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The meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for el First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light dot com. F I R S T L I t E dot com. Hey, everybody, welcome to Our governor Tags. Our Governor's tags on American reducts? Is that the right right? You used to reducts? Remember they did apocalypse now and they recut it and call it reducts.
I don't know to redo do over?
Well, where we are sells are are in the hot seat.
We did an episode Our Governor's Tags on American and and you know the the the episode was phrased as though it was a question. But I think there was an overriding There was an overriding sentiment in the room about you know, it's.
It's hyperbolic language.
Overriding sentiment in the room of I would say a tipping a the Governor's tags. The sentiment in the room is that governor's tags tipped on American We were called out on this by Gray Thornton from the Wild Sheep Foundation, which is the pre eminent wild cheap conservation organization in America, and in all fairness, does more than any entity in putting wild sheep back on the mountain, keeping wild sheep
on the mountain. So we had to hear him out, and he's here today to tell us where we went wrong. In his opinion, Gray, I want to keep the I want to keep it. I want to keep all this fair. Yeah, So I want to who gets to who gets to say just to bring people up to speed? Who gets to say who gets to describe what a governor's tag is.
I'm happy to give it a shot.
Give it a shot, and then if you do it and I don't like it, I'll give you.
I'll give your thumbs down. You know, here's a good thing, is Stephen? This is your show. Yeah, So I'm just honored to be here. No, I don't. I don't know if I called it out. We just wanted to point out some things that we would have liked, at least at least had stated.
So I get criticized about something or another every day, okay and I both now most of them I kind of like laugh them off. But your criticism of some of the comments that were made on that episode struck me so much that I emailed you within seconds of reading them.
So like you know, when you.
Get you know, if you get called out in a way where you're like, okay, all right, you know I get a mean email every day from my friend Doug, and you know you asked him, I'll usually reply by I asked them, if you've seen any turkeys around? How's the turkey's looking in other news? But no, no, I yeah, tell everybody what a governor's tag is. So well, let's talk about what it is before we talk about.
What it was. It mean.
Well, first of all, where did they come from?
And so the first governor's tag was actually given to what was then the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep now Wild Chief Foundation in nineteen eighty by Governor Ed Herschler from Wyoming and a lot different than they are today. But the idea from Ed's perspective was, hey, we have these highly coveted tags opportunities. We've got this fairly new organization, Foundation of North American Wild Chief was founded in nineteen
seventy seven. So three years later, what if we gave one of these tags, they sold it at auction and we just mandate that they dedicate all the funds to Wild Chief Conservation in Wyoming. So that's how the whole process started. And so back then, yeah, it's it was a governor's tag and so.
Because the state wasn't able to the state didn't have the mechanism to sell it themselves.
No, so they kind of look at a you know, at an NGO as you know, we're the ones that can put on the party, put on the show, and there's there's a number of us out there that are doing it. But it was kind of a changing point for wild Chief conservation funding, bottom line finase or you know, now wild Chief foundations in is in existence because sheep
weren't a priority. They didn't pay their way. Too few and unlike elk, unlike meal deer, and like white tails, unlike you know, even turkeys, not enough of them to fund their conservation. So for many agencies, they really weren't a priority.
You might explain them what that means by not enough to fund the conservation.
You know, for example, let's let's look at Montana.
We'll look at twenty twenty three data, twenty twenty four data six hundred and fifty eight, six hundred and fifty six tags made available five hundred and fifty eight to residents that brought in And this is this is twenty twenty three data sixty nine, seven hundred and fifty bucks.
You're talking sheep, now, sheep.
Bighorn sheep tags. Ninety eight non resident tags brought in a little over one hundred and twenty two thousand dollars. So one hundred and ninety eight thousand dollars total for bighorn cheap conservation from the sale of.
Tags, from the sale of six hundred tags.
Yeah, not a lot of money. You know. I started really looking at this ten years prior, back in twenty fourteen, and looked and thought, because I was, I was fortunate up to take a big horn in our unlimited area in twenty fourteen, I paid regulations. Oh crazy, you know, I was. I was a non resident hunter. I paid
seven hundred and fifty bucks. Coincidentally, that year at our show, the Montana tag sold for four hundred and eighty thousand dollars twenty thirteen, so I was looking at the funding model, going, this is kind of interesting. You know, how relevant are these tags to Wild Chief conservation? How relevant is Wild Chief Foundation to the Wild Chief economy because we're one
of the organizations that sells the most. So I did kind of a deep dive and I had a couple of our biologists look at WAFWA data, and you know, I think at back in twenty fourteen, it hasn't changed too much. I think it was about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars came to the state on the non auction or raffle tech. Well, hell you can't. You can't buy a pickup truck and fund a biologist for that. So how the hell are we going to fund wild
cheap conservation? And that's really what Ed Hirschler was looking at back in nineteen eighty is that they don't pay their way. They're just there's so few of them, and the revenues so stream is so small. From the whether they're l EH tags or not, that there's l EH limited entry hunting. You know what most of us in North America see is well, we got to apply for a sheep tag. You know, we're blessed in Montana the only Lower forty eight state that you can in effect
buying over the counter sheep tag. Pretty fricking cool. We've got to protect that. Alaska obviously you can buy over counter dolls tag, although now that's every third year for a non resident. Canada's where you can you know, just buy over the counter. For Canadian residents, you know, we obviously have to have an outfitter. So it was a unique funding model, and it's it's certainly grown, you know,
in Wild Chief Foundation. Quite frankly, it has been you know, kind of the premier governor's tag, and now we like to call them conservation permits because that's really what they are, because they're not only governors. British Columbia has a minister's license. Alberta has a minister's license. Tribal tags we sell. We sell tags for the Taus Pueblo, for the Navajo Nation, We've sold them for the Wala Pie, We've sold them for the Kwani First Nation up in up in Northwest,
I'm sorry, in Yukon. So it's you know, we we we glump them into a little i think more descriptive definition called a conservation permit, which I think really identifies
what they are. And Stephen back in twenty fourteen, when I ask our conservation guys to do this deep dive, they used Western Association of Fishing wildliche Agency data WAFFWA data and found that seventy three percent of all wild sheep agency funding came from either a auction tag, conservation permit, or a raffle tag, with the majority of the money coming in from an auction tag. Fast forward ten years later,
we're still still quantifying the data. Right now, it's about eighty three percent in the United States of sheep sheep conservation funding at the agency level come from either an off auction or raffle tech.
So is it like when one of these tags, conservation permit, government tag, whatever you want to call them, get sold, is it mandated that that money goes is too wild cheap conservation?
Or is it diluted? It all roady? That's that's the million dollar question. The easy answer is yes. Now it's you know, the proofs in the pudding and in the implementation. You know, one of the misnomers is you know, I mean we just we just had our convention in Reno. We sold thirty tags. We're going to direct about six point eight million dollars to state, provincial, tribal, territorial, and
federal agencies to the sale of those thirty tags. By statute, Wild Sheep Foundation has to direct those moneies to the agency. What the agencies do for it a little deeper dive, and I'd like to jump into that, but a misnomer is, oh my god, weld Chief Foundation got all this money. No Arizona one hundred percent of the proceeds from the sale of any any special tag conservation permit that we go back to the state Arizona Game and Fish Nevada
one goes back to Nevada Department of Wildlife. The average that we would retain is about ten percent. If you look at look at all the agencies. If you look at just this last two weeks ago at our sheep show, seven point three some odd million, we're going to keep six hundred and some odd thousand. It's eight point nine percent coming back to the Wild Chief Foundation from the sale of those tags. Again, some of them are one hundred percent of the agencies, most of them are around ten.
