four five years ago, UM, with your book and then some of your different articles I've seen online and your perspective and the way you approach and talk about hunting and what and how we do this. Um, it's it's refreshing and I think it's an important one. So I'm glad that I can finally gets you on here for for our listeners to get to meet you. So so thanks for taking the time to do this till bar my pleasure and for the people who aren't familiar with you yet. I offered just a very brief intro before you came on here, But can you give us the cliff notes on who you are what you do now? Sure? UM, So you know, my whole entry into this hunting world was an unusual one. I grew up fishing, but never really did me hunting as a kid. UM ended up becoming a vegetarian when I was twenty, was pretty strict vegetarian, vegan for basically a decade UM, and then became a hunter and mainly a deer hunter, um. And I've been in in the hunting world literally, you know, hunting, and also in lots of conversations and and research and writing and all kinds of things about about hunting, um since then, which is now going on, you know, about almost fifteen years. So I am an author. I end up going back to grad school and studying stuff related to hunting and grad school, uh, and have been doing a lot of speaking and consulting work relating to wildlife conservation, hunting relationships between the hunting conservation world and the non hunting environmental conservation world and all the crossovers and coalitions and alliances that exist there and could exist there and have existed there historically. And uh so, yeah, lots of that, lots of that kind of stuff. Man. That's that's the kind of thing that is right up my alley. Two. What what specifically were you studying while you were in grad school? What were you working on there? So I did my um my master's thesis on what I called adult onset hunters, those of us who caught the bug late uh, and I interviewed a bunch of folks who had, like me, you know, come to hunting as adults and just investigated, you know, what it was that motivated them, how they thought about it. The discipline I was in as communication, so really paying attention to the language and how we tell stories about things and how we make sense of these things that we do in our life. UM, And that was fascinating to listen to folks and and here um their unique perspective, the commonalities among them, which in some ways are very different from folks who grew up hunting, but in some ways are very similar, and we just use different language to talk about it, but we have a lot of similar experiences and often similar sorts of values and feelings about what we're doing in in hunting. We just come at it from different sort of backgrounds culturally. So so what's what was your goal or with that line of your thesis there and in the study that you're doing and now the communication work you're doing looking into these connections between non hunting conservationists and hunters and how we talk about these things. And basically all these topics that you just listed off are exactly what I'm hoping we can spend this entire time talking about. UM. But what why does this intrigue you so? Much. Why are you looking into this? Why is this important? Um? Other than you know, being fascinated by interesting stories and interesting people. Uh. You know, I think that they're despite our differences. I say, in the conservation world and the environmental world broadly, despite our differences, there is so much common ground. There are so many common values. And because of you know, issues around hunting or particular types of hunting, or you know, historical conflicts over some particular piece of legislation or any number of things locally, nationally, whatever scale you want to think about. UM, we tend in those worlds in particular to paint each other as the big problem, like the enemy. So you know, among amongst certain hunting conservation circles, you know, a certain subset of that world, you know, the non hunters or anyone who the non hunters an anti hunter there like you know, it's the antis and the environmentalists that's the big problem. That's what threatens hunting more than anything. And I don't buy that for a second. And similarly on the sort of environmental side. And you'll get some people thinking that you know, hunters, um, and what they stand for is really that's really the big problem. You know, that they're driving species extinct, you know, even here domestically, you know, in North America, which just isn't the case, you know. Um and so there's a lot of misconceptions and just stereotypes about environmentalists when that tends to go along with stereotypes of liberals, and stereotypes about hunters, which tend to go along with stereotypes of conservatives, and these gross, gross stereotypes that we spend so and granted we have differences, and granted there are differences, but we spend so much time and so much energy focus on the differences and on each other as enemies that we miss this huge common ground in the middle, this huge amount of common value if you just get rid of some of those stereotypes and some of those assumptions, and you start to listen to folks and start to learn their language a little bit like, ah, that's like me, that's kind of similar, you know. Um. So I spent a lot of time you know, with people across that whole spectrum and listening to folks and getting a sense of where they're really coming from, what their values are, and what you know, what drives them to support you know, conservation or to be opposed to some initiative that some other groups has put forth. And uh, you know, the more time I spend doing it, the more I'm convinced that, you know, we have a lot more in common and could and have historically and still do when allied with each other, when pulling together accomplished this incredible stuff, you know, as it's happened over the past century and more. Um, But in these political times, and I don't mean just you know, the past year, but I mean you know the past decade, where we tend to be more and more polarized and you know, little echo chambers on social media and so on. Um, I think that we're at risk of losing some of that collaborative spirit. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And like you said, if you look back in history, there's there's so many examples of us doing these things together. You look back to Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir, or you look back at Elder Leopold and Bomb marshall um and so many other examples of that. Where when the when the hunting and non hunting conservation communities can come together to work towards those shared goals, we can achieve so so much more but it does take that open line of communication, and it does take that willingness to look past stereotypes and um, you know, and like you said, sometimes there are differences. We aren't going to see everything i'd eye, but maybe six things I attend we do, and let's work on those things. And then maybe by way of working on those things together, we can start to better understand each other on the things that we have differently, and because there might be progress to we make there too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know, historically it's not like it was easy necessarily seventy five years ago or fifty years ago, but there was I think in quite a few cases a lot more common ground. I mean, there was you know, they were editorials being written in you know, field and Stream in the mid twentieth century that you just never see today. You know. They were just so explicitly pro environment, you know, and the support that like the Wilderness Act of sixty four had was so broad politically, despite you know, regardless of whatever you think about some of the ways that it's been implemented and some of the rules related to it, you know, there has been a lot of of of common ground, and I think it's important to continue to to find that. Yeah, yeah, I want to. I want to dive into that