Ep. 884: 2025 State of the Whitetail Union with Nick Pinizzotto and Matt Ross

We specifically focus on conservation related issue that are relevant to deer hunters and outdoors people of all stripes, and we're kicking it off here today with another one of our annual traditions. I guess you could call it the State of the Whitetail Union. I'm joined with representatives from the National Deer Association, the President and CEO, Nick Pennzoto and the Director of Conservation mister Matt Ross. Both of them have been on the show in the past, they

are friends of the show. They are terrific. Terrific is the word I'm looking for. Terrific representatives of the hunting community, and both have just a wealth of experience and information to share with us when it comes to this set of issues and what we're going to be talking about and what at least is going to lead us off is the Deer Report, which is a document that the NBA publishes every year that kind of reviews the state

of deer across the country. It looks at the latest data from state fishing game departments, giving us insight into, you know, deer harvest trends, the numbers of deer being killed, all sorts of things related to you know, what types of weapons are you used, how many bucks, how many dos aide structure, bon recruitment, a lot of important herd related data, as well as covering some of the latest issues, trends, current events, different things impacting deer, deer habitat, and deer

hunting in the future. So we get a review of all that kind of stuff, We get the headlines of that most recent report, and then maybe the most interesting part of this at least from my perspective, was the conversation that Nick and Matt and I have around what the future of deer hunting, you know, what that might look like over the next ten twenty thirty years. What could we as hunters have as a role in the future. What are our obligations, what are opportunities, what are the threats?

What are these major things that we need to be keeping tabs on to make sure that you know, these aren't the good old days of deer hunting that someday they're looking back on and wishing they had. Hopefully things continue to get better and better, right, And that's what we talk about here today, taking a clear look at where we stand as a deer hunting community in twenty

twenty five and where are we going. So we've got a lot to come on this on this series over the next month, we're going to talk about deer related issues. We're going to talk about public land related issues. We're going to be talking about ways that we can make you know, issues around nature and the environment and wildlife and public lands, how we can make all of that more bipartisan. I think that's really important these days as things seem to be getting more and more ugly with

this party against party fighting. I hate to see that splitting the outdoor community or pitting different groups against each other when really, for many of us, we just love this stuff. We love deer, we love deer hunting, we love wild places, wildlife, the opportunities to hunt, the opportunity to have public landscapes to recreate on. That stuff really matters. We can be a part of keeping that stuff around well into the future, and so this month we'll be

covering exactly how we can do that. So, without any further ado, the first episode of our Conservation Month series, my chat with Nick Penzoto and Matt Ross from the National Deer Association as we discuss the state of the white tail Union. All right with me now this Monday morning, I am joined by Nick Penzoto and Matt Ross from the NDA. Thank you, gentlemen for chatting with me today.

White Tail Union. But we kicked Kip to the curb this year because he was just on the show like a month month and a half ago, and I didn't want to bother him again so quickly, so I thought I'd pull in top Dog at the NDA and you, mister Ross, to have a good chat here. So there's

a couple of things I'm hoping to achieve. Number One, I'd love to cover some of the headlines of the Deer Report that came out this year in twenty twenty five, get a sense of some of the most important trends and issues and numbers when it comes to deer and

deer hunting. And then I also want to look forward, kind of take a glance into the future, especially since we have you here with us, Nick, to see what's on your mind and what's on the organization's mind when it comes to the future of deer and deer hunting and our role in the you know, in the conservation community.

I guess. So that's kind of our gen to the itinerary here and maybe I'll throw it to you first, Mass since I know you you get to be kind of involved in a lot of the Deer Report things and pulling this data and putting together this thing every year with Kip. When you look at the twenty twenty five Deer Report, what stands up to you as as issue number one or data point number one that was most interesting to you?

on that. I I think we are in a really good place today. You know, there's looking forward, there's some concerns, but if hunters don't recognize, you know, the North American Deer Hunter is at a pretty good spot right now. We're shooting a lot of deer, like record number of deer, and the h structure is excellent. It's like one of the best we've ever had. And so when you think about deer hunting, obviously a lot of us think about what we accomplished in the past season or in the

last couple of seasons. But by and large, nationally, we're in an awesome place and deer hunters are reaping the benefits on some really amazing you know, demographics when it comes to deer hunting and the composition of those deer that we're killing. So we should pat ourselves on a back. We should be excited that things are so good right now. You know, we do need to look forward. We have to pay attention to the things that are coming towards us.