British Columbia is fifteen percent that we can retain. Alaska, interesting enough, has a different kind of a rule. But the moneys have to go back to an Alaska NGO. So we we sell the conservation permit, one goes back to our Alaska chapter. I think they keep fifteen percent and then they direct the rest to State of Alaska. So I can certainly show you where Wild Chief Foundation
directs our monies. I mean, this year we're budgeting about two point seven two point eight in grant eight going out of a three point seven million that will fund education, conservation, you know, education, youth education, engaging women disease research. But so much of what we do is grant neate out. An agency or a chapter applies for a grant, we give that money away. We keep six hundred and some one thousand dollars from these permits we're giving away three
point seven. You know, it's not a it's not a money maker for us, but it is a hell of a money maker for the agencies. And that's that's what we're trying to focus on. And you know, if there's a better way to do it, we're all ears because our focus is that ram you or lamb on the ridge line, and how do we put money into the agency to affect their conservation, their enhancement, their repatriation, the restoration habitat and all that. Uh so did I did I pass? Did we call it conservation permit?
Yeah, I'm happy with the definition of conservation permit.
Uh one of the things. So this is something I said. If you look at our thing, krinn was a quote, they made an extra tag.
Yeah, you were, you were. I think you were trying to figure out.
Like I think what you were saying is it wasn't coming out of the same pool that people drop.
Whose side was I on when I said that.
There, I think it got you on the right side, because that's absolutely correct.
Okay, you qualified that you were like undecided and split down the middle.
What I said, this is one of the two things.
No, I remember, I said, this is one of the few things in life I don't have an opinion about.
I'm too torn.
Yeah, yeah, we can.
We can bring in some of Cow's arguments later. I think that's that's interesting.
Okay, So let's let's let's dive into one of the let's let's dive into one of these these aspects of governor's tags. It gets people riled up, right, Sorry, conservation permits. I'm gonna call them governor's tags, okay, just because that's well, no, I'll try to I say governor's tags. Other guys know what I'm talking about. If I say conservation tag, They're not going to know what I'm talking about.
The rebranding is it's kind of like the Golf of Mexico and the Gulf of America.
But then it.
Doesn't mean that we should stick with.
Stick with governor's tags. But when we go to when we go to b C or permit where we're talking tribal, I'll call it a tribal permit.
Okay, you know there's an outfitter. Uh, there's a guide that.
So I'm talking about Golf of America.
I kind of felt like you wouldn't let that just go.
There's a there's a So sometimes when we spearfish down in Louisiana, we stay in this place and next to the place is the Golf of America charter.
You know, Oh, that's the name of their outfitter.
That was my first because this is years ago, that was my first awareness. I just like chuckled about the Golf of America.
He was ahead of the game.
He's way ahead of so it must have been brewing a long time. I got like, I'm totally fine golf. I'm totally fine golf of America.
The Nalely. I feel like that's pretty solidified in Alaskan culture.
Yeah.
Even the politicians in Alaska like what Yeah, I don't know it was a problem with the name.
I do remember it being McKinley. Uh.
Okay, here's one. Here's a governor's tag argument folks make when they're arguing about this. Oh you know what, you know what made me they want to think about this? In all fairness, we have to get into the fact that there is a class there's there's a class issue here.
Yeah, but that question.
So the other night, uh, Saturday, two Saturdays ago. I didn't watch it, but I watched on YouTube. David Chappelle did the opening monologue on Saturday Night Live. And Chappelle was talking about the LA fires, and he was talking about reading commentary and news articles of people saying, uh, you know, I'm glad those rich Californians there's houses are getting burned down, and he said, Chappelle says, that's why I hate poor people. They can't see beyond their own pain.
So there there is a there is a class issue to this, Like anything to do with wealth access, any kind of financial privilege, right, is going to generate animosity.
Right.
You hear someone went to Yale, there's a judgment. Like if that's not part of your family trajectory, there's a judgment if someone has.
It doesn't matter in America, doesn't matter if you're talking about sheep or like.
Real estate or whatever.
It's like there is like he paid blank million for that house boom, right, Like there's a judgment, right, and so.
We need to get there, Like I'd like to get there on the.
Issue of just like a perceived sense in America, like I guess globally historically, a perceived sense that there's like two playing fields and that the people of wealth have access to things that that people don't have, and implied and add to some sort of sense that most people have wealth don't deserve it. So that's just burning, that's simmering underground, and we'll remember to get to it. But let's start with another. Let's start with a less philosophical point,
because this is just like a factual point. Give me a how many tags did Montana issue for big horns?
One one for auction one for raffle.
No, no, I'm sorry, six hundred. In twenty twenty three, it was six hundred and fifty six total. Okay, there is a perception that right that it would.
Have been sorry, somebody the number again, six fifty six. So through the public draw they issue six hundred and fifty six big horn tags. There's a perception that the number would have been six hundred and fifty seven.
Correct, So that one other.
We should use a state that doesn't have nearly as many, because there's so many and it seems like a lot of mine.
What's the state that doesn't have shit for big horn tags?
Nebraska? I don't want to go that extreme as a big horn tag, all right, but yeah, no, I see your point.
There's a perception there it should have been six fifty seven.
So some lucky guy, some some would be lucky guy that would have gone down and did the draw got screwed out of his big horn tag. Okay, But they auctioned it off to the highest bidder. So we've seen a diminishment of the public pool. Now I want you
to tackle whether that's true or not. But then that's gonna bring up a broader question if if they create an extra tag to facilitate a conservation tag auction, that makes me feel like the number of tags they're issuing becomes kind of arbitrary, Like, how do you create an extra tag if the the number of tags that are being distributed is like a biologically driven reality?
Meaning if it, how did it go from six fifty six to six fifty seven?
So I got a, I think an answer that you're going to appreciate, you know. Again, Well, I'll go back to the unlimited area. You know, we've got three to four to five kind of depending on the year, unlimited areas. You know, our our guru in this state, the biologist Sean Stewart. You listen to him talk about the the allocation, the quota for those used to be three and some now it's pretty much two. We all know there's some
years that they take three, four, five, sometimes six. You know, so you might have a quota of two, but there's six taken legally. Yeah, can you explain how that happens? Just for that's it? Well, so there's a there's a forty eight hour window when the season closes. You know, in my particular case, I took a ram i was the second ram taken in twenty fourteen in the unit I was hunting. Tried to close the season by sending
an end reach in. They don't accept that, so, you know, went through my wife and then called fish Wildife Parks. They go, no, Gray's got to call you. Uh, I don't know sell signal. I don't. I don't have a cell signal. I don't have a SAT phone, so I'm using in reach and and you know, long and short. Sean finally went, oh, wait a minute, I know who that guy is. And oh, by the way, he's with Jack Atchison. If there's anyone that knows sheep, it's Jack,
and uh, yeah, we're going to close the season. But in that case, there was another twenty four hour delay and another sheep was taken, so three sheep were taken legally in the unit on a QUOTEA of two. There's been times where you know, five people shoot a sheep in one day. You've got to you've got to You've got forty eight hours to to report that to either a conservation officer or a game board or a biologist.
So there's that lag period. You listen to Sean Stewart, he's he'll tell you it's biologically insignificant, so that that third, fourth, fifth, even six sheep is biologically insignificant in the overall scheme of the unlimited units that he's responsible for. So we take that Stephen go back to you know, the state
of Montana, and you're you were absolutely correct. It is by typically by the legislature, an authorized additional tag to what game and fish is going to say, hey, this is this is what our off take is going to be. The typical off take for bighorn sheep males that's considered sustainable is from a from an allocation standpoint is two to three percent of males. Sue conservative, Wow, so that's lower, right, super conservative. So that's what the state's going to allodate or.
The orre low because I know this is this is really hard to People are going to argue about these numbers all the time. Sure, but I've heard with deer management thirteen percent not just the males.
But the hurt right, and and you know, and now think of recruitment. You know, to to increase a herd, you need recruitment of twenty twenty two to twenty three percent, whether it's big orn cheap, whether it's elk, whether it's mule deer, whether it's white tail. Well, now we're harvesting and if and if you look at the again WAFA data, it's like one to three percent is the average male off take. So so we're already managing to a super
conservative harvest. So Montana does. Then the legislature comes through and said, hey, we're going to to raise money for Montana fish wilife. Part. We're going to authorize one auction tag, one ravel tag, and add two. So if we can go back to Sean Stewart's presentation where he's saying, hey, look, even in the three to four to five unlimited areas with a with a quota of two per unit, if they go over one year by two or three or four,
biologically insignificant, I'm not concerned about. So to your point, we're already managing super conservatively on bighorn cheap that those one to two. Wyoming's got five Nevada, you know, five big worn cheap permits they authorize on auction.
