Ep. 336: State of the Union, 2022

Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. We're actually here on part of our fundraising mission. We are where we have the Turkey Hunt Giveaway. We just hunted with the Turkey Hunt Giveaway people. Yeah, so you guys are very generous and you know, basically allowing us to sweep stakes you off and two lucky winners came out here and hunted with you, Steve and Yanni and uh, not fully successful, but I think everyone had a great time. And yeah, spectacular woods around here,

Matt Cook's farm, great place. We're still running success rate. And just to give you an idea that you know, in terms of what it did for us, I mean we had we raised on this one eighty plus thousand dollars last year. It was over a hundred and twenty. So we're making real money for conservation, and uh we gotta we gotta find some way to sup it up and get the numbers back up. Well, I think remember

we did it last year. It was October and then now it's May, so we had a much more truncated season, and people who had just entered, we're asking to enter again. So I think as we moved back out to an annual May cycle, the excess when our dinner is we had to move it because of COVID, I think you're gonna see those numbers get back up. Plus, you know, to extent that the guys like we're here at this time who had a great time, you know, they get

the word out and it's pretty cool. I mean, we had three thousand plus people enter last time and these you know, these two one and uh you know, super good guys Western New York from Buffalo. We've talked. Me and Ni were talking about switching it to uh um doing a raffle for an elk hunt. Wondering if that would make a huge difference or if it would make any difference. Yeah, I mean I don't know. I think, uh yeah, I mean we could certainly try it and see it. Elkhart elk hunt, as you guys know, as

much harder to put on in general. Um, but you know, and this one, you know, is pretty darn easy and it's a high success rate and very fun. And it's you know, honestly sitting in a ground blind with you or Yanni, or sneaking through the woods. I mean, they're gonna learn more on this about hunting and about you guys than they would probably in a lot of the elk hunting situations. They learned that, like take me a little midday naw yep. Uh, tell everybody how you got

run over by a car. It's a good story. Uh. So I've been bike commuting for twenty years to my office down to our home, and I lived just outside the d C line in Maryland, and I've never really had a close call. But d C has been doing a really good job of revamping the spike lanes and it's become a very good bike city. But you know, a lot of the passenger cars are not quite used

to it yet. And so they moved a bike lane over near the watergate on Virginia Avenue so that the water gate, so that both lanes are on the south side of the road, and so I'm literally I'm heading home and it's dark and it's it's about eight miles nine miles, but so it was dark and rainy and I'm heading into traffic and uh, a woman was running late for a performance at the Kennedy Center and just turned straight into me, and my bike goes under the car. I go over the car and uh, you have three

broken ribs, broken clavical, broken finger, separated shoulder. But hey have fly fish last weekend, so everything's good. Yeah. I how long ago did this happen? Uh? February, same day as a Ukraine invasion. Wow, I would have never known that you're beat up just a couple of months ago. Well, part of the reason I haven't turkey on it this year because I didn't feel like putting a twelve gage. I guess my broken clavical and pulling a trigger was

a good idea to shoot left hand with the red dot. Well, I could try that. I am very right handed. I thought of you there today because you know, in the Salt Lake City Airport they have this by the f Yeah, the Salta City Airport, by the entrance to the f and G gates. They have this very large panoramic screen and it's all advertising like Utah so slise, like gorgeous scenics and people skiing and mountain climbing, and then they got a five fisherman, the worst cast I've ever seen.

Everything's perfect with that. They didn't cast. They didn't They just did a horrible job casting the cast. And they should have had you come in there and paste one out for their little video. The honest cast on the planet. That's when a rambic screen. That's one of the things that made River Run Through It successful is they didn't have I mean, I guess Brad Pitt learned how to fly fish. But for the really beautiful fly fishing scenes, they brought into this guy from Wisconsin. Yeah, what was

his name, border, I'm forgetting his first name. His dad was a legend too, but who was just a world class, you know, fly caster, and so all the sort of scenic fly casting shots you see are with one of the best fly casters in the world, and which makes a big difference. Yea, No, they should definitely head you. Uh kay. Couple things here. Here's the funny one. Someone sent us to tax exchange and it was someone saying, uh, oh, it's they were named Katie. I thought it was from

your wife. No different Katie. But you know what a lot like when I was a little kid, everybody named everybody Steve and Jenny, and then five years later they named him all Katie. How many like? I got more Katies in my lefe to know what to do with this. Here's another Katie. She's talking about how uh her husband was reading my new book Outdoor Kids in an Inside World while she wasn't labor. He was getting out ahead

of it, playing ahead. When my wife was in labor my first kid, I passed out and had to have a nurse come re suscitate me. They got out that big gass. Uh. Do you ever see an epidural needle? Listen? Man,

Seeing that made you pass out? Yeah, Because here's the deal too, Like my wife did all the like all the garbage to have be like the all natural, you know, all these classes and all this practicing and ship and they get there and they like do the they put the little heart monitor on the baby and they're like that ain't happening. Pulled out, so she's all upset. But then they pulled off this big. Yeah, the biggest needle I've ever seen. Looked like something you'd based a turkey

with like an injector. And I just passed right out and woke up out in the hallway with my head in the nurse's lap. Yeah. Wow, I could cut your arm off and eat it your honest he wentn't pass out, but that needle going into my wife's spine maybe pass out? Wow? Has that ever happened to you before you went? I like to think I was overtired. I got really close.

I mean because but we were in like our forty or something of labor and had not maybe had some cat naps, but not really and it's getting very intense. But I'm also like just feeling my body shutting our Yeah, yeah, because we went all natural the whole way and it went long mega longez. Yeah. But that includes like, you know, the beginnings, like where do you where do where does the timer start? You know what I mean of labor.

So but yeah, I remember just being on my knees kind of next to the bed with my arms on the bed and just like looking at the midwife being like, Okay, I just I'm thinking I'm just gonna lay down. I have to lay down just for a little bit, just for a little bit. And I was like literally tapping out, but then uh da came out, and then we both might took it out. I think you should count it from when the water breaks m but I'm not. You know, what do you call him maternity nurse or something like that?

Guy wrote in this is interesting. This is the thing to add to our list of things that make a turkey gobble, which we were heavy duty into for a long time but kind of got away from it. A Chinook helicopter flying hundred feet off the ground as the propellers split the air. You know that sound, says, got every turkey in the woods goblin. That's good. But you know they can adjust the pitch on those and make it louder and quieter more if you can set them

to like ultrashot gobble setting. Well, no, I was. I happened to when we went to hunt a region in Montana. I was talking a wild life biologist. He says, well, I won't be able to hook up with you because every morning even I'll be flying doing deer counts. I said, well, if you're flying over where, I'm gonna be do a couple of low passes and make that chopper really sound

up and give me a couple of free shot gobbles. Um, I saw the schopper, but not didn't get here off the even following this the corner crossing whileman corner crossing case, Yeah, you know, not professionally as much as just as a citizen. As a citizens, I'm guessing have we updated this yet? So we've been working on I don't want to. I don't want to get out ahead of myself. A lot more to come out on this subject, but just an update.

The four This is a while ago now, the four Missouri hunters who were being tried for trespassing over having corner crossed in Wyoming. We're all found not guilty. However, three of the four hunters acquitted, So they were found not guilty and criminal trespassing. Okay, but they had done the same thing at the same ranch. Oh, so they had done the same thing near there. So rather than yeah, we did talk about this, I remember making the parallel.