That's what we do here at the National Deer Association. I know that you provide that platform for us to talk about it, and those things are important, but they shouldn't take away that we should celebrate how well things are going right now in the big picture. That's kind of what I think of. You know, we're shooting record number of bucks in terms of total numbers, and then the eight structor is amazing.

which was a record. In terms of eighth structure, we killed about twenty six percent of that buck harvest was yearlings, so much more three and a half year old plus. And in terms of total number of bucks killed that season, it was forty three percent of three and a half or older. We killed over three million bucks, which has only happened in terms of a total buck harvest three times since since two thousand and seven. Two thousand and seven was the most we've ever killed, but you know,

it was it was close to the record. Last the last full deer season so lots of bucks. Forty three percent of them were three and a half or older and only twenty six percent we're one and a half year olds.

I remember it as a young hunter, you know, I used to I remember the days we used to had to get in a lottery to get one antler list deer tag here in Pennsylvania, and the idea of shooting more just seemed crazy to me. But we became educated as hunters about that. But then what happened was this is sort of a maybe an unintended consequence, because people

do enjoy chasing those older age class bucks. You start to hear the rationale of things like, well, the big one was probably right behind her, so I didn't want to shoot the dough or I didn't shoot them early, and I didn't want to shoot him during the rut.

And then winter comes and the holidays come, and everybody gets fat and tired and they don't want to go back out in the woods, and so the next thing you know, they may have three or four ant list tags and they've maybe filled one of them, and so

I think that's another big part of this. We are killing record numbers of deer, record numbers of bucks in particular, but we need to shoot more antler lists here for a lot of reasons, everything ranging from habitat the disease management to frankly, being a good neighbor and helping feed people out there. We have a lot of hungry people in the country and so hunters can provide There's no better story you can tell as a hunter than that you helped somebody put some food on their table while

also providing a conservation service. So yeah, I mean it's it's sort of the best of times and the not so best of times, depending on how you look at it.

numbers of bucks and dolls being shot. From two thousand ish to twenty fifteen, we were shooting anywhere between five and thirty percent more doze or ant list deer than we were bucks, and that changed around twenty fifteen. In the basically the last decade, we've been shooting about the same number of bucks and does or less doze than bucks. As Nick just said, that's something that is an easy I say easy, but it's it's something we can change.

We can shift that. But you know, it's good to celebrate too, And where I started starting on a positive right and paying attention to look at the things that if hunters want to think about. You know, both sides are our mouth talking about good and bad. There are some great things happening right now. There's some bad things that I know we'll talk about that we can't control, and there's little parts of that we can control, like disease.

But in terms of the composition of how many dos versus bucks being shot, that's something hunters can change, and we can change it in a season or two. We just need to educate ourselves about the importance of it. But you know, by and large, I think hunters are

enjoying some really good things that are happening. And certainly the number of mature bucks out there is important, not not to everybody, but it's an important thing and it gets people to sit a little bit longer, maybe spend a little bit extra money on that gear, which helps everything. And that's that's one of the things that I look at when I look at the Deer Report is that things are great in some ways.

is looking at what are the incentives, Like, how do you line up what we want to have happened with you know, the incentives that this user base has. How do we make sure it lines up with the things they care about and helps them achieve their goals? Right? And I think when we looked at age structure of

buck harvest. That was a big one, right, and we said, hey, here's something that if we change, if we go from killing mostly year and a half old bucks to instead trying to manage more towards an even age class and an older age class, here's how that's going to benefit you. You're going to have all of these different benefits to the deer herd, to the deer hunting experience, to the habitat, all of these other things, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And that led to people realizing, oh, hey, if I do this, it's going to lead to me having a lot more fun and seeing big and having these great encounters and seeing running behavior that I never saw before. And because it clearly benefited the hunter, they made these changes. When it comes to the antler lists harvest issue, I think some people are not there's not as clear of

a connection, or people aren't seeing that as clearly. It's very obvious that if I don't shoot that year and a half old buck and I give it two more years, I'm going to see him again as a three and a half year old and he's bigger, and I like that. It's a little bit harder for someone to go out there and not kill a bunch of does this year and then think to himself, Oh, that's going to damage my hunting in the future. If anything, the opposite seems

to sometimes make common sense. If I don't kill a bunch of doughs, if I keep the dos around, that should bring in the bucks. Or I want to see a lot of deer because a lot of deer makes my deer hunting a lot of fun. So yeah, why would I want to kill all the does? That seems to be a continued challenge for a lot of people get excited about doing that when they think it might actually negatively impact their experience in some kind of ways.

Can can either one of you, whoever's whoever wants to jump in first on this one, tackle that a little bit? Can we? And we did this with Kip. We've talked about it year after a year for a number of years now, but it seems like it's not something that we can step away from yet. Can Can someone speak a little bit about how this will improve our hunting experience, improve our habitat for better deer hunting in the future.

