Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the White Tail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show, we are discussing trophy hunting, our big game record keeping system and its conservation underpinnings, and how all of this impacts our hunting culture. All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and it's Camel for Conservation Initiative, And today we are wrapping up our series this month on the culture of our hunting community, and
we've got a great one. We've got a couple guests here today that are going to help us explore one of the overarching issues that has hovered over much of this month's conversation, and that's trophy hunting and scoring deer and big bucks and all of that. And these are two folks who come to this issue from the perspective of the record keeping organizations, that being the Boone and Crocket Club and the Pope and Young Club. My guests today are Justin Spring, the executive director at the Pope
and Young Club. He also sits on the Records and Ethics committee for the Boone and Crocket Club. And then I'm also joined by doctor John McRoberts. He is a research scientist and wildlife biologist professor at the University of Montana and the program administrator for the Boone and Crockett Wildlife Conservation Program at the University of mind On, Tana. And this whole conversation came together in an interesting roundabout way that I'll describe in more detail once the two
of them joined me. But I wrote an article discussing how I have questions about the role that our record keeping systems and organizations play today and if it's time
to rethink that a little bit. And this all came from, you know, kind of looking at these very issues that we talked about with Tony and Dan and Andrew about our community is obsession with antlers, obsession with score, all this one upsmanship, and this kind of just obsession over who's the better hunter, Who's killed more big deer, Who's deer is better than this deer? Is this one better?
Is this guy better? YadA YadA YadA, and all of this social media chaos that stems from all of that, and it got me to thinking, you know, why are we doing this? How is this helping us? Where did this all come from? Which then sent me down a rabin hole of trying to understand why were these record keeping systems invented in the first place, and what was the original reason for that, what's the historical impetus for this?
And is all of this is the record keeping system in this idea of scoring deer and all of these things that have led us to glorifying trophy hunting. Is this achieving what those founders originally wanted for this system? Is this what we were supposed to be doing? Those are the questions that I had, and these questions led me to writing this article, and this article led me to get in touch with Justin Spring, who is the executive director as I mentioned, of the Pope and Young Club.
We bumped into each other's show. We start having a great discussion on these very topics which has all led us to where we are today. And the conversation that I'm going to have here with Justin and John in which we explore the history of our record keeping system. How we got to this point. We discuss the conservation impetus, the ways in which our records and scoring deer and other critters was supposed to help with the conservation of wildlife.
I'm going to ask these guys some questions about how that might still be going on today. Is it actually going on? Is that a thing? And is it concerning at all that I don't know the answer to that and that you probably don't know the answer to that. If that's why these record keeping systems were created, shouldn't it be important that we're aware of that if it's still going on now. If so, how can we make sure that's more so the case? How can we make
this whole thing more useful for conservation? Is there any way to take this whole scoring deer thing, which I think a lot of us believe has gotten out of control? What if we could kind of shift it around to not being a thing that's ranking hunters and who's the best hunter and who can post a picture on Instagram
and get more likes? What if this could all lead to better conservation outcomes for deer and elk another wildlife That would be interesting, wouldn't it And how do we think about the implications of what this all means for
our hunting culture. That is the set of questions and ideas that I discussed today with Justin and John, and I think it's a really interesting place for us to wrap up this series and leaves me with some hope and intrigue for what the future might look like for these systems and for how we as hunters consider our trophies and how we partake in what might be a grand citizen science experiment if we let it be, and if we participate in that sphere. So that's the plan
for today. I really enjoyed this one. I think you're going to learn some new things here and come to think about scoring deer, submitting your deer to record books, all of that I think we'll be thinking about differently, as well as the whole set of ideas around trophy hunting and much more there. So I'm gonna stop rambling and trying to describe this thing and rather just let the conversation happen so you can see what it is for yourself. I enjoy this one. I hope you do too.
Here we go, all right, joining me now on the other side of the Internet. I've got Justin Spring and John mc roberts. Thank you, gentlemen for joining me today.
Thank you appreciate you having us on.
Yeah, I'm excited about this one because I put you guys in the closing well part of the lineup. We've had a full month now discussing various aspects of our hunting culture, and that's a fairly ambiguous thing to consider.
There's a lot that goes into that, but I feel like you're roles with the Bonnicrocket Club and Pope and Young put you in touch with a lot of these topics we've been chatting about here, everything from trophy hunting and antler scoring and fair chase ethics, technology, gear use, science and conservation and the intersection of those things with the management of wild game and hunting regulations and all
that kind of stuff. This is very much the world we've been exploring in, very much the world I know that both of you exist in. So first and foremost, thanks for making the time to join me on this and to kind of dive into this set of topics that's not always easy to get into. But the original kind of connecting impetus for this, as you both know.
Came from an article I wrote, and this article was titled It's time to rethink big game excuse me, big game record keeping, and this whole thing I don't think i've shared with you guys this, but this whole thing came about because I was asked to write about a particular buck story that had come out a few months earlier, and a guy had shot a world class whitetail, and then he had gone and had it scored by this
organization and that organization. In this organization, he thought it was going to be the number two typical buck shot with a bow or I can't even remember the specifics now, but he thought it was gonna be a number two buck in certain rankings. And then each different organization had some different reason there nitpicking it apart, and I found myself talking to him and going through all the details, and I got bored with it. I got to think, like,
why am I spending all this time? And why is anybody spending all this time nitpicking over of this buck? Certain time is an abnormal time or is it a shared base? Or is it this thing or that thing? Like why is the story about this deer? About whether it's this score or that score. Why isn't the story about just this person's incredible experience, or about the landscape to produce this deer, or about the time he shared
with his family afterwards. I personally have just become so sick of this inches above all kind of thing that sometimes we fall into, and I collectively I consider myself a part of that. Sometimes I've been guilty of that too, And so that's what kind of sent me down this weird rabbit hole that the article became. The article became kind of nothing about that guy's specific buck. It became all about you know, what else is there when it comes to this whole scoring thing. What was it originally
here for? Why did we develop a scoring system? What was that all about? And are we living up to that original impetus and the the very very cliff notes version of which I'm going to ask for the both of you to chime in with a little bit more detail.
But the original kind of starting point for all this came from with the founders of the Boone and Crockett Club looking at this as a conservation project, in that we were trying to recover these species, many many different species across the nation that had come to the cliff's
edge of extinction. In many cases, we are now realizing that, hey, we need to recover these species, and how do we keep track of whether or not that's happening, How do we keep track of if we are seeing success, what kinds of how do we track and measure indicators of the fact that maybe we're doing this in some kind of way. So they started these record keeping systems in those early years, and there was this idea of using
this data set to support future conservation efforts. Good data leads to good science, leads to good work on the ground, and better population management. I think was where that started.
And so I then spent you know, another five hundred eight hundred words asking questions about is that still happening today, is that how we're using this now, or has it just become, you know, a way for hunters to argue it amongst themselves about who's the better deer hunter, who's killed more two hundred inch deer, who's et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I feel like that's like a letdown or a a under utilization of the opportunity we have.