a little more and examine how we can do that maybe. But before that, I think I probably need to rewind the tape a little bit too, better get our foundation here in your story and how you got to this point, because you mentioned the fact that you were a vegetarian for a long time back, um, some number of years ago, and then you made this transition to now becoming a hunter, and not only a hunter, but a hunter who's who's you know, prolifically talking about it and sharing your story with people. UM. And so you tell that story in pretty fascinating detail in your book, The Mindful Carnivore. It's a it's a book I've really enjoyed, UM, I highly recommended to people. UM. And I want to hear a little bit of your thoughts on what you're what you're doing with that book and what you're trying to achieve in that journey. But I want to I want to read the quote, UM, that you let off the book with. There's a quote here from a Mary Midgeley, and it says that the symbolism of meat eating is never neutral to himself the meat eater seems to be eating life. To the vegetarian, he seems to be eating death. There's a kind of just ault shift between the two positions, which make it hard to change and hard to raise questions on the matter at all without becoming embattled. And I think this kind of this quote very neatly kind of ties up some of the things we've already been talking about, and it does do a nice job of kicking off the theme of your story in that book. Um, can you just tell us a little bit more about that journey in detail? I mean, how did you go from this point to be it sounds like from what I remember reading quite more really opposed to the idea of killing an animal um and hunting to now where you are. Now, can you fill us in a little more on what that experience is like, what triggered these changes in your mindset and led you to this point? Sure? Yeah, So, I mean I became a vegetarian and then a vegan very strict, you know, not having dare your eggs or anything um, largely out of concern for animal welfare, you know, compassion for other living beings and not wanting to cause unnecessary suffering. And so on. Um. And that was when I was about twenty, and other reasons piled up. I mean, you get, this happens with any of us. I think you get convinced of a certain lifestyle or you know, a certain choice, and then you find lots of other reasons that justify it. So whether they're you know, health rationales or environ mental ecological rationales, all kinds of other sort of things come along that you can latch onto and use, uh to support that choice, that position. And so I stuck with that for those reasons, you know, uh, for for most of a decade. And then towards you know, the end of that period of time, I started to realize that, first of all, my diet, whatever I was eating, was not somehow removed from and innocent in impacts on the natural world. I mean, the way we create crop fields is we you know, we rip up prairie or we fell forest or whatever. You know, there's wildlife habitat that gets gets destroyed to create agriculture. And then we if we have any large numbers of deer or or other creature is that are coming to feast on that agriculture, well, then you know we have to kill them or control them in some way. And I started to read books like it's a fantastic book called Heart and Blood by Richard Nelson about deer, one of my favorite books about about deer. Uh. He's an anthropologist and he studies people's relationships with deer all across North America. And I realized, Wow, there are these, you know, soybean fields and pumpkin fields, and at any high density of of deer population, farmers and folks who get egg tags are killing a lot of deer to protect these agricultural crops. Almost any agricultural crop involves, you know, controlling deer in most of North America. And I found that rather disturbing. As a vegan. That's like, what, you know, what does that mean now if I'm eating vegetables tofu made of soybeans? You know, Um, this sort of disconcerting to realize how much is going on. And of course grain combines are chopping up smaller creatures all the time and so on. So I was still vegetarian at that point. But what those realizations did is they took this very black and white view I had of the world. You know, plants, good animals, bad for food, um. And it introduced a lot of gray and I these very hard edges, these hard ethical distinctions that I made, started to soften a bit. So I was just a bit more open minded to possibilities and what things mean and don't mean. And then a few years later, maybe two years later, UM, my doctor um looked at my blood chemistry and said, you know, your your health, maybe in my immune system. I wasn't like I was definitely ill, but my my immune system wasn't doing great. And she said, you know, you might want to consider some change to your diet because your your blood chemistry suggests that nutrition is a bit off. Um. And she suggested that I, you know, put some animal foods back into my diet. Um. And So between that initial realization and that sort of a softening of those categories, you know, hardening of the categories is I think the dangerous disease uh. And then my you know, dietary and nutritional. So the situation, I said, okay, let's try something different. Um. So first it was like a bowl of yogurt, you know, which is if you've been a vegan for a decade, like a bowl of yogurt is pretty radical. Big deals time referred to as radical. And then you know, some some eggs, and we started, you know, buying some local chicken. And at that point I said, you know, we started eating some fish too. And my wife had been vegetarian and she sort of went this whole journey with me. Uh And I said, well, I'm eating other creatures now. I mean, I'm back to this and dealing with psychologically dealing with, you know, eating other creatures, which is kind of weird if you've been a vegetarian for a long time. Um. So I said, I'm gonna go back to fishing. You know, I'm gonna start getting back into into fishing and taking some degree of firsthand responsibility being involved directly with that. So I did that, and within you know, a year, I started just thinking about hunting. I live in a rural area. I live in north central Vermont. I look out the door and there's woods and you know, there's deer and some small game. And said, you know, I wonder about hunting. And I didn't have any immediate background in at my uncle on my mom's side, one of my uncle's is a hunter, but I didn't grow up right around him, and so I didn't have any direct immediate family or friends that that hunted, and so it seemed kind of foreign, uh, kind of a strange idea. But hunting culture is still pretty alive here. It's not you know, it's not hidden. There's plenty of hunters around. And I just started to entertain the possibility and and toy with it and talk to my uncle and just sort of ease into it. And part of the reluctance was both the idea of taking a life of a large mammal like a deer. I was reluctant somewhat to do that, but also because I had so many and we have generally as a culture, so many conflicting um ideas and feelings and stereotypes about hunting. It was not just the act of hunting, which appealed to me as an outdoors person, you know, I already like to hike and watch wildlife and look for a wildlife sign and all that stuff. So it was just another another layer to getting to know the land, you know, through a hunter's eyes. That was appealing in and of itself, um as was the conflicted sort of ethical confrontation with you know, taking life of a big animal. Um But the idea of becoming a hunter, just that identity. It's kind of weird coming from coming from where I came from, Like, what's it going to mean if I'm a hunter? And is that? Was that appealing and like some kind of romantic notion of the backwoods hunter of the un or is that appalling when you thought of the stereotypes of the beer guzzling redneck, shoot him up, bang them up? Whoa um, a little bit of the appeal, but probably more of the appall like who you know, who am