If we prioritize this. So let's clearly make the connection between being more aggressive with dough harvest and how that equals better deer hunting and a better deer hunting experience. Nick, maybe I'll let you tackle that because you look primed. I see you as you were talking.

what the heck happened? And so I know deep down what happened, and so it's just coming back to reality. So I think it's two things. I think it's the group that came up through and these are people my age, by the way, and Matt's not much younger than I am, and you're the young guy in the group, Mark, But we were, as we were emerging as very dedicated hard hunters, we were being brought up in this approach that you need to shoot more dos, and so we learned what

it took to get in shape, okay, deer shape. And then seeing is believing. When we started. It's one thing to talk about seeing mature deer, but it's another thing to start seeing them when you've never really seen them. People used to think they saw a big buck, right, and it was like a two year old that just happened to somehow survived the previous season. When they see their first three or four year old, it's like, man, the light goes on like that is not even the

same animal. And that's whenever people started to catch on that, like, okay, this is worth a pound of flesh here. We need to do a B and C if we want d to happen. And so I think our group has taken our foot off the gas a little bit. We're like, ah, we shot a bunch of dos. Now I just want to wait out because we got addicted to shooting big bucks, which doing who wouldn't. I don't blame people for that. And then the group following behind them sort of already

grew up with nice deer. Okay, they kind of got to skip the part where like Matt and I both have a big box in our basements of eighteen month old bucks that we shot and we were kids, right, they don't have those. They've only known big deer and they don't remember what it took to get there. So it's like basically being born and being in shape and

being an Olympic athlete. They skipped all the steps that it takes to get there, and so I think we have to sort of re educate again and have people understand. I mean, I can tell you this. The year previous to this, I didn't shoot as many doughs on my land as I wanted to, and it come back to bite me this year in buck season because you couldn't see a mature buck if it wasn't on camera or moving at night, because they didn't have to go anywhere.

There were too many dos. Even just one or two extra doughs in an area can dramatically impact your chances of seeing a mature deer. As soon as that mature deer finds a dough that he connects with, he's going to take her to cover and he's not going to move for two or three days, and if he doesn't have to go far to find the next one, he's going to do the very same thing. And so Mark, you've had you know, so many people over the years

on your show and people that listen. You know, I hear you and Tony talk about it all the time. You can be in the prime, but first ten days in November and go nine of those days without seeing a buck, the more does you have, the more likely that's going to be. So we have to re educate people on those points.

opportunity at more mature buck. So there's that part of the why is just the first year they see maybe a mature buck or the third year they see or something because there's more of them. I think also people are a little bit gun shy literally and figuratively because there were some shifts ten years ago in terms of some issues happening, and people backed off on shooting dos, and we just haven't pushed hard to get them to

do that. From the benefits standpoint, to answer your question at a personal level, and then also at the you know the system level, at the you know what's good for the herd, what's good for the environment, there's both of those things. You know. I make it a personal responsibility on myself to shoot dose because I know it achieves success for both of those things. It will make my hunting better. And it's hard to say that when a few minutes ago I just told people how great

things are on the h structure side. But it is a it's a moving target every year. And if you aren't shooting at least in most in most places in the country, unless it's low productive you know, areas extreme North, extreme South, drought, laid in heavy winters, those kinds of things. But for most hunters, like nine out of ten hunters, you should be shooting at least a dough for every buck that you take on a property or in a

county and that will keep things balanced. And if you don't do that, the heyday that we're enjoying right now will go backwards. And so that that's really that's a real risk. I mean, for the past seven years, five of the last seven years we've shot more bucks than does nationally. It doesn't take that many years. We will

start seeing a shift. And I if we don't change it from a hunter perspective and start shooting more, does that forty three percent of mature bucks in the harvest will start dropping and the you'll start seeing the change in it. I mean, that's that is going to happen. I can you know, mark my words. So we need to start shooting dose And there's those benefits at the at the property level and for the person. But then it's also you know, at the system level, we have

to balance deer herds. That's what hunters do. We can provide food to other people, there's the benefit of that too, But if we are not managing deer, I mean, Kip Adams says this. You know, hunting is not our right, it's a privilege, it is, and if we are not managing deer herds hunters would become obsolete and there's going to be another way that we have to manage deer.

And so I mean not to get super serious about it, but hunters got to wake up and we have to start shooting more dos, and we need to start doing it soon. Didn't want to start the podcast that way, but honestly, we do need to and you will feel it personally and we'll see it at a system level too if we don't. And so, you know, five out of the last seven years, shooting more bucks and dos is not a good thing. But that's the thing that I was saying earlier that I know that's a thing

that we can fix. CWD you hopefully will fix, and I'm sure we'll talk about that, but that's something that's unachievable to most hunters. But all you have to do is decide to shoot a doe because they're out there just as much as they are are buck. So hunters can fix that. We can start shooting dose. I know we can.