Uh.
They then have you know, they have their commissioner tags, but those aren't for big worn cheap. Those are ALC mule deer, prong horn moose. I think there's a moose tag, not not a commissioner. So you were absolutely correct that these are additive. And what's what's amazing is when you look at you know, and you we sold you word one hundred and ninety two thousand dollars in Montana in
twenty twenty three. We sold the tag. We directed two hundred and eighty eight thousand dollars on the auction tag to fish, Wildlife and Parks. That adds to their one ninety two. We did a raffle back then too. It was one hundred and twenty five, so one hundred and twenty five thousand for raffle. We double it, more than double it for the auction tag and then add that to the resident license. Still not a lot of money.
So hit me with the hit me with the amount. Hit me with the amount that went in the tag and license fees for the public draw versus.
Like the one hundred and ninety two thousand dollars two hundred and fifty and twenty twenty three for six hundred and fifty six tags and then the auction tag. Then we add one more auction tag. We added another two hundred and eighty eight added one raffle tag one hundred and twenty five. So so I guess the you know, but you're you're so right. I mean, so here's the here's the thing that that I guess frustrates us on
this side. There's not a financial argument that you can make to say that it's the wrong thing to do. So it really is a social justice argument. And so you know, I can show all the statistics that will say that look uh, and you know it's additive, it's not.
It's not you know, I'm a regular guy.
Am I going to be able to buy one of these tags? Not unless I rob a whole hell of a lot of liquor stores or win the lottery. But I'll tell you what I'm thrilled with, and that is that somebody is willing to do that, and because of that money, it's offering more opportunity for regular guys and regular gals like me. So you know, that's that's the crux of the argument. And then I you know, when we dive into the social side of it, because there
is it's a and it's sad. I mean, if you know, if I mean, I drive a twenty seventeen Toyta pickup truck. You know what, it works, got one hundred and fifty six thousand miles on it. I drive by somebody who's got one of those new GMC at four's, Boy, that looks slick. Do I have to have that? Am I? You know? Am I envious?
Well?
I don't know. It's like, well maybe one of these days. But my truck still pulls my trailer. I'm okay. So I look at these guys or gals that are buying these tags, and I'm I'm grateful because it's wildlife philanthropy.
Let me hate you with this though, Okay, one good? Okay, where is ten good?
Like like, if it's if it's financial, if it's strictly financial, how far would you extend that logic? Like if there's six hundred tags, would you start to feel uncomfortable if we auctioned five hundred of them?
You know what you're going to have is law of diminishing returns. And we saw that in Alberta where they thought, you know, Alberta was you know, that's where the.
Big sheep were and so like in a very specific place too.
Right, Yeah, well yeah it was and it was Cataman, you know, it was around the Cataman Mine and uh and so they're basically you know, park sheep coming out if they come out, or they can just hang and you could sit there and every guy there's you know, there's a specific rock I think it's called Hot Rock or something like that that these people would literally be lined from the trailhead get to Hot Rock and then just wait and see if these big rams would come
out of the park. And it's Jasper, that's the park, and sometimes they would, sometimes they would, but they're big sheep man. You know, the the prior hunted world record was taken there and so that's where people were chasing that tag, and that's where those dollars went. Well, Alberta at one point thought hmm, you know, maybe we can maybe we can make even more money. So they started adding more and more auction tags and even even some more L e H tags to that same area, and
then you had a hunting experience. It wasn't exactly the most enjoyable. Everyone's making a bee line for Hot Rock and then they're all sitting around the rock waiting, you know, for a big sheep to come out of the park. So I'm being a little facetious, but that's basically so you can have a law of diminishing returns. Really interesting this year, Arizona last year chose their commission. That's my next question.
You're you're doing my next question.
Yeah, Arizona shows.
Did Arizona get rid of Governor's Day? They did, They did take it away, They.
Got rid of Governor's tags and they're going to a raffle. So while Chief Foundation was given the last Desert bighorn sheep tag to sell an auction unless there's a commission change, and you know, I mean it's politics at this point, we were also given a pronghorn anallop tag. Last year we sold the Arizona tag. I think it was for four hundred and twenty four hundred and I think I have that data. What did we sell that tag for? Yeah, four thirty four hundred and thirty thousand dollars. One hundred
percent of those dollars go right back to Arizona. Game to fish. This year we sold it for five five hundred thousand dollars. Crazy, you want to really go nuts. We sold the Arizona prong horn tag in twenty twenty four for ninety five thousand dollars. A prong horn tag. The last one going to be on auction sold for two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. One hundred percent of those dollars go right back to Arizona Game Fish. Now
now it's going to go to raffles. We all know that you're not going to make the same amount of money. Organizations NGOs in Arizona boked and didn't even apply for these tags, while Chief Foundation looked at it and said, you know, I mean we could. We could thump our chests and go, aren't we great? You know we're selling these tags are unbelievable amount of money. You're not doing what we want, so we're not going to play your game. We didn't. We thought, no, let's have a seat at
the table. We'd rather be at the table and talking and doing something good for wildlife. So we applied for their bighorn tag and we're going to raffle that off. I think it sold at Arizona Desert Big Worn Sheep Society, who we partner with in Arizona on the Desert Big Orn tag on the Arizona prong Horn tag. Arizona Desert Big Worn Sheep Society sold the big Horn tag last year at their their banquet in May, three hundred and fifty,
three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. We'll probably, through a raffle, be able to direct one hundred and twenty five hundred and fifty thousand to Arizona game fish versus the three fifty or three sixty, and then you compare it to the five hundred and then we get into the equity of raffles. And that's that's a question I'd love to ask, is you know, those that think that raffles are equitable
need to look a little deeper dive there. A Washington resident can't purchase an online raffle outside of his or her state because a gambling law gambling.
Even is this a similar thing that we went through and we both purchase we weren't physically in the state of Arizona.
I don't know if that was a gambling law or just the rule.
No, it's so in Washington, it's it's there. It's their state Gaming Commission because that is gambling. Yeah, and you know, now, if you're in state, you can do an in state, but if we're out of state, we can't. We can't sell. We've Arizona got burned on this. Arizona has a super teche and they've pretty much they used to sell them to do it.
You know, they did exceptionally well on those.
They were selling them out of state. They got a call from the Gaming Commission of Washington State saying, hey, you're selling to Washington residence.
Yeah, we sure are.
You a great opportunity for them. We're raising money for profit and they said, you're violating our state gaming laws. You got to refund that money. Karine and I were talking about the pandemic. Wild Chie Foundation got kind of clever during the pandemic. We're all fighting to figure out how the hell are we going to raise money. We we actually sourced out of DOA a a virtual yes, a virtual expo thing rather interesting. We had to change
all the avatars. There were no blonde people in in this uh in this expo, but that's a whole and no cowboy hats, a no ball cat so you know, Brodie, they you know, we could not find a ball cap in this uh this cutter application. But I digress a little bit. But what what was really interesting is so we said, okay, we're basically selling a ticket to sit in front of your MacBook or your PC and watch our show our auctions online. Those are easy to do.
Expo a little more difficult. And you know what. To incentivize you to buy this ticket, We'll put you in a drawing for a desert big one cheap hunt. Fair enough, you know. All you have to do is buy the ticket and you're you're in the drawing and somebody is going to win a desert big one cheap hunt. I get a call from Washington Gaming Commission and they said, hey, you're you're conducting a raffle. And I went, We're not conducting a row. What you know, what do you I
finally figured out what. I said, Oh wait a minute, are are Yeah, No, you've got some registration thing. You're giving away a desert big one cheaphunt. Yeah. Yeah. He said, well you can't do that in Washington. You're based in Montana. I said, wow, Actually, we're kind of clever. We run our programs for a raffles out of Wyoming. But this isn't a raffle, so this is just a registration thing. He says, you're still breaking our gaming laws. You've been
there's been a complaint against you. Oh my god. Really, we had. We had to refund twenty seven thousand dollars in registrations we had to make to make to make it at least fair to our Washington folks that wanted to participate. We just said, hey, we're refunding your money and if you want to attend our virtual convention you can do so for free. Well that happened in it the band fishing during the pandemic. Yeah, go figure. So the laws are so crazy, you know, look at you know,
Montana is an interesting one. We accept on raffle checks cash, debit cards, not credit cards. So if you're conducting a raffle in Montana, you got to make sure that your system knows that that that visa that somebody just sent you was a debit card, not a credit card. And we've been stung on that one. Arizona got stung their super raffle got stung really really bad by Washington. So
now and Brody, I think you touched on it. Now Arizona is only conducting their I forget what they're calling it now, it's not the it's not the super tags but in state. So now you have a and Steve, you touched on that, you know.
