Ep. 7: Charles Post

he also goes hunting too. He's not he's not a complete rookie in the game. He lives in Bozeman, Montana. He works with Sitka. He works as a editor for the new magazine Modern Huntsman. He's really becoming a pretty important voice in the hunting world from his purchase as somebody who has a lot of science his knowledge of the outside world. So it was a fun conversation with Charles.

He is enlightened in a lot of ways that I am not, So it was fun to talk to him about some of his philosophies and how he came up about conservation, about conservation history, about the outdoor recreation community, and their relationship with hunters, and then it's just about how we think about our pursuits going outside. So hopefully

this is another great conversation that you will enjoy. Is a part of this grander scheme of the Hunting collect Episode number seven on tap Enjoy, Charles, how's it going good? I always like to start this thing out by describing where I am, or where we are, or where you are. But in this case, I am in sunny Austin, Texas, and I imagine you are in less sunny Bozeman. Is that right? That's pretty close to it. It's spring actually showed up here probably about two weeks ago, so it's sunny.

It's there's more sun, which is nice. It's been a cold, dark winter. Yeah, what what is that? I mean, there is barely any winter here. If it's thirty two degrees in Austin, they shut the schools down. How you enjoying the Montana winter? The Montana Winner has been awesome. I really I think I've fallen more in love with the season as it kind of marched on. It's that they say it's one of the harshest winners in the last twenty years, so we've had quite a bit of snow.

It started really falling in September, and it's snow to two or three days ago, so it's definitely still here. And everybody who grew up in in Bozeman talks about these these false springs. You know, you you pull your your shorts and your running shoes out, and then you get a few days of sun and you kind of get tricked into thinking and is gonna warm up? And

then it snows again for a week. So I'm trying not to uh look too far ahead down the calendar, but the few days of sun and forty three weather, I've been a really nice reprieve and um, but yeah, it's been awesome. You know, I grew up in northern California, so I haven't this is my first year living in a proper snowy, snowy environment, and uh that was my Yeah, that was my next line of thought was you're in a coologist that grew up in California and this is

you're and you're bearing the Montana winter. Yeah it's um, it's been different. You know. One of the things that I love about California, Northern California in particular, is that I can go walk through most of the ecosystems and have a pretty good understanding of when I'm looking at, you know, the plants and animals and the geology, and you know, I just I spent a lot of my

life out there getting familiar with those places. So it's been really fun coming to Montana and not only having to you know, learn a whole suite of new plants and animals, but also, yeah, I just kind of seeing how the seasons progress, and I really I really love

the really distinct seasons. You know, Fall has a real distinct feeling, and winter certainly does, and spring you get this kind of incredible proliferation of flowers, which you know, mostly new flowers, you know for me, and and then summers just you know, a whole different experience because there's no ocean, so you know, you're trying to find a river a lake to cool offen. Um. But yeah, no, it's been it's been wonderful. I mean, one of the

greatest things about Montana just how much wildlife there is. Um. Yeah, that's for sure. So I've been enjoying that. I was reading a little bit about your background and know of of your work a good bit and the first thing that came to my mind was what was it like to study ecology at u C. Berkeley, Because I just I've been listening to a lot of different podcasts and hearing a lot about how, you know, what the tenor is now in these college campuses and how it is

changed a lot. But but studying what you did at the place that you did, I'd just be interested to know, as someone who's never been to that area the world's like to study what you studied at you see Berkeley, Yeah, you know, you see Berkeley is a pretty pretty awesome place to to study ecology for a few reasons, and one is that the the university was founded as a as a land grant university, so you know, some of the first kind of areas of focus were grazing and

forestry and and resource management. So there's definitely a pretty rich, pretty much history of of of yeah, that type of research, and some really uh celebrated people came out of Berkeley, like Joseph Cornell and Luna Leopold out of Leopold's son, So it was it was awesome because I was I was being by people who had learned from some of the kind of forefathers of wildlife, ecology and conservation you know today or when I was there, and you know

the ten I finished undergraduate there in two thousand and fifteen, I finished graduate school there. It's changed a lot, you know, the barrier has a ton of people, but there's still that kind of undercurrent of of conservation, you know, history, that's that's that's kind of peppered throughout some of the buildings, and uh, some of the old time professors are still there. So yeah, it was it was perfect for me. You know, I grew up just about an hour west of there,

UM where there's a lot of open space. You know, you have the fair Lands National Marine Refuge. It's like, yeah, right off shore, you have Point Raised National Seashore and there's all this public land. So it was a nice like juxtaposition of of kind of this semi urban campus experience, you know, and then a lot of open space nearby UM. And I think, you know, generally the ecology department there is considered one of the top ones in the country,

especially amongst the public schools. So one of the things I loved about it was that I was rubbing shoulders

with with kids and peers from all over the world. Um. And I was exposed to so many different perspectives and topics, and you know, it was a really transformative experience because you know, you look at the courses that are available in any given semester and you could learn about honey bees from one of the best honeybee experts, or wildlife biology from a you know, really celebrated wildlife biologists, and you know, and you could really go down these rabbit holes,

which is a young kind of hungry student. It's just there's nothing better than having options and and feeling like if you if you something sparks your curiosity, there's a place to go run with it. Um. Yeah. And it was you know, it was there that I fell in love with science and also realized that that you could

make a living being a scientist. You know, that's you think about like bring your parents to school day when you're an elementary school and I don't know about you, but there were no ecologist dads or moms that that came in. Um. So yeah. So it's kind of one of those things where you know, I think a college or a good mentor a good professor, they kind of impress upon you that idea that it is a career.

And I think what kind of hooked me was a certain presentation where this you know, it was it was the first day of school and it was a fish ecology course and this professor named Stephanie Carlson walked in and she was probably in her early thirties at the time, and she was just so passionate, so energetic, so just relatable. You know, sometimes there's there's a there's a better fit to being that kind of old seasoned scientists, and there's something to be said for those young kind of yeah,

energetic scientists, and and she was. She was the ladder.

And she showed us some pictures of her graduate research where she was with a bunch of young people in Alaska studying salmon, and she explained how you can live at research stations and conduct this research, and you know, kind of the light bulbon off, and I realized that you could actually make a career basically just walking around the woods, are you know, any ecosystem with the clipboard and binoculars and and study these places and and make a living out of it. So I think Berkeley, Yeah,

that it planted that seed. So yeah, you're a professional hunter without any without any weaponry. Yeah, I mean our tools, Yeah, like a pencil and binoculars and some write in the rain notebooks. Um yeah, what are the major like I know you go through is many years studying as you as you did there, Um, what are the major philosophies that you came out of of that with when it in regards to wild life and you know, our cohabitation and some of the things, you know we talked about

in the hunting world. Where their philosophies that you carried out of there that have that have really stuck with you or that that you think people should should know from from that time. Yeah, I think you know, as an undergrad, I think I kinda fell in love with with with science, and then as a graduate student at UC Berkeley, working with a lot of the same professors, I really developed kind of the the staples for being

a good scientist. And when you talked about philosophy, one of the things that my graduate advisor, her name's Dr Mary Power, she impressed, you know, upon the importance of collecting notes and making observations and growing up you know, surfing and kind of spending time outside at it. It

kind of added another layer to that experience. Because she taught us, and I came to realize that if you really want to be a good ecologist, you need to master the craft of observing and taking notes and noticing trends and then figuring out ways to put numbers to those observations so you can use math to predict or

understand you know more about them. And for a few years, as when I was working as a as a field scientist and a graduate school, I mean, we're taking notes every day throughout the day, and it's something that I think is really shaped the way I see the world today and shaped a lot of the ways that I approach you know, storytelling or different topics and conservation the outdoors, because so often people qualify your time outside by miles hiked,

days spent camping, or you know, distance climbed or speed you know over which you covered ground, And in science, the metric of success is how well you observes a place, how well you understand a place, And I think there's just such a huge difference between being a speed hiker or you know, climb up a mountain really quickly and really knowing that place, knowing the rhythms of the place, understanding the patterns and the discrepancies that make a place unique.