vibe shift for me? Or at least when I'm looking at things and hearing about things, and looking at data and looking at the way things are trending and bigger picture system level questions like you're talking about, Matt, I'm starting to feel more and more like antler list harvest and deer numbers are increasingly becoming that big red flag issue. There's a data point in the report that showed that I think the number was that in the last five years,

deer depredation tags have gone up fifty eight percent. So we're seeing deer management increasingly being outsoured to other methods other than traditional deer hunting to manage that issue. We're seeing, you know, over the last ten years, more and more communities looking at alternative approaches to managing deer herds, sterilization, sharpshooting,

things like that. You know, our state deer manager here in Michigan basically is pleading with the hunters of Michigan to please start killing more analysts deer because if we don't do it, we will lose our management privilege as deer hunters. It sure felt like an existential threat coming from him emailing the entire state hunting populations saying we need you to start killing more does otherwise we will not be able to have that opportunity as hunters because

other means will be pulled in. Am I wrong when I start feeling like this is the issue? Now?

over that. We just have to be inspired and educated to do so. And so it's it's it becomes the lowest hole in the bucket because you can see it change quickly. You know, along those lines. There's not just one data point in the deer report. I actually just give a presentation about ant Lilis's harvest issues across the country.

It's not only depredation permits, but we're seeing faun recruitment rates nationally drop, which means that deer actually producing more of or sorry, producing less of themselves because deer densities are getting to the point where faun recruitment is low, which fun recruitment is a measure of how many deer recruit did into the population. That's a sign. You know,

there's more than that. I can dive into all the points if you want, but it's become the topic because more seats are dealing with it, and it is related to some of these other things. And I'm sure Nick has some views on that as well, but I think that's why we're talking about as much as we are.

Just a handful of weeks ago, I heard about Indiana, someone in Indiana, a legislator proposing that possibly, so there's another huge threat to the North American model of wildlife conservation and everything we've achieved here in America, because again, if we aren't managing deer herds, there's all these other trickle down effects that that has on people who aren't deer hunters, who are going to say, hey, we need

to deal with this deer hunting thing. And if that means putting some dollars on top of it to get these deer killed, or giving depredation tags to anyone, or hiring sharp shooters, yeah, sure, go for it. We don't care about deer hunters. We just want this deer gone. That's what's at risk if we don't handle our own business ourselves. So Nick would like to add anything on them.

that was always a protected thing. And so yeah, it's not just Indiana. Other places in New England and other places are starting to put out feelers about what it might look like to allow hunters to sell venison. And so you know, we're not just this is not a scare tactic to get listeners to say, oh, they're just you know, trying to raise our hackles here. This is reality.

We're having meetings about it at the NDA. We're having meetings about our focus really being shifted toward antlerless harvest for the reasons we talked about. That's not to say we still don't care about good age classes and bucks and mature deer and habitat. If you follow all of our stuff, you see that it's all still very much there. We care about it. I just personally posted a habitat video from yesterday running a chainsaw Ali day. Okay, so

we still care about that. But good habitat also is an important disease control as well, because the better habitat you have, the less congregated deer have to be, and so it all goes hand in hand. And that's what we're about at the NDA is sort of teaching that comprehensive style of management that's good for all the things from hunting all the way down to herd management, habitat management, management of other species. And so, yeah, we're concerned about

those things. We're not just making them up. We wish we didn't have to talk about them, but these are conversations that we're having, you know, sort of a behind the scenes look at the NDA. We're having these conversations about how do we make sure people understand our position is we don't support the sale of wild benison.

impacts on habitat, it's negatively influencing other species. What a crazy thing to think about when we as deer hunters who consider ourselves tremendous conservationists and people that really care about the natural world, when the thing that we care about so much is negatively impacting the rest of the thing we care so much about. That's not a good thing, and it's also not good for the future of this resource.

If you have the conservation community split where you have the deer hunting world saying hey, we want lots of deer and we want great deer hunting, and then you have other folks who care about the natural world saying, well, yeah, but there's so many deer it's negatively impacting the habitat for all these other critters. And we don't want that happening. Either we're losing allies there or possibly losing our opportunities, as we've already discussed. So we need to take care

of our own business. We need to right. We got to clean our bedroom right before we can worry about all that other stuff. And that seems, like you said, Matt, the great thing about the antler list issue and the deer population issue is that the connection between problem and solution is so clear and so actionable and so much within our hands. While disease some times feels like golly like, CWD is one of those deals where it seems so much more challenging to wrap your head around, how do

we you know, how do we really fix us? In the long term, so so so yeah, like you said, Matt, I hate to hate to start on a downer on that front, but since we are, let's keep on rolling with downers. The natural transition is to disease and that has been a major issue we've talked about over the years. Nick, can you update us a little bit on where we stand with CWD? Is the is the is the concern level at the same place it has been in recent years.