So I posted that article, went out there into the world, and Justin, at some point you saw it or somebody sent it to you. And then a few weeks later you and I bumped into each other at the Western Hunt ECKSPO and had a great conversation about these things.
This is all a very long, rambling setup to why we are all here today, because i'd like to get your perspective that both of you on some of those questions that I had coming out of that little bit of soul searching that I had when I was working on that piece. So the first thing I'm curious about, and maybe Justin, if you want to kick us off here, the first thing I'd love to hear straight from you is a little bit more about the genesis of this
whole thing. Yeah, right, How did we get here with this record keeping system, the set of systems that we have here today, and what were those original goals for them?
So to start with, you know, the system was redevised in nineteen fifty, but we'll get to that. I'll start from the very beginning. You know, we go back to eighteen ninety three, I believe, was the first Sportsman's Exposition in New York. The Theodore Roosevelt was a judge on you know, looking at at the time, what was the best trophy? Right, Hunting wasn't as common, and so from the very beginning of the organization they were interested in
the top specimens. You know, they figured out, like the scoring was very basic, man, that one has a real nice g two five points.
Oh, I don't like the color of.
This negative too, So they could see right away, like, man, this whole judging of an animal off of somebody's criteria doesn't work. At the same time, they completely felt that all wildlife was going extinct, and they weren't wrong.
At the time.
Nineteen oh six the club started making or started compiling the National Collection of Heads and Horns, And so even in your article you mentioned the nineteen oh six book that was a field journal that the club kind of put together to for hunter. It wasn't a scoring per se. It was more of a journal of hey, I took this animal. Here's some useful measurements that may be able
to be used. So in the beginning they were trying to find the best of every specimen to save for our generation, thinking that no big game was going to be available. So that that's the very beginning of Boone and Krakat. That ties to your trophy hunting to where populations couldn't sustain harvest on young and females. So looking for only the oldest, most mature animal was the way that hunting could continue. You know, if you read articles from back then, people are apologizing to the public if
they took a second moose in their lifetime. You know, we'll get into this later, but I think that there's a lot to say that the fact that we can go shoot three or four deer every year is so much different than what these guys were facing.
So anyway, that was the beginning.
From nineteen oh six to twenty six, I believe we compiled this national collection of heads and horns. They were looking for the best specimen for the future. Well, we get into the twenties and thirties, you start having wildlife conservation take off. Pittman Robertson all the efforts of the organization early on towards conservation, and this collection was in the Bronx Zoo. Well. As wildlife populations recover, people don't want to go see heads hanging in a museum anymore.
They can go to Yellowstone. Now they can go to these parks and see these animals. So it kind of fell out of fell out of circulation, and they closed down the exhibit. While the club saw these conservation successes and they're like, man, how can we track that?
Like, how do we how do we ensure that you.
Know, what we're doing rights recognized and what we're doing not doing correctly is recognized. So this is when this group of guys set down to develop the scoring system that we have today that's now criticized on what is it?
Perfect?
Is it? This is it that they took every species and they said, what is the typical form? What is the common form of this animal? You know, they took the best science at the time and said, you know, bilateral symmetry, massiveness, those are the traits of the healthiest specimens. What is a typical for example, white tailed deer look like, well, it's got you know, a main beam with with times that come off equally spaced roughly matched off the outside
of the beam all the way out. So they they decided what the commoner typical form of each animal was or specimen was, and that's what that score was based around to, you know, go to where we are today. And so even even in the beginning, it kind of changed. I mean to your point of how do we go forward? You know, there's things that we can improve on, for sure,
but that's that's how we got this system. Now, that's that's so heavily criticized on deductions and this and that, And there's my long rambling answer to your question.
No, that's that's great. So so the I think there's there's something that folks are always curious about you and you mentioned there a little bit, the fact that there's there's a lot of criticism around you know, nets are for fish, right, Folks don't like deductions, Folks don't like the fact that we don't give the dear credit for abnormal points, for non typical points, for all that kind
of stuff. So I just want to reiterate something you said and then ask maybe if you can add on if there's anything else I'm missing here That a key point is like the scoring system that was put in place was put in place because it should be documenting and points to the healthiest deer. So the idea of being we're looking for indicators of health, and historically abnormal points or asymmetry was indicative of poor health.
Correct some form.
Of stressor generally, and John can touch on this a little more. He's looked at the research, but most of what you know would be considered a deduction is caused by some stressor be it you know, pedical damage, bug bites, you know, and who knows what it can be, but you know, at the time that was why they were looking for those symmetrical massiveness trophies and Jaw, you want to touch on that from what you've seen in today's research.
Yeah, I will, Justin And so Justin mentioned bilateral symmetry. When we get into atypical handlers, the term that folks might want to look into a bit more is fluctuating asymmetry. And that's what a lot of the research is based around. And that not only in antlers, that's in humans, that's in biomedical research. And so the idea is that's a proxy for environmental or genetic stressors of some kind.
Now, those could be.
Parasites, injury, disease, density dependent issues, and so I've heard the criticisms too, but when this scoring system was developed, it was separate the typical, the bilateral symmetry from the asymmetric and so that's where those classifications came from. And there's more to the story that we've seen this research done on fluctuating asymmetry. Taking it a step farther, it's what about female choice. Are females really selecting for either
bilateral symmetry or selecting against asymmetry? And so there's more to the story. But the important thing is with treating this as a scientific at a set which we should explore more consistency and methods and how you score and how you classify makes this data set a lot more powerful, and so there is some value into keeping the scoring system as it's been.
Yeah, So that perfectly segues to the next kind of side of this. I'm curious to learn a little bit more about, as we kind of talked about earlier. I can't remember for this before we started recording or after we started recording, but it seems like within the realm of the general public, when I think about the Boon and Crocket record books, or I think about the Pope and Young record books, I only ever hear those things
referenced and brought up. I only ever hear score brought up when it comes to oh, my buck was this big, but your buck was only that or this is a top ten buck, or this is a new state record buck, or this is going to be the new world record buck. Or you know, this guy's killed five two hundred inches, he's better than you, or whatever it is. That's the only time I'm ever hearing scoring and record keeping brought up in general conversation with your average deer hunting body
of mine. No, you're but it sounds like, sorry, just one, just one more thing. But from what you were saying, justin it doesn't seem like that was ever brought up by mister Theodore Roosevelt or George bird Grenell or Hornaday or anybody back in the early nineteen hundreds when they were, you know, co founding the Booning Kroker Club and this record keeping system. It was. It was not to confirm who the best hunters were, or who has the most two hundred inch yeer whatever. It was to create a
scientific data set to help with conservation efforts. Right, can you can you speak a little bit more to the ways in which the data set has been used or was hoped to be used, because I think that's an important thing for us to understand, is is are these records are is this whole idea of measuring antlers? Is this to tell who's the best dang hunter? Or is this to do something better for the future of wildlife?