Now you have me got boned out of one hundred bucks apiece?
Yeah, yeah, so raffles are not as equitable as they may.
So let's back up to Arizona.
Uh, because really this decision that came out of Arizona drove this whole conversation.
Yeah.
I mean we've definitely, over the years, have touched on it.
I have always been like, uh, I've always been torn by the issue recognizing the money, but then also you know, like I recognized the tremendous amount of money that goes to conservation, and I also recognized the kind of populous rage against like who the hell has four hundred thousand dollars to buy a sheep tag? And why does he get one?
But I don't.
I recognize both sides of this. But what really fueled this renewed conversation was Arizona's decision, the commission decision, and it came to a vote and they said that going into the future, we're going to step away from doing auction tags, Right, Like, what's your understanding of of that process, Like what were the inputs they were looking at? Was it primarily social pressure?
I would say it's social pressure is probably the biggest one. The revenue side was certainly expressed. I was actually asked to do a video for their commission by the chair. We did. We did a six minute version, we did cut it down to a three minute version. Talked about, you know, how much money is raised for Arizona, you know, what will happen to bighorn sheep. But you know, now you look at that pronghorn two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars,
what will happen to pronghorn conservation? What's going to have You know, is there anyone in this room that can tell me that there's an agency that has too much money? From a wildlife agency standpoint, you know, maybe maybe a few government agencies we'd like to cut out, but you know, from a wildlife agency in the United States, everyone's clamoring for more dollars. You know, we need more biologists, we need more trucks, we need more uniforms, we need more
habitat improvement, you know all of that. So it wasn't a money thing, it was a it was a there was some pressure from some groups that really do think the raffle is the way to go because of Steven exactly what you said. It's a it's a. It's an
envy thing. It is a polarize a thing, and we see it in all walks of life, whether you know, whether it's a guy that's you know, lauding and applauding, somebody's home in Pacific Palisades being burned because you know, he or she is pursued to be rich and I'm not. You know, I I don't buy into that, but I recognize it. You know, I recognize there's also and it's been said, well, this is you know, this is a
this is against the North American wildlife conservation model. Shane Mahoney and I are really really close friends, and we share a stage around the world on giving speeches and the like. I used to in my presentations called the you know this this auction tag, governor's tag, special permit conservation permit. I used to call it a bastardization of the North American egalitarian model. He said, ah, you know this is, but it raises all this money I had.
She used to say that. I used to say it, and I said, oh, it's a bastardization of.
The model, but it works.
How long ago is that Shane and I were in my drift boat on the Yellowstone eight years ago. He and his wife. He's, you know, say hey, let me float you down the Yellowstone. You're such a busy guy. Watch a fly fish a little bit, and you know, typical typical Shane. He just kind of puts the rod down. He's looking around and then in that voice of Moses, you know, great, I want to tell you something. You're wrong. I went all right wrong a lot every single day.
What am I wrong? At this time? He goes, you know, I've heard you on stage call this Governor's Tag Conservation Permit model a bastardization of the North American model, and you're wrong. I said, Well, you, being the foremost spokesperson for the model, tell me why. And he says, you know, one of the pillars of the model is state and agency determination of how is the most efficient way for
them to raise money for wildlife. If a state determines that a auction tag or a raffle tag, or come up withever, whatever program it is, is the most efficient efficient mechanism, well then that's consistent with a model. We just did a permit discussion at our sheep show in our full curl Cinema had Shane my EVP of Conservation Corey Mason, myself doing a Q and A afterwards, and Shane said it again. He goes, you know, this is
consistent with the model. The challenge is the social license and Steve, it's what you said, and you cannot discount that. You know. I could certainly talk about a way to look at it that maybe will sway some views on it, but there is just a built in, you know, even though it's additive, even though it's driving eighty three percent of the conservation dot for wild sheep at the agency level in our country, there's still this Well, so what I don't care about the money. It's just not fair.
Somebody is able to buy something that I can't. Well, and I guess I look at that, and I mentioned the term wildlife philanthropy. You know, you look at a high net worth individual and we applaud when there's a name on a hospital wing because they donated a potload of money to that hospital, or they donated to feeding the hungry, or to the welfare of pets, or a football stadium or an art museum, and we applaud that philanthropy. Philanthropy, Well, this,
in my opinion, is wildlife philanthropy. Why don't we applaud.
That because they're getting, because they would get they would get universally applauded if they weren't taking the tag. If some guy got up at Sheep at your at your convention in Reno, and some guys said, hey, man, no strings attached, I don't want ship for it. Here's five hundred thousand dollars from Wild Sheep in Arizona one, that'd be the that'd be the response. I mean, like, if you're actually asking the question, that would be why. And it again, it's like.
Building people, doesn't, doesn't, isn't isn't an accolade too?
And I get it it is.
It's a mark, But I don't think like if if Verizon underwrites a sports stadium as a marketing play, I don't think that Verizon.
Is applauded, No, the recognized.
It's like it's like sort of there's a there's a quid pro quo to it. It's like, yes, they're underwriting the sports stadium, but it's like a marketing expense. So if you could somehow get into a guy's head who's buying a shep tag for four hundred thousand dollars and he was gonna go write the check anyway, because he believes that much in wild sheep. But then like as a little added perk, got a tag too. I think that that would that would diminish some of the social condemnation.
But I don't think people are looking at it. If talking about people who feel burned by governor's tags, I don't think they're looking at it that it was a donation. I think they're looking at it that it was a purchase.
I think you're looking at the psychology of it.
Yeah, and they are.
They're certainly getting a benefit back even if they don't take the sheep, And that certainly happened. I mean, I you know a good friend of mine from Texas, you know, back in the day in Alberta. I think he I think he bought the tag. He bought it two or three times and didn't take a sheep once. There was another guy that was always chasing I mean since pass and I think he he bought it at least three times,
didn't take a sheep twice. So I see your point, and it's and it really had Yeah, it's to say, you know, well, you know what you're getting an opportunity. Well,
you're getting an opportunity with no with no guarantee. And I look back, you know, I look back on the guy that that ended up buying that that record Montana tag in twenty thirteen, because I, you know, I I felt that my seven hundred and fifty dollars tag back when Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks had one hundred and twenty dollars in revenue coming in from me, you know and others us regular folks, and they got ninety four
hundred and eighty thousand dollars. That my ability to hunt sheep in Montana was because some crazy guy was willing to spend that money. And he made an interesting comment to me. I you know, I thanked him, and he says, Gray, here's the deal. I give to my church, I give to he he had another, He had another, you know, kind of pet charity he gives to and he goes and I give to wild cheap Conservation. Yes. Now does he get a spiritual benefit from giving to his church?
You bet? Does he? You know, it's a little bit more than my twenty bucks in the in the tray. Does he get a benefit satisfaction out of giving to you? Know in this case they were homeless shelters or something like that. Sure does he get a benefit from buying that cheap tag, Yes he does, But I know I did too as the regular guy. I benefited because he chose to direct his philanthropy towards conservation, not a football stadium. So that's a good point those.
Dude, let's change let's change course a little bit.
In conversations with people who who are suspicious of critical of auction tags, a common thing people point out is, and I've pointed it out myself, is that in some cases you get a season that's way longer, you bet, like potentially three hundred and sixty five days long. Yeah, you sit outside of the unit thing. So Joe Blow draws a tag and he might have he might have an area ten by twenty miles whatever the hell smaller.