Are we trending positively or negatively? Where we at? Real quick?

So yeah, I just want to say that, yeah CWD, then I go right right to the end of the world, right, Okay, So yeah, we're as Mad had said, we're in thirty six states now, recently out of Georgia, uh, seeing in some seeing it pop up in some other states where it hadn't been before. Yeah, I mean, it's it's out there. It's obviously we can't deny the fact that it's growing

and spreading in different areas in the country. There are some really what I would call, you know, white hot fires of CWD in a few places in the in the country. Obviously some areas in Wisconsin. We have in south central Pennsylvania one of those spots where you know, at this point you can you can start to see some population level decline. The things that people said would never happen are actually happening, and there's real peer reviewed

signs that shows that. And so it's it's frustrating for us because we have of you know, there's some folks out there who you know, have a platform that talk down on the NDA because we talk about CWD and we're the gloom and doom and it's funny because it's the last freaking thing we ever want to talk about. And so it's just amazes me that people will take

that position on it. Listen, it is our responsibility is the is the country's premier conservation organization for deer to talk about CWD and to talk about what hunters can do to help. And that's the one nice thing about the disease, if there is one, is that hunters can actually help. They can do things like fill their antler list tags. They can do things like filling their antler tag even you know, but a lot of states, of course, are like one buck state, so that's just one deer.

So definitely fill your antler list tags if you can. They can do things like be careful about how they handle their their deer when it's down and not drive it across the country, and you know, not do a number of these other things, not feeding deer. If you're in a disease area, that type of thing, those best management practices are out there. We talk about them a bunch.

We help several states in the country communicate about CWD, and it's just about people doing their part and helping more so than it is just getting in the fetal position and you know, hoping it goes away. That's not how it works. And so as much as we can slow the spread, and it's not everywhere. I mean, if you were to just put the little pins in the map where it is versus where it's not. It's still

not as far as we know in most places. That's good, and so let's sort of hold it at bay until the science can catch up and we can come up with some real, realistic and feasible ways of addressing it out there in the wild. So, yeah, we wish we didn't have to talk about it, but we have responsibility. We just can't pretend it's not there.

And a couple of years ago, I don't remember what year it was, but recently the CWD Research and Management Act passed, which is going to help us get some funding for some of this research and hopefully fast track some of these things. And that was viewed as something that would you know, hopefully help that science catch up. I'm just curious, are there any updates on what's happened coming out of the passage of that bill and or any updates when it comes to research or science or

possible solutions. Is there any good news on that front? Are we making progress? Yeah? I think we are.

and you know, farm deer research. And on the farm deer side, they have primarily been focusing a lot of their money and attention on genetics research. On the wild side, we're looking at a whole bunch of other things. It's a lot broader than that. And so, you know, genetic research that's been a hot button issue lately. There's some states that put forth some legislation. Oklahoma last year went as far as to authorize people to start putting genetically

altered deer out into the wild. And so before you know, anyone listening to this, don't take this as me being against genetic research, because that's not the case at all. I think that CWD is very complex. I think there are a lot of different things that we have to learn about and in order to come up with something

to actually address it. But also we can't put all our eggs in that basket because number one, there's still no matter how much genetics work has been done, nobody has come up with a deer that is immune to CWD. All they've been able to come up with is some that are a little more resistant to it, and then when they get it, they keep it longer. Well, anybody that's been paying attention to anything about CWD knows the last thing we want is a deer with CWD on

the landscape longer. Okay, So that doesn't mean that we just quit looking at it. Maybe we're onto something and that's sort of a step in the process. I don't know, it's well above my ability to understand it. But that's a far far reach from saying we need to start modifying deer that are a little more resistant and then put them out in the wild and see what happens.

Like any credible scientists will tell you, you just do not duct conduct those types of experiments and put it risk wild deer, which is held in the public trust. They belong to all of us. That's a gigantic leap. And so we're behind smart research. We're behind smart paced research, peer reviewed, let's sample and controlled ways and see what we can learned. But we are not behind just throwing deer out on the landscape before we even know what's

going to happen. Everybody, you know, the creator of Frankenstein, thought it was a great idea until Frankenstein became alive and then it was like, well, crap, what are we going to do with this. We can't do that with our wild deer resource. It's just irresponsible and we're not there yet.

deer deer research, deer habitat. I know there's been a number of conservation organizations that had federal grants tied to habitat work that are now losing that or those those funds are frozen, and those concerns about that and the implications that could have anything related to that front. When it comes to deer, you.

the news. And then what you see in the news, we don't know how much of that will actually become reality. So I'll just speak to what we have seen so far and not try to project too far into the future. What we've seen so far is we certainly know some folks in partner organizations that have lost their jobs. We've seen that happen in a few spots. Has it impacted us directly you it probably will in some sense maybe

the pace of things said. But then on the other side of it is we have been doing and this Matt is the best qualified person on the planet to talk about our work that we've been doing with the Forest Service and direct you're taking trees off the landscape building habitat. We see reasons for optimism with that. You know, this is an administration that believes in the extraction of resources, and a renewable resource like trees is right up our alley.