No? I mean it's interesting you bring it up that the only time you hear about it is the next world record or the biggest this or biggest that. I can honestly say, I didn't go into this line of work and conservation and scoring or anything because it was about ranking hunters. It was about the conservation, you know. And I'd always try to tell we had a marketing team at Boone and Crockett, how do we get folks to check out our page? How do we get them
to join? You know what always fell flat the thing that excited me the most, Like this county just put in a deer that just made the book. We've never seen this county put out a one to sixty before it got nothing.
You put out.
There, Hey, potentially the largest typical killed in Ohio by a female. Millions of likes, right, and so you're not wrong. What you see is what people want to see. I guess as lack of the for lack of a better term, we tried to push it out. We try to tell the conservation story. This is why I love getting on a podcast like this with you know, your listeners and whatnot. Has explained this was not what it was ever, it
was never supposed to rank the hunter. You know, one thing I always tell folks, and they owe nets are for fish all that. Man, if we were looking to recognize hunters, what do you use gross score? We're looking to recognize conservations. So that's why that net score, that symmetry, all that comes into play. And so you know, the group that started this, we never wanted somebody having a hunt made or break, you know, made or broken by a number that was attached to an animal. That was
never what we wanted. I mean, there's areas in the country that Okay, you're not going to get as big of an elk in this area. That number tells you that it's not that you're less of a hunter, that it's not as good of a trophy. It's you know, biologically, why did the elk in this state not grow as big a G four as the elk in that state? You know.
And yeah, we're.
As frustrated with it as you are. And we don't disagree with the problem. You know, the problems of folks making everything about that final number and not about everything else that goes into it.
Yes, so what's what's the alternative of the record keeping system that being? Like? Can you give me some examples of how this data set that we have right now is being used for conservation, because I think the average person maybe is thinking like, I don't see how a bunch of Antler scores helps conservation? Could get could you guys share something?
So?
I know that the state Idaho was looking at a part.
One of their biologists was looking at an area and felt that the deer were getting smaller. They took our data and compared it with some stuff they were doing to see if it matched. Oh, Arkansas, I believe put in an Antler point restriction and they saw some trends in their harvest data that they then got b in C data to see if it matched what they were seeing if we were seeing it at our level as well.
There was a Wildlife Monographs monteeth at Al that was done by a group of professors that are associated with the club that looked at over time was Hunter's selection potentially causing big game animals to get smaller. You don't hear about a lot of this in the you know, social media or that world, because it's pretty in depth research, John, do you have other good examples? Those are the ones that come to mind for me.
Yeah, there's other peer reviewed literature. And in a university setting, that's that's everyone's currency is doing this research that goes out for review by your peers is flaws or looked for so that that paper won't be published. That's how
the system worked. And there's a number of papers in premiere wildlife journals like the Journal of Wildlife Management, the Wildlife Society bulletin the Journal of Mammalogy that have used this data set as a variable to comment on what goes into antler productivity, from soil minerals to land use type, to edges to habitat connectivity. And so there's a number of studies that takes the information that was recorded on that scoreesheet, aggregates it across the US and can produce
the highest quality research. The other way that the scoring system is commonly used is if antler measurements or horn measurements are used as a covariate of some point in someone's analysis. And so this isn't technical and it's just instead of taking a measurement, say hind foot length, they can use the BNC score to help generate conclusions. And so those are some of the top tier i'd call
them research outputs from this from this data set. About this time last year, Justin and I had an email from a college senior at the University of Wisconsin who wanted to do his senior thesis project on whitetail antler scores and relate that to climate to land use type land cover. And so this is a study that never gets published, but it helps helps this young man graduate. Presumably he's a hunter, and so it kind of comes full circles of citizens science hunters helping generate management and
conservation output. And so in the beginning mark you ask if the science is still happening, It most definitely is. I mean, this is still a nationwide long term data set. We just probably need to do a better job advertising that. That's how it can be used.
Yeah, it seems like it's type for opportunity, Like it's almost an underutilized resource, or let me rephrase this an analog or an alternative community that I've seen do something really really neat with a citizens science initiative, Like this would be the birding community. Right, there's the birding community, and they have the e Bird app in which they have burders from all across the world documenting every bird
they see and where they saw it. And this has become something that is an exciting opportunity to participate for the burder. And then it also helps lead to a data set which is of unbelievable conservation value to researchers and managers trying to understand how bird populations are doing across the nation, the impacts on the environment, environmental impacts on bird populations, et cetera. We have a similar set of invested users in hunters who are out there doing
doing something. And in our case, we're not necessarily documenting a sighting. We are able to document a harvest or kill, and we have a data point every single time we kill an animal. And so I see the Boon and Crockett record books, the Pope and Young record books. This is like it's it's collecting a micro slice of the
data out there. And I'm just curious if there is an opportunity for more, Like, is there an opportunity for there to be greater participation from the hunting public in this if it were to be framed as a citizen science opportunity and not a hey get yourself in the record books so you can, you know, be a big bad hunter that killed the Boone and Crocket buck. Is there any opportunity for for looking at record keeping in
the hunting world in that kind of way? Is there an argument to be made, a pitch to be made to the average hunter out there that's like, hey, man, you should submit your buck to Boone and Krockett or to Pope and Young, even if you don't care if you're in the top fifty for the state or not, just because like, hey, this is good for conservation, this
is good for science. And if that is the case, are there any changes we can make to how we do this so that that data is even more variable or more thorough, John, do you have thoughts on that or justin.
Well, I think it's spot on. I mean, if we could expand the scope of this data collection, it'd be all the more powerful. Interestingly, you mentioned eBird. I mean that's tied with the Internet, but prior to that, it was the North American Breeding Bird Survey, which came online or came it about in the mid sixties, and so interestingly this data set has fifteen years on one of the oldest beyond there. I think that it would be fantastic to message that exact need to the hunting community.
I mean, the more data from that we can collect with this data set, the more powerful the conclusions will be.
Yeah, what are you what are your thoughts about? Justin we spend a good time amount of time talking about this in Utah.
No, I think that the more data we can collect the better.
When I was when I was at Boone and Crockett, we've got many states have a state level organization that's collecting data with a lower minimum score. If if we can tie that together with you know, Boon and Crockets data, that increases our data data set size. The one issue that we have, you know, with being too much shittizen science is the way that Boone and Crockets set this up is that each person that does the scoring is trained.
It's a five day workshop and so there is a standardization of the data that we we can look at that data. It's all been reviewed, they've all been trained the same way, so we have specific people. That's where it gets a little little bit problematic to really blow this up to where everything gets scored and taken care of. Is having those official measures that that have been taught how to do this, the correct methodology and what not to get it.
But we are.
Always looking for you know, the example I give and I hear heard this a lot and still do is that, Well, I have one in the book, but it's bigger, So I don't want to put this one in when we're looking at trends. Man, one smaller than the one that you killed before is just as valuable as one bigger. You know, we don't only I mean, we're defensive as hunters, but man, we don't only want to just show the positive.