I going to be? Like in my own eyes, in my friends sizes? And you know, it's just a strange thing to contemplate. And hunting, incidentally, and I covered this a little bit in my book. Even though we have a various sort of mythologies about hunting in American history, hunting has actually always been kind of a conflicted thing. It was a conflicted thing for the early settlers in terms of who got to hunt back in Europe and who hunted here, namely mostly American Indians, um, And so it was sort of sort of social class and culture and religion. The Puritans didn't like it, because people enjoyed it. I mean, there's all kinds it's always been kind of conflicted. That how it's been conflicted has changed over the years and the degree to which has been conflicted, but it's always been this kind of weird thing. So would that being the case, how did you mentioned a second ago with not only did you have to think about what this change meant for you, but what do your friends think at the time? What are the your fellow the gains are vegetarians think as you were considering making this change, and then when you did, were you were they supportive? Were you ostracized? Did they think you're nuts? Yeah? Mostly I had. I was more fearful of it than that I needed to be, you know, I was. I guess that wasn't fearful, but I wondered um And mostly there was no big blowback or anything. I think some people. Even the idea of the fishing was kind of weird for some people that I knew. But a lot of my friends weren't vegetarians, and they just knew that I was, and some were, but it was I was. It was overall a pretty easy transition. UM. Some people were certainly surprised, neighbors and friends who would find out that I was hunting or see me out a neighbor walking his dogs, like what are you doing out here? Uh? But I had a lot to do with their knowledge of me. And there's you know, some some of them they're stereotypes of hunting and of hunters. UM. So I didn't exactly advertise it. When I first started to explore this and first started to get back into fishing and hunting. It wasn't something that I that I talked about a lot or publicized in any way. Um. And actually when I first wrote an essay for a very short, like one page essay for a magazine about this transition into into being a hunter, I was a little bit unsure how people would react, you know, I think if it was my first step coming out at the closet as a hunter, you know, like, who's who's going to find out on one hunter? And what are they gonna think? Um? And then you know, I wrote another essay for different magazine about about a similar of similar sort of thing, and then started to commplate this idea of of actually writing a book, which you know, I just felt compelled to do it. And you asked a few minutes ago, like what were you aim to accomplish? You know, I had no idea. I just felt compelled like I had written this essay and I thought, gosh, maybe this is the seed of a book. Maybe I could develop I've never written a book before, you know, maybe I could develop this into a full fledged book. And just the idea sort of nod at me, and I started to do some research into how do you get a book published? And you know, it took me a couple of years to to make it happen, but it just wouldn't let go of me. I felt like I was a story that I just had to had to tell for some reason. Yeah, I'm glad you did. Um. I think there's there's an important story to be told here. Um. So you you had this compulsion to start taking some form of responsibility for the animal protein that you're eating and that your your impact on the world. You had an uncle who was showing you some things about hunting. You eventually, you know from from reading from having read the book, I know that you eventually started going out and eventually you do kill a deer. Eventually A key word there. Tell me what what was that experience? Like? What we're what was going through your mind, through your heart? What what happened. Well, you know, it took me a few years. I was though I hunt. I hunted both season, rifle season, muzzle litter season. Um. Mostly I was hunting rifle season. And after my second year, after my first year hunting, I think that meant that here in Vermont, I was restricted to you know, ah forked fork dandlers. You know, I have an antler restriction rule here, so no does, no spike horns, no fonts, just you know, bucks with with more antler. And so I'd see deer, but I very rarely saw a deer that was legal for me. And I was pretty clueless and just trying to figure things out. So it took me several years. And by the time I got it was like beginning of my fourth autumn of of of deer hunting. And I had taken one ill advised shot in rifle season a couple of years earlier and hit a branch. You know, didn't hit the deer, thankfully, Um, but I had sort of given up, almost like I was still going out there. That happened. If it was in a place with more deer, or I had more of a clue, I might have had more faith. But the success rate here in Vermont in rifle season is pretty darn low, and my confidence had had slept quite bit. And then second morning of that that rifle season, a couple of hours into into that morning, you know, here comes this this buck and I was completely shocked. And he came into it was pretty thickly wooded area that I hunt, and he came into about thirty yards away and had his head down on a scrape, and you know, I didn't have a clear shot, and he took that. He took that last step and I had a clear shot and squeeze the trigger and he did that little hunch to jump that they'll do, and you've got a good, good heart shot, and you know, ran about twenty yards and went down and didn't get up. And I was in complete shock. I mean I was a complete shock because it had happened. Partly, I was like, oh my god, that's finally happened, but more more importantly, I was in kind of emotional shock that I had just killed this animal, and I had killed you know, in the previous few years, I've done some small game hunting. I shot a few snowfoot hairs and I taken out a few woodchucks in the garden and that kind of thing. But you know, killing a big animal like a deer, it's a totally different thing. And I was just kind of numb at first, like just shocked that had happened, and that that here's this dead animal. Um So I you know, went through the field dressing and dragged out the deer with the help of a friend, and I realized it was over. The next I don't know, a few hours or day or so that I was sad. I mean, I was. There was a lot of grief for me. I had, you know, taken the life of this this gorgeous, gorgeous animal, and I wondered, I was like, am I gonna want to do this again? This is all this effort, all this time, all of and I, yeah, I'm getting food out of it, but I've also, you know, bear the responsibility for I've been taken this life firsthand. Do I want to do that again? And it was the for me. It was the process of butchering that animal. It was a process of and which I always knew i'd do myself. You know, I'd helped my uncle do it once, and I knew that just as being a vegetarian. I wasn't gonna just start, you know, um buying meat from the lots to meet from the grocery store, and I wanted to hunt it. I wasn't gonna now turn around and take it to a butcher. I needed to really take it all the way through, go through with the whole thing. And so standing there for hours and hours working on the butchering of of that deer was it was an amazing experience for me and really got me grounded and it felt like, you know, this is so familiar, like this is ancient and I'm okay with it. Actually, I'm this is part of you know, call it what you will, you know, a circle of life or whatever you wanna call it, but this is, you know, this is the way things are, and it's okay for me to be part of it. And it actually feels, you know, it feels appropriate and yeah, okay, I don't want to rush out and kill another deer next week, but by the time next fall all rolls around, yeah, I'll probably do this again. Did you have any hesitation actually before pulling