Ep. 541: Can Whitetail Science Make You a Better Deer Hunter?

First Light In. Today, we're kicking off a brand new month long series about the science of white tails. In spirit in that series is the one and only Tony Peterson, who's hearing me today. Tony, I'm glad to have you back here. Uh, how are you feeling? I hear you've been going through a rough spell man. Thanks for having me. Yeah. I had avoided COVID really, really well until last week and it was a it was an experience. Buddy. Do you feel like you're back to normal now or are

you a shell of the former self still? I don't know if that's how I described myself, I wouldn't. I also wouldn't say normal. It's it's weird. Man, you know how it hits people differently. And I really had a couple of days where I felt pretty bad, just kind of achey and you know, just not myself. But those those went pretty quickly and I started to feel better. But man, doing some stuff like trying to write or editing.

Editing is brutal, like having to think about words. It gives I get like, you know, forty five minutes, I'm like, I'm toast. My brain is just mush. And then working out, I got a little cocky and thought, you know, since I feel pretty good, I could go, you know, go to the gym and pick up some heavy stuff. And it did not take me very long to figure out that that my stamina was just not there. Yikes. I do not have nearly as good of an excuse as you, but I will stay. Over the last week, I have

felt like I can't focus on anything. My brain's a fog, I'm fatigued, I'm I'm a shell of my former self. Uh. And And the reason for that, Tony, is that, for the first time as a parent of two children, I had to do dad duty on my own for three and a half days. And it left you. Uh, it left you in rough shape. Buddy, I'm a husk. I'm just a husk, a dried husk of a man. Yeah, yeah, I mean I can totally sympathize my wife so much more now when I'm on for two weeks at a

time hunting and she keeps the ship afloat. I just had to do it for three and a half days, and I it's no, it's no small tasks. I guess what I'm getting now. Yeah, it's uh, it's tough, man. And I know there's probably not a woman that listens to this podcast, so it doesn't matter anyway. But they are amazing at keeping the whole thing together. And we are just like placeholder idiots that come and go sometimes,

I think, oh for sure. And and the women that are listening to think that we're idiots for complaining about this. It's they're definitely not impressed with us. But but yeah, man, it was. It was an adventure, my my go to kind of move for getting through it. Like I had to just kind of get through the regular work day as normal. I had to work as best as I

could and try to keep the kids entertained. But my patients would just be so thin by the end of the day, I couldn't handle like, you know, playing, you know whatever, like the kids stuff they want to do. So I would just pack boys up in the truck and we would drive off to some random spot in the National forest and we would just like dump them out and we just let them explore, climb rocks, climb hills,

playing creeks, playing the lakes. It was just like three days of nature babysitting, which was very very good for those those evening hours when I need a little mental break. Um. So that was that was my epiphany, I guess, was that I like Mother Nature now even more so because I realized that she's a great babysitter and that was needed. Yeah. Man, it's it's good if you're if you got to do something like that, this is the time of year to do it. If you're if you're like, man, I really

need Mother Nature's help a little bit. You don't really want that to happen in like January. Yeah, for sure, we got. We got relatively lucky with decent weather and

it was it was fun. I mean, the boys are pretty good and Mom's back now, and I made the mistake this is this is a digression, but I made the mistake of planning to pick my wife up at three o'clock in the afternoon when she got to pick her up at the airport and immediately take her to a campground where I'd set up a tent and stuff, and I was like, let's just start camping right away,

so you'll come back from your work trip. I later found out she had to wake up at two am that day to catch her flight, and so she had woken up at two am and been on airplanes all day. And then I picked her up and was like, let's go camping. And uh. She was not necessarily loving that as far as uh diving right back into things, but we made the best of it was still fun, but it took a moment. Did she go camping? Yeah, we

went camping. Um, but she was very, very tired, and she was also not impressed with my lack of packing. I I did like a halfway pack, So in the morning I packed like the camping stuff and then drove the kids to the campground and got a site because I was I was worried about not being able to get a site on a Saturday morning, Right, that's pretty tough to do. So I raced to go get a site.

We set up the tent and chairs and sleeping bags and stuff like that, and then I thought, after we pick up Mom, we'll just stop by the house and have like food and clothes. It would be really quick, that'll be it. But it ended up being like an hour worth of all the million different things that dead did not think of that we needed to pack. And so that was the first mistake was was Kylie realizing just how illy prepared I had us. But we made it through, had a good time. The kids, Uh, kids

had fun. Did you feel so you know how it is like the first hunt of the year, You have that that feeling like you're forgetting everything, and then you get into a groove and you're pretty good for most of the season and then you get kind of that rut burnout where you just start forgetting stuff again. Did it Did it bring back echoes of either of those times? Yeah, this is definitely like the first time of the year

kind of situation. Didn't have my stuff organized. You know, this is our second Campion trip of the year, but our first one out west, so it was just different and stuff wasn't in the right places yet, and we're still like you know, just we're not fully settled. Um. Plus, usually it's like a team effort, right, Like there's the name for this thing. I don't know what it's calls, like something about the I wish I knew what this was.