We want everything.
I mean, how many people have said, oh, there used to be you know, dear ten percent bigger in this county up until this happened. Well you know these these record books, Pope and Young and Boone and Crockett, we're the only ones that have the data that can really check that and say, is that you know the case or did they move? Did they change you know, did they change selectivity of where where they're living? Are we seeing them now more on edge? Where they used to
be timber. And so every single data point, if it makes any book, be it State or Pope and Young or Boon and Crockett or all the above, I think it's very important to put them all in and if you're fortunate enough to, you know, find yourself in a situation to harvest one that meets those minimums. I mean, forty bucks, thirty five bucks, whatever the State fee is versus poping Young or Boone and Crockett. That's a that's
an investment in conservation, you know. And I always try to tell folks like, don't don't worry if it doesn't make all time, don't worry. It's a data point that we need to see for us to do our mission, you know, and we'd love to have you participate. So I think there's a huge call for it, you know. It's just we have we can't. We can't throw the data out that we've built. We just how do we expand on what we've had to make it a more robust data set without losing quality?
So then why not remove the minimum score? Why can't I kill a hundred? Why isn't my one hundred and ten inch five and a half year old buck that I killed off of a fresh cli cut in southern Michigan a useful data point for future conservation efforts.
One hundred percent is it's just the feasibility of maintaining all that.
That's why you know.
Boone and Crockett said, we can't keep track of every animal taken, so how do we extrapolate? Okay, let's let's take the very top tier. Right, we know if they've reached this minimum score, which is why we don't look for the biggest every year, we're just saying, hey, but it hits this level. Everything had to be in place for it to get there. So in that case, we can't say, oh, the problem is this, or the problem is that. What we can say is historically we were
seeing this many meet this threshold. Now we're seeing lesser. Now we're seeing more from a single organization. We had to limit what we could look at just to maintain our integrity and make sure we were doing it correctly. So we did not have the ability to take everything that was one hundred and five inches or better. But yes, it'd be great dat if we could get folks to support us to the point where we could drop minimum scores and record more. That's that's the ideal world for data collection.
Yeah, I could if if if, if money wasn't an object and he had all the support, staff and funds to do it. Man, it does. I wish that was the case. I wish that we could reframe this as like, hey, like, let's all participate in getting the best possible data. That is because because because data provides the foundation for all management decisions, right, and and if we can as hunters can move right right, we hope it does. And and what a great opportunity for us as hunters to be
a part of that. Like I would I would love to be a part of that. Would like I have zero desire to be on a list that shows how I rank with other hunters, but I have tremendous desire to contribute to a more positive future for whitetail deer or elk or whatever might be. And I think there's a lot of hunters out there today that feel that way. I kind of feel like the market of hunters who want to be in a list and ranked that's saturated. Like those folks who are going to participate in that
that they've kind like they've done it. They're there they know how to get their name in there, and they've been in their bunch. There's this whole other blue ocean of hunters who don't care about that, or who are sick of hearing about that, who would love to participate though in this side of things. How what what opportunity is there for that kind of person to get involved given the limitations that you're talking about justin you know, I.
Mean, the one thing is we heard we hear a lot of this or heard a lot of it at B and C. We actually change rules where if you submit all your information to Boone and Crocket, you still don't have to have your name listed in the book. You can put your trophy in anonymously. We never had anybody do it, and so maybe it wasn't out there enough. But man, yeah, people worry a lot about Oh, I don't want to give up my hunting spot.
I don't want to do this. I don't want to do that.
You know, it's really hard for me trying to talk to somebody. Oh, I'm a conservationist. You know, put that in. You've got fifteen deer that are on the wall that over time, you know, you could show a trend you could show something, you know, get those scores, get those in it. If you want to be more involved in the citizen science. Both Pope and Young and Boone and
Crockett are always looking for official measures. You know, sign up to come to a course and learn about the system, learn about you know, what we're doing, and then be one of the representatives for these organizations out there, you know, getting those deer, digging those deer out of garages, talking to people, getting the stories. You know, that's how we build this out. And you're right, I mean the Boone and Crockett went with the classic bait and switch. Hey,
be part of our cool club. Enter your deer and you can be in this book. Well, we were getting the data. It was a classic bait and switch. We're very good at getting those guys that want to be on the list.
And it's cool.
I mean, hey, I've got a number six mountain goat in Oregon. You know, whatever it may be, that's a cool thing. But man, the guys you're talking about that don't really care about the list and just care about the future. They're just as important and so that you know, that's why John and I are here is to talk to you and you know kind of plead this case of you know, this is why everybody should participate and it's not about you know, ranking in this and that it's never.
Been Yeah, I think it's it's a it's it's a great reminder because I think most of your average hunters, and speaking from like my own world I'm in and the people I talk to, I don't think any of my friends would ever think about submitting their deer to
the record books because of what we're talking about. But when they hear this and they realize like, oh, hey, you know what, actually there there's something more to it than just like this ego thing, then I bet you there will be a bunch of my friends who would be much more or interest in doing it, recognizing like, oh, this is something that actually might help I. It's not that it doesn't take that much time. I can do that.
That all said, though, when making this case that the record books and having our deer scored contributes positively to future conservation efforts, it seems to me that if we're trying to accumulate this wealth of data that can be used to make better decisions in the future, it seems like the data is so thin, like there's so much
more I wish we could get. And you mentioned this consistency of data, John, I had questions in that piece, like why why can't we pull a tooth and make sure that every submission has a tooth so we can get an accurate age on that deer. Why can't we have some level of more location fidelity so we can tie these these data points back to better location sets so that we can have more granular location related correlations
and trends. Why can't we have something like weight of the animal or any other biometric data to make sure this is more than just an Antler score thing. It gives us a better picture of animal health, which should give us a better picture of environmental health, which should give us a better data set for conservation decisions. Can we not add new data categories to these record books?
First of all, you hit on the top two that I'd love to see, and that's location and age and B and C now voluntarily asks for an incisor that can be aged. But it seems like that's a tall order from some hunters to submit that, and so requiring it where it was all or nothing, I think we'd end up losing data points that still have great value and justin hit on the location thing. So folks just don't want to give out their location and I kind
of get that. I mean, we're coming on to spring and I don't think I'd give away my best morale location for science.
And so that's just.
The reality of what we're in. That said, if more people could voluntarily give a lot long and could pull a tooth, the power of the conclusions that we could draw from this data set would skyrocket, and so it would be great. It would be great to have that. The only reason why I think it's prohibitive is just the likelihood of hunters submitting it right now is not entirely high.