That's his hunt unit.
The auction tag holder can hunt any unit that's open in the whole damn state, right right, And so people look and they'll be like, well, why is that why this amazing perk to wealth? Like even once we have the tags, are like I won mine on the open tag allotment.
He bought his, but his better mind.
And something to build on what Steve is saying, like, I once listen to a conversation at a Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation thing in Colorado where someone had drawn a big horn ram tag and a unit where there was only one tag, and he spent a bunch of time scouting and there was a real big.
One and I was gonna tell the story.
Yeah, he on his on his way in scouting one day, kind of a posse of dudes are coming down the trail and he's like, hey, you know. They strike up a conversation. He's like, I got I drew the tag. I'm looking for this ram and they were basically like, don't bother. Like we're we're guiding the Governor's tag guy and they know when the season opened, and they're like, we're going to get that thing before you ever have a chance to get it. It wasn't like an impolite conversation, but it Yeah.
Because he had his team of he had his team of guys.
Yeah, so there's like a social conflict.
There, you bet, you bet, and and and that, that, in my opinion, is the dirty underbelly m hm. And and is something that if we are to retain the social license to have these. We need to be able to answer those, And I would say, right now, we don't. Well, why can't you answer it this way? Because well, let me.
Provide you with a hypothetical answer. Not hypothetical, but I mean, wouldn't it be if we as hunters are agreeing that auctioning off a tag for several hundred thousand dollars creates more sheep opportunities for everybody, potential leads to bigger, big horn populations, so that there's more tags available in the general draw. We got healthier sheep herds, we got healthier sheep hunting. If we can make that tag even more valuable and it's still only costing us one sheep, why
not do everything we can do to make it more valuable. Well, like if you said, if you action to tag off and you go, you got seven days, right, all of a sudden, the price is probably gonna plumb it without question, and so so I mean, but I feel like I'm not saying that that's ultimately the answer, but that's kind of how I look at it.
Would be.
Well, if we're gonna do it, we're gonna give away a sheep tag. I don't get the most money you can out of the sum bitch, and if you need to make the season.
Longer and that Jack's it up by one hundred thousand dollars.
Okay, well, and you nailed it. And if you know, going back to the prior podcast and the and the title you know are Governor's tags on American? Well, no, it's a good title. No, you know, these conservation permits and these governors tags are absolutely American because it's based on subli and de man and a and a and an interest in capitalistic process. Now you know that that was my argument as well. It's against the egalitarian North
American model. Shane. Shane corrected me. But Stephen, you're absolutely right. But the the the dirty underbelly is perception. And and if you know Arizona is a three hundred and sixty five day, you know, being intellectually honest, you know, we we like to give breeding populations time off. You know, Now Montana hunts during the rut for mule deer, we off, you know, we archery hunt in the rut for elk and others typically bighorn sheep or not in the rut.
There's some that seasons that they're there. There could be certainly these these conservation permits that either are extended season earlier season or any unit opens it up to going right back to that social question, social license question on well how come it's that much different? Well how why is it that much different? Because that's what that's what
increases the price. Classic example is is Alberta. You know, they they made which you know, some could say were some mistakes, you know, back in the nineties, and they were just offering too many tags. Price started to go down, and they're going, jeez, you know, we used to be the big dog. Now Montana is uh now New Mexico is, Arizona was, I mean, it's you know, it's Colorado was
last year. I mean it's it's kind of amazing when you when you look at you know, where the big dollars are coming in on these on these conservation permits.
But stop you does the dollar does the amount change based on where the big ram is that year?
Without question?
With that of things which is which is a dirty underbelly?
I also ask with the fewer of a lower number of available tags per state, does the number also go up?
Probably? I couldn't, I couldn't, you know, what we're seeing now is just kind of just you know, you look at you look at what what. What's been really interesting is, you know, kind of ground zero for disease has been in the Tristare area, Idaho, Washington, Oregon. Our chapters in the read and the agencies in the region, wild cheap foundations pump millions of dollars into disease research, into kind of some novel separation policies, in some draconian policies like test, test and remove.
We kind of talking pneumonia, correct.
Yeah, yeah, Michael, plasma. Pneumonia is a setup agent. It's a pathogen and what it what it does is it can lead to ammonia. Okay. Pneumonia primarily comes from domestic sheep, also domestic goats. It can be within a wild cheap population, so it can be endemic once they get it from a you know, from a vector a source domestic sheeper, goat. Well, we've we've done collectively a pretty damn good job of of At one point we eliminated Michael plasmo and pneumonia
from the Hell's Canyon Complex. Better lamb recruitment, big rams uh big, you know, And that's just that's just healthy sheep. Now, Oregon tags selling like crazy, Idaho tag selling like new state records taking in Oregon, Idaho, Washington. So you know, there's just this dynamic.
But the buyers are like, this is the point.
I think that it's important to getting because it's important to cover, because it's part of what it's part of the social conversation being one. When when an auction tag comes up, oftentimes the buyer is basically buying an opportunity to go get a specific sheet that he has been made aware of by his outfitter. Yeah, they're like, look here, we got a two hundred inch ram.
You'll get to get it before the public.
Here, here's a dossier, here's all the photos of it. You buy it, you hire us, I'll guy our guys, will keep an eye on it, will put six seven guys out and watch it. You show up, boom, it's yours because we're already on it. And that burns people's ass, it.
Does, and that and and I would call you know, in that scenario, that is a dirty underbella belly. Now now you've got another scenario, and but is that the tag?
But that but again, is that the tag's fault?
No, it's not. It's it's it's the it's our fault, it's it's the you know, let's let's push the envelope on fair chase, which we need to clean up now, you know, here's here's the here's a flip side of that. And I'll tell you a little bit about the guy that that bought the one point three million dollars new Mexico tag two weeks ago. One point three So.
A new Mexico sheep tag went for one point three right? It is that a new record, absolute new record? Is he gunning for a specific sheep?
Yeah, he's gunning person. But I'm going to tell you a story about him. But what he said, so holy yeah, one point three million.
Now at that point getting suspiciously philanthropic, so yeah, you know.
Almost, So there there was a period of time where you know, everyone was chasing very very large stone sheep. So the BC minister's license, which is kind of a unique license because and there is a raffle tag too, but there's one, there's a there's a minister's license on auction. There's a minister's license on raffle. The minister's license in BC you can hunt they've got four you know, subspecies
if you will, but you know three species. They've got doll sheep, stone sheep, bighorn sheep, but a bighorn sheep. They've got California big horn and Rocky Mountain big onorn.
Oh, I got confused, I'm sorry.
And so there's there's a there's a subspe species of bighorn sheep called California big horn. Yeah, but who has all of them? British Columbia they have those. The only thing they don't have is desert. But they have four four wild cheap species dolls stone dolls, and it's a teeny little area up in the far northwest corner adjacent to Alaska, lower part of Alaska. So they have dolls. They are you know, the location for stone sheep other than fanning up in the Yukon. They have California big horn.
That's primarily.
That's what I was unaware of, is that like on thet on the west coast in the it's.
In the Fraser River Valley and then and then bighorn sheep around Fernie and the like. So you can buy that tag and you can choose, you can choose which sheep you want to hunt. So you know, years past it used to be the chase a big horn. Now it was hey, we're gonna you're gonna be able to hunt early and late for stone sheep, and stone sheep was the hot item. Uh that that permit went for three hundred some one thousand dollars. There was a sheep that, you know, a couple of big ones that people were
you know, knew that we're around. This guy knew that they were around. They're all killed in an avalanche. Seriously, seal ave. So now let's go back to the really go back to the Yeah, it's like a pile of four sheep killing an avalanche, all four of the big ones. It's like, hey, that ram you are chasing no longer. Congratulations, that's philanthropic petition.
For a refund. You gotta be kidding, no refund?
Can I? Can I?