But there's this idea that when you're in a couple, like when you when you're married, you end up having certain parts of your brain, are certain parts of your day that you just completely offshore to your significant other, Like you don't even think about certain things, you don't even do certain things at all. It just becomes a part of like you knowing that your significant other will always cover this thing, or will always take care of this task, or we'll always be thinking about this part

of the problem or whatever it is. And so what I realized is that that's kind of how me and my wife operate when packing for trips or camping trips or something like that. So there's so much that I'm so used to like doing this as a team effort, Like I know my things, she does her things. But in this case, I was trying to do it all and I was failing miserably. So that's the big thing. Well, it's it's really good to have to face your flaws, Mark,

and then you can become a better person. That's what of those things have been having to do for a lot lately. But it's uh, I have listeners all the time who are like, Hey, can you help Mark face some of his flaws? That's what you're here for, funny and uh, I guess. On on that note, you are taking us on this journey for the next month, taking over the podcast, running us on this series about the science of white tails. So maybe we should talk about that, Tony,

what's up? What brought you to this? Like, why is this a topic that you wanted to explore in a deep in a deep way. There's a couple of reasons, you know, a surface level. I guess you could just say, I'm just curious about the research and the science. Like you've interviewed a whole bunch of people in your life, obviously, and it's so fun to interview somebody whose life is dedicated to science, especially when that science is dedicated to

the animals we love. It's just it's just interesting, and so I was I was stoked to do something like that anyway, just to not be talking about, you know, how to kill a bucks this way or how to kill a buck that way. And then the other part of it is, you know, we beat this drama a lot about just just not understanding dear like we we we kind of take it for granted when we talk in this space that it's like, Okay, we know what dear doing. The bed here, they feed here or whatever.

We kind of got to figure out the nuance of their daily travel that it's done. But we don't really understand these animals very well, like what what makes them tick? Like what what did they evolve from? And like how does their eyesight really work? And all these things that we just sort of, you know, either either don't even really acknowledge because we don't feel like we have to,

or we we don't. We kind of we kind of just like dismissive of it, like, well, that's just how dear C. Like I know, how dear C. And then you talk to somebody who's like a real expert on that and it's eye opening. It's it's so interesting. And so there were a couple of different reasons and I

wanted to do this and it was pretty fun. Man, Okay, what about I'm sure there's some people listening now, or who looked at the title of this and thought, you know, I just want to know where to find bucks on scrapes, or you know, I'm just gonna pour pile of corn out there and shoot a deer. Why do I need to get a PhD In the science of white tails or something like that? Like pitch me, or pitch that person who's a little antagonistic to this idea on why

this is actually going to help them? Or is it is this just gonna be like scratching curiosity itch and like, is fascinating stuff Tony? Or are you actually gonna help us learn stuff that's not just fascinating but also practically helpful. It's both, I mean, And here's the this is the weird part, right, Like you you could know nothing about

deer essentially and still kill them. Like, if you have the right set up, you could know very little about what makes dear tick and you could still kill them. But if you want to be a better hunter, you gotta understand what motivates them, Like you got to understand

what they're made of. And you know, I always think about it, Like you know, I quit I equate a lot of stuff to dog training, right and the more you learn about how a dogs knows and how nose works or dog sees, or why a dog makes eye contact with you or you know, makes this kind of body language versus that kind or something like that. You know, you don't really need to know that stuff to train

a dog, like you could. You could teach a dog to heel and sit and double blind or treating all that stuff without really knowing that, but you wouldn't be as good as a dog trainer. And I feel the same way about white tails, like if you if you want to be a better hunter, and I'm I'm guessing that most of the people who listen to this podcast do like understanding why white tails do what they do. It's so important. Yeah, you know, it's another another um

another part of this. I feel like, at least for me, I do feel like when you start to understand these things is deeper aspects of white tail by allergy or you know, for me, more recently, it's been like trying to understand habitat and understand like what the different plants are out there, what trees are, trying to identify tree species and plant species, and you know, this is something I talked about during my Habitat series earlier this year.

How once you start to learn about the environment around you, it it's like you are wearing a totally different set of glasses when you enter the woods. It's like when you're fishing, Tony, this is an analogy I've been using recently. You're throwing like polarized sunglasses when you're fishing, and all of a sudden you see this whole other world under the surface of the water that was there all along,

but you couldn't see it. Well, I feel like a similar thing is happening in this case too, Like when you start learning about the science and biology of the animals you're pursuing. In this case, white tails, I think you enter the woods seeing and understanding a totally different picture than what was their previous to that, right, I really do think you create a richer experience that helps you hunt, but then also just makes the whole thing

a lot more interesting to do. Um. Yeah, well, and I think you know along those lines, Mark, like, one of the most important things we can ask ourselves as hunters is why, Like why why did they do this? Or why did that buck do that? And you know, through our anecdotal observation. We can only get so far with that, right, Like I get I can only get so far if I walk if I watch a buck, you know, walk through the woods and he he makes a rub there, and he nibbles on some brows here,

Like I can. I can figure some stuff out just by seeing that and paying attention to it. But there are people out there who have studied that stuff, like really studied why dear do those things? And you know, they're a wealth of knowledge that you're just like, even even in a lifetime of observation and dipping into the world of the white tail, you're not gonna learn some of the stuff that that these people learn through like

careful research. And so that's I just think that's cool. Yeah, do you feel like if you were looked back over the course of your life, you're hunting life, I know that this kind of stuff has always tickled your fancy, Like you're you're a student of white tail science. You're

interested in this stuff. Can you think of any example in your hunting experiences over the years where some kind of understanding of the science actually helps you on a hunt, Like you were sitting there thinking what should I do? What should I do and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, well, you know what this and this means that really they're gonna be doing this kind of thing at this time of year, and that like influence

the decision. Maybe early on when you were just figuring this stuff out, maybe it was more that kind of internal conversation. But does anything come to mind or does that real bell of any kind of idea where this stuff actually came into play in a way that you could say, oh, yeah, this was because I'd read this

study or paid attention to this class or anything like that. Um, I would say, you know, probably the most relatable way that I could describe that, or like, the most relevant way I could describe that is far as me having a lightbulb moment out there, is to start to think about predator avoidance, which when when you talk about a prey animal and a bunch of these researchers talked about different aspects of this, and you know how good deer are at just not getting killed and not just by us,

by everything that's out there that can kill them. When I start thinking about myself and like a predator that they really fear, you know, like we don't equate ourselves to a grizzly bear. We don't equate ourselves to a pack of coyotes. Like, we don't think about ourselves that way, but they think of us that way and they have. When you start understanding like the universal tools they have to avoid that level of predation, it makes you realize