the trigger, when you realize that a shot was there, did you still have this moment of do I really want to do this or had you already made that decision so far ahead of time and putting so much time that it was just you know, happening. It was just at that point, it was just happening. I mean, yeah, at that point it was I've been I've been on that I've been on that path for years at that point, and I knew if I was giving the opportunity, I knew where it was going. So what about now, how does your feeling or what is that moment like now after killing a deer? Do you feel the same things that you felt that first time? Do you ever still have those questions? Um? Or I don't know where where's your head at now when you walk up on a deer you just shot? Yeah, it's it's really different now. I mean it's still and it's sort of has is evolved. Like the second year was different, the third year was different, you know, the fourth year of the fifty or the sixth year, you know, each deer was different. Um And for quite a few years it was still a serious shock, Like my I was like in an altered state for like another day or two after that. Not the same kind of shock, not the same kind of conflicted feelings. Um, not doubting it at all, you know, in that way, but just the power, you know, the the powerful and sort of awesome moment, in that old sense of awe of you know, beauty and power and of taking a life is still you know, still something that really affects me. Um. It doesn't affect me as much as it did in those first few years. Um, but it's still you know, it's sacred. I mean, it's a I think it's a powerful and sacred thing and it needs to be done respectfully and and all of that. But I'm not conflicted like I used to be. Yeah, yeah, that's that first year. Now I feel like I feel like I even have a lot of the same feelings and thoughts. And it is a powerful it's a powerful, sacred thing, I think. I think if you don't have those feelings, or if you get to a point where you don't feel something, I don't know how to always explain that complicated kind of swamp of emotions that many of us feel after having taken a life. Um, but if there's not something deep that you are experiencing in that moment, I worry a little bit. I worry that something has been lost there. Um yeah, yeah, I mean you go back to you know, you go back to cave art. I mean, you know, animals have been important to human beings forever, you know, and there's always been you know, like rituals and ceremonies around the hunt, and you know, people have always recognized, in various cultures, in various ways that our relationship with these animals, you know, and frankly, with the act of killing, you know, of the violent taking of another life, especially of another big mammal, you know, that deserves to be treated with a certain degree of reverence and and even caution, you know, sort of morally and spiritually. And the thing I'm concerned about, h not so much with hunters in general, but just our relationship with animals in general for food, is that you know, so many of us again not so much hunters, but you know, Americans for example, in general, I think, becomes so disconnected from the animal that it's just meat, you know, and there's its has no soul, it has no heart. When we go to the grocery store, it's just a commodity. It's just a package. It came on a truck, you know. Um, and that's and that's one thing that I think actually hunters have in common with a lot of vegetarians is that a lot of vegetarians refuse to say, oh, that's just meat. I'm not going to think about it as an animal. You know. They say, no, it's an animal. You know, we got to respect that, and I choose not to eat it, you know, and hunters, by and large, we'll say, you know, I don't want to just think of all my food as just food. Now, it's also an animal that I you know, I know that animals habits, I know the places where that animal lives, and I know that individual animal, the life of you know, which I took. And and so there's a you know, we sort of by hunting, we're forcing ourselves and want to stay connected to that and not just make all meet some commodity on the shelf. Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a unique perspective, just a powerful connection I think that we uniquely get as hunters. That. Yeah, sometimes it's it's hard, it's a it's a frustrating irony when you find some people who don't hunt, but who do eat meat just fine, who want to attack hunters for doing what we do and I can understand sometimes when they see something, how it can seem disrespectful to animals. How there are certainly things out there that frame hunting and hunters in a bad light. And I can understand why nine hunters would see that and nothing too keenly of us sometimes, um, but sometimes there is some amazing hypocrisy out there. Then that is I think on us to better communicate and help people understand why we do what we do and how we do it and how maybe it Unfortunately none of us have clean hands, right, as you said earlier, we all make an impact. We all have blood on our hands, whether we want to admit it or not. If even if you're not eating meat, Um, just by living in this society, we all make an impact. And I think we as hunters, um, like you said, we at least can try to take responsibility for some portion of that, reconnect with that in some way. And UM, I think that's a pretty powerful thing. And and all this stuff we're talking about, UM, I never used to think about this at all. You know, I grew up in a hunting family. I started going out in the woods when I was three years old and I was sitting in the blind with my dad at four and I was hunting with a bow in my hand at thirteen or fourteen. And I don't think I ever thought about what I was doing or why I was doing it, or it was just yeah, it was it was just what you did. And I knew, I knew I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed being up there with my grandpa, my dad and my uncle, and I liked being in in the woods, and I loved watching deer, and I love the idea of hunting. Um. And I ended up, you know, being able to kill a deer and then another deer, and I started having success doing that, and I enjoyed in venice, and it was it was just what you did. Um. And I think a lot of people who grow up hunting, having been just in that culture, in that world, UM, you might not ever take a second to step back and start thinking about hunting. It wasn't for me until I was probably twenty one or twenty two or somewhere around then, when I started actually writing and reading a lot about hunting. Um. You know, just through my work with Wired Hunt, I just was thinking about a lot more, trying to like communicate about it, which led me to reading about other people's perspectives on it, which forced me to start looking at myself, forced me to start looking at what I was doing and how I was doing it and what that meant. And that has been one of the most powerful transitions I think for myself as a hunter over the last decade, as I've gone from just being a hunter to becoming a thoughtful hunter and to actually doing things, um with a clarity of mind, maybe an understanding of of why and how I'm doing these things. Um. You, interestingly, being an adult onset hunter, you were kind of forced to do that deep thinking leading up to it because you had to. For me, I didn't even have a decision to make. It was just this is what you did, and I just fell into it. I think as an adult coming to this, you have to think about these things deeply and and and decide whether or not this is the right thing for you to do and how you're gonna do it. Um, why do you think Maybe it's not even why, but I think so. Do you think that this kind of deep thinking, like considering why we do these things, how we do these things, all these things we just talked about, Do you think it's important for people even that have been hunting their entire lives, to start asking these questions of themselves, or at least to be thinking about these ideas and topics. I think it's I think it's really