Remember how the juice wasn't in trouble for killing his wife in the waiter criminally, but then got in trouble for killing his wife and the waiter Ronah Perlman. Is that his name? Is his name? Gold Just look up real quickly, you kill ron Pearlman. You don't follow this with no I can tell you where else sitting when he was driving down the road trying to get away from the car. You're bad. You're talking o J. Now

do you think I saw? Yeah? I was sitting in bone Nicky's Bar in Moskin County, Michigan, watching o J drive around on that Bronco. That truck could be worth a lot of money right now? Uh, Goldman, I think it was his name wasn't. Come on? Yeah, that's the easiest web search in the world. It's not. Are you kidding me? When you type in o J Nicole Brown Simpson, Ron, I hope Phil plays like a ticking clock. I would have solved this ten times Ronald Lyle Goldman. The uh

why was I talking about o J? Meaning? O J was not in trouble criminally, but he was in trouble civilly. So the several of these guys are now facing a civil suit from a landowner from actions taken in I got a feeling that won't go anywhere. Uh. We often RecA report on really how wildlife issues are so egregiously misreported in the news, and Krin, who's not here right now. I felt that for us to be fair and and morally consistent, we would have to point out uh our

own egregious abuse of language and reporting wildlife news. If you go to the meeting, we changed it. But if you go to the meater dot com, we had coverage of a fox that snuck into a zoo and killed How many did he kill? A lot? Like a fox snuck into the Smithsonian National Zoo and killed twenty five flamingos. There's a term for that. It's called what's it called when they do like overkill thing? Oh right, when they just sort of plus surplus killing genocide. No, like when

a mountain No. No, like when a mountain lion gets into it like a penful allamas right, you just can't help him. Yeah, they get excited. Yeah, like it kills way more and he can eat surplus surplus killing. The fox got in there and somehow managed to kill twenty five flamingos. Our headline, which we changed, I had we had an uproar. I had an uproar was wild animal massacres flamingo flock at Famous American Zoo, which now we'll read if you go look wild Animal kills Flamingo flock

at Famous American Zoo. Applying the same level of maturity to our own reporting as we do the reporting of others. She has a crime scene in red Down there too? Did she not like the use of crime scene for that that? I was informed by Spencer that was meant to be tongue in cheek. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I could read the text exchange I had with Spencer, like Spencer always does, Spencer um is disinclined to admit wrongdoing.

You know what I'm saying. Yeah, he's not gonna give me my uh my, my answer from that last trivia around. Oh here's another uh here, here's another example of saving lives. A woman wrote in from British Columbia. Oh, hike in uh with her twelve year old. They got a moose kind of trying to attack them. And the twelve year old had read our Wilderness Skills book and I knew what to do from having read the book and it worked. Scared of the moose off. Did we have a part

in there about how to scare a moose off? We did. That's more common than probably a bear charge. You know, this is the one that has enormous implications for me and everyone that likes to hunt morrel's. It's it appears after like over the years, many people have liked to come forward and claim to have dialed in morele production, and it often winds up being not true or exaggerated.

It seems like some Danish biologists, judging by the photos, some Danish biologists have now tamed the last true piece of wildlife in America. The one thing that man couldn't conquer has been conquered. The morrel in a in a. I mean, look at they gotta ship. What about the huckleberry? Huckleberrys is souped up? Huckleberry is a diminutive blueberry, right, but I thought they couldn't grow them. Listen, if you

talk you ever talked to your wife's a botanist. Does your wife really buy into like huckleberries being like it's it's a little blueberry. That's true the same way like if you take a wild small and more flavorfuls, right, but strawberries have absolutely been domesticated, that's true. So yeah, if a huckleberry just a blueberry. Then yeah, we're in

the middle of a lot of blueberries right now. And the one thing that's that was the main reason that not my view like Morrel's taste good, but the main thing I liked about him was that they were they couldn't be conquered. They were unconquerable. And the Danes, who make a hell of a good movie, have figured out cultivating Morrell mushrooms indoors year round. The Danish Morrel Project, forty years of research collaboration with the Royal Veterinarian Agricultural

University in the University of Copenhagen. The growing method of their black morals in the climate control environment over a twenty two weeks cycle produces twenty pounds of mushroom per square yard per year. So depressing because like when you see a Morell, you're like someone went out and it wasn't picked that son of a bit, you know what I mean? Found it. Now it'll be like white tails. Morrells have got the same problem that white tails have.

Like when you go into a house and see a giant white tail, I'm as like, who knows, you know what I mean, Like, who knows? Who really knows? Is it a white tailor is it not? Like? Is it a fake white tail? No? Depressing. The reason it was tough to cultivate wild morales is because of an extra step. And they're like, I'm reading here in their life cycle called the sclerodium. The word I had never heard sounds

vaguely sexual. Sclerodium to germinate and spring. The sclerodium can either form new my celium, the root light network of underground filaments, or they can form a fruiting body, which is the above ground mushroom. The people, remember, we had a big fight about this word before. I was calling it a mackerel fructation, but it is a mackerel fructification.

Is the the fruit like if you imagine the part that makes him moral is like a whole there's a whole apple tree underground, but now and then it sticks an apple up above the dirt. The my celium is

the apple tree living underground. Um. Instead of it producing fruit a k and apple, it produces a mackerel fructification, which is the part you cut off with your knife, and three's supposed to come off with a knife and not yank them out of the ground, and so you don't damage the my celium, which I don't know if that's I've never heard if that's actually true or not. So the death of one more cool thing. What do

you think about that? With? Uh? You know, I'm not a mushroom hunter, so I would love to be, but I don't. I want never anybody to teach me. It's one of the things that you just don't go blind into it. I can teach you right now, well we're sitting, yeah, and then you cut it. Yeah, yeah, no, but that's that's maybe your morale, but there are a lot of other ones out there, so you don't know about Yeah.

My my recommendation to budding my uh mycologists Michael Mica opheliax is um Michael Phelia, Right, that means you love mushrooms, um is. Let's stick to the There's like the fool proof for the fail safe four, the fail safe five, fool proof five, depending on who you ask. It's like different ones, but there's certain just dead nuts. Right. Puff Balls don't taste good. Really, people act like they do, but they don't are always edible like all the puff balls.

The white puff balls are all edible. Morrel's Shantrells are hard to mess up. Oysters are very hard to mess up. Just stick with those you don't need to beating like the crazy ones. I can't remember when maybe Criminal put in the show notes we had an episode of podcast episode called I believe it was called farewell red Wolf, I think, and we had a red wolf expert um talking about red wolves, red wolf or cravery. For the first time in four years, a litter of red wolf

pups was born in the wild. Six pops in total, four females and two males, found last month in the Alligated River National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern North Carolina. To give you a sense of the decline, forty seven red wolves are born in the wild in two thousand eight, down to only four pups ten years later. In two thousand eighteen, US Fish and Wild the IF reported not a single red wolf birth in the past three years

one until now. There are an estimated fifteen to seventeen red wolves in the wild today, with another two one in captivity. Do you think people get fired up about wolves in in the Rocky Mountains? They get real fired up down there about wolves like that it's illegit that it's not an actual species. That it's like it's like a hidio hybrid. The FEDS are sticking it down their throat,

that it's conservation dependent. It's all a bunch of bullpockey. No, no, no no. If you're interesting that whole debate, check out the episode of Farewell Red Wolf and you will learn more than you can remember about it. Are you ready to get into this recovered? Y uh? What's going on in Washington, d C? Like what's the I mean, I know what's going on in Washington, d C. But what's going on like in the bowels of Washington, d C?

When you get outside of Supreme Court leaks and the war in Ukraine and inflamed partisanship in the January six committee. So I'm gonna start over on the administrative side because the big thing right now is implementation of the bipartisan Infantry US for law that passed in the fall, which is one point to trillion dollars for roads and bridges,

traditional infrastructure, but also billions for natural infrastructure. And you know that can range from migration crossings over highways to you know, investing in seed sources for restoration to everglades restoration. How do how do they wedge that, like, I'm glad, I'm supportive. How do they wedge that in there? Because we're always annoyed when stuff gets wedged in that we don't want, But there was stuff gets wedged in that you do want. You're glad about it, but you don't complain.