like the impact you can have. So we can be kind of like flippant or you know, just like not not really take into account the severity of our impact on them. But we got to think about it in a way, like we we don't. We don't really relate to being you know, pursued by predators very often, and if you do have a big predator taken interest in you, it changes your perspective in a hurry. But we don't really think about them that way. Like we kind of just think we go into this world and it's like

our hobby or passion and we like it. Yeah, we don't want to spook dear, but we don't think about like residual impact from our scent, you know, a cent trail we might leave in there, or something we might touch or you know, get spotted by that fork in the tree because you're on your phone like you don't really care, but all of that stuff is real important

to them. And when you start talking to some of these researchers and listening to what they say, it makes you realize, like, man, if there's one thing I should be doing, I should be thinking of myself as something that's real scary to them and I don't want them to know them there. And I know that's like you know, we we we talked about that a lot right access and you know where you how are you going to get into your tree? And are you really going to play the wind and all this stuff. But I don't

think you can focus on that too much. Mhm. So so I guess before we're going further, can you can you walk me through what we cover, Like who are the people were talking to over the course of the next month, and what are the focuses that we're going to dive into with each one. I think they'd be

helpful to understand, like what we're getting ourselves into here. Yeah, man, uh, Bradley Cohen is a researcher I had on so fascinating and we spent almost the whole episode talking about Dear Vision and how they're they're literally the anatomy of their eyeballs developed and what they're really really good at, seeing how well their vision works compared to ours when it works well. Just a just a total breakdown of how

white tails used their eyes. And I'm telling you, I went into that and I was like, you know, I was curious. But they've they've studied this in a way that they've learned so much about what deer can actually see in the different wavelengths and how it relates to us, and how it relates to looking at the horizon versus looking straight up into a tree. Such fascinating stuff in that one before you only further time on Uh, I

gotta ask him, hoping you guys talked about this. If not, um, either you need to call him back up and add on to the podcast, or I need to call him. And because I actually want to write an article about

the question I'm about to pose to you. I want to write an article or get the answer to whether or not there is anything to the idea that you shouldn't make eye contact with a deer, Like there's certain people that swear to God like when a deer is getting spooky, don't look at him, or don't look at her. Don't let her see your eyes. Like Andrea Quisto swears to God he will. He wears a mesh eye covering over his eyes, and he swears that makes a difference.

And I don't have any kind of real science or anything to back it up. But when there's a deer ten yards away and she's getting spooky, she knows something up, something's up. I squint my eyes, like, I won't look her in the eye, just have like a weird little old wives tale or something. I don't know. I just feel like there's got to be something there. Um. I

don't know why. I can't back it up, but I mean they say, like, don't make eye contact with a grizzly bear because they can somehow sense that and get more aggressive. So why couldn't a pray animal recognize eye contact? I don't know. Do you guys talk about that? I can't remember if I talked about it with him or somebody else, but we got into that. Yeah, is there

is there anything to it? Or do you when I want to like drop the bomb because it's so juicy, you want to save it for later Because I'm very there's something to it. I mean, there is something to it, and like you said, you know you squint or you know, Andrea says this, when you when you deer hunt a lot, you recognize that moment, you know, when it almost like when a deer is gonna look at you and not spooke versus when a deer is gonna look at you and all of a sudden ratchet up that awareness level.

And when you see at when you can feel that coming or you see it, you always distinctively start to kind of side eye them or cast your gaze down or just even not even look at them, you know, directly and just like it's sort of in your peripheral and just wait for them to decide. So I don't think you know this. This is a hard thing probably to prove, but I don't think there's any question that you probably don't want to, like make direct eye contact

with a deer you're trying to kill. So, I mean, we see, we see, like you said, with with big predators, and you know, when you see how dogs have evolved, like, eye contacts a real thing out there in nature, and sometimes it's a it's a real threat to be looking into the eyes of another creature. What do you what do you think about like the idea of a we're really go off a tangent here, but that's okay. It's

kind of tied of this like a sixth sense. You hear sometimes about people, you know, a kind of spitballing about animals have some kind of sixth cents to pray, species have some kind of other awareness of the picking up on something else that we aren't. Um do you think there's anything to that or have you talked to anyone ever who has alluded to there being any kind of scientific basis for the idea of some other sense

or sensibility that certain animals species have. So I asked that question to Justin Brown actually, and we kind of go down a weird rabbit hole on it. I don't think anybody's studied it. He certainly hadn't, but we kind of, you know, academically, it's an interesting thing to discuss with somebody who's an expert on you know, kind of white

tail anatomy and evolution. And I personally don't think there's anything there, but I also think there could be something there that's like totally grounded in biology that we don't really understand. So we could, you know, It's kind of like if you went back a couple of thousand years ago in our history, we would assign a lot of magic to stuff we didn't understand, right, You like, we just we just didn't know, right, Oh, it's a pile of straw mis baby mice. Well, no, like mice make

baby mice. But you know at one point we didn't know that, right, So we just make up an explanation. And when you talk to a guy like Justin, you know, he's real deep into you know, why why are deer's legs built this way? Well because of this and that, and they I mean they study it, and so they figure out things about a deer's anatomy that are tied directly to predator avoidance or you know, smelling the micro nutrient content in brows and eating only the best, you know,

freshest stuff that they need in the moment. When you when you see things like that, or you hear somebody who understands that, I don't think it's a stretch to think, like, yeah, maybe there's not like a true sixth sense, but maybe there's something tied to one of their one of their highly developed senses that we just don't get you know, and and I'll give you an example. So, and I think about this a lot because it's it's kind of wooo,

but it's it's I've heard it from several people. So I've I've interviewed, uh, some people who train protection dogs, so you know, canine dogs essentially uh Belgian Malanoir shepherds whatever that are. They're they're there to protect somebody, you know, whether whoever, and this this I interviewed this woman one time who said, and she owns a whole business dedicated to this, and she said, one of the ways they test their dogs is they'll throw like five volunteers in

a bite suit. And so, you know, a bite suit is what everybody's seen, you know. Some somebody runs along, the dog goes and grabs you by the arm, pulls you down. Then the handler pulls them off. And then she said, to to really like test the dogs, she'll instruct one person out of those five to go really dark with their thoughts, like I'm I'm gonna do horrible

things to that handler. And she said it's so like it's so reliable, so consistent that the dog will hone in on that person who's having those horrible thoughts that She's like, they just know somehow, And I've and it wasn't just her. I've had other people in that space who are really knowledgeable tell me that, and I go, well, how the hell does a Belgian Melania know what you're thinking?