I gotta explain something to folks. I'm trying to keep this real one on one. Uh, just to point out something obvious. The reason three hundred and sixty five days a year is enticing for sheep because they don't shed their antlers, which pointed out so like if you're if you're hunting Elk. Let's say you're buying a governor's tag for Elk, like that. Elk's gonna get maximum size and get hard antlered in September, late August, early September, and
he's gonna drop his antlers down the road in March. Right, So if you had three hundred and sixty five days, and maybe you do, it doesn't really matter because you're chasing a how many months is that September, October, November, December, January, forebr.
You got half half the year. He's gonna have that.
And any antlered species could just bust them up.
That's yep.
And he could also snap them, yeah, and and and a lot of those big bowls, especially in the in the desert southwest, do snap them off. So like, but a sheep, I mean, by the time he's the kind of sheep we're talking about, this sheep is nine years old, ten years old, eleven years old.
But he's got him. He's carrying his racky around.
You shoot him in April, he's got the same he's got, that's right, the same attributes as you shoot him in November.
Their horns not antlers, so you know they they wear their life on their head. So let's let's now go to the gentleman that bought you know, which is now the record for any any permit one point three million. I was visiting with him last week, thanking him. You know, wow, incredible, you know, how the heck did that happen? I mean, three hundred thousands a lot of money? One point three is I like what you said, that's pretty close. Uh you want to wing? You want to wing on that hospital?
And he says, you know, I knew it was going to go over a million dollars. I wanted to go over a million dollars. I'm happy. You know, season opens August first for me. I sure, hope a mountain lion doesn't get it, but it is what it is. That's philanthropic. That is a guy, and he's done very very well obviously in life. And crazy enough. I think there were three bidders in it at one point two.
So at one point those guys like enough is enough?
Just amazing. I mean you can imagine the energy in the room when you see that.
Tell me about the sheep? Yeah, like, what's the sheep?
They know?
Why so much of this year and not after that sheep last year?
There's a you know, two hundred points is kind of the holy Rail. And so there's there is a you know, there is the thought that the largest big horn in North America is in New Mexico is alive right now.
So there you go, and he's got a price on his head.
And so well, let me is that unseemly Well, I guess. But you know, Steve, you pointed out that, hey, if the if the goal is to raise the most money for the resource, well this is how we're going to do it. Now, we just need to make sure that it's ethical, you know the view. And Brodie, I think you touched on that. If there's ten guys you know, out on the out and they're you know, there's camping on the sheep, it doesn't smell right and it doesn't look right. But it's not illegal. No, it is.
No, you're never gonna get there. You're never going to enforce you're never going to create a you're never going to create a secondary set of laws that someone's going to have to apply to.
Now.
Let me give you for instance, me and Brody go home with our little kids. Okay, some of them at a certain age that they can shoot before they're like terribly helpful, right, They don't know even when we leave home a ten year old, they're not even really aware of what direction you're Okay, So we're out with our kids. So and so sees a buck, he tells another growing up, he sees the buck. You know, we tell the kid. You know, you drag the kid out of their sleeping bag.
We gotta start walking. They don't really know, right, and eventually you're like there he is, get them right, Okay, So would someone goal that's unethical? That kid, That child didn't glass, they didn't scout, they didn't glass that buck up right, right, So you're never gonna get there where you're gonna come in and be that operating within the confines of the law, we would expect it to be different.
Meaning if I apply for twenty five years and I draw a big horn tag and all my bodies at work and I could see this happening, Oh yeah, all my bodies.
At work are like, oh man, what a riot?
And three of us go up in jet boats, right, and we pour the coals to it glass and for sheep. And one of my buddies comes into camp. He's like, we found a giant.
You're not gonna be like I want to find it myself.
I'm not gonna wind up being like raked over the coals about it.
It would be like, no, they went up.
But there's a thing that happens where it's like there's already a finance, it's a bitterness, and then on top of that, there's a.
Added bunch of.
What seems to be like shortcut taking, right, and it tarnishes the thing. But but in people's eyes. But then in all fairness, like, are you really going to make a separate set of.
Game laws.
For an auction tag holder that you wouldn't make for a guy that bought a but that that bought an elk hunt from an outfitter?
Well, they do in some cases, they do make a separate set.
Well, yeah, they extend, they extend the season like but you know, and and and that does it just it gets back to this, you know, what is the public perception and what's what's you know, what is the real grind? And again, I you know there's organizations that are well we just have to go to you know, raffle tags because that's that's more equitable. Well, so then the person wins the raffle tag. Is there also a team team of guides that go in and what's you know, what's
what's the difference there? You know, I you know, and there there are crazy things that have happened. I've I've heard of the raffle tag winners outfitter calling the conservation permit outfitter saying, I'll tell you what, if your guy writes my guy a check for X amount of dollars, we'll let you go after that guy and we'll go after a second. That to me stinks and that's almost extortion and and so you know, and it's and this
gets back to the social thing too. You know, any time that you know, a super high prices put on a resource, there's going to be challenges to that know, and we we know it. So you know, where the Wild she Foundation looks at this is, Okay, we're raising the most money for a resources resource that's got challenge, you know, whether it's disease in the Lower forty eight, whether it's drought in the Southwest, whether it's super heavy
wet snowfalls up in Alaska. In the Yukon and dall sheep are starving and in some mountain rangings we've lost forty to fifty to sixty percent of the population. How do we bring them back? You know, we're always looking for Okay, how can we raise the most money to do it? How can we put that money on the mountain? How you know, how are we going to fund you know, disease research? So we see it, we do it. You know, a while she foundations directed since you know that first
governor's tag, you know ed Hirschler's Wyoming Governor's tag. It's sold for twenty three thousand dollars in nineteen eighty we have put about eighty nine million dollars back into agencies for wild cheap conservation just on the sale of conservation permits. So it's very very effective. What I think we should be instead of us arguing on the well, you know that guy or gal gets a privilege that I don't, I would like us to do a better job of making sure that the dollars that are directed to the
agencies are going where they should. And Steve, I think you asked that question early on and we didn't touch on it because there's some agencies that do an exceptionally good job and are very transparent of where that money goes. And there's some that aren't so. Wyoming Wyoming has the
Wyoming Governor's Big Game License Coalition. So all the you know, the five cheap tags, you know, any of the the elk tags, any of the moose tags go into this pool, but they're separated out by species and then and then holders. You know, wyl mean Wild Chief Foundation has a seat on that. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has a seat on that. A mule Deer Foundation has a seat on that. That that coalition, the pronghorned guys, you know, all the little
critter groups have have a seat. They then evaluate projects that are that are brought before the Big Game License Coalition to say, hey, we want to fund a sage brush habitat project that's going to benefit mule deer certainly certainly sage ins uh, maybe less so on bighorn sheep. Well, sometimes that those stakeholder groups will go, you know, we
got plenty of money on the bighorn sheep pool. Let's pull a little bit out and collectively we agree we're gonna fun mule deer Conservation British Columbia does the same thing with their Habitat Conservation Trust. You know, the monies that we raise for the BC Ministry go into this pool. There are a group of stakeholders. Wow, Wild Chief Foundation has a seat, but we we have a representative that's from BC and they make decisions on where those moneys
are spent. Oh that's transparent, very transparent. Nevada another one that does it really really well. Some of them not so well and with all the challenges and can you say, can you give an example of a bad one or is that? Is that not? Probably not a good thing for me to say because we partner with all So let me just talk about the good ones. But there's some that could do better and the mission we can Yeah, we can bleep it maybe, but you know the fact of the matter is, you know again I can show
your Wild Chief Foundation spends our dollars. I mean, we do these conservation impact summaries. You know, we're we're absolutely transparent agencies not so so that's something that I think, you know, we as NGOs, whether it's Wild Chief Foundation, whether it's Mule Deer, whether it's ELK, whether it's you know, any of the organizations that are selling these conservation permits and driving the money back to the agency. We need
to do a better job of holding our agencies accountable. Going, Okay, where is the money, where is it going? And is it going to the resource that it should?
Yeah, I think that's important. Like something you said that there's not enough sheep to pay for themselves. I think a lot of people don't think about it that way, right, but it makes total sense. And you like a state like Montana or Colorado, you talk about elk like those things pay for themselves and more, Right, Brody.