So I mean a lot of this stuff. I mean, let's use Everglades as an example. Yeah, I mean we help as infrastructure. So what we did back in its wisdom and the midnineteen is the core of engineers channelized central Florida to have the wa to go east and west as opposed to flow south through the Evergladies to Florida Bay. That had done naturally, and that's where you have things like the River of Grass and those iconic images of yesteryear. So the impacts of that. Can we

dive into that story for a second. I just want people to make sure we we had a podcast about this long long time ago, But um, I don't think people could People that haven't spent time and they can fully grasp what that was like. Yeah, so you have an incredibly flat terrain that runs essentially across from mid to southern all the way down to Florida Bay that

was one giant wetland. It's the gradient is crazy. I forget what it is we talked about in that podcast, but it's like an inch over like a mile or a foot over a mile or something like that. So many it's like a many many miles wide river, yes, and shallow and ecologically incredibly rich. But what it would do is to take polluted water historically from developed areas northern Florida, and by the time it reached Florida Bay, it would be cleaned up naturally. And Florida Debay was

one of the best fisheries in the world. And then what happened after they channelized that in the center river water east and west is you've had one. Florida Bay was starved of fresh water, as was a bunch of

the Everglades. I like to point out to people just so they know, um in top about the Everglades, a lot of times in history we skipped like what like, for instance, now we're dealing with all the dams on the Columbia system, right, and someone's like, you could you could be you could have the idea that someone built those damns just to screw salmon, right, But it was their generating electricity, and some people point to the fact that we did one of the you know, and people

like to define like how we won World War two. One of the things that we could smell aluminum and make and produce aircraft faster than anybody because we had all that electricity. So at a time, it was like a there's a deliberate thing, and then you move on and you deal with mistakes you made. But they had that in the Everglades, they had that flood. I don't want to kill thousands of thousands of people, but it was even more than that. It wasn't so much the

impacts of people on flooding. It was you know, largely mosquitoes. It was, you know, just how to get the water out of there faster in general to quote reclaim it right, so you could then, do you know, more sustainable at your more reliable agriculture in those areas, you could have

housing developments that didn't flood every other year. And so that was It wasn't someone being like I got an idea to really mess things up, right, But I mean, you know, at that time, you know, the core of engineers across the country channelized rivers, you know, basically made them move faster, you know, got rid of wetlands, and

we're owned for time. We'd recognize the you know, the fallacy of that whole model, which was we needed those wetlands, We needed the curves in the river which slowed down the velocities to mitigate the floods, and but we didn't really understand that at the time we were doing all this. We could do it because we could and it seemed like a good idea at the time. I always wish I could go back, and I'm sure you could, if you know, a good historian could go back. Is who

were the at the time there. I'm sure they were labeled as lunatics and alarmist. Who were the people that were saying, you know what, man, if you do that right, those voices are lost, not lost to history probably, but lost the popular history, right. Yeah, but they look pretty prescient now. Like the guy, the guy on the Columbia River that was being like, you know, if you do this, my feeling is that you will doom all of those salmon species to extinction. And people were probably like, ah,

you tree hugger. Well, and at that time you could even say, well, would just build a hatchery, which is what they did. And yeah, so that was why they dealt with it there. But in Florida, Yeah, we've seen the impacts because now you have the huge dead zones and you know, red tides and allergae ballooms coming off east and west side for all this water, polluted water being shunted out and you know, so that's having huge

economic impacts. You know, in addition to the decline of Florida Bay in the Everglades and you know the various species. So we're in the process of restoring that to make it work way you know, nature was supposed to make it work. So is the is the infrastructure logic? And again I support the decision. I'm just trying to I'm

just trying to get to the lot. Is the infrastructure logic that it was like a corp of Engineers infrastructure project that created an issue, meaning it was it was like earth moving construction, dam building, putting roads on tops of dams, and it's not gonna get fixed naturally. We're gonna have to go back and re engineered that system.

And so that's what we're doing in South Florida. Does that become a core project, core of engineers, absolutely, and money is running through their budget, but also a bunch of other budgets. And but that's just a classic example

of natural infrastructure. Another would be you know, in the South Louisiana, you know, reconnecting you know, the Mississippi River with this delta because we've basically put up huge levees and move all that water and all the sediment that's coming down the Mississippi out into the Gulf of Mexico. And so you have this huge land loss in Louisiana

where literally South Louisiana is sinking. Help people understand why why the land is vanishing, because historically the Mississippi River would brey it out as soon as it got down past New Orleans that area, and you know, all that sediment would then settle and maintain you know, this vast area of wetlands and that verse area wetlands. In addition to being good ecologically, is what protected you know, places like New Orleans from hurricanes and you know, tidal surges

that would come in. And as we lose that, we expose you know, the people, you know it too far greater risk. And we saw that obviously with the Katrina and other events. So we're trying to do an is to actually break some of those levees along the lower Mississippi River to allow the river to spread back out, to allow that sediment to dump where it's supposed to be, to you know, keep you know, trying to end the subsidence that's happening right now, and then also create a

natural system that will protect flood surge. Uh. That's easy to see on infrastructure because it was one of the main reasons you channelize the river was to make it predictable for navigation. Like if you go back and read um Mark Twain, uh, his book about the river captains. Um, you had to have like a guy that knew how to navigate that river back in those days, which was constantly changing. Um, you couldn't run deep, you couldn't run

deep vessels. You had to have very detailed, constantly of volving knowledge of how to get boats up the Mississippi Channel because it changed all the time, and they just made it a straight shot right for shipping. So that's easy to see on infrastructure. I mean, nobody's really talking about that main shipping channel, you know, changing that that is what it is. But as you get down past the New Orleans. Yeah, that is where we need to

recreate those wetlands. Now another example of things like you know, the crossings over highways. Oh, I got one more question about the Mississippi. Is is the primary energy the political energy to start rehabilitating the delta um, Is the primary energy coming from a public safety regarding hurricanes? Or is the primary energy coming from the conservation community? All of the above. And I think that largely this is being

funded through you know, basically BP oil spill dollars. So there's still some of that has there's still some of that that's going to be spent for several more years. That's going to be you know obviously you know, kicked up through the infrastructure spending. But now it's you know, I think they've recognized that as you know, a critical to basically you know, protect New Orleans and the people

that live along there. There's also recognition that we're destroying that ecosystem, which is phenomenal, you know, fishery, waterfowl, habitat, you name it. So I think everybody has come together and this is one of those things like it's Mom and apple Pie in Louisiana. By and large, that everybody

agrees this is the right thing to do. But that's been a sea change in people's attitudes, you know, where we have a long history of controlling nature and now we're trying to get nature and actually play a role in protecting us. Just another example of infrastructure would be that, you know the part there's a pilot program in the bill that was passed in November of million dollars for

expanding highway overpasses and underpasses for wildlife. And you see that in places like you know down in you Trapper's Point and why Coming and where. They've done that already and they're incredibly successful. The animals use them. They reduce accidents with people and death and uh, you know so And it's just you know, as we think about a change in climate and animals needing to move, I mean, having those basically intact migration quarters is more important than ever.

So we're gonna see a big influx of that. And it's not just you know, for mule deer and elk and you know, prawing horn and wyoming. You know, this is gonna be for reptiles and amphibians in New Jersey getting under roads as they move and their spring migrations too, So it's a difference. A pilot program and it's going to be around the country and it's a chance to show that really works and to expand that. But this is just a different way of thinking about traditional roads

and bridges. And we have so much better data today about you know, how animals move than we did even a decade ago. You can be much more targeted, much more targeted, and you know where to put that overpass, and you know it's going to be used, and you it's got to be combined with some fencing to push

them into there. But you know that is you know, that is a solution to a lot of problems because you know, if you look at a lot of migration maps, they end write it, you know I five or whatever it is in Wyoming, and that's not the way it's supposed to work. Walk me through on those three examples unless you're ready to move away from the infrastructre like before the infrastructure. So before we leave infrastructure, here's the challenge.