Or or that your thoughts have turned that dark? And so then you know, if you believe that, it's not like a huge stretch to think about a prey animal walking by some predator hiding up in a tree who has bad intentions, right Like, I'm like, when I see a buck coming, I'm like, I want to kill that son of a bit, right Like, maybe there's something to it. I don't disagree, Like I I think your explanation about how you know we'd just have them figure out the

science to speak about it, yet sounds quite plausible. I mean, there's so many examples like well you subscribed or what about just now? This is very anecdotal. I don't know if anybody's ever actually tried to apply like a quantitative analysis to this. But how many stories have you heard of people who we're walking down a trail or were I don't know, camping or whatever, when all of a sudden they feel like the hair in the back or the necks rise up, and they just feel like someone's

watching them or something bad is going to happen. Like so many people, you hear these stories where there's the sense of being watched or the sense of some impending danger coming. And then the next day they're walking around and they see mountain lion tracks ten yards behind them, behind this tree or or something like that. You know, there's so many stories where people sense something is watching

them or some dangerous coming. And now, of course it's probably ten million examples of that, and we hear the ten stories where there actually was something dangerous. Maybe that's the case, right, But I don't know. There seems to be the plausible idea that there could be something to it. And you know, you talked about how, you know, like an animal's nose can pick up on these different things. I mean, there's all these different chemical signals being transferred

that we don't even pick up on. I mean, you know, the science is now showing that trees in a certain way are communicating between each other with different chemical aerosoults that are released by their leaves based on different stimuli or different dangers. And if if that kind of stuff can be sent out in the air and transferred in

a way. Why couldn't similar chemicals be created by mammals that could then be picked up by a prey species, you know, not even realizing that they're smelling this, but in some way they're smelling intention in a way, because our bodies are creating some different kind of chemical in that moment that could be picked up ten yards away or fifteen yards away by a astuteley evolutionary crafted prey species to survive that kind of thing, you know, I mean, I don't. I wouldn't put to pass it at all.

I think it's well, I mean, there there's a reason that you know, I mean, it's instinct, you know, And I think that that's something that can be you know, probably pretty dulled by our modern lives because we have it, have it pretty good. But you know, if you took I mean, all right, take an example, like if you dropped me into Ukraine right now and said start fighting Russians, I'd probably be dead in like a day, right because

I wouldn't have a clue what I was doing. But if you take somebody who's been fighting over there for those ninety days, and who trained for years before that. Their instincts in that environment are probably amazing, like just probably so in tune. So you know, you take it, take a white tail out there, you know that. And you can see this on a sort of a smaller level if you if you hunt a wide variety of

different spots. I think, if you if you go hunt some badass branch down in Texas where there's like it's real managed and you know, the population is really high, and you know, those deer don't have like tons of fear most of the time. You can see it. Oh, you're like, these are not the same deer I hunt on public land by my house in the Twin Cities, Like they're they're different. Thing. They're there still dear, but that that instinct, that survival instinct, and those those skills

of using whatever they have available. I mean, if they don't have to use them, they're gonna lose them to a certain extent, you would assume. Yeah, very very true. Man, I don't know, this is something it's very very interesting. I really need to do a deeper dive into this whole eye contact sixth sense thing. Um. If the science isn't there yet, I bet it will be someday because it's just it's just too interesting. Yeah, okay, So I

mean I think, hold on one second. I think I think the hardest part about that that I got from all these these interviews is studying wild deer versus you know, you can set up a study and and this is part of the reason why a lot of this research goes the way it does, because they tend to research dear that they can, or they tend to research topics that are ah easily researchable in a pen situation, you know, like taking a wild white tail and going, okay, how

do they detect predators? Not as a research scientist, like that's a heavy lift man, Like how do you how the hell do you even control that? Yeah? Who knows? I interrupted you when you were going through your rundown. So you you mentioned the vision episode and then you mentioned a guy named Justin. Who what's he talking about? Justin's fascinating man, he U he really understands dear anatomy

and you know, white tail evolution. And this guy has studied more uh DOM diseases, viruses, different animals than probably anyone out there. Like he he's not just just a white tailed guy. I mean, he studied different viruses and turkeys and what's his gross what's his job title like that kind of stuff. What's his actual career? So he he has a background and and he's a veterinarian and he has a background in biomedical science. Wow, so he's

and I feel so bad. He was so nice and I interviewed him the day that I really came down with COVID, and so I felt I felt bad. Like, let me let me tell you this. So you know when you are doing a podcast and you're you're in the moment and you say something and like in your head, you're like that was so dumb, and I'm going to care about that. Yeah. There. I had about nine of those moments with Justin. At one point I was like I couldn't think of the word scientist, and so I

said like science guy or something. And as soon as I said, I was like, oh god, like and I had. I just had several these moments, and I felt so bad because he's such an interesting guy and had so much good information and here I am this low wavelength, hairless ape trying to interview him and I'm like a train wreck. But he was fascinating, so he carried it well enough that your inadequacies won't bring down too much.