So I think that philosophy is really just to be an observer, and I learned that early on, and I think that's become kind of a north star of sorts as of kind of moved along in time. That's interesting that I find that, you know, I don't often go outside with the clipboard, um pen or anything like that,

but sometimes I wish I did. In fact, a lot of times I wish I did, because there's just things that you s maybe you don't understand even in the moment, that that strike you as odd or strike you is compelling, that you may if you're hunting, you may walk right past that seen or that that animal, or that you know, whatever is happening there that that you would you may look further into as in a collegist, but as a really anybody going outside or even as a hunter, you

walk right past because you're tunnel focused on on your end goal. Um is there, you know, as you become We'll get into a little bit of your your hunting life later and how kind of how things have gone recently. But have you any advice for any for for hunters or folks that might be listening to anybody on how to really nail down your observations in the outside world

and make them connect. Yeah. I mean one of the things when I was in grad school, um, I was teaching a field biology course for a few years, and one of the things that always do with my students. Most of them were freshmen or sophomore. A lot of them are premed, so they hadn't actually, uh, you know, taking an ecology course. This is generally their first time

really getting out in the field. And what I would always do is bring them out into a you know, a wild setting or you know, somewhere kind of away from traffic, and you know, we'd go on a hike or go out to some of the regional parks up in the Berkeley Hills, and I would just kind of put them out there and say, sit down for fifteen minutes and just listen. Just sit against a tree and

just observe. And it's amazing how much you can glean from a place by just actually shutting off the outside world and focusing on what you hear and what you see and those little subtleties, and to see them come back. We'd sit in a circle and everybody kind of share their observation. I think when you hear fifteen people's unique obs rations about one place, you start to realize how

much you miss. When you're running through a place or just focused on one thing, whether it's your bird watching, you're you're looking for sheds, or you're looking for elk, you know, you miss so many other little bits and pieces that make up the ecosystem. And I think for you know, hunters, or you know, anybody listening, you know, one of the things that that maybe they already do.

But what I would suggest is, you know, go to the places that you love and bring a pair of binoculars and and really just sit and look for everything but elk, or look for everything but dear, and start to piece together the kind of missing threads that make that place that you love so much and and are

drawn to, you know, all the more relatable. And you know what my advisor told me, Mary Powers, that you know, in thirty years of observing a place, you can really start to understand how it changes, or how it how it moves through time, through the seasons. And you know what supports that idea is that if you look at all the science papers out there the ones that are really informing us about how our planets changing, or how a place has changed from development or from some sort

of policy or management. Are these ten twenty thirty year data sets? You know, you're not gonna there's there's no science papers out there that are changing the way we understand the world with two years of data or three years of data. You know, these are ten decade long data sets. And when you have that much data, then

you can really start to see something clearly. And I think just applying you know, that simple you know, act of observing regularly over time just will help you become more familiar with the place and you know, allow you to better understand how animals are changing, your trails are changing, or have vegetations changing, which might then inform the way that you move about the land or or pursue certain animals, or or just kind of you know, how you experienced

that place. Um, you know, and binoculars obviously a lot of you know, most hunters have a good pair of binoculars. But another thing that I've done, which is super nerdy and probably people will laugh at when they hear me say this out loud, but I'm totally up for it. Um is you know, get like a little zoom mike, you know, just like a little recorder, plug in your headphones and turn up the volume and go out in

the woods and just turn up the volume. And you can hear so much that you never would have heard because our ears just don't pick it up. You know, the super high and the super low sounds that our ears can't you know, literally are not able to pick up, you will hear. And it just adds this incredibly rich kind of layer to a place. Um. Yeah, people might make fun of you for walking around the forest with phones and a little record. Man, you're describing very very

hippie ideas. Here a circle describe describe what you see hold up for a quarter. But I I would be totally down for that. And a good example of that is sitting in a turkey blind in Florida a couple of days ago. Well, we had a couple of rookie hunters in there, and um, they kind of wouldn't shut up the whole time, and I had to tell him, hey, listen and here's what to listen for as a turkey hunter. Listen for an owl, listen for a crow, and listen

for thunder. I mean, these are things that all might end in a turkey gobble, and even just that small realization to them that if you listen, you might not hear a gobble every time, but you might understand what what evokes a gobble, or what proceeds one or what follows wanted understand what it all means a little bit more, or just observing a hen with a lone hen walking around a food plot, I can tell you a lot about turkeys and their mannerisms. Yeah, you're exactly right, and

that that was just a bunch of hunters. I wondered how much I would know about crow behavior, our behavior in the turkey woods if it wasn't for turkeys. But I certainly know as much as as anybody would know about how that would relate to turkeys. Maybe not the entire ecosystem, but but it's a start. Yeah, And I

think that's you know, so much of it. There's a there's a book that really inspired me called The Great Animal Orchestra by a guy named Bernie Krauss, highly recommended, and it's all about the ecology of sound and what he argues, which I believe, and I think the science community at large is is accepting, is that we can go do a walk through a forest with a bunch of biologists, right and you know, you have a bird biologist and a tree biologists, and you know somebody who's

a specialist on mammals, and we can get our clipboards and make our observations and and do our best to do a survey of the wildlife and the vegetative community, and we'll come back and collect that data. You can then go through that same ecosystem with precise audio equipment and you will pick up so much more than our eyes ever will. So what he presents in this book is this idea that for example, a case study he uses is that you know, sometimes people will come into

a forest and say, we're gonna do selective logging. We're gonna pull fifteen trees out of this place, and it's not going to have any impact, will be supersensitive. We'll do it in this way, in that way to ensure that you know that the community at large is protected. And he has amazing before and after audio data. You know, if you look at a an acoustic sonograph and you can see all the different calls of all the different birds, you can actually visually, there might be no difference. You

look at that that soundscape, and there's a really distinct difference. UM. So it's kind of interesting because you know, eyes only tell us so much, but like you're saying, our ears are such a big part of that as well. You know, there's a lot of things you'll never you'll never see, but you'll hear. And he points out, you know, maybe we should listen more closely, um, if we really hope to understand how these ecosystems are changing or how we're

affecting them. But it's pretty cool book, it's a great point. We'll check that out. Um. As you're talking, I was just thinking about your point about thirty years of data really having a total taring, like a total effect on how we think, Like we're not we can't really make any decisions or assumptions about how we affect the natural world in such a short time. And you think about the idea of conservation in America, it's not that old. I mean, it's three times thirty maybe, UM, a little

bit more than that. I mean, at the turn of the century we really started to see those id he is codifying and becoming a thing. You know, what's your idea of of our model conservation and it's relatively young, the grand scheme of the natural world, And as an ecologist, do you look at the act differently or the plan differently, or the way that we have set this all up in North America or at least in the States. Yeah,

it's a great question. I mean, I think, you know, one of the recurring thoughts to have about the North American model and conservation in general, is that we have to think about the landscape of conservation and the currency of conservation, and for better or for worse, if you're a scientist, your currency is publishing a paper, and a lot of papers rely on data sets that are collected over a PhD or a master's degree, or over a ten year which you know, maybe you work for a

certain department for eight or ten years. Um. So the way that we're managing wildlife are oftentimes informed by these shorter data sets, which in some cases the best we can do. But I think it's important to to just keep in mind that if we're looking at a place and over the course of ten years, we might be missing a lot. And especially now with the way are you know, planets changing from development and different kind of

human and influenced pressures. We can't forget that twenty years from now is going to be very different than twenty years ago. And instead of thinking about conservation or goals and a static sense you know, this is our goal and wants to accomplish it, we're good, you know, we need to, I think, look at conservation metrics in a very plastic way, you know, we need to look at them as benchmarks that have a plus or mindus, like

a standard deviation, right, like the room to wiggle. Because the second we wrap our hearts and minds around a very static, singular goal, we basically lose sight of the fact that ecosystems change in time. They're constantly changing, whether

it's succession or whether it's humans. You know, like a mountain range could be free of jeep roads today and in two years there's gonna be a jeep road going through it, and that's going to totally change the way wildlife move about the land and the way that our impact exists or doesn't exist on the land. So I think one of the things to consider, you know, when we talk about wildlife, we talk about um bag limits or or seasons is that ten years from now is

gonna be very different than today. And I think it's just, yeah, it's important to to not only plan ahead and realize there's some unknown but also realized that conservation exists on a metric of of of good and could be better, you know, And I think it's always room to improve um and also that conservation. People will talk about conservation north America, are conservation in Canada? Are conservation in Africa.