You know, and from both organizations, you know, we've done everything we could trying to get an age be and C pays for it. I mean, it takes a while. We have to get one hundred two I think was the old deal for them to get the break. But if somebody wanted to submit a tooth, we'd say, hey,
once we got to one hundred, we'll submit these. We'll add that there is certain categories of the data that do have tremendous AGE data associated sheep comes to mind because they're all checked in and so there's that standardized aging of rams that is all held in the data set. Now we don't publish that, but that is there. Location data. We would always take as much as they would give, but we just never published more than county. It varies
from hunter to hunters. Some guys would send in a GPS coordinate, like literally down to the spot it was taken. We recorded that. That's in the data set. So if somebody requests the data and they want to look at location that was there for him.
We just never made.
That publicly available, you know, to where the general public could see, hey, this guy killed this deer or this gal killed this deer at this particular spot. In terms of the weight, it would be very useful. But that goes back to the in the fifties and the sixties when this was developed, and that was the sixty day
drying period. It was the standardization. You know, some people were a month in the mountains and they had to you know, it's not fair that somebody could shoot this animal and get it scored that day and the other guy had to wait a month until he got out. So they put in this sixty day drying period to
kind of standardize it. That would be the issue with the weights, as we don't not that there couldn't be a system developed, but right now we don't have a standardized Here's how Boone and Crockett collects the weights of animals. They did dor research at one point on moose racks to see if the mass of a moose rack varied
in different areas. And so for a while there was actually a diagram on the score chart that said, Okay, was it the whole skull, was it cut narrowly, was it cut in the middle, And so it kind of shows you some of that variation you'd get and trying to add a data data point, well how much skull
is cut in the middle AND's opinion versus mine. And so that's why some of those factors that would be super awesome just over time, we never had the ability to implement, you know, due to variation that kind of shot holes in the validity of the measurement.
And with the way thing when we're let's say we're out collaring deer or elk or handle over or whatever, weight is it a common variable that won't collect. I mean, it has some use but having h class data that can take you a lot farther with with management applications.
So John, from you know, being so involved in the science side of things, if you had an unlimited budget, if if we guarantee the B and C or P and Y had an unlimited budget and all the staffing they could ever ask for, and you were tasked with renovating the record keeping system so that this could be the absolute best tool for future conservation needs in a time when we are probably going to have greater conservation needs than ever, as the human footprint on the world
continues to expand, as so many different factors change environmentally over the next fifty tow one hundred years. I think it is not an exaggeration at all to say that we are going to be faced with all sorts of difficult choices and unforeseen circumstances in coming decades, right for wildlife. So we need the best tools we possibly can have heading into that future. So if you were tasked with creating this two point zero system, that would be that
tool for the future. Again, budget staffing, none of it's of a concernant. Please tell me what that perfect two point zero system would look like.
Well, I wouldn't do much to change the measuring of antlers and horns because I think that's pretty well covered. I would have an ultrasound and collect rump fat dead animal. I'd collect bone, marrow condition and quantity, and the upper femur be good to pull a lymph node to get a clearer idea of CWD distribution. Of course, get the tooth, get the location, and those are the first couple that
come to mind. And with that information on every potential animal that's harvest you'd have a out of those world data set. But that take an unlimited budget.
Yeah, and so you would, you would you would ask for the every animal harvested, no minimum score. Is that correct?
If you could get it, every animal that was harvested, that was roadkilled, that was anything, anything that someone could get their hand on, and yeah, that'd be that'd be the dream data set.
Yeah. Okay. Now let's say that your boss came in and established a budget and the real world is back in play. You have you have the the real set of limitations we have in this real world. What is what are two changes that you would make if you had the ability to make two changes to our system or or the data we're trying to collect. What would those two changes or asks be within the set of limitations that we know.
Well, something that would be.
That would be very feasible, and it require looping in some statistician and some population modelers. But the amount of effort, number of days, number of hours that somebody was hunting for a particular animal. And this it's easy to think of this on a micro scale where you know where this big white tail is on the back wood lot, but how much effort went into that because knowing those hunter effort metrics, the results and harvest can really help
with population forecasting. And then again, I know I'm sounding like a broken record here, but age goes a long long way. Knowing what the age class is for that population would be valuable. Most of the animals that would make the B and C book that would come back to us our older animals.
And so.
Having there's ways where you can get proxies for a year and a half versus two and a half, that's really not applicable here. And so pulling that tooth would be the most reliable way and if you had that, you'd be a very good shape.
Yeah, So justin being in the leadership role that you are there with P and Y and understanding your own limitations and having your previous experience with B and C. If you could snap your fingers now and either take one of these suggestions that John had or make a change of your own desire. What would you like to see change or be updated or renovated in some kind of way to improve this citizen science opportunity.
You know, just just participation, I mean, that is a leadership role. I mean anything's probably if all of a sudden we started getting one hundred percent of the animals that were taken that made Boone and Crockett and Pope and young, if everybody was participating at that level, we'd have the funding to go bigger, you know if if age again. Age has been a reoccurring theme. I spent fifteen years at B and C trying to figure out how to up that age data. I mean I got
to play with the data. It was a lot of fun because we'd have teeth that had replacement and wear ages.
We had bile tagged animals so known age, and then we also had.
The section tooth data and I could compare them, you know, and I can tell you a lot of a lot of whitetail hunters want to call their boon and crocket dear four and a half, and most of them aren't.
You know that that.
Kind of shows some of the some of the hiccups of going too much shittis in science. So you know, like I said, I to John's point, Yeah, I'd love to add a couple of traits. Honestly, there's probably a couple of small changes I'd make on the scoring, just just because having done it for so long, being like, man, I don't understand why they made that rule the way they did.
But again, they've been doing it for, you know, eighty years.
You can't really throw out eighty years of data just because there's a better way to take a gu one on a bull.
Help. Yeah, okay, so I think a reasonable ask for the audience. Then it sounds like would be participate a little bit more on this if you previously thought this was not for you because you don't care about how you're ranked within the list of other hunters who killed one hundred and seventy inchbuck or whatever it is. There's a science, there's a conservation reason to do this. There's value in submitting the thing and submitting it as thorough of a submission as you possibly can with all the
data you're willing, because more data the better. And let's all do the age. Let's throw in the voluntary age opportunity. Let's check that box because it sounds like that's going to be very valuable data. And then if we all do this, if we all do a really good job of participating more, then Justin's going to have the funds
to be able to take more of these submissions. And maybe ten years from now we'll have a case to be made to lower the minimum scoring threshold so we can have more folks participate or add on one of these other asks that John made. So this is a step in the right direction, maybe right.
That's right.
And the other thing, I mean, participation is key. I've deer hunted most of my life. I grew up in Missouri around big deer. I've never killed a deer that approached one sixty. I know people who do every seas and I hound by friends and encourage strangers to submit because there is value in this. And so even if you're not the one that made the harvest, communicate to people who do how much this can benefit conservation.
By hunters.
I mean, it's kind of that positive feedback like we'd see in PR dollars and buy in dusting. This is a way for hunters to step up and benefit conservation.