He did, and he we we talked off air about some of the stuff that we didn't touch on, and that that's what was really cool about these guys that I interviewed, you know there they're passionate hunters who got into the science space. And I mean, you can talk to these guys for an hour or two and you don't even scratch the surface of what they have to offer, you know. I mean I I left I left every one of those episodes with notes about the next go around that I wanted to talk to them about because

they have so much interesting, relevant information to us. I love it. So what's next? Then? So I interviewed Carl Miller. Um, you know, Carl, Carl's like a legend in the in the white tail space. I really don't think anyone has published more research on deer than Carl. And he was really really interesting. And what did you cover with him? Ah? We covered all kinds of stuff with Carl. He because of his just because of his depth of knowledge. I

really just kind of wanted to. I didn't. I didn't go into it like, Okay, this is this is a dear vision one, right, Like, I'm like, what's the most interesting thing you've studied? Like what what are you concerned about with the future. What we think about is like you know Stewards of the Resource And have you ever met him? Do you know him? I met him a while back. Yeah, he's such a nice guy and so just so full of knowledge on white tails. So we kind of went all over the place in that episode.

It wasn't like a that was like a shotgun approach episode, but just just a fun guy to listen to. Okay, so that's three out of five, right, So what else? Michael Chamberlain as well, So you know, people, people who listen to met Eater podcast, I'm sure have heard him. And he's he's made a name for himself as the turkey doc, right, Like he's he's probably the foremost wild

turkey researcher in this country. Like I don't think that's a crazy thing to say, but man, that guy is obsessed with hunting white tails, and so he's he's out there in our space, uh, you know, educating people on turkeys, and he's passionate about turkeys. He's a whole mother level with white tails. Just loves it, and so kind of with him too. You know, we we talked about a lot of difference, like bond repruvement, a lot of predation stuff.

He does a lot of studies down south and you know, do use with you know, how many fonds the bears eat in Louisiana, that kind of stuff, and just just interesting. He's such a good dude. Awesome, I like it. And then the last one, so one thing that happened in these podcasts that I didn't intend to all Right, I guess I shouldn't say that that's that's bad phrasing. I didn't see coming. Was every single one of these people I interviewed is really really interested in the future of

white tales, Like there's no question in my mind. And c w D came up over and over and over again, like that you want to talk about like the top concern with these science these scientists, it's like no question, yeah, science. And so I had Jason Sumners on from the Missouri Department of Conservation. He's the he's the head of the Division of Science or their branch of science or something

that the MDC down there. They have a re really really interesting set up for their their game department, and they have a heavy emphasis on science and research, and so it's he was and he runs the whole thing, and so he, you know, he and I really basically did an episode on chronic wasting disease. And it's a it's a sort of a downer, I guess you could say,

but also not totally hopeless. Like when you when you have somebody like that at the helm who's concerned about it and loves dear and has the resources to really study this and figure out what might work and what doesn't, it gives you a little bit of hope. Yeah, c W D. Man, it's such a doozy of a topic too, because it's because it's it's got several things going for

it going against it. I mean, it's it's slow moving, and so it's not something that instantly changes things and that people can point a thing go and say, oh, yeah, it absolutely made this horrible thing happen. So yes, we absolutely have to do something about it. But but no, instead of slow moving, it's hard to really wrap your

head around. It has become politicized in a certain way within the deer hunting community, and so it's become like this this issue that's like ripping, tearing the community apart between like believers and deniers. I mean, it's like it's like COVID or climate change or something, but the deer

hunting version of it, that's like becoming this weirdly polarized thing. Um. And so some people either get really charged up about it or some people just put their heads in the sand and just want to stay out of it because they don't want to get into this polarizing, depressing issue. Uh, why is it worth listening to Tony If I'm worried about that? If I'm that person, I'm thinking, Gosh, this is just this is a downer. This is gonna stress

me out, and it's gonna piss off my friend. If I tell them that you should pay attention to see w D or whatever, H what do you tell that person? Uh? I would tell them a lot. You know. I'm I've been I've I've been involved in this issue for a

long time. I've written about it a ton and done a lot of research on it, and I've been I kind of hit this sort of agnostic state with it where I was like, I'm you know, it was part of it was fatigue, right, but part of it was like I just don't know, Like I don't know what's bullshit and what's not, you know, like because because like you said, it is like a highly politicized issue, and when you talk to somebody who loves deer, who actually handles the science behind it, it's sort of, uh, it

sort of just clears out some of the white noise. And what you realize is, you know, we have some pretty prominent voices out there who have a vested interest in straight up lying about CWD or you know, really downplaying some of the stuff we know, you know, and

and those voices have done a lot of damage. And so when you when you talk to people, you know, like a really common one, a really common thing to say around CWD is that it's been here forever and it's just a part of the natural world of our dear elk. The problem with something like that is it's that's not backed up by anything. Like nobody who knows

what they're doing with the science says that's true. They say it could be true, like we it might that's possible, right, there's no data to support that, and so we have so many different aspects of this that that fall into sort of that category. So yeah, you can fill in the blanks and decide that this is, it goes this way or it doesn't do this. We don't know a lot of that stuff, and so there's some serious mental horsepower out there being dedicated to like figuring out those things,

whether they're true or not. And yeah, can we contain it, like can we keep prevalence levels low? What does it really mean for the future or white tails? And you can't. You could take an issue like this and it's it's it just is what it is. It's there's there's research around it, their science behind it. They're trying to figure

out what this means. But it's also like inextricably linked to uh, the social science or the social aspect of it, and so we get it gets real muddy when we do that because we have a vested interest in seeing lots of deer out there, because we don't want this

to change. So just us as an audience consuming this, we're kind of like, it's it's sort of easier to just stick your head in the stand and be like I don't I don't really want to know, or I don't really want to think about this because I want dear to be there and I don't want the bad news. And you know that that's sort of an easy take, but like maybe it's not the best one. Like if we care about the future of white pills, we should