So we have you know, the billion billions of dollars for conservation in that infrastructure package, and we have agencies that are not equipped to handle that level of money and getting it on the ground is going to be challenge. Well, first of all, we've had years of basically bashing the federal government and talking about we need to downsize federal government. We've had attrition from all the national resource agencies over

the years. So you need to have an infrastructure in place, you know, to apply these funds, make sure they get on the ground, you know, in a reasonable way, because nobody wants this money to be wasted. Nobody wants to just to sit in an agency's bank account and not get spent. So part of the challenge here, and we have a working group of our various partner organizations that is working on this is identify you know, places where this money can get put to get it on the

ground quickly. For example, a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation you know, which is handling a lot of the BP oil settlement funds is done, has a thirty plus year track record of doing great conservation work and knows how to get money on the ground quickly with very low overhead. You have super size the programs there to get that

money on the ground. After a Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey, they created a coastal Resiliency Fund managed a lot of the Department of Commerce funds that came into that to basically rebuild you know, wetland habitats, barrier islands, all the rest and incredibly successful, matched by private dollars, matched by

state dollars. Use that same sort of model here, you know, to get the money out of the agency's to to an organization that knows how to do grants, that knows how to monitor, knows how to avoid ait, and knows how to get that money out quickly. And that's what's happening right now. So they just did an announcement for a while ago, a billion dollars going to National fisher Wildlife Foundation for a host of different projects, terrestrial, marine, you name it. And those are RFPs around the street

right now. So I think that's the big challenge is how do we make sure that all this money has been appropriated it actually gets two good projects. And if it doesn't, you can see a change administration that comming and saying we have all this unused money, We're going to rescind it and pull it back out, and nobody

wants that to happen. So I think that's a lot of the challenge right now, Uh, explain to me how if you look at the role of t RCP and other players when they're when when they're shaping what the infrastructure package will look like. Okay, and they're they're building, they're they're they're creating legislation, and they have to keep in mind that has that be passable, right, So it's not just like a wish list, it's it has been somewhat pragmatic to get the votes and has be signed

by the president. Um at what point does the conservation community insert themselves into the dialogue to say, if we're gonna be spending money on infrastructure, we need to be like spending it in these ways and how do you keep it in the end from all the work to evaporating. So it was very clear early on that infrastructure was one of those few areas that Democrats Republicans could agree on. Yeah, Trump talked about it, you know, Obama talked about it,

Biden talked about it on the campaign trail. So back during the middle of the Trump administration, we started gearing up a campaign with our partner organizations. The way we're organized, we have sixty one different groups under our broad umbrella and then they mobilized into working groups on particular issues like infrastructure, as we may have you know, twenty different

group on this particular issue. And so we created a website years ago called Conservation Works for America that talked about putting people back to work through conservation projects and the benefits that would do for infrastructure, for natural habitats, for hunting and fishing. And based on that platform, then that basically gave us a seat at the table early on as it started again negotiated, and so then as you know, became more real under when Biden came in.

You know, then we were prepared the whole series of different road programs and we thought needed investment, and you know, and they were happy to have our support on this. And because they were trying to make it bipartisan, the hunting and fishing community tes to lean Republican and so I think they valued our input and participation. And plus

it was the right thing to do. It met their climate objectives, met their jobs objectives, and met their infrastructure objectives, and you know, was something that you know, was frankly pretty easy to get at the end of the day. So at some point someone comes in there like I got an idea for you, huh. And plus they think about the groups that are underneath the partnership. When you have Ducks Unlimited, Trout Unlimited, Pheasants, Forever Association, Official Wildlife Agencies.

I mean, these guys have been doing on the ground projects for decades and they know what works and no it doesn't work. They know the implicant you know, some of the you know, basically impediments to getting money on the ground, be it NIPA analysis, be it matching, fun requirements, things like that that all need to be tweaked if you're going to get this stuff out and get it on the ground quickly. So there's a tremendous amount expertise there and this is you know, this is right in

those groups wheelhouse. And what we do is, you know, we take advice from them and then we coalesce, coalesce around the lobby and communication strategy and try to push that through inside the beltway. And then if we're successful like we were this time, there's a buttload of money that goes back out to these groups to actually put projects on the ground. If you go back to UM, if you go back to the Greater Working Outdoors, how like,

what does implication implementation looking like? There you have some of the same challenges. Uh. You know, So just to remind your listeners, you have the Great American atdoor ZEKET had two big components. One was permanent and full funding for the Land of Water Conservation Fund nine million dollars a year for projects that conserve sensitive habitats that expand access. You know that they could be you know, fee acquisition,

it could be conservation easements. It runs the gamut. That is the only one time in the history of the program it was pasted in I think have we had full funding of nine million dollars. So again we have

some of the same challenges with the agencies. The appraisal process is a real problem here because the way that the federal appraisal process works is they'll look at a like a kick ass you know, elk or mule deer property in a place like Montana, but they appraised it on its ability to grow corner so i beans, and so you have these ridiculously low valuations that don't meet with today's I mean you look at a Hall and Hall brochure or something like that, and these amenity ranches

that have great habitat are going for insane amounts of money. They have nothing to do with how much corn and soybean they can produce. Yeah, I've I've heard frustrations from agency people about that that. You know, people should be clear that that it makes sense and it seems like a good thing, um that the government can't just buy and like insanely priced pieces of property, like there has

been some sort of objective understanding of its value in law. Yeah, to keep to keep tax prayers from getting screwed by someone making like horrible financial decisions, right, like paying a hundred million dollars for something that's worth ten million bucks. You just screwed taxpayers over So, so it's supposed to have some discipline, but it has it doesn't keep up to speed where someone explaining they're still looking at like like stocking rates of cows and calves on places that

are absolutely gonna sell as recreational wildlife habitat. They're gonna

sells recreational properties. The values have changed since the nineteen and you're not you can't you're not competing, and you're not competing in the modern era because it's not a thing where you're looking at contemporary comps, and you have a landoorder that wants to do the right thing, like make this public, you know, and but it's really hard for them to do if they're getting off of you know, what they would get on the open market, because they're

just not gonna do it. Yeah, Landard might be like, it's got miles of trout stream, hundreds of elk antelope, we see black bears and the feathers are sitting there like it'll it's got thirteen acres of irrigated LFLFA and support three cow calf pairs per you and it you know or whatever, and some some texting comes and he's like, I'll take it right. So we're having to deal with that is shoes is. So that's in the process being changed as we speak, and hopefully that gets done pretty quickly.

But then you also have a sort of a different when you look at that it's being changed, but how is it being Like what specifically are they changing? I think the federal the methodologies. I don't think this has to go through Congress. I think this administrative Act. And again I've got people on our staff that know far more about this than I do. But what they basically need to do is you know, publish a new appraisal system, you know, that reflects modern values, and that goes through

a rulemaking process. It takes a little bit of a time, and so that whole process is underway right now. In fact, we had Tommy Boudreau, who's number two at the part of the Interior, talked to our collective groups last week about his personal frustration with this, but the fact that it is moving forward and as fast as they can make it go, and just Washington doesn't do things quickly.

I've heard other stories of landowners families that want to try to move ranch land into public access and just grew to be very fastated by the time I can't like, I can't do this for three years. No, I totally agree. It's a very legitimate concern. Yeah, there's a lot of there's economic uncertainty. Who knows that the market's going to be like, I can't wait for you guys. But also the other thing about the Great American at Doors Act and Land and Water Conservation Fund, part of that is

it really also has a little bit different orientation. I mean, we got a provision in that requires at least three percent of the funds or upwards of twenty five million annually be used for projects to expand public access. So instead of on that merit, Yeah, so instead of a acre plum creek holding someplace that you maybe by under land and water conservation function may still be a great project.