Conservation exists, in my opinion, on a specific place in a specific time, and oftentimes they're not comparable to one another. You know, Texas Conservations is inherently different than Idaho. Idaho is different than Alberta. Alberta is different than Kenya. Kenya is different than Zibabwe. So you see these headlines or some of these kind of you know, kind of far reaching assumptions or claims, and I think it just takes away from the beauty of science, right like or a

or a wildlife manager. You know, these people are experts in their population, in their park, in their region, and they're part of the state um and the realities on the ground are all very different. So, you know, I think you can have these overarching models of conservation. But I think it's really important to consider that, you know, Eastern Montana is very different in Western Montana. Um and wildlife and conservation succession to be looked at through that

particular lens. Yeah, I think that's important. And you know, in our model conservation, that's what they say states control the wildlife and and science controls the quotas and how we how we manage those things, which which always made a lot of sense to me, and I think inside of that model, the federal government plays a pretty good, pretty good role, one to to manage the funds that come from some of the resources that we put into it, but then also to manage our public lands and make

sure those places are there for everybody, um in a way that that we know only they can. So that's those are those are good points. Do you imagine the term conservation will shift over time? I mean, really a good example I think it is probably the wild turkey or even the white tailed deer. I mean, the n w t F kind of came of age. National Turkey Federation came of age to save the turkey and save its habitat. And I think we could probably all agree

that the turkeys fairly saved. They're they're everywhere. Uh, the same with the white tailed deer. The white tailed deers is needed saving at some point, now probably not so much, probably more needs managing the overall sense. Yeah, what do you imagine that those those things change over time and that maybe at some point in this in this country white tail deal will again be um in need of of saving or turkeys will be in need of saving, but they aren't currently. So how do you manage those

ideas as they flow through time. It's a great question, I mean. And one of the things that you know, I think about is that there's never been more white tailed deer than there are today. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Uh. One is a lack of predators. One is the fact that are super flexible animal that can take advantage of you know, suburban or semi urban environments. Um. You know, So I think at white tailed deer and I think about the fact that they're kicking out mule

deer in some systems. So when when do we get to a point where managers are forced to recognize that white tailed deer might be almost an invasive species where they're moving into a historically mule deer ecosystem, kicking them out just because we've kind of given them a leg up and a chance to do that. Um. And I think, you know, white tailed deer, we can manage them, can serve them. But I think there's a difference between managing

for a species and managing for the ecosystem. And I think conservation hopefully will move more towards managing the ecosystem. You know, obviously, these these deer and turkey and elka would bring a lot of people out into nature to hunt them and pursue them and watch them and photograph them. But there's a fine line between managing for one species

and managing for an ecosystem. And I think you know, with you know, we live in a time right now, it's the sixth mass extinction, but you know, there animals are going extinct a hundred to a thousand times faster than they would be naturally without humans, and we're losing you know, species across North America. You know, the monarch butterfly,

you know that's imperiled. There's obviously not a community of diehard monarch stewards like there are for folks who are passionate about white tailed deer, but maybe that should be a metric for white tailed deer habitat. You know, if we want a healthy ecosystem to support healthy deer, we should be thinking about you know, the fish and the

waterways and the butterflies and the song birds. And if we only manage whitetail deer, they might get to a point where they're over graze and repairing corridors, which doesn't help songbirds and insects that need those habitats to thrive. Um. You know. So I think the initial conservation mindset was like, let's save the white tail deer because they're being extirpated. Let's you know, save grizzly bearers because they've been extrapated.

Let's save bighorn cheap because they're, you know, being extrapated. And I think today, I think we've done a pretty good job of establishing some of those seed populations and at least stabilizing some of the strongholds. Um. But the kind of animals on the periphrey plants and animals on the periphrey that don't have the the you know, Monerich Butterfly Foundation or the laz Light Bunting Foundation, you know, they need some love too, So I think that more foundations.

You're telling me we need more foundations wildlife foundations, Oh gosh, it would I mean, selfishly, I think it'd be amazing if there were little communities of people passionate about, you know, all the kind of less charismatic flora and fauna. I mean, And there are you know, I mean American kestrals they're in decline, and there's I personally know people who are totally passionate about American kestrals, building nest box like the boring,

the boring animal Society of America. Yeah, the boring animals to the masses. But you know, one of the things I always tell people is that and this, you know, I would argue this is this is true. Behind almost every species, plant or animal, there is a grad student, an undergrad, a scientist, a biologist, somebody out there who's dedicated their life and so much of their time to

the preservation of that organism. Which gives me a lot of hope, you know, because when I was in grad school, I would go to a seminar, go have lunch with folks, and you'd sit down next to a kid who was obsessed about this certain species of allergy, and you'd sit next to a girl who was obsessed with this certain type of alpine flower, and you know, while there might not be a foundation for that alpine flower, there's definitely somebody who's pouring their heart and soul into that and

that species preservation, which is a pretty cool thing. Yeah, No, that that paints a pretty good picture, pretty good tapestry of a bunch of people that care about wildlife and wanted to thrive and in many different ways. UM. And this goes back to I had Shane Mahoney on the podcast here a couple of weeks ago, and part of our conversation was, you know, what can hunters do better

too to represent what what they feel? And one of his points was, we can better present represent our caring for wild life in its totality, the things, the things that we don't hunt, the things that we don't we don't see ourselves as necessarily stewards of UM. We can represent that in a way much to what you're saying that makes sense across the board and just says we care about nature and not just about the well being

of the things that we kill and need. UM And and at some level worship you know, we worship elk and deer and not so much other things. And I didn't you even see that in the hunting world. You see that um anti hunters or non hunters are okay with seeing a duck get shot in the face a lot of times, but they're not or a turkey, but they're not so okay with watching an elk get shot

and die. And so you just see kind of everybody has their own biases, but hunters, as folks that are consumptive users or wildlife, certainly could do better at at caring about everything rather than just what we what we chase around. Yeah, and I mean, I think, you know, two points come to mind, and one is that these animals that hunters might identify with, whether it's doc or turkey or big horner or elk, those animals exist because

the ecosystem exists. And the ecosystem exists because the butterflies pollinate the plants, and the birds pond at the plants, and the Clark's nutcracker disperses the seeds that feed the bear, you know, And we can't without if there's not a healthy ecosystem that the species that we love and pursue won't thrive. So I think it's whether or not we really have a personal relationship or affinity to a butterfly or you know, to a squirrel that bury a lot of acorns that feed a lot of white tail um.

You know, they grow up into trees and feed the forest with Without that squirrel dispersing the acorns, we're not

going to have healthy oak forests that feed healthy deer populations. Yeah, and there's been there's been anti hunters or you know, animal rights activists in the past, going all the way back into the sixties that say conservation is an idea created too you know, pull the wool over everybody's eyes for hunters, you know, it's it's a it's a term that allows us to to be altruistic in a sense, but also we're just doing it for our own personal gain, So we're only being we're only saving elk so we

can kill them um. And a lot of these animal rights activity even going back to guys like Joseph would kurtsed back in um in the sixties in the in the height of the beginning of the hs U s talking about animal rights being the way and conservation being a lie. And I think that I think that goes

back to what you're talking about. Yeah, and I think, you know, the historical historical kind of divide and the polarization of that of that narrative I think is you know, oftentimes, I think people fail to to to remember that a lot of those early Boone and Crockett Club members, Teddy Roosevelt, you know, they weren't perfect. You can read their history books and there's probably some things that you know, maybe they could have done better, but they also they set

the stage for conservation to succeed, you know. I mean he talked about went out to Montana and having trouble finding a bison to hunt, you know, and then he had obviously one of the biggest influences and conservation you know, into the future. And I think there's something to be said for people who dedicate their time and energy to wildlife,

whether they're non hunters, anti hunters, or hunters. You know, I think, um, you know, there's one thing to buy a hunting license and know that some of that money goes into the Pittman Robson you know fund, you know, by way of the Act. But there's another thing to to do that. But then also to spend your time planting trees or or helping restore a right parent ecosystem, or you know, doing a Christmas bird count that informs the way that we understand songbirds. There's I think there's

degrees to which we can be conservationists. There's the there's the kind of initial entry, uh you know, membership of of buying a tag and having some money go into conservation. But I think there's there's a lot of other ways to to get involved and to have a hand in writing the future of America's conservation um. And I think one of the things that non hunters and anti hunters maybe don't I haven't been exposed to or haven't thought of, is that a lot of hunters, you know, don't enjoy watches.