Yeah. So I also want to pick both of your brains about the flip side of this conversation, which kind of ties back to the original thing that my article started with, which was the obsession with antlers and antler score that many have within their community and that I have been guilty of at times too. And there's nothing wrong with being excited about big deer. I love big deer, I love big elk. They're fascinating, amazing critters, and I
get a charge out chasing them. But there are definitely some downsides to what this has done to our community and culture as well, not to mention the fact that survey after survey after survey shows that the non hunting public, those that are the majority that have the voting power to determine our fate, are very strongly telling us for decades now that they are not supportive of trophy hunting.
So there seem to be some risks that come alongside of the continued promotion of antler score antler size, that kind of thing justin with your role at a company or at an organization. You know that has been a part of this record keeping for decades. Now, how do how do you personally think about this? Do you have any worries about are infatuation with antlers?
Do not?
Do you see negatives or concerns or it? Are you not worried about it from a cultural perspective, from the impact of what this says about us as hunters or where hunting's going. Where are you personally at with all that?
You know, Obviously, the majority of my job the promotion of a lifestyle, a promotion of archery, a promotion of records keeping, of the conservation model that's been around forever.
You know, the success of my job is.
Dictated by having the buy in of that seventy two percent of the country that doesn't hunt themselves but approves of it. And so if we're doing something that that seventy two percent finds offensive, there's two.
Ways to deal with that. Either we come together as a group and.
Say, hey, we just got to knock it off because they don't like it, or we have to say, hey, we've got to fix our act here a little bit and explain to them why pursuing that oldest, biggest, most mature animal in some situations is what you should do. In other situations when we're trying to lower the density of deer, maybe maybe we should be shooting those bucks and putting it all that effort. Maybe we should be
killing five or six dos. And so I do think that this over this infatuation, this do anything for the big deer is problematic. And we have examples how many how many you know, creators, TV show personalities, different things along those lines have pushed it so far to be that guy and to be the hero. Well, we as hunters are still watching them too, And so you know how we separate this out in terms of I honestly
see absolutely nothing wrong with antler scoring. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the pursuit of a mature deer extending out your season, you know, but you need to frame it like that, you don't, don't. I only shoot you know one seventy plus is that that's we're doing that to ourselves, and that's not the scoring system. That's our emphasis. And so you know, anytime I get to have a conversation with anyone, I mean that's why I came up to you. I saw your article on the antler scoring.
I'm like, man, he's got some good points, but there's also some counterpoints here. Let's have this discussion, you know, let's make ourselves better as a community.
And that's my number one concern.
I personally, I think if Boone and Crockett and Pope and Young ceased keeping records tomorrow, both organizations would continue. I don't think it would do a darn thing, though, because there's a system and people are still going to measure antlers, and then there's just one less referee in there, so abandoning in it. I don't think does this any good either. It's already been it's already been done. We've put our emphasis on a number and not the experience.
You know, that's my concern. That's what I lay awake staring at the ceiling at night, thinking about how do I address this, you know, to maintain our conservation successes that we work so hard to get into the future.
Yeah, what do you think about that? John?
I I don't think it should be about the score. I don't think it should be about the competition. I think the hunters out there that use it as a measuring tool just to want to our just that's their priority. This is an emotional issue for them, and value based judgment on how they want to recognize that animal. It worries me. I think it's divisive. I am very pro scoring for the reasons that I have mentioned in the
last hour. I think we've got to be careful. I read your article and I wondered if this was a discussion we would have had ten years ago or fifteen years ago, before everyone was so connected and so the ability to comment on everything was a bit more restrictive if you were writing a letter to the editor of Field and Stream or Outdoor Life or something about that when a score was mentioned. I mean, now it's all in real time, and so it worries me. Emphasizing this
score and nothing else. I think it's going to take away from what this was put in place to do and take away from the potential that it has, and so that will fall on deaf ears to some hunters. I recognize that fully, and that's just my personal perspective.
So this is a question that I have discussed with all of our past guests within this mini series. I think a lot of us have similar worries and concerns similar to what both of you just described. But the question is always, but what do we do about it? Because I think you mentioned this earlier justin right, the content that people click on, the content that people want to watch on YouTube or see on Instagram or read
from the Boone and Crocker Club. You know, it's maybe five percent of the people will read the article about the conservation story related to this data, but a million people will read the article about the new world record. Everybody will click the YouTube thumbnail with a two hundred and seventy inch double drop time mega giant. Right, So the question is, like, how do we change this thing that just is I guess as human nature related to
some degree also cultural inertia. If we all know that there's something I don't know if toxic's the right word, but something that seems unhealthy within it. If we know there's something there, what kinds of things can we tangibly do as individuals or as leaders within this community, or communicators or whatever role anyone listening plays within this hunting community.
What kinds of things would the two of you suggest an individual do to be a part of changing this trend in a little bit more positive a direction.
I think individuals need to be prepared to speak up. I mean, hopefully we could generate some momentum through our discussion today and if people understand this is not a tool to figure out how much you can brag about or how much attention or clicks or whatever you can get, but the real meaning of why we're taking these measurements.
And if somebody sees that there's a new whatever record it might be for whatever species, emphasize that that's just one data point and that's interesting and we can appreciate that animal. And I'll see any number of articles in the local paper where angler catches a record fish of whatever kind, and yeah, you click on it. It's interesting
to know. But communicating why we're taking these messages, I mean measure measurements, and how to message it to them why the community, I think is is a great first step.
What you're doing today, What do you think justin you know, I've spent my time in the nonprofit world.
You know, do do the words.
Of Roosevelt, Do what what you can with what you have where you're at, you know, get on that advisory committee in your local area. You know, get involved with a local conservation group, depending on what it may be, get involved at a national level. You know, somebody has a desire to learn about hunting, or maybe they don't like wild game man, invite them over, tell the tell that conservation story.
And I think if.
If you, if you put it out there enough and you have enough people that you kind of bring bring along with you and say, hey, you know, if you're gonna be a hunter, I think this is part of it too, not just going out and filling the freezer, hanging the buck on the wall, you know, do a game feed, Invite some friends over that maybe don't understand it, and show them this type of thing, you know, I again, ground up type thing. I mean, that's the that's what
the conservation movement always was. That's what P and Y was, that's what B and C was. You know, spread your influence as far as you can. And that's how I think we combat this, you know. I mean, somebody's all excited about, you know, that giant deer that they killed, and then they mentioned, well I didn't get to cutting it up because I was too busy driving it around town.
I mean, don't lose a friendship over it, but maybe chastise them a bit of like, hey man, you're you're kind of minimizing it to one thing, you know, we're I mean, I always joke, Yeah, man, I love I love hunting meat, but I also like something to hang my hats on, you know, everything, Every part of that freaking animal should be utilized and respected, you know. And I don't care if you're minimizing it to just the meat or just the antlers, or just any one thing
that's bad. And and as hunters, we need we need to take we need to take pride in every single thing that has to do without the exercising, the preparing, the shooting of the bow year round, you know, all that stuff.
That's how we fight this.
We show that we were brought here by conservation minded people, and we're going to do our part to ensure that that conservation mindset continues and we don't get wrapped up in the commercial are commercialization of killing the biggest at the furthest distance as quick as possible.