useful for a variety of reasons, um, And I can touch on one or two of those. Um. I mean I'm hesitant to sort of proselytize anybody and say, no, yeah, you grew up hunting, but now you've got to think about it, and as there's a little heavy handed, you know, to tell people sort of how to think or what to think. Um, but I do you know, I do think it is helpful for all of us, whether we grew up you know, non hunting or in an anti hunting family, to think about and investigate our own beliefs and our own assumptions and and learn more about other perspectives. And the same true for folks who you know, grew up in a very much in a hunting family and hunting culture, to say, oh, well, you know, why why do I think about it this way? And why do those people think about it that way? And just understand. Um. One of the reasons that I think it's really useful to do the kind of you know, reflection and question that you've obviously done. Um. Is that it helps you become a better ambassador. It helps you become someone who can help build these connections and coalitions, you know, whether it has to do with you know, wildlife habitat or public lands or you know, connections between what I call adult stuff hunting and the food movement and just finding the common ground. That doesn't it's not turn everyone into hunters, and that's not the goal. You know, things would be insane if everyone hunted. Uh, just if there's the numbers, Um, it's not. That's not the point. It's not sting everyone in the hunters. But if we want sustainable funding for our fish and wildlife agencies, if we want you know, intact public lands where a variety of types of of recreation are possible for human beings and a variety of diverse wildlife species can can survive, that we need to be able to work together and not always be on these you know, these opposing sides and not perceive ourselves as being on one side versus this, uh, you know, this enemy. So I think for that reason alone, and there are other benefits too, But I think for that reason alone, it's really helpful to reflect on those things and start to recognize some of the ways that we communicate as the other side quote unquote other side communicates, whether it's through you know, the words we use and the images we use that you know don't help, in other ways that do help. Yeah, it's something that UM, maybe to the chagrin of our listeners sometimes I preach about this often in that just being this um what you just subscribed there, How we are perceived by non hunters, how we communicate to non hunters, It matters. And you know, no Number one, like you said, we do want some additional hunters. We do need to make sure we don't lose our hunting population because we have a we have a powerful, meaningful impact on the natural world, and we fund a lot of things, and the work we do from a conservation standpoint is important. So bringing more people into the fold, yes, definitely important. But number two, at a minimum, it's important that people will at least be accepting of our way of life because we live in a democracy where votes in the end end up deciding very often what privileges are allowed and whether you like it or not. Hunting is a privilege right now. It's not something that's guaranteed by the Constitution or anything like that. So if we want to be able to continue to hunt, we need to make sure that people that are voting view our activity as as something that's acceptable in today today's world. And that's on us to make sure that's happening, to make sure that we're representing ourselves in such a way that people can see that and say, Okay, you know what, I get that I maybe don't want to do it, but I'm okay with Mark killing a deer and feeding his family that way. Um. You you said something in a blog post I saw that I liked, um that I think would help this whole challenge of helping hunters non hunters meet and see some things maybe a little more eyed eye. You said, quote, what if at least once in their respective lifetimes, every prius hauleda deer and every hunter drove a hybrid? Can you can you explain that? Why? Why that might be helpful? Well? It was, you know, the that particular their posts came out of an experience I had, right, I took a white Tail and we had my friend and I had two vehicles where we were hunting. We had We had my little hatchback in his little back. Uh I used to I used to have a pickup truck, but at the time I was driving a you know, a little superdu hatchbag. But what we had right there at the wood lot, uh family wood lot of of his was his prius. He turns out he's a lifelong hunter. He's not a you know, not an adult lonset. But I took a picture of it, and I just had these you know, behind legs of this white tail buck hanging out at the end of a prius because it couldn't fit in there, you know, And it was just just the image was so funny. Um. And but I thought it was a great metaphor for bringing together these different uh, these different communities and just sort of trying on for size. You know. Hey, we can think about deer hunting, for example, UM as you know, local, free range, pretty nearly organic food, which really appeals to the to the you know folks in the environmental conservation community. UM, but they don't necessarily always connect that with hunting, and so and lots of hunters, I know, including the guy who owns his previous you know, he and his wife that at the time, I think they owned one car between them and it's the previous And he cares a lot about environmental conservation and you know he he's he's a professional Forrester and worked with you know, the Audubon Society and you know, lots of conservation work. Um, and he's a hunter. Got to be able to see these these sorts of sorts of overlaps in our values and what we're concerned about. Maybe how our image of ourselves and our image of the other getting the way sometimes, So how do we do a better job of that? And that being I guess, how do we do a better job of communicating and representing ourselves so that those types of connections can have can happen, um, Because I think especially today in the world of social media, where messages or imagery can can go out into the world and then it can be shared to far reaching parts of society that that don't have any context around it. There's a lot of examples where things kind of get I don't know, things get kind of crazy. How how do we get better at r PR, How do we get better at handling and aiding an atmosphere where these types of positive connections can happen and not negative mm hmm. I think there are a number of parts to that, and one of them is developing an understanding of what that thing, whether it's a picture or you know, uh, a phrase, you know, language, images, whatever it is, how is that likely to be perceived by folks who aren't who who are who don't have context for it or don't have that experience. Um. And I find that on both sides. Again, I'm using the two side language, which probably bad. Um. But people in both the sort of the the extreme amps will often and this is not just honey and you know, not hunting, but any any sort of issue of our whole world. Yeah, exactly, we sort of we're getting a little bubbles and we just dig in and we're like, look, this is who I am, this is what I believe. Take it or leave it, you know. And so hunters and you know, any number of people can can do that. And we just keep saying and doing and displaying the same stuff. And we don't want often to question it. We don't want to really know. We don't you know, we even say, you know, I don't give it how that person feels, let them be upset. You know, I'm just gonna do it louder and exactly, you know, And I get where that impulse comes from. I mean, I feel that way sometimes. But hmm, if we're thinking about this strategically, and we're thinking about the long haul, as you say, you know, we are an extreme minority as hunters, you know, and in a democracy where votes determined policy. In the long run, you know, you can't have five or of the population just given that, you know, having