Some mean die, you know, Like I grew up hunting birds mostly, but I've vivid memories of being sad about that and then eating the food and realizing that to eat meat, something has to die. And that was a choice that I made. And it's not something to take lightly, and it's not something that happens with you know, with this kind of neglect of of of realizing that you know that this is a life and death situation for

these animals. Um you know, the difference between a white tailed deer dying and you know a desert bighorn are very different, right. White tail deer are incredibly abundant, very much not under threat. You know, there are places where desert bighorn are are hanging on and kind of rebounding. And you know, I just shot a film with with Ben Masters and Adam Foss. I'm sure you know both those guys um on desert bighorn sheep down in Texas. Sitka supported it and Texas Parks and Wildlife had a

big plane it. And it's a film about a bunch of people, many of whom probably identify as hunters, spending their their time, money and energy getting bighorn sheep back onto these mountains that used to support healthy populations and don't anymore. And most of them will never have a chance to hunt bighorn sheep. But they have the the hat, you know, the Wild Cheap Foundation hat, and they they are card carrying big horn enthusiasts. But they're not doing

it to put one on the wall. They're doing it because they want to see one hop out of that horse trailer. And you know, run up into the mountains and and that's it, you know, And I think it's an it's an important thing to remind people is that it's called hunting, not killing. You know, like there's so many days we go hunt and we we just watch, you know, most of it might say that when we didn't kill something, because I always thought that was like, well,

that's that mean we suck his hunters. We talk killing and we stuck with that. That's an idea that that certainly is worth going over because it's it's something that it goes to this whole conversation. If you're not killing something,

did you succeed? And how did you succeed? You know, if you've never killed, if you're could you be ah a conservationist and a sheep hunter if you've never killed one in your entire life and maybe stand to never do so, I think you can be absolutely And I mean I was talking with with Um, one of the biologists down there, and he told me a story about a gentleman who who bought the tag to go hunt one of these sheep and and never pulled the trigger. And that was fine. He just he for whatever reason

didn't feel right and he just just didn't happen. He was happy as can be. You know, he walked off that mountain and he had succeeded. You know, he'd gotten up there and gotten a chance to have this once in a life some opportunity. And I mean I think back on my hunting season last year, and I mean

some of the best moments of my life. We're just sitting with my fiancee, uh, you know, watching elk just ripped by and looking at her and looking at you know, her looking at me, and just this kind of like out of body experience, and that was it, you know, just basically what I used to do as an ecologist, which was go sit in the woods for months and years on end and watch animals, which is that's why

I do it so well. I mean I think, yeah, you go back to some of the things that we do and hunting to kind of boil down all these ideas and make him easy into hashtags or bullet points or you know, campaign slogans or whatever they need to be for people understand them. And a couple of loads.

There's one start making the rounds now called conservationist, and there's the other one is hunting is conservation Those are the two I've seen recently That kind of irked me a little bit, and I think maybe just because that simplifies makes it simple, like to go hunting is to be a conservationist. No, it's not not at all. Um,

Hunting is hunting and conservation is conservation. Of course, you know do you know well know that hunting is a tool of conservations in a lot of ways, but they aren't one and the same, and to try to draw that line just just seems a bit lazy to me and oversimplifying what what is complicated. So it's it's nice to hear that there are folks, especially in Texas, that that are doing those things the right way. Yeah. I

think it's a great point. I mean it's it's just like you know, saying that because you pay your taxes, your pro highways and pro war and pro bridge restoration and reinforcement. Yeah, I mean it's you know, I think it's by default you are putting money into that in

that bucket. But to your point, you know, there's there's definitely, and I think the distinction is important because it helps people realize that there there is more to do, right, Like you can hunt and you can contribute, you know, some some funds into conservation by buying your tags and

in all the taxes that are out there. But there's also a rich community of people who are debting, like like I said, who are dedicating their time and energy into conservation and some of them hunting, some of them don't, and that's fine. But the the common passion is just for for wildlife and you know, the outdoors, and it's something that you know, it's you you point out that it's a it's a phenomena that's happening in the hunting world,

it's also happening in the outdoor world. You know, I spent a lot of time and a lot of the projects and people I engage with are just in the kind of traditional outdoor space, and there's you know, I have the same kind of feelings that you shared about the outdoor world. You know, just because you hike the PCT or or went camping in Alaska or you know, enjoy bears Ears doesn't mean that you're conservationist or doesn't mean that you are an informed person. That really can

add much to the conservation narrative. Besides the fact that you hiked there once or camp there twice or you know, I think there's just such a difference between hiking in the place and and camping in a place or hunting in a place and actually understanding the ecological rhythms of the place and the threats and the conservation history and the constituents, you know, from a social perspective, and all in the kind of the ecosystem at large. I mean,

there's just it's such as conversation gives me. That conversation gives me a lot of energy, like even when you're hearing you talk about that, because I think just from an I D standpoint, I see a lot of hunters who who just they're paying attacks right that it's it's voluntary by way of going in and purchasing a hunting license. But if you want to go hunting, it's involuntary. If you want to legally hunt, you have to buy a license, right You. You have to purchase unless you borrow from someone.

You have to purchase a firearm or or archery tackle. So at some level it's a requirement that our system is set up that you pay this tax into Pittman Robertson or into um into the state wildlife agencies. It's not voluntary. They don't ask you, when you buy a rifle, would you like to pay eleven percent excise tax? Would you like to leave that off? Like you, you purchase it and you pay it. I think there is in

hunting more comfortable. There's a more comfortable subset of people that are like, yes, I know it costs more money to hunt, and I know that that. This is why, because it does go into conservation. Um. If you flip that over to the outdoor wreck community, I think there's less. There's less that because the Outdoor Industry Association fights against a backpack tax that would would impose some sort of excise tax on on goods sold for climbing or hiking

or camping or whatever. And uh, I don't know that there just isn't a history of that in that world, or it just I think there's to your point, more people that like to say they're conservation is because it's trending and it feels good and it's emotionally satisfying to say you're a conservation when they're really not doing anything.

Have you seen that parallel? I mean, hunters are willing to pay, but at some level a lot of them don't even know what they're paying, and it seems like the outdoor space maybe is a little less willing to go down that road, but more willing to talk about it. Yeah, you know, I don't know. I think I think, without saying anything too contentious, you know, I think the outdoor industry looks maybe at hunters in a in a light,

in a certain light, because we're in their eyes. They think we're taking something from the outdoors, were taking an animal from the outdoors, were harvesting. I think they generally this is maybe a gross overstatement, but I think of their impacts as benign, so they kind of I think maybe there's the stigma of like, oh, we're actually not doing anything bad, so therefore we're kind of you know,

our hands are clean. But you know, you can you can look at Yosemite or any of these really heavily traffic parks and just the impact on trails and littering and just visitation. You know, I mean, maybe we should be paying more. Maybe if you're just recreating in some of these really highly traffic parks, you should be paying more because the net impact on the ecosystem is is

so tremendous and growing. You know, I think Um, if hunters had a choice to pay that tax, I'm not sure what the answer is, but I would bet a lot of people would opt to not pay the conservation. Uh, you know, is that eleven percent that you mentioned. Um,

that'd be a nice experiment to do. That would be that would be an experiment that I would like to see if you because I don't think I mean, there's a lot of people who know what Pittman Robinson might be, but I don't think they know what it really is and what it really does, because it's not when you buy a hunting license, it's not written on your uh

in your booklet what where all your money goes? And when you purchase a firearm, it's not on your seat where that eleven percent exercise tax and how it's levied and where it ends up. It's not there's no outward education for the hunting community about these things, so a lot of folks go go their whole life without ever

knowing about it. And that's it's a shame in one way, but in another way, it's created this disconnection from generational disconnect from what's actually happening and what was enacted in the thirties. So You're right, I'd be interested to see how many hunters would opt to pay that eleven percent excise tax or opt to pay that extra tag fees that that are going back into the states. I mean, i'd be interested in that. I don't know, and I think,

you know, take this step further. You know, I took I got my bow hunting license last year, and we you know, in Montana, we take a bow hunting specific field course, and you know, they have a portion of the courses on you know, blood trails, and a portion of the courses on being bear safe and pepper spray and how to move safely you know in bear country. I mean, I think both rifle and archery hunters would benefit tremendously from a portion of that course being a

natural history course, you know. And maybe it's specific to the state or the region, but I mean I'd argue that's that's a great entry point to have a more informed, conservation minded group of hunters, you know, to make that part of the education. You know, you're not just hunting a particular animal particular speech ease, but you're taking part in this activity that you know affects an ecosystem. And

here's kind of the building blocks to that ecosystem. Um. And just like the outdoor industry, I mean, it's the same.