And you know, mattch leading that work for us, and we have reason to believe that we may be doing even more of that work. And so I think it's a day by day for us. And I don't know, you know, if Matt wants to speak further on the forestry part of it, but that's that's kind of what we see.

in some cases. But Nick just said it really well, and there's not you know, a ton that I can add other than I'm going to wait and see mode uh we. The only thing that I that has really directly impacted our program is we have some agreements that are in the queue waiting to be executed, which would be new or modified old agreements that have not been signed off on. And that's understandable because there's just a lot of things coming through that they're not signing off

on new things. But we have a lot of contracts in place and have work ongoing today. I had an update this morning with one of our contractors, and we have people doing things active management right now today on uh the you know, on multiple for us, so still doing work. We just may not up, you know, upload new new work for the time being, but I anticipate that being a temporary thing and at some point we will have those moving as well.

As I understand it, some of the funds for those programs within the conservation section of the farm bill might be withheld, frozen, or you know, all sorts of questions around that. While we're still trying to get this new one passed, where you can either one of you speak to where things stand with the Farm Bill in regards to, you know, the ways in the program the impact deer and deer hunters. There's stuff in there that's really important to deer hunters and a lot of folks that are

wondering what's going to happen there. Anyone have thoughts or anything that you have heard on that front.

it to have gone this long without a resolution. We joke as an organization with Kathery Nappling pull Or, our director of policy, as an organization it works on the farm bill, we joke that as soon as you get one to the finish line, you're starting on the next one.

And that's the reality of it. So, you know, in terms of deer programs, things that impact deer, I mean any conservation program or title that could impact the farm landscape, for example, could have profound impacts on deer and deer hunting. I mean, some of the best deer hunting that people talk about and legendarily have written about is done off

of CRP land, right. You hear that all the time in the Midwest, right, just as one glaring example for deer hunters to any of these habitat projects that an uneducated person may look at and say, well, that doesn't impact production agriculture. So we need to quit funding it. It's a hypothetical, but you know, there's are the types of conversations that are had that has a profound impact on deer hunting. So I don't think you're going to see any resolution anytime real soon on the Farm Bill.

One of the things that's in the Farm Bill though, that's interesting, there's a program in there that actually can fund venison processors. Their fund states to fund venison processors to help get deer cut up and also donation programs. And so we're talking about the need to harvest a bunch more deer. And one of the reasons people give often for not shooting more deers that they don't need it or they don't have an easy place to get

rid of it. Well, one of the major initiatives at the NBA we're working on one is we're trying to connect more states with that federal program that's in the Farm Bill to have them take advantage of it. But the other thing is we've created this it's about to be launched here. Maybe by the time this hits the airwaves it'll be out, but we're launching a National Venison Processor map, or anybody anywhere in the country can go on the web and find their local process, or they

can determine whether or not they take donations. Nothing like this exists out there. We've got a lot of partners on it, so we're excited about that. But programs like that one in the farm Bill as well, just at the time when we're trying to lead people to it and connect them to those dollars, we would hate to see that go away. And we say, oh, that's one tool that we thought we had, Now we don't have it anymore. And so that's why groups like ours participate

in the farm Bill. It does have far ranging implications. And I don't mean to ramble, but we could go on. We could do a whole show on farm Bill habitat.

There was a drop in deer numbers. It was really hard for hunters to be successful in those couple of years and that's why a lot of states were backing off on their quotas, and there were questions at the time of what was the cause of some of these

harvest drops. And at that time CRP was reduced by like twenty percent or more, and so me a lot of land was put back into row crop that had been in a type of condition that was conducive to good food and cover for deer because it was you know, waist high or neck high brush that deer like to bed in and eat in and spend time. And so that was a direct result of seeing deer numbers dropping and then states backing off on their analysts harvest, and

then hunters have really not returned to that. Now CRP went in a different direction, and there's more land in that currently than there had been at that time. But yeah, I mean, it can have far reaching implications from many levels.

to get into the program that can't. And so yeah, we're talking millions of acres of a land that could be in this great deer habitat, which is not just great deer habitat, it's great habitat for upland birds, pollinators, grassland birds, small mammals.