want this research to be conducted like we should. We should want to know what this means and get the best info we can. Yeah. Man, it's the perfect poison as far as hard issue to address because of those exact things. It's it's a our human psychology in so many ways, it is perfectly fine tuned to not want to deal with something like this. You know, it's a it's a doozy m well and I would say on

that too. One of the things this will be. This is tough to prove, but I believe this, like in my heart, when you when you talk to these people who I who I've talked to for these interviews, you don't get this propaganda vibe. You don't get this like undercurrent of you know, like ulterior motives or something like that. It's like you get you get the feeling that they're like I want this to continue, like I want there to be a be deer around for my kids and

my grandkids. You don't you just don't. It's like, it makes you realize that there are people in this that who are genuinely working toward a good cause, and you might like the agency they worked for, you might want to assign like nefarious intent to them, But when you spend time with these people, it's like, man, I don't know, it feels pretty genuine to me that that they're really trying to learn something that can help all of us

and the deer out. Yeah. So when you look at these five conversations you've had, is there anything that kind of through you for a loop? Were you surprised by anything, or did you have a previous assumption that was upturned or anything. Was there any kind of like whoa moment for you throughout this process? There definitely was, uh, And it actually happened in the CWD conversation with Jason Sumners.

I don't I don't really want to give it away, but I had I had sort of made up my mind, and I didn't realize I had kind of made my mind up this way until I said something about the future of white tails and what I thought, and he corrected me and said, you know, what we're finding is that that that's just not true, and I I don't want to give it away, but it was one of those moments where I was like, God, I think I had this totally wrong, like totally wrong, and I didn't

even realize how, you know, like how kind of ensconced

in that way of thinking. I was interesting. Here's another thing that's curious about, you know, in a lot of like my off I don't know how to described, I do a ton of just reading and research about a whole bunch of different things related to wildlife and the environment and stuff, and and we're starting to see, you know, increasing evidence of you know, just the the widespread long term influence and impact we're having on wildlife right so much so that now we're actually able to kind of

identify ways that animals have, you know, are beginning to evolve and adapt and change to specific you know, influences of humans, and certain species are really good at adapting and and literally changing the something called phenotypic plasticity, which is a fun new ten dollar word that I've liked that points to the the ability for these animals to to change both behaviorally and even possibly in their genes,

to adapt to how the world is changing. Because of us. Um. And so that's been an interesting thing I've been reading about. I got to thinking, you know, is that happening with white tails? Are we changing white tails? I mean, white tails are incredibly adaptable. They're one of these species that are actually winners in the jack potter. I go, what am I trying to say? They're they're winners as far as an animal species that can live alongside of humans

compared to many others. Right, um. And I'm curious if in any of your conversations you heard about this at all. Are there any examples of that kind of thing that these scientists are picking up on, is the biology of white tails or or the behavior or anything changing alongside of how we humans have changed things that anything along those lines come up. So yeah, that I'm pretty sure it was with just and Justin Brown where we we talked about that not only with white tails and how

adaptable they are, and he he brought it up. I don't remember exactly how he phrased it, but it was, you know, their adaptability is partially due to their evolution as edge critters and being being sort of wired towards being around you know, edges of habitat and stuff. But you know, we kind of went down this rabbit hole of them being super adaptable to us and you know, you know, pretty rapid changing environments, you know, versus maybe

mule deer. And one of the things he talked about was was coyotes, which are you know, a similar example like like the white tail, where they just whatever you throw at them, they seem to make it work. And it's a fascinating aspect to white tails to you know, to see it sort of just makes you realize how much of a gift they are to be able to play so well with us no matter how much we develop and no matter how much we change into the land.

And it's it's it's pretty wild and it and it is it is like tied to you know, their evolutionary path that that adaptability is. But it's not like you can just say it's you know this gene, you know, like it's not like you can it's it's not an easy thing to put your finger on. But they're like hyper aware of it. M Yeah, they're survivors, that's for sure.

Some of the very best What Tony of all this is that anything stand out to you as it's something that you either identified as something you want to dive further into or that you wish you could have covered but somehow didn't come up, Like what's next for you or for us? If there's an area where you want and more, what's the area that is pulling you to explore next after this foundation that you've developed and that we're all going to learn about here soon. Oh man,

there's so much stuff. I mean you you really you could probably do a hundred podcasts with each one of these guests and probably find dozens and dozens more people

just like them and and talk about this stuff. When you get into conversations with these guys, especially after the show's over, you know how it is, they'll just mention something like, oh, yeah, we're working on this study, or we're thinking about this or thinking about doing that, or this was like an anomaly and we're just curious about it, and you realize how much there is to learn, Like if I took away anything from this, it was like, man, I got a lot of stuff left to learn about

white tails, and so do these people who know a lot more about white tails than I do. And I just I just think that's cool, Like I I just think it's cool that there's you know, this animal we're obsessed with and we think about all the time, and we we we try to figure out and we try to just learn about and we could we could never know enough about them, like we could never get there, like we could never get to the end. And I

just think that's cool. They're just such amazing animals, very very very very true, which is why we've done five so many episodes of this one and however many thousands of episodes of other podcasts and videos. Right, we just can't get enough. Yeah, well, I mean that that that's the thing we don't talk about. I think, Uh well, I mean we kind of do, but we kind of

we kind of screwed around. It is you know, how how hard this stuff really is, Like how how hard it is to actually get good at, you know, being a white tail hunter. And even if you do get to like some level like that, how often you get your ass handed to you and realize, like, man, as good as you can be, you could be so much better.