You know. One of the the thoughts that comes to my mind when I, you know, go to outdoor retailers is I walk through these these conference halls filled with hundreds of outdoor people, you know, outdoor industry folks, and you know, you wonder how many of them could list off four bird species that live you know, in the in the mountain range they just hiked, you know, or or four tree species and not that you need to, you know, have a laundry list of the plants and

animals in your space. But you know, how do we I guess the question that I chew on often is how do we push the hunting an outdoor industry to a place where we start to value that that conservation and that natural history kind of element. You know, it's not in the currency for the outdoor industry because they're more interested in how high the mountain was or how

difficult the climbing route was. Um. And I don't know, but it's I think that's there in lies the difference between somebody who recreates outdoors and you know, my grandfather who was a hunter, but he was also a Harvard trained forester in Minnesota in the North Woods, and he took my dad deer hunting his whole childhood. And my dad never shot a deer because he just sat on a stump and just basically my grandpa just go walk around the woods and then come pick my dad up,

you know, eight hours later. But oh, it's interesting because I always break it down by hunters being consumptive users and recreationals being non consumptive. Right, working, we're going out in the into the woods and taking something we didn't put there, right, And normally folks in the outdoor wreck community aren't doing that. They're not going it out and taking big chunks of rock home with them, or they're not going out and cutting trees down. They're just going

out and the enjoying that space. And yes they have an effect, but um, it's not as a direct effect. And I think maybe I'm wrong in the in those two descriptions. I mean, who cares if you're killing a deer or not? Or who cares where you can or whatever. I think what we should probably more judge bies, what is your overall effect on on the wild world? In nature, and then how do you manage that? You know, what's your overall effect campers, what's your overall effect hunters? And

then how do you manage that effect? And how do you contribute to you know, the positive A positive look upon that I think is important. And and everybody's consuming something in some way and affecting something in some way, But um, are both of those groups having the same positive effect at the end of the day. Yeah, I

think you bring up a great point, you know. I think about white deer again, you know, and in a lot of places, if you were somebody looking to have a positive effect on an ecosystem with an overabundance of white tailed deer, one of the best things you could

do is harvest a white tailed deer. Yeah. Conversely, one of the best things you can do if you're hiking in Yosemite is to stay on the trail because so many people for an Instagram photo or for whatever reason are off trail, you know, further marginalizing in sensitive habitat.

And I think the net gains of harvesting that white tailed deer in a place like Texas or staying on trail, you know, I think they're very similar in my eyes, right like you're you're pushing the needle and towards a place of conservation and stewardship and mindfulness, you know, And I think a lot of people, you know, non hunters might not think about the benefits of hunting certain animals

certain populations. And also non hunters might not think about the net effect of poaching a campsite next to a lake and throwing your you know, your kitchen scraps into a high alpine lake because they probably don't realize that those high alpine lakes are very biologically poor, Like there's not a lot of organisms that break down a piece of bread or a or a piece of chicken, so it just sits in the lake. They call him a

liga trophic nutrient poor. You know, if I don't realize that's that's a bad thing, or people probably don't realize that, you know, going to the bathroom on the side of a trail in goat country or sheep countries actually probably not the best thing, because those animals come down for the salt and they end up disturbing the you know, the soil next to these trails, and over time it can pounds and it can be actually have pretty dramatic effects. Or I can just bring these animals into places where

potential conflict of humans is greater. Yeah, now that's interesting me. I think, you know outdoor rec users and I can't say that I go camping a lot or go you know, necessarily go hike in a ton in places where I'm not hunting. I do, but it's mostly around my house here in Texas. You know, I know hunters. There's the build in model, right, we pay, we pay, we pay, we pay, And that's always how we talk about it. Everything's everything costs more because it's it's a more serious activity.

Is there the same thing in outdoor recreation? Do you feel like people are camping or hiking or they're they're paying enough um, whether it's a park fee or you know, parking lot fee or whatever it might be, there is they're the same? That's it's a legitimate question. I don't really have a point. I'm just I just I'm not

as educated in that. Yeah, I mean, I I think one of the greatest things that's preventing public land managers, whether it's the Force Service, the BLM, or National Park Service from accomplishing their conservation goals is funding, and you know, every president and the politicians that come with them have their pros and cons. But one of the things that's been a recurring theme with organizations like the BLM is they don't have the funds to do what they need

to do. So you look at BLM, you know public land, and it's you can just camp wherever you want. If there's a shortage of resources for the agency to manage a public lands well, and it's a financial shortage. But yet places like the Eastern Sierra in California, thousands of

people are camping in every day for free. I mean, yeah, it's romantic and it sounds great, but they're also having to close BLM campgrounds around Zion National Park because they're being used to such an extent that the ecosystems being degraded. So it just doesn't seem to be the most uh

responsible approach. You know, let people do something for free and then we eventually close it in time because it's being destroyed because so many people are using it for free, and the agency and the managers tasked with protecting and stewarding our natural resources can't do their job because they don't have enough money. You know, some of that's obviously the just the political kind of landscape and where money

is moved around. But I think people have so much respect and there's were Americans, at least in the outdoor and the hunting industry, I think are generally proud of their public land and proud of the places we get to go play and recreate. But again it's you know, as more and more of us fall in love with these places, the more stress there is on these places. And I would be an advocate for charging more at entry fees and and even charging a dollar at BLM,

you know, campsites. I mean, it adds up um and I think, yeah, it's it's it's it makes sense. You know,

these are not these ecosystems can't manage themselves. And whether we want to believe that, you know, wilderness areas are completely devoid of of human fingerprints, is just not true, you know, whether it's it's the way that we're influencing the climate or wildfires that some guy might start with a cigarette in the side of a highway that burned in For our wilderness areas, I mean, even if you're thirty miles from a road, which I think is about as remote as it gets in the lower forty eight,

there's still signatures of man all over the place. Oh yeah, UM, So I think with that in mind, you know, we should be tasked with, you know, kind of an entry

fee to help protect these places. Yeah, that's one the one difference I think where and And I'm sure you're like I am, because I do UM live in a world where I see a lot of stuff in the outdoor community, and then I see a lot of stuff in the hunting community and I and I see how similar the mindsets are UM, and then I see how dissimilarly the outward UM talking points are, and I would

say like to bring them close together. I think that's one thing you can do from an outdoor wreck perspective is is be willing to pay more and asked asked to pay more. I mean, I think hunters do that and a lot of a lot of aspects UM. Asked to pay more for your impact and understand and try to understand really what it is. And then people willing to pay more to go do which I think hunters

UM are in most respects. And I think for hunters the way to get closer to the outdoor wreck space is to be a little bit more environmentally conscious and be understanding of what we were talking about earlier, the totality of the environment and what all of it means together, and that hunting is a crucial part, but it's only

one part um. But I think if you could kind of convince both communities that those two things, to shift those two ideologies a little bit, you push them together, they find that there's not that much of a difference. I don't I don't think they're really especially from the folks that I've talked to. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think recreation has an impact, and I think it's important for the community to see that and work towards

reducing that impact. You know. I think, like we talked about earlier, I think hunters should be reminded that just because you put money into the bucket in an involuntary

way doesn't mean you're a conservationist. That there's a lot of ways to legitimize that claim, and I think creating a framework for the average outdoor recreation person to put money in a bucket and also have more opportunities to you know, engage with conservation and have that be I mean, that's from a personal perspective from somebody who makes films as an ecologist, and you know, somebody in both the

outdoor and hunting industry. You know, I think there seems to be more value placed on conservation from a from a brand perspective, from a community perspective. I mean, you can walk through an outdoor trade show or a hunting trade show and and you know, talking about conservation is

probably not the coolest conversation in the room. You know, it's probably the guy who climbed l Cap and the guy who had some incredible hunt, you know, some incredible successful hunt that's filling up the auditoriums for the different seminars or whatever. But you know, I would argue that, yeah, to your point, like we hunters and people who recreate both need healthy ecosystems to do what they do, you know.

I mean, if you're if you're somebody who goes to Yosemite to get a picture, you know, of a waterfall, you need snowpack and cold winters to have water filling those waterfalls that you know, A globe stewardship is something that helps that. You know, Hunters, if you want a big bull elk, you need a healthy ecosystem to support that bull elk um. So yeah, I think there are those kind of historical, preconceived notions that that have maintained

the divide. And you know my yeah, like I said, my kind of mission is to help people realize that there's actually a lot of common ground. Yeah, And I mean there totally is. I mean I've talked to a lot of the leaders in the outdoor space, and you know, I think maybe they I thought, well, they you know, they obviously know I'm a hunter, so maybe they cringe and even talking to me, And that's not the case

at all. Ever, They just you know, they need a little bit more knowledge from the angle work coming from and vice versa, just a little bit more. I mean, we're not that far off. And I think the worst thing that could happen is for hunters to be painted as people who don't care about the environment, because I find that most of the time not to be true.

Because and and sure you could bring up trophy hunting or in some negative connotation and talk about how, um, some hunters are hunting for ego or hunting for their own personal vanity. Sure that's fine, there surely are some people doing that. But there's a lot of campers who litter, So I wouldn't paint all campers as litterers, just the same as I wouldn't paint all hunters as trophy hunters or whatever negative connotation we would we would call it.