This also encourages the agency to look at maybe that half section in someplace you know that may not be worth a whole lot by itself, but it opens up ten thousand makers of national force behind it, and so you know there's a different way of thinking even within the agencies that they look at this money and how it's going to get spent. Because it's not just big landscape level acquisitions. I mean, it's conservation easements, is access easements,

it's small fee purchases. But it's hard to picture getting someone getting a team of people with who can be nimble, make quick assessments, quick intelligent assessments, and be nimble enough to participate in the market right now. So that's why you have the NGO components. So you have groups like Nature Conserving Trust for Public Land Conservation Fund that have done a lot of the early legwork and putting together the deals and making the public justification and getting the

landowner trust. And then they're the ones that are private being the primary interface with the federal government saying lining this up, saying this is cute up, it's ready to go. And so the Rocky mountainol Foundation does some stuff. Foundations

perfect example, like they'll work deals. We're ranchers who may even be members of r M e F come to r M e F and be like, we'd love to get our place protected, but yeah, and then that they become the interface with the federal agency or the state agency or whatever might be that is, you know, would take ownership or hold the conservation easement. There are other times for these groups will actually buy the area in fee, just because the landowner is facing you know, a real

crunch from cash and this can't wait. With the understanding that then they'll flip it to the federal agency. But you know, that puts a big burden on the nonprofit because all of a sudden they're out however many million dollars that they're having to sit there and wait for the federal government to get in its active there's probably always some apprehension that they'll change their mind. Sure, I man,

And that's the risk of the game. But the groups like Conservation Fund, Trust republic Land, I mean, these are pros. They've been doing this for years. I think they have a pretty good sense about, yeah, this is gonna happen or not. And now that you have a guaranteed stream of federal funding through land and water conservation, one is far more certain that's going to happen at some point. The old day is a real concern was Okay, we'll

go ahead and buy this. But let's say Congress instead of giving nine million dollars only decides to give it a hundred million, and that's competing with projects all around the country. Then you can really be screwed. Are they having uh? Are they having a hard time finding projects on the right timeline? Plenty of projects out there is

a backlog of projects that are ready to go. The issue is more on the just the administrative side, getting the appraisal process fixed, getting the people within the agencies to deal with, and three times as much volume of transactions as they've been doing historically, which means staffing up to a certain degree. So those are the bigger challenges. Now.

You also have in the Great American Outdoors Act and nine and a half billion dollar trust fund to address the maintenance backlog on public lands, national parks, national forests that could be campgrounds, could be visit of centers, could

be roads, could be trails. So you know that they're facing a lot of the same problems there too about capacity because if you have an agency whereas you know, you have a lot less people than you had a few years ago, and all of a sudden you have this money to go do all this stuff, it's hard. Sometimes you get that money on the ground. Now you're not going to go out there and build that businitess and you're gonna contract with somebody else. But you've got

to do that due deal. Just on the front hand. You gotta go put out a bid. You gotta go through the RFP process and make sure you're again not getting screwed because this taxpayer money that you're using. Yeah, Uh, explain the map Act. So map Land is an act that just passed. So it's it's m A P L A N D map Land, which is making our public Lands Accessible Act. It's I'm probably it's an acronym, yeah, but it's a nice acronym. Map Land. So this is the just passed the House in the Senate, signed by

Biden two weeks ago. Uh, unanimous vote out of the Senate. And what this does is unanimous. Yeah, so I knew it passed overwhelming you, but I don't know it's unanimus. It was overwhelming in the House. I think we had like nine people that voted against it, and then you then listened the Senate. You know, you haven't explained it to people yet. I'm just curious. Now. The nine that didn't like it, what the what then they like about it? Anti just anti federal government. Um, you know, it's going

to cost some dollars. They could sort of fall in on the taxpayer concern. It's basically people that don't like conservation and out of the spending money. Out of the almost four people hanging around the house, yeah, nine didn't like it exactly, and then every senator liked it. Yeah. So anyway, what it does This goes back to the projects we did with on X that identified landlocked public lands.

And you know, in that process we went through a multi year and a series of different reports and anybody can read them on our website, but identify all these lands of the public owners the public can't get access to because there's no legal acts us right. Well, in the process of doing that, we discovered that there are a whole lot more legal access rights that we know about.

And Joel Webster, who runs our Western Lands or Western conservation programs, you know, he and the folks and on X, that dude is one of the sharpest minds when it comes to I mean I land designations, land access and he is like, I think it like our little mad scientist in the back room concocting new schemes to protect public land to expand access, and comes on him was like, that's how in the world does he know all that? Yeah, I'm so distracted by wondering how he like he lives. So,

I mean, you know, hardcore public land hunter. He'd be like, you know, what do you see like a railroad crossing and it says something or another around the map, but then next to that it says something or not about

d O T whatever. He'll be like, oh, that's because yeah, it's like no ship really so but tooking back to the map land, I mean, part of this process with on X, they discovered that the agencies and this is really Forest Service in BLM, you know, had you know, somewhere around fifty thousand negotiated access easements, of which somewhere around five thousand actually been digitized, so you you knew about them through a public process, so if you're using

your on X or something like that, it would show up. The rest of them are in boxes in the basements of ranger districts someplace. And we asked the forest like, do you mean literally literally? Do you mean that if the building burnt down? Yes, well, as it is right now. Nobody the people that are there. These may have been negotiated fifty years ago. People there now have no idea about them. At Lander may have put up a gate

someplace a long time ago, nobody really noticed. Everyone assumed it's been awful mists forever and he sold it three times. So we asked the Forest Service, and this is Forest Service is probably the worst. I mean, they've got thirty five thousand, you know, access easements, of which far less than five thousand have been actually digitized. So we asked them how long it would take you guys to get

this stuff basically into a only first century format. And they're like, well, our current levels of funding probably between ten and twenty years, And so what we did was you know, Joel and his team drafted up this bill that would give the agencies the money they need, give them a two year window to get this all done, tell them to get together to come up with a common data set because of course the agencies also have their own process in their own data standards, and get

it done. And so you know, that's what passed Congress. And I think this is gonna be a real game changer for a lot of the public land access because then if you have your handheld GPS, you're on X or whatever your format might be, you're gonna see you know what it where we have legal access rights, then they're gonna be a bunch of stuff showing up that we had no idea was there. We have a mutual acquaintance, okay, uh,

his name is Carl. Yes, he recently had a very interesting I'd to have him explained as himself in long form. I'm not even I'm not gonna talk about where it is. We said, a very interesting discovery in the Midwest where he's looking at maps and sees that there's this block of state land and there is a hundreds of yard long, hundreds of yard long strand on the map marked of like what appears to be state land that's literally feet wide. He's a lands expert, so he noticed something that maybe

peopleuldn't have noticed. He goes over to have a look and it is the wind row, the wind row between two crop fields, which is piled up with rock as the over the years farmers kick up rock, throwing the wind row. It's rock and briar, but it's a wind row. And he goes and does some research and it turns out this is owned by the state. He goes and has a chat with one of the neighboring landowners who assures him that it's been closed. Right ah. He goes

to the state office. They're like, that hasn't been closed. Um, you can definitely use it. There hasn't been a trail there, but it was meant to be. And in fact, we don't I don't know what happened. That guy has asked us to close it. We don't really know what that means. And he walks down that stumb bitch gets down there and guess what he finds all kinds of This is

a place you can't bait, all kinds of bait piles. Hey, it's been and then he parked and he can legally park on the right away, and he does this trudge. He says, it takes about an hour and a half to go down this thing to get to this lake that's otherwise inaccessible. And the guy leaves, um notes, I'm calling the sheriff. He goes and says, let's call the sheriff together. Well, I'm not calling him right now, but it's a crazy story. I don't think that's it's not

federal but a state right, It's not. It's not isolated. I think you're gonna find as we do this process and get this implemented, you're gonna find those all over the place. And as you you talked about, corner crossing is a little bit. I mean, this all sort of plays into you know, one way to deal with overcrowding on a bunch of our public lands is to expand access to the public lands that nobody has access to right now. And map land is one tool to help