I was reading an article a while back by uh by the one and only Craig Harper on your website, and he was looking forward towards the next thirty years of deer and deer habitat management in America, and he was kind of thinking about how things have changed over the last thirty years and what that might mean for the future. And one of the things that he was

predicting slash. Maybe hoping for was maybe less traditional food plots and farming practices for deer and less supplemental feeding and more of this kind of holistic ecosystem management for deer, that being managing for early successional habitat and old fields and timber stand management and all these different things. And

he was pointing towards how there's benefits to your deer hunting. Obviously, it's more cost effective in many cases, and it's better for the larger ecosystem and other species in many cases too. I'm curious what your thoughts are nick on on the future when it comes to deer habitat management and kind

of the role that we as hunters can play. This is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about recently, and I just see that there's this this opportunity for the deer hunting community to make this really significant impact. Like I feel like we are a conservation army that has only been just like just barely tapping into our potential. We've we've started to see what we can do, but there's so much more we could probably be doing. You know,

this number I've been citing a lot. There's something like three hundred and sixty or three hundred and eighty million acres of land that are owned or leased primarily for hunting in America. A study showed that a handful of years ago. So there's this massive swath of America that we as hunters have influence over. We could probably be doing some spectacular things with that, and in many cases we are. There's lots of examples where we are, but

probably a lot more. So I'm just curious, Nick, if you've thought about that at all and what you see, you know, as the as the leader of America's deer hunting organization, you know what potential there might be for we as the deer running community to really influence things for the better.

I like to grow a couple of those and take pictures of them and say look at me, right, yeah, exactly. But at the end of the day, like yesterday, I had so much time available to go out into a project, and I took the chainsaw instead. Okay, And so Craig is absolutely right. We should be building the longer term habitats, not forgetting. I mean, there's definitely a place for food

plots and that type of thing for sure. However, it's the longer term stuff you can do on your land that makes it better for all species, which is something we've really tried hard to do here at the NBA, because we do, you know, because deer is in our name, and deer have such a profound impact on habitat, we care about other species as well. We recognize that what we do will help not just deer, but other species.

And so if you're doing like a clear cut betting area like I was working on yesterday, it's not just a betting area for deer. That's going to be early

successional habitat for the next several years. It's going to be brows, it's going to be nesting ground, nesting bird cover, it's going to be all types of things and so, and it can be cheaper, as Craig also would point out, it's a lot cheaper to do something like old field management that already has tons of things that deer want to eat in it than it is to go out and kill it all and use herbicides and equipment, labor and time to put new seed in the ground. So

that's that part of it. The other part of it is, yeah, you're right, Mark, there's no bigger army than deer hunters when it comes to people willing not just buying land. You don't just buy anybody listening to the snows, you don't just buy a piece of land. You could buy a piece of land a deer hunt and then you're just all done. I mean no, that's when the work really starts. All you're doing is buying yourself a lifetime project, and so you have to continually be working at it.

And so we have hunters, whether they own the land or whether they're leasing land or whatever. Or volunteering on public land, going out and manipulating habitats like no other hunter. I used to be in the duck world for a while, right, and duck hunters do a lot of stuff too, But a lot of times it's like redirecting water so that they've got water at the right time that has benefit

as well. I'm not picking on duck hunters. I'm just saying that deer hunters, in terms of manipulating landscapes, buying land, manipulating private landscapes, or they're an army of people that can make a huge difference. And we're trying very hard to educate people on you you don't want to cut down all your trees and make big five acre monocart culture food plots. There are better ways to do it, better ways for your deer hunting, better ways for other species, frankly,

just better ways for the planet and conservation. And so we're trying to be much more holistic in our thinking that way.

a white tailed deer. But from a hunter standpoint, I mean, we've talked before about having you know, the majority of hunters are deer hunters, and they they are more educated today. And I as I think about my career in this organization's history, there are a lot of successes in terms of teaching hunters what you know might be right versus wrong, or what would be helpful versus not helpful. And there's some amazing trends out there shifting aid structure. You know

that that came through education, not through regulation. There was there's regulations out there and in you know states where states are provinces where they're forcing hunters to do one thing but buy in large. That's an education based campaign that hunters changed what they were doing. Habitat. You know, we have been teaching about habitat management since day one

because it's one of the cornerstones of managing deer. And uh, I do see shifts and changes based on Craig's wit you know article that you're talking about, but just in terms of people asking questions and we get, you know, requests on how to do certain things. There's a lot of information out there about different habitat management techniques. But you know, there's a growing trend over the past decade or so of these techniques that we're talking about in

terms of managing holistically and managing ecosystems. And when I talk about all of this, do you report data, you know, big issues, the big picture stuff coming down the pike. I generally do have a positive view because I do think that hunters will take action once educated. They hear messages coming from a lot of different places, now, not just NDA. They're hearing it from mass media like yourselves and others. They hear from their state or provincial wildlife agencies.