I wrote a paper back in the eighties before I was in the nonprofit and I was you know, it was kind of the economics of Honting and at the time, and I don't know what it is now, but at the time I was looking at Colorado. I used to lived in California, drive out to Colorado to hunt elk and at the time, I think non resident Colorado elk tags funded like eighty percent of Colorado fishing game back then.
Now it's Colorado Parks and Wildlife, you know, I mean ELP paid the way and as we all know, you know, the non resident tags, you know pay the way primarily you know Montana. You know, what was it sixty nine thousand dollars, you know, sixty nine thousand dollars comes from resident big worn sheep, one hundred and twenty two from non resident, So for.
A much smaller amount of tags, Yeah.
Almost double. I mean, you know it's it's we pay one hundred and what one hundred and twenty five bucks for a for a sheep tag, you know, we can we can buy an unlimited, you know, so we we we can have that tag in our pocket. But if you draw in the limited one hundred twenty five bucks, it's seventeen hundred and fifty for a non res you know. So that gets back to this this social thing and Steve I, you know, I love it when you talk about it because you know, look at look at what's
happened to our country. You know, we've we've become so polarized. You know, we identify with pretty asinine things. You know, we allow the media to fester that polarization even within our own community were you know, we we identify but by what rifle we use, and we criticize others that don't. You know, we we identify what freaking camo we use, and we create communities that if you're not a part of it and you don't wear my cameo, you're a
bad guy, boots, you know whatever. We're so basic and it's like.
Had but we have like a name for the guys who have six five.
Oh yeah, the six need more, you know, and it's a great caliber. But I mean it's you know, we've taken the around the campfire arguing on whether the thirty six is better than the two seventy to this level. It's just freaking asinine now. And so you know, we fostered and now we're doing you know, we do the same thing on the funding, and I guess, you know, I would just hope that we could change the narrative, you know, and and start, you know, let's deal with facts.
You know, Okay, the facts are Auction tags bring in more money than raffle tags at a far more efficient way of I mean, for Wild Chief Foundation is going to raffle off an Arizona big Horn Sheep tag. We get zero dollars for doing but we're gonna do it. We're gonna we're going to pay all that money to do it. We're gonna raise one hundred and twenty five hundred and fifty thousand dollars directed to Arizona Game and fish. Well,
we we we held an auction. Now you know, yeah, that's expensive for us, but we're you know, we're four nights of auction and we raised five hundred thousand, so we know that it's the most cost effective is an auction tag. But we still get caught up in this social narrative. So what I want to really dive into, and that is that how how do we get beyond it?
How do we get be on criticizing that guy because he wears Camo or we don't like his brand, or that gal because she's shooting a six or five creed More and we don't like that caliber. Uh to, why don't we just focus again on that ram lamb or you on a ridge line and go what's best for wildlife?
What would the big horn sheet landscape in North America look like without this money?
Nailed it? Mike Draw?
Can Mike Draw like?
We wouldn't have him? Right? Eighty three percent of agency funding right now in the US comes from the What happens when eighty three comes from an auction tag or raffle tag? Most of that? What happens when eighty three percent of that funding goes away? Where's it going?
To come from question, do we have over time, let's say, the past ten years, from states that have sheep the amount of money, let's say, collectively across these states from licenses both in state and out of state, and if that has gone up over the past ten years or gone down as a sign of general hunter commitment to conservation.
Of absolutely on Now are you are you saying total? You know, because we all know that revenue is generally going down because generally hunting numbers are going down. Yes, we saw during the pandemic a bump up. Yes we see a you know, the largest percentage of new hunters or women is you know, is that a significant percentage of the current You might be able to argue it, but it's significant. But here's the sad fact, and this
gets back to impact. I can show you a nice linear upward trend on dollars going into wild sheep conservation.
Collectively, cross okay, collectively, But the percentage of that that is.
Oh, auction tex right, ten percent increase over the last ten years. It was seventy three percent in twenty fourteen, eighty three percent in the US. In so a ten percent increase in auction tag revenues going.
To the agency and then and licenses, licenses not so and that you know that, you know that you could get US Fish and Wildlife Service data and you know, again there's been slight increases and then it kind of plateaus and then dropped.
My concern is there's a linear growth in revenue going to wild sheep conservation sadly over the last say five years or so because of huge die offs in Alaska and the Yukon some diofs during disease, you know, from in Texas. I mean Texas had eighteen hundred desert big horn sheep five six years ago a little over five hundred now, all because of disease from odd AD. You know, there's forty thousand plus odd AD in the state free ranging.
I'm not even talking about behind wire and we've gone from eighteen hundred desert big horns to less than six hundred. That scares the shit out of me. And so you know, I the point there is it gets back to impact and what are we doing with it? And are we holding the agencies accountable we can drive this money to them. Are we getting the bang for our buck? And that's for all of us to work on to ensure that
we are and and money isn't everything. I mean, it's certainly a driver, but we have to make sure that we're doing as much as we possibly can effectively with the money. If we know what to do, how are we gonna deal with snowload in March April and Alaska? I don't know, you know that, I don't know you know. I mean it gets back to even some crazy ideas. We grow desert big worn sheep. We've done it in Texas.
We've done it in Arizona. You just by putting water water, but we've actually, we actually intensively managed them in Texas to bring them from zero to eighteen hundred to two thousand. We did the same thing in Arizona.
I mue like with with release, with using release.
Sits captive bread and release done in Mexico. Literally grown them. We've grown them. Sonora is about fifteen thousand desert bighorn sheep in the state of Sonora alone, fifty percent of or behind wire. We have an initiative to say, hey, look, you know, let's use market forces to incentivize you to release them, and not a put in take scenario, but release them and create free ranging desert, big worn, cheap and suitable habitat. And we've got we've got great examples
of people doing it. They're doing the same thing in cool Wheela, they're doing it in Sierra Leone, they're doing it in Chihuahua. So we can do it with desert, big worn sheep, with some caveats or some there's some challenges to it. You know, this is a you know, this isn't you know, raising whitetails in Michigan. But it can be done. Is that something that we could do in the northern climes. I don't know, but you know, you have a forty to fifty percent drop in doll sheep.
You've got probably a ten to fifteen to twenty percent drop in stone sheep populations for a whole variety of reasons. It's not over harvest, you know, it's more environmental factors or disease. What are we going to do? I'll tell you what we need.
And this is a whole other episode.
I think if someone came in and proposed in Alaska doing like captive breeding.
Juice to juice doll shoot numbers, I think that that would be like, uh, you know, you'd have a bigger controversy on your conservation tags and your question like, how
do you find peace with it? There's a thing with There's a thing in rhetoric that I've just that there's an observation of mind when it comes to debate and rhetoric that I've pointed out a handful of times around conversations having to do with with the impacts of a of a border wall, okay, between US and Mexico, and when there's talk of building an impenetrable barrier between the US and Mexico to to try to get a grip on illegal immigration. There's this thing you bring up that
one would bring up. You'd say that would be detrimental, that would be detrimental to wildlife. Move so jaguars desert big horns, right, Okay, that's like that's a thing to consider. Now someone can bring up, Hey, let's consider this.
And people that.
Are like vehemently supportive of a wall would be angry that you brought it up, right, They'd be like, well, you haven't lost your job, okay to an illegal immigrant. So they're angry that you're laying out all the facts for consideration. But in your own family, if you're proposing like, hey, should we go on vacation to spring. In that conversation, someone can say, well, you realize if we go on vacation this spring, that's going to mean that we are
going to forego painting our house because it costs money. Now, the person that brings that up isn't attacked. It's like you're all airing the pros and cons, right, and then you come to an agreement. All the pros and cons can considered. We come to an agreement even though it's going to be detrimental wildlife movement, it is net positive to make an impenetrable barrier between the US and Mexico.
Let's say, or even though we'll fore go painting our house, we're determining it's a net positive that we go on to family vacation. I think ultimately answer might be arrived at similarly around auction permits, it'd be like it's imperfect, it's imperfect. One could argue that by auctioning off a tag, we're removing a we're hypothetically removing a sheet from the pool.
That's not perfect.