So I I certainly think the outdoor space sometimes it's guilty of that, And then I think the hunting space is guilty of of thinking, Hey, here's a bunch of left leaning greenies that don't don't think the way we think was that's not true either. I think there's there's less less truth in those two ideas than I think either side would want to admit. But it's close man, and guys like yourself are key. And then bringing it together, Yeah,

I think you bring up a great point. I mean, there's people are always drawn to one end of the spectrum, right, This group of people is bad, this group of people is good. And the way I think about hunting, recreation, politics, anything, it's always a spectrum of best and could be better. There's always the bad apples that that you know, hold

up the bottom of the spectrum. But yeah, I'd argue there's just as many hunters that could do a better job as there are outdoor you know, recreators who could do a better job, you know, and I think we just see I think we as you know, as people you know, with the platform in the industry and with peers and friends who have platforms, and we work with

brands that have platforms, you know. I think if we create and and place value and those best examples, those stewards, those people who do what they do in a mindful way and aren't going about their business trying to propagate the divide, but rather do what's right, then I think we can move the needle towards that middle ground while celebrating people who aren't getting on the horn just to

point fingers and you know, call people names. I mean, yeah, some of my best friends are hunters who hunt things that I might not hunt, but I don't judge them on a personal level. That's just it doesn't it's just

something I'm not interested in doing, you know. I Mean, I had a friend the other day asked me if I wanted to go bear hunting the spring, and I was like, I'll go with you, but I'd probably shreek my camera and and that's not you know, that wasn't a reflection of me judging that person for wanting to go do that. You know, the bears that they were talking about hunting are from what I understand, a very

well managed population that's doing fine. It's just like a personal thing and that's not you know, I think it's so easy for somebody to say, like, you're a bad person for doing this or you do that because you hang out with these people. It's like, I mean, I'm a U. C. Berkeley train, California born ecologists who lives in Montana, you know, who is working with the hunting brand Sitka on conservation as an advisor. Like, I'm a

walking contradiction, but I'm not here to judge. I'm just here to help people talk about conservation and wildlife and ecology because they care about it. And that's it. Yeah, And I think that's where a lot of your value comes into. Everyone at hunts is we you know, there's echo chambers, and there's bubbles that we live in, and there's you know, groupthink, and a lot of that happens

on all sides. Right, you kind of get polarized and you get to get to everybody living in a place where everybody agrees with the way you think and then life becomes easy. And then you push back anybody that that starts to eat away at your ideology that you've formed with a group of people. You know, when somebody like you comes along says I hunt, I'd like to hunt, But I'm also a scientist and an ecologist and a biologist, and I'm from my study that UC Berkeley, and I'm

a California native. There's there's a lot in there that that doesn't seem to match up. But um, the overarching point is that you care, and you care from from a pragmatic level, not from from some gend up hashtag level that just trying to make people think that you're altruistic. You truly, you truly worked that way. So I think that's a good example of why all those things can come together. Yeah, and it's you know, it's been uh since moving to Montana. It's it's, you know, I've I've

learned a lot. I've I've had to, you know, study topics that I hadn't thought a lot about. And you know, one of them that keeps popping up because it's so controversial. It's like wolves and grizly bears, and there's all these perspectives and papers and voices and fears and prejudice is

you know, the list goes on. And what I keep coming back to after talking with biologists who work for the state, you know, decades of experience reading science papers, reading op eds, emillion people on the West Coast talking to locals. It's it all exists on a spectrum. You know, There's there's populations that are doing really well that you know, populations of bears and wolves that are doing well. There's populations of bears and wolves that are predisposed to conflict

with humans. And there's populations and bears and wolves that probably see a few humans a year or in their entire life. So again we're talking about you know, you see the headlines and it's like wolves in Montana or bears and the Greater Yellowstone. I mean, Idaho is very different than Wyoming. Wyoming is very different than Montana, and all the little pockets where these animals exist are all

very different. And the individuals. Yeah, you talk to the rancher in Idaho who has wolves killing all the elk? Can you kill them all? Kill every wolf in the lower forty eight And you talked to an area where do they barely ever see a wolf, but they know they're there and they're not. There's no tangible difference between the way they were and the way they are. They may have a different opinion, but you know, I hear in the hunting circles most times kill all wolves and

even even coyotes, kill all coyotes. I hear that a whole time. I'm not I'm not sure just to pragmatician in me allows would allow that. And I'm sure the ecologists and you would not allow that type of thinking because it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, and the model, the Northern American model, doesn't allow that. I mean, we're not we're not. America is not pouring money into a wholesale extirpatient of these animals. You know, it's not legally

that can't happen. So for even somebody to say, let's kill them all, I mean, that's not possible. So it's you know, there's no point even talking about it because it's not gonna happen. Well, at the same point, they're like, let's protect them all and kill none of them, you know. But you know when people talk about protecting all or killing all, and and and again, like people will tell you whether they love or hate wolves. Is that packs

are different. You know, there's packs of personalities. Wolves have personalities. There are some that are predisposed to certain things and some that are predisposed to other things. You know, they're just like eagles can be a specialist and eating you know, rabbits or fish. You know, same with redtail hawks. Like packs and these these different animals and populations have tendencies. So I think that's like a great place to start talking.

It's like, okay, cool, Well, when we look at these ecosystems, where is the potential for conflict where management might accomplish goal A, B and C. You know, if there is a place of conflict, like we should look at solutions across the spectrum. You know, are there five solutions? What are the most pragmatic three? You know, it doesn't have to be this to kill or not to kill, to

save or not to save, you know. And and also if you think about these populations, whether it's elk or wolves or song birds, again, we need to think about these populations on the order of ten years, fifteen years, twenty years. You know, they might be fine and well today, increasing your declining today, but there could be a fire like there was in yellow Stone in the eighties that burned the biggest fire on record. You know, that happens,

and it changes the ecosystem. It changes the elk population, It changes the way predators interact with one another and how they prey on you know, pray, animals. Um. So it's not just you know, I think people oversimplify wildlife

management to a detriment. You know, they think it's just like you do one thing and you get one kind of you know, one effect, you know, But really it's you do one thing, twenty things happen, and maybe you only can see two of those things and the other you know, the others are are muddled and confused by all the different variables in an ecosystem, you know, elevation, temperature, rainfall, snow,

pack uh, you know, whatever it might be. It could be a pine beetle infestation that you know, takes the pine seeds out of the bears, you know, food availability, and that changes the way bears engaged with young elk. It's complicated. Does that make it all the more amazing to you? That are like the you know, the model of conservation wasn't a thing until the eighties. As I

learned from Shane Mahoney. But does it make it all the more amazed at to you that we took this model, this idea of how we would interact with animals as hunters, applied it across the board, and it generally worked for a bunch of different species and a bunch of different areas. I mean, is that just generally people caring about wildlife across the board is going to always have a good effect or is it just just a really good system or am I just a am I engaging in group

think like that? That's so great? But I know that across all these you know, wildlife species, there was success. Turkeys, elk, ducks, dear so many. They interact with the natural world so differently and in such different environments that it's crazy that they all kind of improve the way they did. Yeah, you know, I think it's I think the success that the North American model has had in in sense its inception, isn't just a reflection of the success from a wildlife perspective.

The success that that we've had in the United States is a reflection of society deciding that they weren't going to let pollution continue. They weren't gonna let damns continue. They weren't gonna let blind deforestation continue. They weren't gonna

let d d T continue. You know, I think the success of elk, or the success of bighorn sheep, or any kind of charismatic megafauna that we use as a metric for success in the wildlife space, success is a reflection of all the agencies, management agencies working towards a goal of protecting and preserving or public lands and these natural resources that we rely on, whether it's clean air,

clean water, healthy forests, healthy wildlife. And I think society at large, you know, has decided that we want waterfowl, we want song words, we want these different things to exist. And it's not just one agency saying like, oh, we're gonna let's prevent you know, elk from going extinct, and let's do that. You know, they're here because all these other players have been at the table, putting their time

and energy into their their little battles. But the the end goal, the end victory, is this holistic protection of of America, you know. And I mean if you read thorows writings about walking the East Coast, he was you know, if you read his journal entries. He was talking about how disappointed he was to the degree at which the East Coast had been degraded. You know, the swans weren't as abundant as they were fifty years before. The waterfowl weren't as abundant, you know, and that was in the

eighteen hundreds. So, I mean, we have centuries of of moving the needle in the right direction, you know, whether that was women deciding they weren't gonna where egert feathers in their hats and Teddy Roosevelt carrying their plea and protecting shore birds in Florida, you know, way back when. I mean, it's been all these little initiatives that if I think, predisposed these different agencies to succeed. You know, it's been a societal thing. You know, things generally succeed

when the society decides that that's the move. Um, And I think, yeah, I mean, for better or for worse, you know. And maybe I'm not educated enough to make a statement like this, but I would argue that the ivory situation and the rhino situation, the elephant situation is such a challenging one because there are so many people pushing the needle in different directions. Yeah, you know, whether it's uh yeah, So I just think there's a lot of things. Yeah, you're what you're saying is there's no

agreed upon value system. There's no yea. Yeah, we all care about these elephants. Half the side just wants to kill them all for their tasks. The other half wants to save him. In this country, d percent people agree that elk should always be around. There's never any there's no doubt in that exactly. Yeah, and I think you know, we can all agree we don't want our rivers burning like they did in the fifties or forgot the name of the river. But there was that famous example that

inspired the Clean Water Act. Um, I think the rivers in Ohio and it literally caught on fire in the United States. Like, wow, we have major rivers in the United States that are literally catching on fire. We should prevent pollution, you know, we should maintain healthy and clean waterways. Um. Obviously pollution is something and there's no way there's no in Africa, of course is a continent, not a country. But in countries in Africa, there isn't that same idea.