that screw amattitude, and I think that they're going to continue to be you know, applauded or even tolerated, It's just not going to happen in the long run. So if we just think about, um, whether it's the sorts of pictures that we use, or even even the language that that we use. And I'm not saying we should like totally censor ourselves and not use the sorts of language that we're accustomed to up grew up with, but we need to at least be aware of the impact that I can have and make an effort to sort of translate it for people. You know, if I here's the context of this, here's what you know this means in my community, and I can understand how it might not make sense or might be offensive in your community. Let's talk about that. You know, here's what this image meant to me or or means to my people. You know, And I don't understand what you're saying. You keep using this, you know, this word, and I think it means this, and that really ticks me off. But what do you mean? You know, I mean, just finding ways to have that kind of conversation about about how we're you know, communicating, instead of falling prey to the temptation to just jump into that sort of fight or flight mode. You know, I feel we're under assault as hunters were defensive were. I mean, that's a certain mindset. But rather than just falling into we're going to fight the good fight, realize that there are probably a bunch of people who on this quote other side are also falling prey to that temptation to fly off the handle and just dig in and get angry and you know, and blame us for being you know, barbarians. Um. And if if there's some on that side and some on this side who can resist that temptation and walk into you know, the admittedly pretty uncomfortable territory of saying, you know, maybe my view isn't the whole truth. Maybe there are other perspectives out there that you know, have some degree of validity to them, and maybe we could find out more about each other. You know, it's uncomfortable, it's and it can be really you know three perfectly honest. It can be really disorienting when you start to realize that, oh my gosh, this view that I thought was just like horrible. You know, I still don't agree with it, but it kind of makes sense now that I understand it. Right, that's goods orient and confusing, and to your point, you might not necessarily agree with them, but at least understanding the the background or understanding the rationale for that can can still help us better work together or at least understand each other a little bit more, even if we still vehemently disagree with each other. Um That in itself, I think is a step that can make a big difference. Yeah, absolutely, And whether that's to the future of hunting or you know, while less conservation more broadly, or any number of other things, it can make a huge difference. Just having that some of that sort of bipartisanship speaking of you touched on language. You talked about how one of the things we can focus on how we talk about things, and it just made me think of a question, uh that I get sometimes, and that is how to what word to use when describing what we do when we either kill or harvest an animal. I've I've used both the different times, and I've had people. I've had people criticize me. Yeah, they'll tell me, why would you say you're harvesting an animal? That's disrespectful to the animal because you're treating it just like you're referring to it almost like a crop um Or you have people who say, why would you say that's the criticism of harvest, and the criticism if I say I killed the deer, they said, Oh, you shouldn't use the word kill. That's too harsh. You're gonna set people or people will um. You know, I don't know. You can't win with either one. I tend, I personally tend to use the word kill, not because it's some type of vicious term, simply because it is the reality of what we're doing. And I'm um, it's it's what's happening here, and I'm going to take that responsibility. But that's just me. I don't have anything against anyone for using either or what are your thoughts though from from your unique perspective, having been on, you know, being outside out the hunting community at one point and now inside of it, how what are your views on those two words and how we refer to what we're doing. I don't tend to use harvest either. UM. I find it feels a little weird, and it does feel like I'm talking about the animal like a crop. I get sort of the why it's used and how deeply embedded is in state and other wildlife management professions and institutions UM, and in the hunting community more broadly. So I get it UM. And some people really use it in a very mindful way and they're thinking about what what harvest really means. And you know, so I've sort of gotten more accustomed to it, but I still don't use it UM. I would rather use something that seems more, as you say, sort of more honest about this is what's happening, what we're doing. UM. You know, I personally often use the word take UM, which I used take and kill typically UM. Take is not as sort of direct as kill UM. But sometimes all I'll use that sort of as a middle ground where it's it's not you know, not not a crop, not a crop word you know? Is there is there validity to that? Um? That criticism of talking about killing an animal as a as a former vegan and vegetarian who probably had some anti hunting views, when you heard someone say I'm killing a deer. I killed a deer, did that even turn you off even more? Um? And I asked that, because now, if we're thinking about how can we better communicate to non hunters, how should we be talking about this? Does that even matter? Um? I don't know that that particular language, you know, matters a whole lot. But I don't thank you. From my memory and my perspective, I don't think that someone using the word kill was any more upsetting. I mean, if anything, it felt like sometimes it felt like harvest was kind of euphemism, like you're kind to pretend you're not killing, Like come on, you know, don't don't hide behind that word you're killing something. Uh. So I don't think that I don't think that using the word kills a problem for the non hunting public, that they know what you're doing, getting can't hide that. Yeah, So, so we can improve how we talk about hunting a little bit. We can try to represent ourselves in a in a more positive, respectful light to make sure from the outside looking in, what we're doing, you know, is is a positive thing. Um, But how do we go about introducing new people to hunting being an adult onset hunter? Is there anything you can share, you know, either someone helped you out that you said, yeah, this was really helpful, this helped me get into it, or anything that we can be doing now to to better help bring people into this community. Well, the biggest draw for most of the people who are getting into hunting now as adults here in the US and in Canada for that matter, is food. I mean those of us who have more experienced hunting, and certainly those of us who like you, grew up hunting. You know, you're hunting for lots of reasons, right, It's not just food, it's not just you know, any one thing. It's a whole mix of reasons. Right. And yet the the place that people that adults are mostly first connecting to it, they might be you know, through a friendship or you know a relationship between boyfriend girlfriend or spouses or whatever it might be, that kind of relation, relationship connection. But the thing that makes them interested at first, it's food, by and large, that's the most common thing. And so just giving people the opportunity to try venison for example, that's been you know, well prepared and that they find delicious. You know, if you want to interest people in hunting, you give them a chance to two see it as a source of food and to actually try the food, you know, and that's like the the big gateway into the interest. Um. Now there's a vast territory between interests and being a self identified hunter who can and will go out in the woods on your own and hut um. And