They hear from their friends, you know, and generally the messaging that's coming across is more uniform, although there's there's mixed messaging out there. Of course, you know what's good or bad about certain things. But I do have a positive view that we can change the tide because I've been part of it. We've we've changed hunter's attitudes about things, and I get a little bit in passion myself about you know, hunters need to wake up about this or that.

It's because I know we can do it. I've seen it.

deer hunting, wildlife, the natural resources. That's option A. I'd like you to also imagine option B, in which our deer hunting resource and the natural resources and wild world around it have deteriorated, Our hunting opportunities have deteriorated, and we are now looking back on twenty twenty five, I even saying, golly, we had no idea, how good we had it. How do we screw this up? What would lead us to option A and what might lead us to option B if you were to be in that

future world. And I'll let Matt go first, and then Nick you can you can close us up, Matt. If option A comes to be true and we are living the golden days and things are great, what got us to that point? And then part two would be then what got us to that dire situation? What would you expect would have happened in that case?

So if we're all messaging certain things around disease management or population management or abbaitat management, and not every but the majority of hunters are working towards that and are hearing the same message come from their state agency and their cousin and you know NDA and meat Eater and Wired to Hunt, and we're all saying the same thing,

and they listen and they do it. That's how we get to option Option B is where chaos ensues and people believe things that are counter to what the science says, They are counter to what the right thing to do is. And unfortunately there are mixed messages out there and we

need to quell that as much as possible. Option B to me is the dire condition is where people don't value deer anymore the way that we value them today, whether you're a hunter or not, if there is a future where the dire condition is people see deer in a negative way. They're vermin, They're a problem. They're not something we can maybe not just utilize, but they're there for us. They're a valuable natural resource for everybody to enjoy, to look at, to harvest and eat, you know, to

just recreate around, and they make our lives better. That is the dire thing that I think would end up happening. And unfortunately, there are things that might get.

in society. I mean, as crazy as things are today in twenty twenty five, there are some uniform things that I know that you know, the hunting and conservation community can come together, and I think the people and the systems and the organizations that have the loudest megaphone as long as we're all on the same page and saying the same thing when it comes to these issues, we can get to a that's what I think.

the focus. Not from an organizational standpoint. QTMA from day one talked about like build habitat, YadA, YadA, YadA, but from the outsider perspective myself included when I first heard of the QTMA and this idea of older deer, Like I was so focused on the deer that I failed to understand everything around that deer, and that's what really matters.

It's everything around the deer that matters. And so I think that we will continue to educate to people to help bring people around to this idea that good deer are a symptom of good habitat and good stewardship. And I am, like Madam, very optimistic. Hunters have shown forever that they're willing to rise to the occasion and do that. And also that you don't have to you don't have to own land to do this. We've done many projects. Frankly, all of that's work in the Forestry Initiative is all

public land. We've done through our branches and personally been part of many mark you as well, you know from from uh You know, all of your great work and messaging is done on land that we all own collectively private their public land. And so you don't have to own land to do it. You just have to say, you know what, I want to be part of what's really at play here, and that's good habitat, good stewardship, and a symptom of that is going to be good

deer and good deer hunting. And then the other part I'll touch on more on the uh. You know, if things don't go well, there are sort of negative anti messaging against things like we're talking about there against CWD,

about anything that's bad news. There's a segment out there that they want to just downplay it, and it's not real, and it's really sad, and it's really short sighted because like you know what, it might might we might sell less magazines or write less articles, or we might you know, less people might listen to what I have to say because they don't hunt anymore. They're mad about CW. That is so short sighted and so sad in my view, Like we can have all the things. It is plentiful

out there we can talk about. We do it. We do it every single day at the National Deer Association. We talk about the stuff that we don't want to talk about necessarily but have to, and we talk about all the fun stuff too that you can do. You can do both, and I would like us all to do both and do both together. It can be tough love, right Like your parent probably shouldn't be your best friend.

CWD or this is all or that. One of that always blows my mind is like this is a big money maker, Like, dude, I'm telling you right now, CWD is. We would be working on far better things if we didn't have to work on that, Okay, And so that's what we want to do. We want to work on the fun things and do the fun things. So it can be tough love sometimes.

sharing all of this here today. Real quick, Can you Nick give us a quick reminder of where we can connect with the NDA, how we can become a member or see the twenty twenty five Deer Report and.

find join button there. You can join for as little as zero and become just a basic member and get our newsletter every week, or you can become a Premium member you get some other benefits, and you can become a life member too. I got one of those in my inbox over the weekend. I'm looking forward to responding to and so yeah, I mean again talking about symptoms and whatnot. I think us being good stewards of our

mission is the most important thing. A symptom of that is we get people that join us and want to do a little bit more for deer hunting than just go out and pull a trigger and release an arrow. So we're going to focus on being really good at our mission and we hope that compels you to want to be part of it in some bigger way.