There isn't that same like all these things are dying, it's up to us to save them, just because they got other stuff to worry about. The economically struggling um there are a lot of it. It's an impoverished nation. So they just don't corrupt in a lot of places down there. So that's way oversimplifying a very complicated conversation, but that is to say, there just isn't There isn't

the spot like like we've shown the spotlight. Yeah, I totally agree, and that, you know, I think I think public perception is another thing that that will arises these issues, you know. And and two things that come to mind is, you know Earth Day people are always saying, let's plant trees.

There's a great story taking place in Scotland where communities are being paid to cut down pine tree plantations that were planted to build ships in the nineteen and eighteen hundreds because the peat bogs that are that used to exist throughout Scotland are better it's equestering carbon than trees. So if you actually want to have an effect on climate, some of the best things you can do they're cut down these pine plantations and return them to peat bogs.

In America, people say let's plant trees in a lot of places. There's more trees than there ever have been. And actually our most imperiled ecosystems are stagebrush communities and perennial bunch grass communities. So what I tell brands is like, don't do a story about planting trees. Go to a story about some guy who's planting or some gal who's planting bunch grasses and the great Plains. You know, that's

going to do more for the ecosystem. That's going to be more for water retention and and and kind of overall health. Then planting a tree in a lot of places. Yeah, that's happening in all over. Are in politics and culture, like everybody to looking for the feel good, simple, easy to digest action, right that that's so, so then they can call themselves whatever they want to be. You know, if I want to be a environmentalist, I'm gonna go planet tree and hashtag at Earth Day in the alm

an environmentally. If I'm if I want to be an activist, I go and I fill out my basic information into an online form that that votes in some kind of protest in ah in such a way that a million of us have done that simple act. And now I'm an activist like that. You know, it's it's not the doing, it's the acting, right, Yeah, and in acting in a from an informed place, because you know, a story that comes to mind as a friend of mine is, uh, he's part of a big expedition in in in Africa,

um in Angola. It's a National Geographic fact expedition to protect the Okavango Delta. And it's an incredible story and it's incredible what they've accomplished, you know, helping to protect this this great watershed. And and he told me about coming across some poachers who had killed an elephant. And he walked up and was kind of just obviously the scene was ah, it was a sad one was troubling to see. And I asked him, as said, you know, what was that like to come across people doing that?

And he said their response was, I have to feed my family. I have no other option. I realized that caringless animal is illegal. I realized it takes eco tours and dollars you know, away from the future. Uh, you know, has all these negative impacts. But you know, I need to put food in my kid's bellies. And it's easy for somebody from America to make a statement about that. And yes, you know, I think we can all agree

that elephants need to be protected, you know. But I think the reason why I bring it up is that it's it's it's a complicated thing. There's a lot of drivers influencing the reality on the ground, and and those drivers very dramatically between countries and probably regions within those countries. Uh. And I think again, when we talk about wildlife in America, you know, the Southeast is very different than Texas, and Texas is very different than California, and California is very

different than Montana. Um So, moving away from those those broad assumption assumptions and whether it's painting hunters is bad or good, or recreation people in their recreation space is bad or good, it's I think it's just best to promote the best examples and if there's a complicated issue like wolves, to just say it's complicated, and I don't need to give you a yes or no. Yeah, absolutely, And anybody, I mean, you think if you're anti this

or that, like being anti is a very complicated thing. That's simple. We've simplified it into like this easy too easy to codify, like I'm anti this so already. Really, what the funk are you talking about? You? I'm anti milk? Like what? You can't just be anti something without having thought it through. And I always say that to the

people that are self proclaimed anti hunters. You say, like, look, man, if you if you were impoverished and starving and the only way that you could live is to shoot a deer, I promise you, I promise you, unless you're an idiot, you would shoot that deer all day long and drag it off into the bushes and cut it up and

eat it to survive. You just happen to live in a soft version of our human existence, whereas you can pick whether you want to eat a piece of lettuce or an orange or a piece of meat, because it's all in a nice, air conditioned building, in a maze that you walk through and pick what you want and put it in a in a basket. Like that's the only reason that really to me that human to have

evolved into either vegetarians or it's selective. You're selecting what what what you want to eat based on emotionality and virtue signaling and all those types of things, and a lot of in a lot of cases. Surely there's people that eat vegetables only because of health reasons. I'm cool with that, but you gotta you gotta remember that there's especially in Africa, like you said, there's people that just do not have options. They have one option, killed to

eat or die. That's that's their scenario that they live in. Yeah, and I think your point about anti hunters or non hunters or whatever, people who are anti something. You know, one of the things that I like to bring up is you can be a vegan and say that because I, you know, shot an elk bow hunting last year, that I'm bad or or whatever. You're kind of uh issues with that, you know. My response is, Okay, Well, you're a vegan and you have a shirt that's probably not organic,

probably not a cotton drive. A car might be a Prius, but you have a really toxic battery in that prius. You have petroleum based tires, plastic all over the thing. You probably eat strawberries. A lot of strawberries are super heavy, require a lot of pesticides. Probably bananas. Those are wrapped in plastic um. Generally they fill creeks and rivers in Central and South America. If you've been there, you would have seen it. They go into the river, they are

solid by turtles and killed tons of turtles. And you know, the list goes on. And I think it's not a an attempt to say you're bad. I'm better, But it's the worst thing we ever did for the planet was when we were born, you know. I mean, it's just a too many people on Earth situation, and everybody isn't impact. Whether you're hunting a deer eating the strawberry, you know something is dying because of that. You know, well that's something is dying. Part you wake up like we're designed.

We were designed a certain way to function in this in this natural world. Like when you wake up and you start to consume things. Immediately you breathe air, you blow out carbon like you you're consuming. You're walking around. Every footstep you make has an impact, every road you drive on, every card you get it and has an impact.

And there's no way it's some form of of strange kind of insanity to think that that you're lessening one your chosen version of lessening that impact is more ratualistic than than someone else, or somehow that you can you find yourself um with no guilt based on your humanity. I mean, there isn't. I mean, if you really think about it, that that's what humanity would be based on, just the guilt of having to live as a consumptive being and that's what we are. And so I'm not

am I guilty about that? Yeah? Yeah, sure at some level. But find it's a better way to function if you just dive into your consumptive nature trying to figure the damn thing out. Because I certainly went from being a hunter to really want in the garden to really want to have chickens, uh not the other way around. It was like, well, hunting is is a great way to consume meat? What about what about can I do that

in the same way with all the other stuff? And and I've evolved that way, and I imagine a lot of people and maybe a lot of people you know, are evolving the opposite way. They garden have chickens and realize that hunting might also be akin to what they're

doing in their backyard. Absolutely, and you know, and I think I think the answer there is just that the world would be a better place of people are just little bit more thoughtful, you know, and really kind of like paused and said, Okay, these are the choices I've made. This is how I've chose to live my life. Vegan,

non hunter, hunter, farmer, whatever you wanna do. And I think just thinking about those choices and the impacts of those choices is where society needs to go because a lot of people don't think about them, and that's where we get the polarizing, ah, precon preconceived notions. I think that's where we propagate divide. I think that's where we don't work together. I think that's where we create enemies.