The individual might use some hunting methods that aren't available to everybody else. That's imperfect, but net net, all things weighed in, the money is worth it. Like, that's probably the best you're going to do. Like, I don't think you're going to get it to where some guy reads online that someone bought a tag for one point three million. I don't think you're going to get it where one hun or one percent of the hunters are. You're never
gonna get there, Right, it's gonna be that. Like the general sentiment is, eh, hate them rich guys, but uh, but that's a shitload of money for big horns.
Yeah, and and in the.
Long run, it's probably gonna mean more tags.
Right, there's one, there's one more net positive impact. And Steve, you're right, you're you're absolutely spot on. There is another little thing that we have in this country that's not in others, which is the Pittman Robinson Act. And these these tag purchases are non federal dollars, so they're they're subject and eligible for a three to one match with p and R Act. So you know, we can we can draw you know, we can send one point three million. I you know we're gonna we're gonna get ten percent
of US one hundred and thirty. You know, one point three minus one hundred thirty thousand dollars. We send that to New Mexico Game and Fish they can apply for three to one match from P and R act dollars for wildlife frustration and turned that into you know, a five million dollar bump. So, yeah, it is imperfect. It works, and I guess until we find something that works better,
well why don't we live with what does work? And it has worked really really well from nineteen eighty and the dollars are there, and argue over what calibers better or what camos do you wear?
That's a little bit more, you know productive.
I think one of the one of the final points we had arrived at when we had this conversation.
Was a sense of.
You know, a sort of a sense of hope or a call to action that people would.
Open their checkbooks.
Up, open their card balances up to support raffle tags, and that you would arrive at a point where these raffle tags were netting equal to or more than auction tags. And I think you kind of touched on this early. But if we you don't think we're there not yet.
But you know, we during our during the seminary, there was a guy adamant on, Well you know are you are you working on it? Well, yeah, we are. We looked at we looked at our raffles that we do at the convention, and you know, we were selling forty dollars tickets. Okay, we could not physically sell enough tickets in three day of expo to cover the costs and really, you know, really really make a profit if you will, which our profit goes right back into sheep conservation on
doing it that way. So we you know, we we played the capitalists again. We go, okay, well we're going to sell these not for forty dollars, We're going to sell a thousand tickets at two hundred dollars, and for the stone Sheep, we're going to sell five hundred tickets at five hundred dollars. Is that too much? I think we figured out that it was. But you know, we increased our raffle take. So what I pointed out in this in this seminar.
That helped the raffle take big time, big time, that that's five bucks a pop. Isn't getting it?
Can't you can't process, you can't process enough. And you know, forty dollars stuff, We couldn't. We couldn't sell enough physically in three days to make it really profitable. You know what you want to do is you want a keystoneer. You want to double your money on each one of these things. Well, you know, very very rare these days for anyone to donate. There's a few, but donate a
sheep hunt. You know you've got stone sheep hunts now selling for one hundred thousand dollars, big worn sheep hunts selling for one hundred and ten doll sheep used to be you're talking about, yeah, forty five thousand dollars. So you know, on a doll sheep hunt, we need to sell. We need to make you know, we need to sell at least one hundred thousand dollars worth of tickets to double our money a stone sheep if we're buying it at face value, we got to sell two hundred thousand dollars.
So you know, we went to a different way. As I said in our seminar, if we can figure out a way to do it again, let's be intellectually honest. If our goal is to raise the most money, if we can find a way to raise the most money with a raffle. We'll do it because the objective is to raise the most money for the resource and for the habitat. Can you can you.
Humored this question for ment? Yeah, the one that just went for one point three million? Right, walk me through? What would what would have happened? Walk me through if you had done a raffle in your mind the best way to do a raffle from your learnings?
What would have what would that sheep tag have generated? Well, that was a big horn. So we we sold a big horn in Alberta. We bought the tag for eighty eighty thousand eight. It's a hunt, it's not a tag. I mean we actually bought an outfit at hunt for eighty thousand dollars and our objective was to sell two hundred thousand dollars worth of tickets and net one hundred and twenty. Okay, so you know, if we pay the
outfit or eighty, we net one hundred and twenty. You know, theoretically we could direct one hundred and twenty thousand dollars into Big or Chief Conservation. We're you know, we're going to direct one point three million dollars. But what if you take but just take it I mean, I can't figure out how to get a one point three million out of a raffle unless it's take a nationwide lotto.
But take a stab that, not the hunt, not the guided hunt, but take a stab that had there been a raffle. Just in you're just the best year because you're probably more qualified to answer this imperfect question than anybody else on the planet. Had that been a raffle, that tag, that New Mexico tag, had that been a raffle, what would it have brought.
In to two hundred and fifty thousand things?
So yeah, yikes, yeah, really yeah, yeah, because you've done a bunch of raffles.
We do a lot of raffles. But you know, I mean we could probably two hundred you know, maybe you know, if if you if, if you could get people, Hey, this is the biggest sheep in North America. This is what it's going to be. How long are you going to run the raffle? You know? I mean my hip pocket is two undred fifty three hundred thousand. Could we get a half million?
Maybe that becomes a little obscure though, Yeah, how many notifying raffle buyers about this?
That's the biggest biggest sheep in the world.
Yeah, and so, yeah, I can see you're getting a real call from the Washington Gambling Commission a.
Point and oh, by the way, Washington residents, Hawaii residents, you know, if we were going to draw this is a funny one in Nevada, If we were going to draw the hunt in Nevada, Nevada residents aren't eligible to do it online. They have to buy it there. So I mean the laws or Pennsylvania's got crazy laws. I mean, everyone's got interesting laws. We run our raffles. When we do a raffle, we run it out of Wyoming. We
have an office in Wyoming. We run our raffles out of Wyoming because it's a little bit more generous on the our little liberal I guess you could say on the on the raffle laws. But we you know, we have run a foul on Washington and got called out on it. We've run a foul even in Montana, where one of my employees was trying to do the right thing. She thought by well, shoot, you know, I'll just if you want me to run your card right now, I'll just run it right now. She didn't know it was
a credit card, not a debit card. I then got a phone call saying, hey, one of your employees. I'm with the Montana Department of Revenue. One of your employees just did an illegal raffle purchase for me. And I went, you know, now, do the right thing. Get burned. But you know, those are the things we're up against. But there we go. Yeah, it's good talking about this. Yeah, this is I you know, I appreciate it. I'm honored to be on the program. I really appreciate, you know,
listening looking at the facts. What we have to really look at is is the why. You know, why is it? Why is it? Deep down inside we're envious of some you know, something that somebody else can buy that we can't. And that's really what the nut cutting comes down to, you know, it's just this, Uh that's human nature. So all we can do is provide the facts, do our best, focus on the resource, and be open to ideas. Come up with a better idea of how to find it. We're all ears.
Yeah, no, I can see that if someone if some mathematician came to you and said, uh.
Gray, that that tag should have brought.
Three million by my formula.
You would take.
The call.
I would all right, I appreciate you coming on, thank you. I appreciate Joe, thank you. People can uh buy a raffle ticket? Perhaps next year you've been reno, you can you can buy?
Uh? Will will you have raffles that we're offering online all the time, so are our chapters. We try to bay obviously all the laws. But uh, you know, if you look at if you look at cheap hunting right now and how expensive it is, raffles are the best deal going from a from a number standpoint, from an odd standpoint, so you know, get in all the raffles you possibly can, you know, and then also treat it like a portfolio. Put some money away every month to buy that cheap hunt someday.
You know, I forgot to mention you're the CEO of Wild Cheap Foundation. Mentioned that, and then and tell people real quick if they want to get checked out on Wildsheep.
What's the best approach? Yeah, come, We're we're based here in Bozeman, World Headquarters. But go to Wildheapfoundation dot org, Wildcheapfoundation dot org and you can see what we do. Last year, we directed eleven point one dollars to programs benefiting wild sheep. Pretty impressive for an organization with only
eleven thousand members. So is that right? Yeah, you know, we're I like to say that, you know, we we may have a relatively small footprint, but we cast one hell of a long conservation shadow and we're proud of it. Great man, Thanks again, Thanks a lot to David. Appreciate it.