It's just it's I think that's just amazing. So here's a question whether it be like in your research for this or in conversations with these people, or maybe anywhere else. Did you ever them on any kind of book recommendations or resource recommendations or I don't know, for people that want to go deeper into this kind of stuff, for people who realize now that there's um something to better understanding dear not just you know what trails they take,

but actually how they function and flourish. Do you have any recommendations for where people can go to get more of this kind of stuff after they listen to the series or books or anything like that. Uh, book wise,

I don't know. I actually I'm kind of kicking around writing one myself because I think I think there's like a there's probably a gap in the white tie world there, and I think it would be pretty cool to to dig into this stuff because you know, you know how this is if you if you're gonna interview somebody who's a scientist or wildlife researcher, you're gonna read some of their papers, right, and and you know, research papers are

pretty dry there. You know, I know, a guy like you loves them because you're wired kind of weird like most people probably don't. And but when you when you start reading them, even if you just read the abstract from each of these papers. You're like, man, this is pretty cool. Like in a way, they just get to ask a question that they're curious about, and if they can get the funding to do it, if they get a grant or they can get some resources, they can

go out and design experiments to figure it out. Like that's cool. Like we can't we can't do that, Like I can't you know, Andy May can't go you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna figure this thing out with these wild deer in that kind of way that he can do it in his own way and he's gonna he's gonna learn something. But they have the opportunity, these researchers have this opportunity to do something that's so cool, and I just I think I don't know. So that's

a really dumb answer to your question. If you really wanted to, you know, read about this stuff. It's mostly in the research papers, and you know a lot of a lot of companies, you know, meetia or does a good job at this is. If there's something really cool that comes out, there'll be an article about it that sort of bridges the gap between the academia and the in the that that style of writing versus you know what we typically read in the hunting space, which is

a different it's a different delivery system, you know. Yeah, man, Well, I think this is a good call to action for you. You should write that book. I might. I might. I thought about it a lot as I was sort of sort of pulling everything together for this series. I think there's I think there's sort of a gap in the in the content space for that. Well, here's the thing is, is you just pointed out the big um like problem with most of this writing about this stuff is that

it's it's hard to digest. It's usually scientific papers, it's usually pretty boring. But if you could somehow convey the science in like a fascinating fun way, like to get part of a journey, tell hunting stories, take him on a trip while they learn about this kind of stuff, like all of a sudden, it is a lot more palatable and people actually, you know, be able to hold onto that information in their minds when it's tied into a larger interesting narrative. There's a there's a hell of

a book right there. I'm not I'm not going to call DIBs on it, So you run with it, buddy, you know, I might. I mean, I think you could do it in a style, um you had you had the guy who wrote The Comfort Crisis on right, what was his name, Michael Michael Easter Easter Uh that you know, that book is a really good example what we're talking about, you know, I mean if you his journey to to get in shape and learn about the outdoors and you know,

tie himself to nature. He did a really good job of, you know, blending that experience of that caribou hunt with Donny Vincent with just real research into what makes us happy and healthy. And I think I think that style is is you know, it's pretty cool, and I think

you could do that with this this topic. Probably. Yeah, that's my my favorite kind of book and and the kind of book I guess I want to write too, is like where you combine that you learned something while also going on an interesting journey or doing something interesting along the way, makes it just so much more easy to consume it. You want to consume it, then, um, well, until you write that book, I do have a couple of recommendations that can to mind, um, for people that

want to read more on this. There's a very interesting book called white Tail Tracks. This is by Valarious Geist, who is like the o G of science in the world of ungulates. Um. He recently passed away. But white Tail Tracks dives into like the evolutionary history of white tails and kind of their impact on the North American ecosystem and where we are today. Super interesting stuff, cover some of like the biology and how they are, how they are and why they are how they are. That's

a pretty interesting one. Um. There's one called deer Land by al kim Brone. This came out like right when I started Weird Hunt um, and so this one kind of covers the science of white tails, but then also like the impact that white tails have on um, the natural world, I guess, and kind of also cultural impact as well in America. So that one's kind of interesting. It's it touches on some of this stuff. Um. And

then one called Heart and Blood by Richard Nelson. In this one covers some of the same stuff, a couple of chapters around the science and biology of deer, and then it goes into more of like the cultural integration of deer into our world, into you know, how we interact with them. And so it's a little above and beyond. But but again another pretty interesting one that covers on some of this stuff. Those are the first three that came to mind without looking at my bookshelf. Um, but yeah,

it's it's good stuff man recommendations. Yeah, yeah, check those out. I guess is there anything else, Tony, Like, is there anything else that we need to know or that we should chat about before we just dive in over this next month and get right into it. Uh? I think I think it's just worth thinking about this stuff with

an open mind. Kind of a circle back right to you know what you started started this podcast talking about, Like, you know, maybe people aren't that interested in it, or maybe they don't they're not making the connection that these kind of interviews will help them become a better hunter. But I just firmly believe they do. Like I really believe that if you take in this information, partially because so much of it is like, you know, ubiquitous across

the space. Right Like, if you if you learn how a dear sees, like how their vision really works, it doesn't matter if you hunt in you know, southern Alabama or up in Canada. You know, like, it doesn't it doesn't matter the same thing if you if you really understand in you know, why a white tail might feed on this type of brows at this time of year, or how they use their nose to find food. It really doesn't matter where you hunt, like, that's that's applicable

to you as long as you're just hunting deer. And so I think I think in some ways this science it's pretty neat in that aspect because we we tend to you know, if you interview somebody who's just a stone cold killer from somewhere, you know, they might be able to go to a bunch of different places and do it, but they're rooted somewhere, And so there's always somebody who's like, yeah, but here in Florida, he couldn't do that, you know, or where I hunt, that's just

not gonna fly. We always have that sort of stigma attached to us as hunters, like no matter how accomplished you get, but some of this stuff just it doesn't matter. It's universal. It's very true. Yeah, one last question for you. Usually, historically when you have filled in for me on the main Wire Dump pod cast, you usually start every episode talking some kind of shit about me and make enough weird destinations that I might be at. The big question I have is does that continue even when I allow

you to spearhead a whole series like this? Do you still bite the hand that feeds you? First Off, First off, I'm a meat eator full timer, so we're equals now, Mark, So nobody's feeding anybody. Uh. Secondly, I'm not making up anything. I just tell the people what you tell me, you and you and Spencer's little adventures, and I just let

them know why they have me for the week. And so it's safe to say if I'm filling in for your podcast, it's because you're off doing something that might intrigue people, and I just let them know, just you know, casual.