And I think the key is just saying, Okay, choose whatever you want to do, don't impose on other people, but just think about why you do what you do and how that helps the endgame of of conservation or stewardship or or whatever your mission is. And I think that's that's just a beautiful part, right that we're having this conversation. Is the beautiful part that it is that complex and it does. You can talk for a couple hours on just one little aspect of it and it

can all be worthwhile. That there's no way to boil this damn thing down. You can't do it. If you're trying to do it is an exercise and just insanity. There's no way. I mean, as you said, there's how many ecosystems in Bozeman, Montana are working right now to create that environment and have it thrived. You couldn't list them all, all the different species that are that are out there cohabitating and working with us in some way. Yeah. And I think the hunting that you know has been

has been really eye opening. A lot of people that I grew up with and and you know, considering my close circle don't hunt. You know, I was probably the only kid in my high school that hunted growing up. And to bring my fiancee, you know, she's an artist named Rachel Pole. She she did grew up in hunting family,

and we went. She came with me almost every day of this fall, and I think she realized not only what hunting is about, that it's that it's this really challenging, exciting immersion and an ecosystem, but that sometimes some years you succeed. And to see her honor grow for these meals we're sharing with our friends and family, and to see her developed that interest in going out this fall

and hunting it's a is a really exciting things. It's it's a similar reverence that you get when you grow strawberries. Strawberries are hard to grow, especially out of a greenhouse, and I have been an avid gardener for a lot of my adult life in the years that you have a good strawberry plant, I mean, you eat those strawberries with such reverence, you know, when you share them with your friends, You're like, only have four and you can

have one of them. And I just want you to know that I for the last week, I've been out with my headlamp peeling slugs off my strawberry plant to make the dirt. I want to kick you and the ships. Yeah, totally, you know. And it's just it's one of my proudest moments last or two years ago, was I had the strawberry plant and friends would come over and like, Okay,

don't touch that one. Don't touch that one. You can have this little one, you know, And it's it's kind of like you go on this hunter you you know, or you grow flowers in your garden, gives your mom and it's just it's such a different thing when you know what's gone into into that, you know, whether it's food or a gift or just an experience, and it's it's probably the richest part of my life is just

that relationships with the land. I talked about that in the earlier podcast about where my wife specifically, I feel like I've perfected the way to cook an elk back strap or a whatever. I had this, like it took me years decade to get it to the point where

I know how to do it. I like it every time, and I would go home and I'd be working late and my wife would cook up in elk steak and you know, the baby would be run around and should forget to pull it out on time, and it'd be like ten degrees uh internal temperature warmer than I would have cooked it. And I and I find myself being a bit of an asshole about that. Come on, Hannah, what are you doing? Get it together? And then I think, well,

what do you Why are you so upset? And that's the reason why, because it's like this thing is important to me, it's reverent to me, and it's made me a little bit of a dick about my back scraps. And Imi even I had that conversation like She's like, what is wrong with you. I said, well, look, man, I can't go. I can't go and get this again. It's gonna be six or eight months before I even have the opportunity, and that even then it's not guaranteed. And uh, I think she understands it a little bit

more now. She loves the cook game. She loves the cook game. She doesn't hunt, she doesn't have the same She loves it for the flavor and for the experience of knowing me and knowing how it died. But she doesn't have the same reverence I have for because she doesn't never experience the hardship of going to get it. And I think it's that it's that reverence and that that deep connection you have the animal that that I see in scientists and stewards and people you know across

the board who identify with the natural world. You know, one of the earliest things that inspire me as a young person was fishing with my grandmother, you know, avid fisher, woman Burder, really amazing lady. And this is in San Francisco Bay where there's a lot of leopard sharks, and we're out fishing on this pier and this guy is catching leopard sharks and cutting their fins off and throwing

them back in the water. And my grandmother, who is probably fifty five or sixty at the time, he kept this guy catches a leopard shark, probably a four ft leoperd shark, and my grandmother walks over. The guy gets in his face, grabs a shark out of his hands, throw it, throws it back in the water, and starts giving him an earful on respecting, you know, these animals and respecting wildlife. And my brother and I were really little,

and I'll never forget seeing her do that. And I think it's that it's that realization that if we don't speak up for these animals in these places and think about that backstrap and that force that supported that elk as as our obligation to speak on their behalf, then by default they'll just slip away because these places don't have voices. Animals don't have voices of their own, so they need people like us to be out there making

sure that they don't, you know, slip away. You know, I want my kids to hunt where I grew up hunting, and I know that if something was going to threaten that place, I would, you know, i'd be there, and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way. Two hunters agreeing on animal rights? What the hell kind of podcast? What are we talking that that? As you're talking there, I was just thinking about that too, as I getting these conversations. Then you try to shape them

in a way, but they go how they go. UM, And I've had more conversations doing this podcast about animal rights on a hunting podcast, then I can can think I maybe have ever had UM in any any conversation or any community I've had. So that's one of the cool things about this UM and about what you're doing, is that it's bringing to light that maybe animal rights activists and hunters are aren't all that different, or maybe that at some level of damn same thing. UM and

a lot of people. So it's beautiful man. Yeah, and I totally agree with you, And I think you know one of the things that I love about the hunting industry is that by default people are are are stoked on wildlife, which is something that I miss in the outdoor recreation space because just because you're in that space

doesn't mean you love animals. So I feel I feel like I'm yeah, I feel like I'm meeting a lot of people, especially in Bozeman, that are you know, uh, they're just like wildlife nerds that go about it in different ways. And I love that and I and it, you know, I think it. It brings up this point that I try to share with people, which is that you can see a picture of a a person holding a steelhead trout, a wild steelhead. I would argue that has more of an impact on the ecosystem than killing

a white tailed deer. But we just have this affinity, this connection with the ant the eyes of deer, and society treats them one way. But a steelhead trout, which might come from an imperiled population that's in decline, that has trying so hard to just live, and you drag it out of the water, it gives up, which which means it's almost dying. And if you look at the physiology of catching and release, there is an impact, whether

you'd like to believe it or not. UM, talk to any fish biologist about the effects of catching release on lipids. You know, I practice catching and release a lot. You know, nobody's perfect, but there's impact there. UM. And it's all about just you know, realizing we're in it for the same reasons fishermen fish. They care about waterways, they care about fish, they care about those ecosystems we hunt. We care about these animals and these ecosystems, and people who

hike care about the same thing too. And and I appreciate you, and I appreciate this podcast, and I appreciate you know what you're excited to talk about because it's an indication that there's there's so much common ground, and there's so much room for progress, and there's so much a collaborative energy out there that I think it's just waiting to be tapped into. Yeah, I agree, And b I have a very, um, I don't know how to say it, a very combative relationship with catching release. So

you're now for bringing that up. You're not my favorite guest because I live in a world where the grip and grim photo is like this negative thing. But the grip and the catching grip photo or the whatever the fishing catching release fishing folks do, is this like the

celebrated thing that's okay? And I have not yet been able to figure out how one can wrap their mind around catching release fishing being a okay and hunting being negative, but um, I think that's probably a whole another podcast, and we're about we're about at a time, and I don't want to. I don't want to get in trouble with any of my fishing buddies because I do love it, and I'm glad to come and grab a fly rod

and come to Montana and do it. But I gotta I got a few problems with you people, and will cover that next time. Yeah, I agree. I think that's a that's a whole another whole another conversation. But yeah, I appreciate all the all the good questions, and um yeah, maybe we can sit down and continue some of them down the road and go for a fish ourselves. Absolutely, man, I'm all down for that. I hope to see you before too long in Bozeman as soon as he gets

hot down here in Texas. I'm going north for for something, probably fishing, So we'll get together and have that conversation while we're trying to catch tra out. Sounds good, Bring a bring some headphones and a recorder. Yeah, professional, That's that's how I'm gonna title this Wildlife Nerd Charles post, Thanks man, Happy. That sounds that sounds perfect. Okay, that's it Episode number seven in the books. Thank you to

Charles post great conversation. I think, among other things I learned from Charles, just we can't stereotype people we see on the street. We can't stereotype people we see in a hunting camp. They're starting to be people like Charles who don't look the part, or don't have the history of the part, who are in our world and their voices are important, and I think Charles might be the

best example of that right now. He's got unique perspectives both in science and cohabitation in the natural world, in ecology and biology, and has been trained by some people who have never hunted themselves, So I think that gives me a unique perspective on what we do. And the uniqueness of his respective is really where it's valuable. I'm not sure if uniqueness is a word or not, but that's what he is. So thanks for tuning in. Episode number seven is done. I'm done four now We're gonna

see you next week with another great guest. Until then, go to the Hunting Collective dot com for articles, videos, a bunch of other stuff. The other six episodes we've done before This featuring Steve Ronella, Ryan Callahan, John Dudley, Shane Mahoney, Aubrey Marcus, and more. Check us out on iTunes, give us a review, please subscribe to tell your friends to do the same. We're also on Stitcher who We're working on some other platforms. So until the next time,

thanks for joining us. We'll talk soon, mister wo