Yeah. So I I find myself at a fork in the road because something you just said there justin uh, brings to mind another kind of half of this whole cultural discussion that I've been having over the last few weeks. You said something on the lines of, you know, whether you can kill a deer from as far away or
as fast as possible? Right And when I hear that, I'm thinking all of these changes in technology and how that's impacting how we hunt, whether that be the long distance shooting craze, whether that be thermal optics, live streaming, cell cameras, drones being used, all of these electronic optics that allow you to range, find and have all your adjustments made automatically for you. There's so many things changing
right now that are impacting really what hunting is. And I have so many questions, so many concerns about that, and I think a lot of hunters do. But at the same time, there's this whole pushback on that from within the hunting community, which is anytime somebody says, well, I don't know about this technology or I don't know about this thing or that thing, the automatic response is you're tearing down others in the hunting community. You're dividing
the hunting community. You shouldn't do that at all. Everything should be okay as long as it's legal. What is your thought on the trends as we see them now with technology and gear justin I'm sure this is something that you know, you're discussing at Boon and Crockett on the Ethics Committee a lot, and I'm sure at P
and Y you're thinking about it a lot. How are you individually and how is P and Y as an organization thinking about the what seems like a rampant speed up of the advance of technology and how it's impacting.
Hunting, you know, and it is and it's realistically you know, put this into context. It feels like, yeah, we're getting a ton of stuff thrown.
At us right now.
But this this idea of technology and giving the animal an opportunity to to win, for lack of a better term, I mean that is the root of fair chase. The animal has the has a fair chance to come out victorious in in the in the competition between hunter and hunt.
Right. You know, this goes back.
The very first time this came up was when Boone and Crockett required fair chase. Was the sixties with the prevalence of airplane usage in Alaska for scouting, and that was the first time that the organization was like, Noah, that could get real bad if people just flew around, spotted them from the air, landed and shot them like that's that's no good like that, that's not giving the
animal a chance to escape or evade hunters. And obviously we've come further and further along and technology is not inherently the devil. I mean, there's there's things that we have now that that I would argue have have made us more ethical hunters, more legal hunters. You know, now I know exactly where I'm standing. I can you know, I can figure stuff out that before like, okay, well, best guess I'm pretty sure that fence line separates this and this.
So that type of thing I think is good.
But what we need to do, and this is the discussions that are had with with both Pope and Young and Boone and Crockett. Obviously a little bit different in terms of Pope and Young's mission is promotion of archery, and they have defined archery as a vertical bow. You know, it's a valid method of harvest. That's why we were started was to prove it was. And so they have a little bit tighter focus on looking at some of
the technologies. Is this technology going to be detrimental to the wildlife or does this make a bow no longer a bow? Right, So there is some differences there between the two groups, but I mean, at the end of the day, like you're not supposed to always be successful.
Hunting is not supposed to have a predetermined outcome like you know, I mean those of us that have been doing it forever, Like what relives in your head again and again the time you made a mistake, the time that big buck winded you, the time you moved when you should know if you tried to draw and he busted you. You know, those failures are the ones that are burned in to your head and make you a
better hunter. And when we start pushing technology to well, he can't smell me now because I don't have to go into that betting area for six months because I have a cellular trailer camera. Yes, it's made it easier. Yes, the deer's not as disturbed. I understand those arguments. But as a hunter, isn't that part of the game of sneaking in there, finding that betting area and doing all that without relying on technology. And it's a very it's
a very volatile debate. I mean what's inappropriate to me to the next game. The next guy might just be fine. And so both organizations find ourselves in this situation where we're trying to play referee, but trying to get it to a higher level. What we found is addressing each technology one by one. In essence, we're picking winners and losers of companies, which is never what this was supposed to be doing. Not like, oh, they invested this much,
but we don't think this is fair chase. That's not at all what any of these groups are ever trying to say. So we're trying to say from a higher level, what is the line that crossed the technology crosses that makes it unfair? One that comes up with B and C a lot.
Is it giving me.
The location of game electronically that I wouldn't have got otherwise.
Think drones.
Think some states now through freedom of information, you have to release GPS coordinates, real time GPS coordinates of where a herd elk is in collar data. They have to release that. You're now getting that actual location of the animal. And so how do we make these high level rules that folks can look at and say, you know, is this crossing the line and the answer is there's not
a definitive line. That's why Boone and Crockett and Pope Young takes so much heat is we're trying to find that great line and listen everybody's perspective, and we're the ones that finally sometimes have to say no, man, that's.
Just too far, and we have to say.
It, yeah, John, What do you feel on this topic?
Person?
It worries me. I mean, I agree with Justin and innovation is coming, and this is so tied to personal ethics and values and priorities that.
It's it's.
An individual's decision what they think crosses an ethical line when it comes down to it, and so for some people it's no big deal. For me, I think that some of this new technology is just making it too efficient to harvest gain from a population level among hunters. I mean, one thing that worries me is I hunt throughout the West. You look at species like mule deer and elk where units will have, however many tags allocated the game agencies are buffering where that allocation is not
assuming one hundred percent success among hunters. If these new technologies come in and boost success that high, then tag allocation for all the rest of us who are not using those technologies may be reduced and so it may end up biting us in the butt and making that tag more difficult to draw. I've heard that animals will evolve, and you know, just like mallards now get a spinning when decoy a bit more than they did twenty years ago,
stuff like thermal units drones. That's that's a pretty tricky thing to evolve to respond to elk And so I don't see that happening.
Yeah, So so one idea that I've had, and it might be Pie in the Sky and Pollyanna. So I guess what I'm looking for here is is like a BS check from the two of you if you think anybody would go for this. But but when it comes to this whole technology thing, right, as we've we've all kind of admitted it's it's very personal. It's very subjective. Everyone's going to draw align the sand in a different place, and that is that's by the nature of what ethics are, right.
We all have a different comfort level with different things. But it seems like there are some general lines where you start getting closer and closer to and and most folks start feeling like, ah, there's something going on here. So there's there's two hypothetical ways you could deal with
something like this. There's the there's the way of you know, using the stick and saying we're going to ban this thing, or we're going to regulate this thing, or we are going to outlaw this thing, or say this thing you know can't be allowed in the record books, et cetera. On the flip side, there's this alternative way, which could be promoting the alternative or popularizing the antithesis. So one thought I had is so for me, one of my
lines in the sand is with cell cameras. I've always thought that, like real time data is a line too far from me. So I personally set a twenty four hour delay on all cell cameras so that I'm a full twenty four hours removed from any knowledge that I
gained through that technology. And maybe even that's too much, but right now that's where I personally have drawn my line, and I've thought, what if you could establish some kind of light line like that, where it's like a twenty four hour delay on a trial camera, for example, would get that trail camera a fair chase certification from the Boon and Crocket Club or from Pope and Young and that could be like a stamp, like a badge of honor that a company could use to help market their product.