So thanks for that. Uh. You know, I got one other questions for you, just in case for people that are listening to this, but if they have not been tuning into recent episodes of Foundations, can you give me a little update on what's been going on recently with your Foundation series and what we can look forward to. Is there anything that folks you know about? Yeah? Uh,

so we are. We are at the end of year one, and Year one's goal was just kind of as as much as possible, take a chronological look at what we should be doing as hunters to try to be successful. So you know, should you be scouting this way at this time of the year, or should you be you know, hunting staging areas at this time of year, or how

should you be looking at winter scouting? And very kind of you know, useful that way, like in the moment, useful, I guess, I would say, but we've wrapped that up. And what that project is so weird for me is because I view it like with a little bit of an existential dread, because is I'm like, I don't I don't know if I have anything left to say. Sometimes, you know, like it's the same thing when you're when you've written hundreds and hundreds of articles, you're like, how

do I write about the rut again? And you know that found those foundations scripts are pretty heavy lift, especially after you get to a year. But I realized how much stuff I had not written about, or you know, how how many things I hadn't recorded, And so year two is going to be different. It won't be it'll

be tied loosely into some you know, chronological stuff. You know, like I'm I'm not going to talk about Winner Scouting in August, you know, but it's going to be more one off concepts of like, you know, everything from you know, self reflection to blood trailing to you know, target practice to why you should think about you know, maybe this piece of gear or what what you should think about with white tail fawns when they're doing this or something like,

just sort of a different approach than the last year. And they've been they've been pretty fun to write, man, Like it's it sort of feels a little bit freeing to not be locked into the chronological you know, I gotta go out and do this this week type of thing. And so I hope people like them because I'm enjoying putting them together and they're they're they're gonna have a different feel to some extent. Man, I love the format.

I mean, so I'm biased, right since I'm a little bit of a part of it, but I just love it's it's bite size and it's concentrated. It's like instead of drinking I don't like a gal on, a gatorade or something, I'm just taking like the energy shot and it's nothing but the good stuff. It's not an hour and a half of Mark rambling kind of on and sometimes we're talking about interesting stuff and sometimes I'm talking

about babysitting or taking care of kids on my wife's gone. No, it's just like twenty minutes or fifteen minutes of this one really interesting set of insights from you. Um, I don't know. I'm I'm too busy to listen to podcast most of the time, or if I when I have free time, I'm not usually listening to them. But those are ones that I'm actually you know able and interested in to to digest because of that format. So I guess what I'm trying to say is keep up the

good work, buddy. Thanks man. Yeah, I'm I'm excited for this second year there. The stuff that I've already written and put together for it is honestly, people just have to listen. But it's it's stuff that I've never it's topics I've never really approached in the white tail space,

and I'm having fun with that. I Mean, I think, I think, and maybe this is this is probably so weird, but I kind of think that's what really need about podcasts over some of the other mediums we work in, is because yeah, okay, you know you've got five episodes

in the can dedicated to white tails. But there's so much that comes into a podcast and a good conversation that's really not like here's how the audience is going to kill their deer, you know, like there's there's so much more to it, and and these Foundations episodes, I realize how much like my personal life is tied to my thinking of white tails. Even though like if you put it on paper, you're like, oh, I'm gonna talk about this topic this week. People would be like that

has nothing to do with white tails. But if you have the time to explain yourself and get into it, yeah, it actually does. And I think it just gives us a chance to talk about something that you're probably just not really going to find anywhere else in all the white tail content space. And I love that opportunity. Yeah,

you can make a good point. I mean, some of these topics they would never get approved as an article that some company would pay for, right, They're never gonna You're not gonna be able to get production and make

a video about something like this. But we really have zero over site on what we can talk about in the podcast, Like we can do whatever you want here, and that is a freeing thing Like that is a pretty cool freedom to have to explore these things that that should be explored but maybe aren't clicky enough to get love elsewhere. So that's a good point. It's interesting. It really makes you aware of how we approached white

tail content for a long time. You know, like when I when I started out, you know, it was it was primarily magazines, right, and it was like you were you wanted the assignments, You're going to take them, but you're you know, you're like writing, you know, how to kill a white tail over water, And it's like you could go back, you know, when I was at like bow Hunter magazine or or Peterson's bow Hunting for example.

You know, I could look in the archives and see articles about that from one and you're like, I feel like it feels weird, right, you know what I mean. There's a new take on it and you can say your own thing and your own voice and and it's different, but you're still you still feel like you're just plugged into that formula and this is not that. Yeah, yeah, pretty cool stuff. Well I think, uh, I think I'm

just ready to get into it. I almost wish that we could have the first episode today, so we could listen to this and then dive right into it. But I want to make everybody wait a week until we get to the first one. What is the first one, Tony? Who are we gonna hear from first? I think it's

gonna be Bradly Cohen first on Dear Vision. Sweet all right, man, well, I appreciate you taking the time to do this, to to dive so deep into these topics and to put together a really good looking schedule for the next five weeks. I'm personally excited, and I hope other people are too. Yeah, man, I hope they enjoy it. I I think they will. All right, And that's it for us today. Thanks for tuning in as we start to kind of perculate and get excited about this topic of white tail science in biology.

I hope you guys are interested in what's ahead of us. I hope you will tune in over the coming weeks as we get to explore these topics that Tony teed up for us. I'm excited. It's gonna be a great thing for us to dive into here as we get the early summertime period set up. And uh, I appreciate you being here with us, so until next time, thank

you for listening. Don't believe a thing Tony tells you about what I'm doing when he pitches you on at the beginning of his episodes, And until next time, thanks for listening and stay wired to Hun