us do that. And it's not infringing on private property rights because we own these and you know, maybe the new landowner doesn't know that, but this is gonna help I think a long term with reduced conflicts with private landowners because you know, this is the way it is. It's gonna be digitized. Everyone knows where it is, and everyone knows where it isn't. That's the thing I think

people need to um not need to this. The thing I'd like people to recognize is it's instead of the public take like, instead of the public going to sort of like taking something from a private landowner, it's that And I'm gonna say it's in effect, the private landowner has taken something from the public, the private landowners utilizing

as their own something that isn't. There's so if you if you believe in this whole like you know, this whole idea of a property rights and stuff, we're just we're simply the public is simply asserting it's property rights. And if it's saying we the republic have access to certain things, we'd like to clarify what it is and utilize it. And there may be no malice on the

landowner's part. May have you changed hands two or three times since this was negotiating, he had probably had no idea here or she And it's got to be a rude it's a rude awakening. You can like I can easily get in the head of someone who has been on some chunk of ground for you know, twenty years, and all of a sudden someone says, hey, you know, I hate to break it to you, but it turns out your driveway is a road. Yeah, of course you're

gonna of course yours. No one's gonna be like, oh well, in that case, welcome, But it is what it is. There's a bunch of other stuff we're working on right now. There's a bill that's pending in the Senate called Recovering America's Wildlife Act, And that's a slam, don't right, Oh no, no, no, this is a you know, I mean, it's We've got sixteen Democrats, sixteen Republicans on it, and this is in the Senate, so I mean, it's got good bipartisans support.

But it's gonna cost, you know, one point four billion dollars a year, and any time that you have something that's that expensive, there's gonna be opposition to it. We know that. And it's not gonna be something that sales through a hundred or nothing. But you know the rationale behind this bill. But you have a split number of Democrats and Republicans supporting it. Yeah, but that's you know, still thirty or thirty two out of a hundred and

not heard about it yet. Oh they may have heard about it, they just haven't signed on as co sponsors. When they signed US co sponsors, we know we got their vote, and we're we've been very deliberate of making sure that for every Democrat we take get we're going to get a Republican to keep this bipartisan going the way through. And you got how many thirty two right now and how many even have you talked too, We've

talked all of that. Well, you only got eighteen to go in your halfway and you're at the You also have the filibuster in the Senate, which means you have to get above sixty and uh, you know so. But anyway, I think we can get it done. But it's not slam dunk by enemies. But what this bill would do is invest this money one point four billion a year two states to work on essentially non game wildlife issues and with the goal of keeping species off the Endangerous

PECS Act list. And you think about you know, the state agencies which have primary jurisdiction for managing wildlife, you know, somewhere in that plus of their annual budgets come from sportsmen. Yeah, through you know, the excise taxes that go back out to the states for yeah, fishing, tackle, ammunition, guns, archery equipment, motor boat fuel, all the rest, and the licenses that we all pay and the tags we buy and all that. So sportsman is basically paying for wildlife management for years

and some of that is understand. The agencies used to deal with things butterflies, bats, you know, whatever the non game species might be, but it's not a sustainable model. And several years ago the states developed what they call their Wildlife Action Plans, which is what they would need to deal with all these species that are in decline that will probably eventually get listed and you know, cost a ton of money to recover. So how do we

get ahead of that? And they added up you've added up the fifty states and the territories and it came out to one point four billion a year, which is

why we came up that number. So in this you know, it's a penny wise, you know, this is a good investment to save a lot of money down the road, because you know, if as we say, if it's species gets down to a red wolf status and we're spending, however, many tens of millions of dollars you had to try to recover that species, it would have made a whole lot more sense before it got to that level, and red wolf maybe a bad example to spend. Yeah, end that money in advance to make sure that these species

aren't you collapsing. And plus we're really talking about habitat management, so we're talking about you know projects, if you think about something like the sage brush step, you know, sage grouse is obviously iconic species there, but we also have three and fifty other species that are not really game

species that occupy that exact same ecosystem. So honestly, the reason we've been pushing this as much as one we think that we need that investment, but to this is going to help game species as well, because we're really going to be investing in habitats and not just single species management. So we think it makes a ton of sense. Um, we hope we're gonna be able to get it done this year, but you know it's again, I think it's gonna be a fairly heavy lift. There's companies that want

to touch on UM. I don't want to back up a little bit. We talked about Great American Outdoor z Act in the Land and Water Conservation Fund. I feel like a lot of people sitting there being like, where is all this money coming from? At one point we

didn't cover this. But in the case of the Great American Outdoors Act, which is funding l w CF Land and Water Conservation Fund funding, UM, that was a deal struck when in nine it was that when when an oil company is leasing from the American people offshore oil field land. So it's like you get out how many miles you've gotta get off the coast where you're out

of state water? Okay, So if you if you let's say you live in California and you get in your boat and start heading west, you are in California water for a few miles, and then you enter United States water and that goes I don't know, quite a way. So that's land on by the American people. Someone's gonna go drill for oil. The for profit venture is going

to go drill for oil. Well, there's ranking a deal with the American people saying like we would like to lease this oil site from the American people to drill oil to sell oil. That is where this revenue comes from. It's a it's a percentage of the lease fee. So we're saying as Americans, you know, like our representatives saying, Okay, you're gonna pay us acts to use our land to draw oil from and we're gonna say that a percent of how many of that? Do you remember what it is?

I can't remember it was, you know, as the percentage would have changed by now because it was a set dollar figure. So they're saying, of that money, this amount, like of the money you're paying to US America, we're pledging to spend this amount on access conservation projects. So this isn't like money that is just getting pulled out

of thin air. This was a deal that was struck back then that allowed the Outer Continental Shelf to be opened up for oil and gas development, and then the oil industry and return agreed to pay into this fund to pay for conservation on yeh. And it was a a great model and it's worked well. The exception that the legislation was written in a fashion that didn't make that funding until the Great American ADOR's Act passed mandatory.

So every year our Congress will see that nine hundred million dollars inside, well, let's not appropriate, maybe nine hundre millions to four hundred million, even though we were supposed to or but it wasn't protected from that. So Congress a raid it for all sorts of other purposes, and that was what got fixed in the Great American Doors Act. Now, obviously nine million dollars today is not worth the same

as it was. It's still a lot of money, but it's a fraction of what it was originally intended to be. It would have been better if it was a percentage it would have been. But you know, listen, I'm happy we get nine hundred million dedicated for this because there's a whole lot better than what we were getting in the case of uh, let's let's take this recovering America's Wildlife Act situation. So here's the thing that it's helpful to consider. I remember I was talking with a policy guy.

It worked on grizzly bear policy, and in the lower forty eight grizzly bears are um listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. And someone was telling me that the state of Idaho, Okay, the state of Idaho, through the Fish and Game Agency, which is funded by hunters and anglers. They spend half as much on every annually. They spend half as much on every grizzly bear that lives in Idaho as they do on every kid enrolled in public school. I would be a skeptical of that number.