Or what if we had a I don't know what another example would be, but another one of these possible game changers. I don't know, I've, for lack of a better more thought on this, We'll stick with a trail camera example. What if there's something that where we could
vote with our dollars. Hunters could say like, hey, we do want to promote this idea of keeping things, you know, not always getting easier, but I actually we want to tap the brakes on this thing, and we want to show all that desire we have by voting with our dollars for the things that actually make it harder. Is that the kind of thing that would ever work? Is that an idea like God, I would buy all fair
Chase certified cell cameras. Then I could be like, hey, yeah, I still get to enjoy some benefits of this technology, but I am you know, I am by by by the boon of the technology itself limited to not giving into the temptation of using everything. Is that kind of thing A model maybe that could work in the future with other technologies as we go forward, am I onto something?
I completely agreed with you.
And back before the the cellular camera got the following that it had, and you know, eighty percent of them went that way. You know, I presented that to some companies and I said, hey, man, what if we put a fair chase certified mark on that? And there wasn't from the industry. The companies I talked to at the time didn't really gravitate towards that. It didn't it didn't
have the appeal that they wanted it to. Now that goes back to what we talked about in scoring and the adoption of you know, everybody taking part in this record book. You know, a component of that is an ethical piece. All these animals have to be taken in fair chase. They do you do have to say I took them within these rules, which is the rules we're making. And so again it's just buying. I mean I would I'd love to go to a company and say, hey,
let's let's cross promote something. I've reached out to some trail cam companies and some other technologies. My thought has been, hey, what if we come out with the company saying yes, this technology is available, Yes it can be used correctly, but also it could be used incorrectly.
And if that's said jointly by the producer.
And the folks using it, does that not lend some credibility to like, hey, man, let's let's back it down a little bit on this thermal usage, you know, looking over an entire canyon, Like, yeah, you can use it at night. It's good for predator control. It's you know, you could use it here appropriately, but you could also
abuse this that way. You're not telling people like you can't do this, but you are saying, like, hey, for the good of hunting, for the survival of species, like there is a way we need to conduct ourselves to give the animals a chance to win. And then we also need to you know, and I'm guilty of it too. You don't post on you know, Facebook, Oh I failed tag soup this year. Man, we gotta be okay with that failure because you tried to make it too hard is just as admirable as success.
Yeah, yeah, I really liked that idea of you know, I think I think there's a business opportunity for companies out there to lean into this and there's a there's a there's a story that will sell that will sell products. I really do believe it. Not everybody in the hunting world wants uh the next big technology thing. And even though I know the dollars tell it otherwise, I really do believe there's something here that someone could take advantage of.
But it's uh Now, it's above my pay grade, I guess, is what I'm getting at. Do you have any comments on that, John.
I'd love to see it work. I mean, I think you're right that it would apply to some people. Make things. Amit improvement. Even if a handful of people switched to that more fair chase approach, that's good for hunting, that's good for all of us. But there's there's going to be hunters out there who are hunting for Instagram and by any means necessary, and I think that that that will be the tough market to reach.
I like the idea so reluctant.
Well, I'm cross my fingers and hope that somebody at some company is listening and willing to take a risk. To take a chance, guys, take a chance. All right, Well, I think we could continue for two more hours down the road of all of these questions and worries, which
I'm guilty of sometimes doing. I'm going to try to save us from that now by offerings and offer am Is there any any other resource, whether it be a book or a documentary or an online essay, or something that either one of you have found inspiration from, or have learned from, or could see value in someone today checking out as a kind of coda to what we've talked about today, Is there any favorite resource or recommend recommendation you could share with the folks listening related to
the topics we've covered today, whether that be the history of the scoring system, or conservation and citizens science, or fair chase, or the use or moderation of technology, any of these things we've covered. Is there anything that comes to mind that we maybe should check out?
You know what?
Really just enough or if either one of you one if.
It really depends on how far you know, how deep that rabbit hole you want to go. There's some tremendous reading the biography of Theodore Roosevelt. What what I found super intriguing was that his uncle actually started in fisheries. So a lot of our conservation movement originally was based off of the hatchery model. You know that that one's like the ultimate, like trying to answer the question of how do we get where we were? How did you know?
How did this land? Just straight for technology? We just Boon and Crockett and the Ethics Committee just did a fair chase module for part of the n RA, a Hunter ed. You can go on to their n RAS platform, their Hunter edueducation platform. There's a fair Chase module that's kind of a two to oh one level. You know, maybe you've got a you know, team to twenties, it's starting to get into this hunting, really starting to take it. We tried to dedicate that fair chase messaging to that demographic.
Jim Posowitz has a book Beyond Fair Chase. The Pause was awesome. It's great. You know, you're probably not going to agree with everything he wrote, but he brings up some very good questions if you really want to question this idea of fair chase and what is and isn't okay? You know, like I said, it just depends on the level of engagement in both clubs websites. I mean, there's a there's a fair Chase essay that Boone and Crockett
did that kind of looks at some situations. Pope and Young has position statements on sites and definition.
Of a bow. There's there's a ton out there.
Do you have any favorites, John, I'm going to take the low hanging flute fruit and say every hunter should read a Sad County Almanac and if you're only going to pick one thing within that book where you think like a mountain and I think that's a good way to stay grounded and see how far this wildlife conservation wildlife management movement has come. And I think that's good for everybody to take to the duck blind, to the
deer stand read in the offseason. It's just it's keep us all looking in the right direction.
Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't agree more with you on that one. Justin I want to give you an opportunity for the last word, just to plug Pope and Young if you'd like, and give folks explicit directions on the U r L on any specific actions you'd like them to take. Uh. You know, something we maybe should have covered but didn't would even be a walkthrough of exactly what goes into making a submission to Pope and young. If you want to tackle any one of those, you're welcome to you, you know.
I mean, go to the website Hope Have Hope hyphenyong dot org. There's there's membership options there. We'd love to have you as a member. We'd love to have an entry. There's a list of all the official measures. You know, if you're in an area that there's not a lot of official measures, we'd love to have you fill out one of those online applications and maybe get involve as a volunteer for US SCORING twenty twenty five, we're doing a big convention in Glendale, Arizona, April nine through twelve.
We'd love to have you come out check out our convention. There'll be you know, seminars on these topics. You know, maybe maybe Mark would be nice enough to come out and talk to us out there. We'll see hit them up for that. But you know, anywhere you can get involved, we'd love to have you in the website. It's a great place to start, and uh, there's all kinds of different links depending on you know, conservation, whatever you want to go down. That's that's the best place to start.
And we'd love love to have you in our ranks, and you know, we talk a lot about the future. Man get involved, help, you know, help me do my job, do one of the voices in the organization that rises up and helps direct our future.
Love it all right, gentlemen, Justin John, thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation.
Thank you.
All right, and that's a wrap. Thanks for being here. I appreciate you. Thank you for being a part of this community. Until next time, stay wired to hunt.
Mm hmm.