that's something that there are a lot of folks interested in right now. Um. And I've been doing some work with with a few folks on this is what are the barriers for new adults? What are the barriers or some of the obstacles for people who want to coach them or instruct them or mentor them, and how do we navigate that? You know, as long as it's just you know, cultural differences, political value differences, perception and stereotypes, all the stuff we've been talking about, you know, can come up. Uh, but having someone to turn to, not necessarily going to take you out hunting every season or you know, anything like that, but just someone who knows the basics, um and can give you advice, you know, someone to turn to anything from well how do I pick out an appropriate rifle or you know, what is what do I look for in a good hunting spot or any anything? Just having someone like for me, with my uncle, I could email him. I only see him like once or twice a year because we lived five hours apart, but I could email him, and I did mercilessly. And I had just had so many questions because you said you were you know, in the field at three or four, Right, you learned stuff when you were a kid that you don't even remember learning. There's I mean, you're just steeped in it. And by the time you were fifteen, you probably know more, knew more about hunting than I know now, you know. I mean, it's just a fact. You just absorb that from your experiences, from family, friends, just you know, you know so much. And so those of us who come to it in our twenties, thirties, forties, we don't know any of that, and we're starting. You know, we don't know the lingo, we don't know what deer sign even looks like in the woods. I mean, we don't know anything. Um. And so just being a resource someone who's you know, willing to be asked, you know, just not like like not give become this person's with some buddy and go out and mention them every day of the season or something crazy, but just being a support and encouragement and a resource for them, whether it's technical information or you know, if if they're struggling, if they've wounded an animal, God forbid, you know, and there's gonna be you know times in any any new hunter's career of becoming an hunter that they're gonna have doubts about something um and having you know, someone who can just listen to them and not not try to fix it, not trying to tell them you know, how they should feel, but just you know, you've probably been somewhere similar. Even if you didn't have the same kind of doubts they had, you know you've been in a similar situation and at least you have some inkling of what they're struggling with. And they gotta talk to a hunter. So it's it's so true, and it's it's easy. UM. I think sometimes I fall into this and I found myself. UM, you fall into especially if you're someone who's so um Like for me, I'm a self identified hunter, and it really is like my life. My entire life kind of revolves around the things I do from a hunting perspective, and I can get so caught up in all the different things I'm doing, the places I'm going to, the projects i'm working on, the time I'm spending in the field. It becomes really easy to become really selfish. Unfortunately, and all of a sudden, the season goes by and you're like, wow, I didn't take out anyone else hunting, or I didn't help anyone else out. Um. It's easy to fall into that, and I think it's something that at least me personally, I'm trying to find ways to to get better about that and to just somehow UM keep myself reminded of the fact that that it's important to reach out to new people. It's important to offer that mentorship if you can, to to take a day and take someone else out. UM. Like you said, you don't need to commit to taking someone out everything single time you're going hunting. Um. But I think if we can all help you know, one person out once a year or something, or as a starting point at least, I'm going to try to find ways like that to do this and start making some kind of impact, um because if not, it's really easy for us to get obsessed with our own thing and forget about the bigger picture, which I think is uh, which is a dangerous thing for the future of of our lifestyle. Sure. And the other reason why doing that matters so much just getting some of these folks helping them find a path in to hunting if they want to explore it is because they become your best ambassadors. They might be. They might be the only hunter in their family, or the only hunter in their workplace or their circle of friends or whatever it is. And even if they only hunt for five years, even if they decide not to continue and become a lifelong hunter, they have hunted. They are gonna be talking about hunting to some degree. They're going to have a perspective on hunting and what it means and who hunters are that is totally different from the stereotypes that circulate around them. And so there they can be the translators. You don't have to like like just like talk about hunting differently and just do different you know, take or show different pictures related to hunting. I mean, not that's all great, but if you introduce one person to hunting, they're the ones who can help build that bridge. Yeah, there's a there's a significant ripple effect, absolutely, and so for the rest of their life they are likely to have that that kind of ripple effect out among people, even if they don't keep hunting. Yeah, and either they don't keep buying a license and contributing to the agency through that particular funding mechanism. Yeah, that's that's an important thing to remember. It's it's it's a long term type of impact you can have just with that perspective that can be shared with one other person who could be shared with one other person who then shares that with two other people, and that that could be the salvation of what we're trying to do here and then in the long run, Um, yeah, I mean I see, I see that happening a lot right now with you know, with like folks who are involved with uh, you know, just getting in a hunting particularly folks who are involved with the back country hunters and anglers. You know, it's it's bridging this gap between the environmental community and the hunting community. And they're folks who I know, who are you know? Adult hunters only been hunting for a handful of years, but they believe in what you know that organization is doing, or just they're involved other sorts of conservation work and they are the only hunter or one of the first hunters and their circles of friends and family and people are like, wow, you hunt, and it just changes the conversation. Yeah. So so speaking of adult onset hunters, one of the one of the biggest challenges and surveys have shown this and I think anecdotally a lot of us can relate to this. One of the greatest challenges for all hunters, let alone new hunters, is finding somewhere to hunt. If you don't live next to some giant public land or if you don't own ground, it can be really hard to find places to hunt in a lot of parts of the country, which is why I personally thinking a lot of people think that having public lands, having healthy and accessible public lands, is so important. Um and I've seen that you are on the board of directors for or you on the board for the New England Chapter of back Country Hunters and Anglers. I'm on the board for the Michigan Chapter of back Country Hunters and Anglers. UM. I'm pretty passionate about this as well. But why why are you involved the organization? I mean, largely because of that gap bridging that I see them doing. You know, they're willing to take on stuff and especially public lands issues, but but other issues as well that help and then do it in a way that helps bridge the gap between the pretty broad range of different cons of Asian groups UM and perspectives UM. As far as access, I mean in certain parts, certainly of New England, UM, Massachusetts and Connecticut come to mind, it's an issue. It's a serious issue. And development. I mean, partly it's lack of public