But okay, does it come No, Listen, I got it through the New York Times fact checker. They don't know anything through, but run it, run it again. The state of Idaho was spending what what they are spending. Nine They they cost them like nine thousand bucks per year per kid for public school. If that was I don't remember the exactly, nor something like that. The State Idaho is spending four thousand five dollars on every grizzly baronet stage. Sorry,

you're not talking accumulative total. No, I'm saying they spend half as much per bear as they do per kid to put them in public school. To put into context like what it costs what managing like what it costs to manage imperiled species. It's expensive to mandage imperiled species. Um. So when you get into this question of is there a better funding mechanism than than having a state which is get all of it's funding through hunter angler participation

or excise taxes on sporting goods. To to have this like chunk of money spread so thin, as like you're saying, as we have increasing numbers and sure to have more species make the endangered Species list, it's at a point you're gonna be like week at a state level, we can't do it anymore. I know there's fun, there's like federal mechanisms too, but at a point you're going to be that we're trying to and I know that state fish and game agencies are encouraged not to think this

way anymore. Where they look at like that they have a clientele, their clientele being like hunters and anglers, and hunters and anglers want to see lots of oh, lots of turkeys, well managed resources, and so they're like, I want my money, Like I'm paying the money because I want I like to hunt. I want you to take my money and make sure that these things that have all this public support are viable. And you don't have people buying butterfly stamps stamps, so there's a there's a

whole huge hole. And and how we look at this stuff. Yeah, and I just think that, you know, triage is not where we want to get. We want to protect the ecosystems that maintain these species that are on the decline, you know, so they never get to that trio situation where it costs so much money. And that's what those whole backs about. Yeah, And even if you're not a butterfly lover, I can just about guarantee you that if it's good for the butterflies, is probably gonna be good

for your turkeys and deer too. Oh. Indeed, there aren't many, Um, there aren't many habitat moves that turn out being bad for something cases where you go help one thing and it turns out being bad for something else. That's right. A couple other things is worth noting. Um, we just had a big milestone on Striped Mass on the East, which is the number one marine recreational fish in America. And they know that is that in terms of in terms of angler ours, angler, our economic impact, um. And

it's huge. I mean it goes all North Carolina, all the way I pet through Maine. I've never even caught one awesome fish and eat and it's it's really you know, unlike something like a bone fish or a tarp and it was it's an every man's fish catching from the beach. It's blue, blue collar. I mean you can catch them from the beach. You don't have to have a fancy boat. Yeah, you can catch them on a fly. You can walk

down Rhode Island, walk them down the beach. So I saw a bunch of them, and you catch out there and you actually catch a whole bunch of blue fish. But now and then, yep, there is so anyway the stripe bass. You may remember, you know, there was a full moratorium back in the nineties, there was so overfl like it got bad, they got really bad, so over fishing. I mean there was some some habitat stuff too, but it was recreation. It was recreational and commercial. I mean

recreational is the bigger part of the problem today. Like recreational anglers actually put a hurt on that fish. I mean commercial did too. But you know today s the you know, the fish that are caught are caught by are killed or killed by recreational language. Really and that's how popular are the fishes. I always run around telling people that like regulated recreational fishing is negligible. I mean

regulated is the key word there. And we just didn't do what we need to do at that time to regulate it properly and until it was too late, and we had a full last moratorium on commercial and recreational harvest for years. And was it because people are killing big females? That was certainly part of the problem. Yeah, and you have a big female, forty female can lay I forget million eggs or something. I mean, they are incredibly fakun and uh, but we were, you know, starting

to lose them. And also you're you're killing you know, they're just killing too many fish period and even catching release. You know, we are far better today at you know, surviving you know, knowing how to do that properly without huge you know, impacts me. If you're if you're using live bait with trouble hooks, you know, and you're letting the fish swallow it, You're not going to release that fish, even if it's below the slot limit or you want to.

You've already caught your limit for the day. That fish is going to die. Yeah. So you know they've there have been a lot of advancements and you know, they see more reducing mortality. But the species has still been in basically steady decline for the past twenty years still now.

And the last management action that was taken was taken in two thousand three or two thousand four, and that was what they call Amendment six to the Strip Bass Plan and that's been intact until today and BASY has been in place as we've been watching this steady decline and so finally this year in fact, just this decline in total numbers is the decline in like numbers of large sexony mature fish total numbers at this point. So but they're different management trigger as they look at to determine,

you know, how whether over fishing is occurring. You know, they do stock assessments, they do younger the year in disease in the key spawning areas, you know, so overall they will look at those and that's determines whether you know, the stock is okay or whether it's you know, being over fished. And right now we've been a constant state overfishing.

So the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which is the basically the body made up of all the states on the Atlantic coast, you know, finally adopted last month something called amendiment seven, which dramatically changes how we're gonna be managing stripe best. It makes it much better for conservation. Now, rubbers gonna hit the road in October when we have

the stock assessment this year. We didn't get stock assessments during the pandemic because they were not doing it, and so we will actually sort of see how bad it is come October, and if it's really bad, you're going to see a whole bunch of triggers put in place to reduce mortality. Give me a preview. Well, we've already had certain things done last year, like requiring circle hooks on live bait because the again that trouble hook is

not good for catching release. Um, but you know what it could be is yeah, I mean it's it gets pretty walky pretty fast. And you can go on our website and read all about this. But for example, there is something called conservation equivalency, which means that in a place like the chess Peake Bay, which doesn't have a big fish much of the year, they allow you to catch fish that are much smaller and keep some because

there simply aren't that the slot isn't in there. You know when people are fishing in the summertime, and that's been abused over the years. So they're finally gonna if you're if it continued over fishing is occurring, that goes away. I want to make sure I'm getting this right. They have a slot limit and then guys are like, dude, I'm not catching one that I can keep. Well, if you're in the chest back bay, I mean those fish they're in the slot have moved out in the summer,

and they're based on based on angler feedback. They're doing an adjustment. Like it's like the never mind the slot. You guys get to have a different you know, management regime down here to allow people to fish, and we're us killing way too many fish. And so you know, if we if it's decided that over fishing is still occurring come October in the stock assessment, then you know that is going to go away. So yeah, tough. I mean, we just can't kill small fish. Can I share with

you three quick stripe bass go for things? Uh? I spent several months in San Jose, California. One time when I was working on a book and I had a I would call him my fake uncle down because he was like not even he was sort of a relative, like a step seemed like uncle, but he wasn't even kind of close to my uncle. Anyways. He would take me out trolling in San Francisco Bay for stripe bass, and he would troll so close to the San Quentin. You know who was in there at that time? Was

that Mamber that guy that took his wife out. Says he took her out sturge and fishing, killed her and sunk her down at the bottom of the bay. Vaguely, Well, he was in there, Lord knows who else. We would troll so close to the guard tower at San Quentin that we'd wave to the guards and catch them good. And in the Upper Delaware, I used to go fish the Upper Delaware, uh way up where it's like Pennsylvania and New York Hancock to the West Branch come together.

You're catching trout right like it was like rainbows and browns. And that's where I was fly fishing two weeks ago. Well, sometimes you've probably seen this happen. I'd be in my canoe, you know, you're catching like rainbows, small moss, whatever, and all of a sudden, like you looked down in some hole and just stripers as long as your leg, And I like, I didn't know because that was new to

the area. I didn't know that was the thing. And I'd be like, yeah, normal, you see something like that, You're like, oh, it must be a carp right, like something like that big. But they're fast, And I was like, what the I thought I discovered a new species. Someone's like, no, dude, stripe basket will come all the way out of the ocean and come up here. So the Delaware is the look like a stream. It's the longest stretch of undamned river in the eastern United States, so all the way

from south of Philadelphia up to upstate New York. I thought I was hallucinating until I figured un till someone explained what I was looking at. Yep, were they ever hitting that kind of stuff? I can't even imagine. I've got friends of target them. Yeah, I can't imagine there that many that stay up there, but the ones to get up there and often, like you know, I mean, not go back out of the ocean because all these tastes a little trout in here. Oh, just incredible, man.