lands, UM, because we don't have nearly as much public lands as are out in the West. But it's also just the rate of development. I mean, what's happened in Massachusetts, Western Massachusetts over the past you know, twenty years, thirty years, phenomenal. They're losing forest land and other wilife had it had an incredible rates because people are building houses and strip malls or whatever else. UM. So I think having a an active hunting conservation voice like b h A, where you know, it's we're speaking the language of access, public land, wildlife, habitat all this UM in a way that isn't ostracizing but actually is encouraging really good partnerships with other conservation groups. And so I think that folks like v h A, Proud Limited and a few others are doing that in a really constructive way, UM and not doing it in a highly sort of partisan way where it's you know, just about hunting or just about one thing, but public lands and access and and while it habitat and places where you can go and get some quiet. So those are commonly held values. And this goes back to what you said at the beginning. You know, this is there's something that Teddy Roosevelt and John Leir could agree on despite their disagreement on hunting. Yeah. I agree, And I think that to your point there, the message of groups like b h A, it really resonates with with me, and I think it can resonate with a lot of other people too because of that fact. It's it's very um m hmmm. I don't know, all inclusive in in a way, and it also speaks to some of our core central tenants of what we care about. So we talked earlier about how there's a lot of positive things that can come out of the hunting community working with the non hunting conservation community, and I think we do have. In some cases, there are significant differences, like some people within that community are not okay with the idea of killing animals. Of course that's something we do, so there's a significant difference there. But what we do all care about. We do care about healthy landscapes, We do care about clean water. We do care about access to wildlife habitat and healthy populations of wildlife and having the opportunities to do those things. So I think I think the more the hunting and fishing conservation organizations can focus on those aspects, I think we're gonna have more opportunities for collaborations. So that's that's why I personally been excited about b h A or organizations like the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership that really work on this this inclusive approach, like let's bring people together rather than pointing out, well, we don't we disagree on this one thing, So we were never going to talk to you or work with you, or you know, attack some other group because they did work with a group that has some opposing views. Um As if that's a bad thing, that we can work with people have different views sometimes. Um, I think that's actually a good thing. I think it's a good idea that we find ways to to bridge those gaps, to find commonality, to work towards shared goals. Um. If we want to keep doing what we're doing and be able to live this hunting lifestyle, to be able to hunt and fish and have places to do that and have healthy wildlife and have you know, some trees and some rivers and some wild places to get into, we're going to have to do those things moving forward because they're just there's so many pressures on this way of life in these places that could change that if we aren't standing up for him. Yeah, and and having as many people unified standing up for those things as we can. But I think I think it's it's really important if we start saying, well, if we find one thing we disagree on, we're not gonna never talk to each other again. You know that's crazy. Yeah, I mean, if I had to habit. We kind of do that often. If if you aren't, if you don't match me perfectly and agree with me on everything, then you're my enemy, you know. And it's sadly, you know, it's it's a common sort of thing to do. But you know, if you and I, the two of us talk long enough, we'll find something we disagree on. It's just it's not practical, Like I'm just when it comes to these different things, like you can get emotional about things, and you can get you know, revved up about something, or you can get upset about something, or you can really not like an idea. Um. But when it comes right down to it, if I have a set of goals, and if the most practical, pragmatic way to achieve those goals is to make compromise occasionally, or to agree to disagree, or to you know, say all right, well, you know I don't necessarily like everything about you, but hey, we've got this thing in common. Let's work towards this shared thing. It's just simply the reality of life. If you if you want to get things done, if you want to achieve goals, you're gonna have to take things from a pragmatic standpoint and not just that emotional, emotionally charged UM kind of way of a approaching issues these days that I think is just causing a lot of crazy things we see happening these days. I think that we've covered a lot of interesting stuff here, um, and I always like to talk about we are I said this to you earlier, and I also mentioned on the show sometimes we always got like to mix in our vegetables and our candy. And today we've been talking a lot about these issues that sometimes aren't fun to talk about or to hear about. You know, these are the things that sometimes, um, we'd like to be talking about a great hunting story or some great adventure or ideas for how to you know, have a more successful hunt. Um, that's a lot of fun to do. But in the long run, if we want to be able to have those conversations, we need to get into this nitty gritty stuff every once in a while, and uh till far. I think you're your insight and your experience and kind of your background uniquely I think helps you share this this perspective that I think is a really good one for people in the hunting community here. So I appreciate you doing that, Tobar, and I want to ask you one last question if people, If people want to learn more about your perspectives and ideas and some of your messages for this community, where can they find that stuff online either or or your book? Where can they find these things from you too? Our my website easy to find, just my name Tobar Ceruti tech of a thing to spell t O v A r C E r U l l I dot com. But just the mindful carnivore will uh certainly get you too to my my website, as well as to any number of places you know, Amazon or your local bookstore or whatever where you could could get the book if you're curious. Awesome. Well, I, like I said earlier, highly recommended. I enjoyed reading it, read it a handful of years ago, and it's been one that's I've pointed people towards for a long time now. So if you haven't read it yet, give it a look. Interesting read and Tobar, thank you again for for taking some time here and chatting with us. This has been really interesting and I really enjoyed it. Hey, thanks for having me Mark. And that's a wrap, folks, But a couple of quick reminders. Number one, if you haven't left us a rating on iTunes, it takes like twenty seconds. It's a huge help to the wire Hunt podcast, so please do that if you can. Number two, go head on over to the wired to Hunt YouTube channel. I've mentioned this a little bit over the past few weeks, but I'm posting a lot more videos than I used to try and do a minimum of a weekly video kind of documenting all the things going on in my life related to hunting right now. So be sure to check out the wired hunt YouTube channel and otherwise, just want to thank our partners who helped make all of this possible. So big things to sit a gear Yetie Cooler's Matthews Archery, maybe an Optics, the white Tail Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge and hunt Maps, And finally, thanks for being here with us, thanks for tuning in, thank you for your attention and your support, and until next time, stay wired Ton

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