My final one is this dude, my brother Danny used to work with was in Connecticut, and he took me out one night and uh, what the hell river it was. Um, we wait out on the river like the darkest night imaginable, and you can't you can't, I can't tell anything that's going on. And you just see the house lights and we're staying in the river like you know, up to your crotch and some river I can't see. We got

there in the dark, no idea what's going on. And he's like just cast out there, you know, And I'm like, this is the stupidest thing in the look, this will never worked. Oh yeah, one of those things hits in the dark, dude. It was amazing, man. And that's the time to fish fish because you know the Long Island Sound around there is there's a lot of people, and you go during the day there are people everywhere, and you got it there at night and these little coastal

rivers or flats were right in the mouth of the river. Yeah, I mean you have, first of all, there's nobody around, and you know the fit the fish come in and this they fish, they've hit better at night than they do in the daytime. Anyway. Yeah, it's so dark when you cast, like cast that plug you could, like the plug just sort of vanished into the darkness, like every idea like where you cast. Now, I did that for years and I'd love that. Oh he was I thought

it was a riot. But you know, you get that feeling like I don't know what you're going out, but there's no way this, Like you can't catch fish like this, that doesn't work like this. So anyway, I think that the future is finally looking a little bit brighter for striped bass and hopefully we can stem this decline and start a recovery. Now, there are other things that are working against it, you know, from you know, maybe the Chest Peak Bay isn't as productive as it used to be,

a climate get a little warmer. How much how much pushback do they anticipate from fisherman Very little? So right now, I mean all that and this is one of the cool things about this process. Basically entire recreational community, you know, it was on board with you know, taking very strong

steps for conservation. Yeah, which is a change. And I mean listen, well, I'll take a little credit for that because you know, we helped assemble the coalition of as American support Fishing Association, Coastal Conservation Association, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, National Marine Manufacturers, others, to make sure that we were all on the same page because you know there are other groups you've you know, going to be good on this.

But you know, our community, especially like the industry, you know, it just hates the thought of you know, fewer people on the water and you know, less economic activity. But I think everybody finally recognized that if we don't take some steps now, it's going to give you we're looking at another moratorium down the road. And that helps nobody. You know, that's in people's memory. Ye oh yeah, Vivid got you. How do they do these accounts? So you know,

I don't know how they do the stock assessments. They do young of the year in disease in the Chesspeake Bay and the Hudson River, which are the two mains spawning areas for stripe bass, and they have certain areas they go to all the time, and you know they see you basically, you know, this time of year they'll go in and do surveys a little bit later about the young because they'll come up there, you know, the stripe bass like in d C. We'll swim all the way up the Potomac past d See and spawn and

they come up there in that you know, February March, you know time frame, and then spawn the little guys come out. And there are certain areas where the little ones tend to congregate where you can go and do a little sane surveys and you use the same methodology year to year. You come up with some pretty good trend lines over time, and they've been bad trend lines

of late. And we also have things like, you know, blue catfish are now in the Chess Peak, which tend to love to eat little stripers, and that's an invasive species. It was never there before. So and people in the Chesty Bay aren't you used to whacking them even though they're great eating and you know, good game fish. But so they're out there and they're relatively unmolested, except they're doing a lot of molesting of straight bass. M So

people gotta start keeping blues. Hit hit them hard. That's so good eating fish too. People like to look down on the old catfish, but delicious, yeah, cleaning it up right, and fish right especially has been eating straight bass and hanging out the sewer system outfall. Another question for you for the recovering America's wildlife? Are there there are there non hunting, non sportsman groups that are like chipping in, helping out, pushing for it. Oh, absolutely, like the butterfly

Lover group. The environmental community is strongly behind it. I mean, this is another one where there is really no separation between our Yeah, what we want, what the environmental community want, what's the yeah, So everybody who cares about wildlife wants this to happen. When you're in a meeting, um, and there's a lot of different wildlife interests in the room, including a lot of people who are probably like instinctively adversarial to the hunt and fishing community. Um, are you

guys just all business? Oh? Yeah? And honestly, there aren't that many groups. I mean Pete Human Society, they don't deal in federal policy. They don't know they they're much more comfortable, you know, throwing fake blood on somebody were in a fur or something like that. So I mean they're not involved in these negotiations. And you know, honestly, groups like Sierra Club supports hunting and they don't make it big. But but like a group like a group

like Peter doesn't. I never thought about that. They don't get there, not a federal policy group. I mean maybe they do in some places, but no, we've never bumped into um. But you know, so we work really close to a groups like Audubon. Yeah, yeah, which they're probably like pretty agnostic to it. Actually they're they're fine with hunting. I mean, they're just about good management. And you know, so we've worked with him a ton on sage grouse,

on infrastructure, on variety of other things. And they've got great staff, they have you know, long proud tradition, they have good chapters, and you know, some members of Congress are rather here from Audubon. Some would rather hear from

the Boone and Crockett Club. Got you, uh, do you feel that the recovering America's wildlife fact if if we if it doesn't get done before mid terms, it's just all the hubbub of mid terms going to kind of just yeah, I mean, well just so you know, so basically we have a working period between now and I would gets August recess. After the August recess, nothing's going

to happen basically until after the election. After the election, after the mid term, after the mid term, and then it'll be like another little bit of activity, could be a lame duck session, but that all depends on, you know, what's happening in the election. So it's time to the time to do this is now, I think so Yeah, I mean, listen, we've got the wind at our back right now. We've you know, we've got had Great American Outdoors Act, we've just got map Land, We've had you know,

the America's Conservation Enhancement Act. We have a variety of other things that are pushing through that we've managed to get done. And I really feel that, you know, momentums on our side. We got to use that, uh to close out explain to people, and you've explained it before, explained to people, um, the unexpected goodness of of times of inflamed part partisanship. Yeah, you know, it's I mean, listen,

it's not. DC in general is not a fun place to be in these days, especially if you're a member of Congress and you want to do the right thing. But in this very broken system we're in, it turns out that our issues tend to be ones that you know, folks can come together. Gone you have right, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, and you know so and most members of Congress, maybe a little pollyannic on this, are there for the right reasons.

They want to do public policy, they want to make a difference, they want to do us right, and we're giving them things that you know, Republicans Democrats can support. They're good on the ground. Yeah, they can be proud of for multiple reasons, from hunting and fishing to climate to access and you know, we've you know, we're just in a sweet spot right now. Like if they want to have some wine, they can often turn to conservation.

Everybody wants to win and uh, you know, and these are ones that and honestly, you know, I think that you know, our community is a perfect messenger on this stuff because yeah, okay, the community tends to lean conservative, lean Republican, but at the end of the day, they're pragmatists and you know, they care about, you know, conservation, They care about maintaining basically the best conservation system in

the world that we have in this country. And you know that requires you know, Democrats, Republicans, and what we're trying to do is conservation. It is durable that does not depend on having a Democrat a Republican the White House or in the House of Representatives or in the Senate. These things make sense regardless of what parties in power.

And if we maintain that were true to that, then I mean you were at our dinner of umced our dinner last week, and we always honor one Republican, one Democrat, some of even the private sector. And you know that's the whole theme that there's plenty of quite often that private sector individual is is is an industry, you know, somewhe from Yeah, this year it was Ben Special, the head of you know, Yamaha Marin and Yama has done unbelievable things. From someone from the beer industry yep, New

Belgium the year before that. And I mean it runs a gamut, but you know, the hope of some like like someone from the corporate world who's running a great business, running a profitable business. But keeping in mind, yeah, we we were got with corporate America, and but we try to identify the leaders in each of the sectors and not just you know, Padagon in r I. But you know, we work a lot with Shell Oil because I think they're by far the most conservation minded, progressive of the

big oil companies. And listen, oil and gas is gonna be here for a long time in the future, even if we get to a much more carbon free society. And my trucks is only two years old. I mean, I'm gonna be driving for a long time, I hope. And but we want to work with companies that really have a commitment to doing the right thing. And you know that's sometimes harder than other times. But yeah, like Ben specially Yamaha, that's an easy one. I mean, they

have walked the walk for a long time now. But I was gonna say, I mean, there's plenty of disagree about in d C, but these issues hunting, fishing, conservation should not be one of them. All right, Everyone with Fosberg from TRCP. If you like uh withs approach dot org. Yeah, if you like withs approach and you like the kind of projects t RCP works on, tell them how to go find more. Yeah, just go to our website. This is pretty wonky, but we try to boil it down

so it's understandable for the late person. And uh, you know, become an activist and membership is free if you want to give us a little money exchange for something we'd love to have it. Um. But you know you will get those updates weekly if what's happening in d C, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to weigh in yourself and uh TRCP dot org. Yeah, all right, thanks everybody,